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What´s in a title?

Written by Shihan on . Posted in Image highlights, My thoughts, Philosophy. No Comments on What´s in a title?

There are many of us who use exotic titles before our names, such as Shihan or Hanshi etc.  Are we eligible to these titles or is it that some people just give themselves the title. First what do they mean, perhaps not an easy question because after all they are foreign words that we assume we understand. For example Shihan, would mean to set an example to others a high-class word for Sensei.

Everyone wants to be a Hanshi, this is a title that should be given to you from your teacher, in my case it was Sosai Oyama, it’s more of an honorific title a teaching title. But to be different people use it before their names, maybe to be different?

Soke is another strange title a simple answer would mean a founder or head of a family or such like, nothing to do with karate qualifications.  Kaicho is another strange one as it means chairman but if you put it in front of your name and you practice karate it sounds very grand.

Lots of titles floating around but many perhaps are misunderstood and misused.

Well it’s over…

Written by Shihan on . Posted in Image highlights, Karate, My thoughts. No Comments on Well it’s over…

Well it’s over, Christmas and the new year celebrations are slowly becoming a distant memory. 2015 was a big year for Göteborgs Karate Kai, we celebrated our 50 years anniversary and it was fifty years ago i walked into a dojo.

I cannot even start to sum up what has been achieved in the Dojo over the last fifty years perhaps the fact that we are still going strong says it all.

The first part of 2015 was taken up with organizing the 50 year party, which was held in June with about 150 guests, some from Norway, Spain and of course Shihan Heath from Wales.

Presentations were given, speeches made and some light entertainment was provided by some students.

We also had guest trainers from Brazilian jiu jitsu and a personal trainer who gave us some tips on weight training. At the end of the year three students went to Japan to try for their next Dan grade, Sensei Theresa, Sensei Luis who both succeeded for 4th Dan and Sensei George who succeeded  for 5th Dan, which makes him a Shihan. The first one we have produced in 50 years, so I guess you could say that at GKK it takes 50 years to make a 5th Dan.

Most people would talk about how many champions they have or how many competitions they have won but maybe it’s better to think of all the people that have been helped by the training they received. As a dojo we are still going strong and most new members come to us by word of mouth and the old students who have stopped training bring their children to train.

That must say something about Kyokushin Karate and the dojo when parents bring what could be the next generation to the dojo.

Japan 2015

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Well by know everyone is back in their own countries after a hectic few days in Japan. The World tournament is only held every four years, but what a tournament, on the final day Tokyo metropolitan Gymnasium was sold out.

The atmosphere was electric, for those who had travelled from far away it must have been a great experience. The fighting was hard, but I thought that low kicks where not so popular this time, rather the kaiten or rolling kick seemed to be in favour. Low kick were used but I can’t remember seeing any scores from them, but we did get some spectacular knockouts with no injuries.

Anyway after the Tournament there was the usual Sayonara party, but for many it was not sayonara as we had our seminar and grading yet to come. The seminar was full, we had 420 participants from 49 countries and 109 who wanted to grade, this was the biggest so far. So you can see that the WKO Shinkyokushinkai organization is growing.

Trying to give as much knowledge to so many in such a short time was hard, but I did my best, after the seminar there was the usual grill party where the students who passed the grading was announced.

All in all a very successful trip to Japan, we should say thank you for all the work that was done before hand to make the event a tremendous success.

Familiarity breeds contempt

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We are supposed to have a Budo style of Karate but sometimes we forget and become too familiar with our Semapi, calling them by their first name for example. Or when having a photograph taken with them and putting your arms on their shoulders and just hanging there, or just generally being a little too friendly.

Looking at the old photograph of Honbu brought back memories of my UchiDeshi days, not that I have ever forgotten them. Before I went to Japan, I had never heard the word UchiDeshi let alone understand the true meaning. When I arrived at Honbu, no one knew who I was or had any information about me, I had no place to sleep and very little money.

The first night I stayed in a hotel and then the Chief Instructor who was Yasuhiko Oyama Shihan (Now Oyama Karate USA) said I could stay with him. After one week, I moved into the dormitory and there I stayed for two years. Opening and closing Honbu every day, cleaning and training.

All these years later when I go back to Japan and meet my old Sempai´s I always show them the respect they deserve even though I may now have a higher grade.

Honbu

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Honbu 1971 consisted of a basement where there were changing rooms and showers. The first floor was the entrance and a small dojo, the second floor was the main dojo and then the office and finally Sosai’s living quarters. I lived behind Honbu at the uchi-deshi apartment.

Distance. (Maai)

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Whenever I am driving to the dojo I always try to keep a safe distance from the car in front of me, a thinking distance that give me time to react in case of an emergency. I am sure that most of you do the same. So I have this safe distance where I feel I am in control and the suddenly some other car pulls into my safe distance and changes the whole situation, apart from the fact it’s bad driving its putting lives at stake.

Ok, back to Kyokushin, when you fight you have your safe distance where you feel in control and comfortable in case your opponent attacks. You always try to keep this Maai so you can react to any situation and in turn, so that you can attack. It come with experience, when you stand in front of someone you should have a pretty good idea if they can hit you or in turn you can hit them.

Just get two students to stand in front of each other and tell them to walk slowly towards each other and stop when they feel threatened. When one of them or both stop they have reached that point where they feel in danger, this is Maai.

Now if car drivers could take a lesson from Kyokushin we would be safer on the roads.

Is kiai a lost art?

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It seems that wherever I go in the world Kiai is slowly disappearing. Its slowly being replaced by something that sounds like an old steam train. Kiai should represent a combination of energy and technique culminating in ichigeki, the final blow the finishing technique. What we have now sounds like someone trying to blow out a candle. Get back to basics and practice your Kiai.

Demonstration Frölunda Torg

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Saturday 6th September we performed a small demonstration at Frölunda shopping centre. We had some flyers to hand out and some students who could answer any questions about starting Kyokushin karate at GKK. However, the most important is to show the public a short glimpse of Kyokushin.

At these events its is always interesting how many old students are around and when they see us they just have to come and say OSU and talk about their training days and what it did for them and perhaps more importantly how much they miss the dojo. The hard training the discipline were the things that they remembered the most.
For me it’s good to hear such remarks it means that we are helping people and leaving a good impression, what more could you ask for.

Summer training

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This is one of the reasons we have steps outside the dojo. Sometimes you have to test yourself in different ways, walking up steps on your hands or seiken is just one way to do that. We took advantage of the nice weather to do some outside training on a Friday night. There was also the usual hopping up the stairs, running etc hopefully this helps strengthen the legs. You just have to be careful when doing such training in fact you should always be careful.

As in instructor you should always be aware if any of your students have any injuries that might prevent them from performing a particular movement safely if that is the case give them an alternative.

Interview

Written by Shihan on . Posted in Image highlights, Karate, My thoughts. 3 Comments on Interview

The other day I sat down with Sensei Annika from Banzai and Sempai Reine who is the Chairman of Gothenburgs Karate Kai and had an interview for my dojo 50 years celebration. We talked about the dojo, past, present and more importantly the future. Where do we go from here, will things change, lots of questions but very hard to find answers. Is Kyokushin changing? is it for the better? We talked for well over an hour, now Annika has to type everything out, not an easy task. It will be interesting to read when it´s finished.

My question to you the readers is how do you see the future of Kyokushin?