Why do so many stop training? Perhaps it’s because they don’t have the time or family life changes, work gets in the way or they just loose interest. Commitment is probably the main reason, I think many start training with the idea that its some kind of quick fix. Train for a couple of months, learn a lot of kicks get a black belt and that’s it.

When I talk about a lifetime of training I mean just that, its not just about learning Kyokushin but keeping you healthy, which after all is important for everybody. You commit yourself to have a healthy lifestyle through training, keeping your mind and body in good condition.

I meet so many old students who stopped training many years ago and they all say the same thing, that they regret that they had not continued.

Don´t have any regrets just keep going.

I often go to Banzai Karate Kai, another Kyokushin dojo in Gothenburg and help them with technique etc. This time I focused on kata, which is always a problem for us all. If you do not practice constantly you loose your feeling for the kata. There is no short cut, it takes a long time to really understand the tempo and timing in kata. We are not robots so we do perform kata a little differently after all we are individuals and that means we have our own personality and way of doing things, even if we perform the same kata it can look a little different.

The trend in karate today is to call it a sport, what is a sport? If you look in a dictionary the definition is, a game or competitive activity, especially an outdoor one, involving physical exertion. There is competition but with yourself, to fight against your own problems and weaknesses are profoundly more  important than winning a competition against others. Sometimes we train outdoors and certainly it involves physical exertion, there the similarity ends.

In today’s sports, how often do you see the players or competitors arguing with the judgment of referees, even fighting one another. Excuses are made such as  the stress of the moment and a lot is at stake, which usually means money. Is money so important that this is the way to act, is this the way in which to try  to improve the society in which we live. We must set an example for the younger  generation, they are the future, how can we blame them for bad behavior when we are supposed to set the example.

We even see the winners holding their hands up high showing that they are number one, is this the Budo Sosai talked about. I teach my students to be humble in  defeat and victory.

It amuses me to watch two of my students fighting, sometimes one is hit rather hard but he does not lose his temper. His first comment is to congratulate his opponent on such a fine match and to find out how it was that he was hit and  with what technique.

Little did I know that when I started training how it would influence the rest of my life. From those early days I progressed to become one of the highest grades in the Kyokushin world.

At the age of 21 I went to study in Japan with Sosai Oyama (1971), the founder of Kyokushin Karate, I stayed for two years. During  my time in Japan I rose to the rank of 3rd Dan and completed the  “100-man fight”, a task involving fighting one hundred matches of a two-minute  duration without a break, some years later I found out that I was the first to complete the task in one day.

I was inexperienced when I competed for the first time in the 1971 Kyokushin All Japan Tournament. I did not do so well. Then in the 1972 Kyokushin All Japan Tournament I was runner up a feat not matched by any other none Japanese.  During my fighting career I was British and European champion. My last  competition was in 1979 at the second Kyokushin world tournament where I took  fifth place.

Competing although an important part of Kyokushin, should not be over emphasized, as is  the case today. It does not matter where I go to in the world competing is high on the agenda.

Today more and more dojos are basing their regular training on competition training and ignoring other aspects of Kyokushin training. Remember that competition is not Kumite! There are rules and regulations limiting your technique, which is good, as we need to protect the competitors. I competed for  many years but I always remembered that it was a game for a day.

The more we focus on competition the more we ignore and forget the true meaning of  Kyokushin.

What does the word training mean; to bring a person to a high degree of proficiency in a specific skill. I am sure that you participate in some kind of physical activity, if you do not then you should. For those who like to jog you probably keep a note of the time it takes to run a certain distance. Those of you who like to spend time in the gym will check to see if you are getting stronger by lifting heavier weights. In both cases you are trying to get better at what you are doing.

Focus and concentration are also skills we must train everyday.

It is easy to measure physical training, today you can lift 50 kilos one month later 60, today it takes ten minutes to run a given distance one month later, nine minutes. So how can we measure focus and concentration? We measure by what we see and what we feel this is what makes karate so difficult.