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| Mark and his friend Todd from Denver, downtown Kanazawa |
Being a karate teacher means that you get to be the boss. Students come to you for instruction because they need help with something. They come for reasons of improving their level of fitness, they need instruction in self-defense, they would like to improve their sense of self-discipline and self-confidence, or maybe they are simply curious. In any event, they need help and they also need firm and focussed direction if they are ever going to improve. So you have to be tough. You have to be demanding. You have to be a little mean.
Sure, I want to be a nice guy, and usually try to be. If I am instructing kids in karate I always keep it light. We work hard, but I try my best to encourage them, smile, and praise their efforts. My teacher, Taniguchi-Sensei, taught me that. You should see him with kids. Check out some of the photos of him teaching Canadian children in the KTJW on TOUR section. I think he is smiling in almost any shot that has him with some kid in it. He always says, when teaching children, “Praise twice. Correct once.” Not a bad philosophy at all, and it works too.
But when it comes to adults, and older students, perhaps form junior or senior high on, I think that it is all right to be a little mean. Actually, I would argue that it is almost necessary. Push them a little. Demand a little more. Give them a chance to discover reserve energy and strength they didn't know they had. Who knows? One day they may need to really dig deep in a high pressure or life-threatening situation. Wouldn't it be good I they had some inkling as to how strong they really are? It's your job as their teacher to show them where to look.
Just make sure, even if it is only once in a while, that as the instructor, you do it with them. Show them how to work hard. The students look to you, so you had better be the best example of what it means to be accomplished in karate. Don't just talk shop. Do it. Consider it your personal duty. If you want to build regular people into tough people you had better get tough with yourself too. If you really want to be the fascist of your dojo (or “benevolent and enlightened leader of the masses”) put yourself through the same rigors you demand of your students.
I remember my wild brass band teacher, Romeo Ochoa, a short crazy man from the Philippines with eyebrows that swarmed all over his forehead with the most insane expressions. His twitchy moustache held back a stream of obscenities that would make your turn your hair gray. Whenever he got frustrated with a trumpet player (he himself was an incredible symphony-level performer) he'd snatch the instrument out of the students' hand and yell, “There's nothing wrong with this trumpet! Play like this!” Then he would play something like “Flight of the Bumblebee” in double-time and then when he finished shaking the walls with his sound, wipe off the mouth-piece and toss it back.
Then he would threaten to beat us with various band instruments, including the timpani, threaten to force us to bury our trumpets and saxophones in the garden, plant potatoes, fill our refrigerators with those same potatoes, get married, have five kids, and never ever play music again. Romeo Ochoa was a wild man, but I loved his lessons and I learned a lot about music from him when I was young. I also hate potatoes. He was the kind of instructor that both terrified and inspired. He made great musicians by being one.
As I got older, and played saxophone a little better, he started treating me different. He no longer demanded and pushed. He smiled more, joked more, and the tone of practices changed too as I, and a few other kids, “graduated” to the senior band where all the old people played. He even met with us early on Saturday mornings to teach us some basics in jazz and swing music. That was very cool.
I didn't keep up with regular sax lessons and I regret that. But life, trouble at home and in school, as well as trying to get my life together got in the way. But I never forgot Romeo Ochoa. The man was unconventional, wild, and a great teacher for me. He was a great teacher in that he demanded people work hard, focus their attention, and submerse themselves in music. And once that “focus” was implanted, his approach could become more collegial, enjoyable, and fun. No longer did I fell the crazy stare under those wild eyebrows as I sat in his band. Instead, he now looked directly at me, eye-to-eye, and was sweeping us all along with him as we were transformed collectively through music. It was like magic. He's the teacher I always wanted to be most like.
I suppose that this shift, one from student to colleague is a natural one. Or at least I would like to imagine so. Musicians and karate-ka too, should make this shift. There is a point from which the student is no longer kept under the wing, or under the hard gaze of a man with crazy eyebrows.
As we go along in our study and growth, collegiality is of extreme importance. Teachers, instructors, and senior karate-ka need to treat each other with equality, magnanimity, and mutual deference. Naturally, people from organizations, research societies, on-line discussion groups, “open” forums, and such constructions attract people from all walks of life, all kinds of karate (and music?) preferences. Different people have different approaches, styles, emphases, and nuances not only in what they choose to study and learn, but also the methods in how they choose to do so.
In karate, and karate-related research and study, these differences can be seen in a whole bunch of different areas. There are those in the karate world who are obsessed with tournament competitions, the rankings, the pursuit of glory and victory. There are others who prefer to keep karate in the dojo only, who are rigorous in their work on the fundamentals and do little besides that. There are others who collect kata, who master several and who can whip through them with astonishing speed and precision. There are others who love the act of dissecting kata, who delve and weave among different interpretations, explore many, and dabble in other arts that relate. There are others who pine away for the “hidden” or “lost” treasures in karate history and ancient bunkai, who are searching for the “kuden” or secret techniques of karate in a kind of Holy Grail-like quest. Other karate practitioners emphasize the self-defense aspects of karate above all else, the how and why karate works crowd. There are still others who treat Shotokan karate like a sacred and holy relic, and insist that certain “standards” must be maintained in order to define the truth of their art and practice.
In the karate world there seems to me to be a great diversity of ideas, thoughts, and approaches to how and why karate works, or how and why it is beautiful. One person's preference is just that, and little more, a preference. It is very difficult to say to another person in the karate world, “What you do is worthless” as long as the fundamentals in technique are sound, tangible, and effective. In fact, I would argue that there is much that can be learned from looking over the sides of your own fences to see what others are doing. The kata enthusiast may learn quite a bit about the origins of kata from a karate historian. The historian may learn how to make his research work by a self-defense specialist. And the self-defense specialist may learn to appreciate the aesthetic of his art from the kata enthusiast and thus prolong his own work with the duller repetitions of his work.
Just as a tree has roots that go in all directions some straight down, others at an angle, some at very odd angles, and others that just stay on the surface of the earth but reach far into other areas, karate is much the same. Who is to say that one way, one “do”, is better than another? The all hold the tree in place, drawing to it nutrients, health, water, resources, and life from other places.
Rather than try to re-make Shotokan karate in our own images, recipe for most-certain disaster, we ought to focus on the best fundamentals of karate possible. From that starting point of mastery we then have truer license to explore, play, experiment, research, revise, and synthesize.
Picasso was an incredible artist. He broke all the rules. We have all seen the women with the half faces with extra breasts, and triangles for their bodies. They don't make sense. They seem weird, and somehow “wrong”. Picasso did not make these pieces of art because he couldn't draw “for real”. Anyone who has seen Picasso's pencil drawings of human figures would gasp, half expecting the life-size drawings to step off the page and shake your hand.
Fundamentals first. The rest is the beginning of theory, fun, self-expression, and exploration. Differences beyond the realm of fundamentals training ought not be taken too seriously, to react to harshly, divide, and break the bonds of trust and association. Because under the surface of it all, we have the same music, the same whole notes, sharps and flats, the same timing, the same aspirated eighth-notes, the same groove. Our only differences are really in arrangement, and those are not really large differences at all.
What song will you sing? How will you perform your art? How will the music stay whole? Whatever it is, sing it out loud, without shame, with a full heart and voice, and ignore those who turn away, refuse to listen, and are locked in their own preferences too much to open their ears to things they cannot and will not understand.
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