Shodan!

I made it! I'm both wired and limp with relief right now, so excuse any babbling.

The test went very smoothly. The only kata I blipped on was Wansu, which seems ironic since it's my favorite kata and usually my best. I think because it is my favorite I wasn't worried about it and thereby didn't drill it as obsessively as the rest. Basically I put in double nukite instead of the empi (knife hands instead of an elbow strike), which is a move from Sunsu. I knew I had flubbed, but didn't interrupt the flow of the kata, and when Sensei asked at the end of the kata, I knew right where I had screwed up, so he seemed all right (other than teasing me about my nerves).

Self defense went very well. Rob got some good shots, so I'll put them up if he ever gets around to e-mailing them to me (camera phone). Oddly enough I did several notches better at self defense when paired with Mike (who is substantially bigger than me) than against smaller opponents. I did okay with everyone, but Mike went down clean and hard every time. I think when I'm dealing with somebody big, I don't waste any effort muscling through the technique, which is a definite fault of mine when dealing with smaller people (which is most of the other people in our dojo right now). Poor Mike! At least twice I took him down too fast for him to get his arm around and fall properly, so he was a little battered by the end of the evening. Fortunately he's a good sport.

Afterwards we trooped over to Sensei's for pizza, soda, and caipirinhas (an interesting drink involving lime juice, sugar, and cachacas - a Brazilian liquor Rob brought back from his last trip). We watched videos from the World Tournament - I really have gotten faster with my bo since then! I don't feel faster vs. my memory, but I look really slow to myself now. Watching me and the woman who took 2nd (I was 4th), I was struck that the difference all seemed to be speed and conviction. She did a lot more things wrong than I did, but she was fast and confident doing them, while I was hesitant looking, even as I was doing things correctly. It was interesting watching.

It's late, and I should head off for bed, but I'll leave you with the essay that I turned in last week. Some of it may seem familiar, as I borrowed ideas heavily from the essays I have put up here. Enjoy!


If I have sen further it is only by standing on the shoulders of giants. – Sir Isaac Newton


Isaac Newton was onto something. All of us, every last one, owe much to the generations that have come before us. Nowhere is this more obvious than in the martial arts, none of which would exist without the masters who came before, who developed their arts, refined them, and passed them on.

Less obviously, we are equally dependent on those who came before who are not giants. For every giant of the past, there are dozens, hundreds, even thousands, who while not great themselves nonetheless learn and transmit, passing the martial arts on to their students who in their turn become teachers again. Not every martial art great began their learning at the feet of another giant – if only the giants taught, martial arts would have died out many times over.

Nor does every martial arts giant start out knowing what they will become (few of us ever do). Some never think of themselves as giants at all, but simply as a sensei, as any martial artist can be a sensei if they have the will to be so, a solid foundation to teach from, and a concern for the learning of those following after them.

I wasn't thinking of any of this when I walked into my first dojo in September of 1996. I had never heard of Isshinryu, or Tatsuo Shimabuku, or even Okinawan karate as distinct from other forms of karate. I barely knew there was a difference between karate, judo, aikido, and "all that other stuff"; it was all just martial arts to me. I went because my neighbor wanted to go and because I was curious, as I am curious about everything. If Trish had wanted to try a local pottery class, or ballroom dancing, or learning Latin, I would probably have gone along just as readily.

The first evening was stunning, in a more literal sense than that phrase is usually meant. Trish and I were given what amounted to a two hour intensive self-defense class. It didn't have a lot to do with the system of Isshinryu, except that like our style it was practical, direct, and occasionally brutal. By the end of the night I was probably two or three times more capable of defending myself against an attack than I had been when I walked in. I was also covered in bruises, and by the next morning so sore I could barely move.

It was when I came back the next night that I began to learn something of Isshinryu – how to chamber a kick, how to make a proper fist – all the minutiae that make up the letters of the Isshinryu alphabet. But over the next year and a half, the most important things I learned at Mr. Gabbard's dojo had to do with what I wasn't.

Firstly, I learned I wasn't a coward. I had always been afraid – not of pain, per se, but of my potential reaction to pain. That I would retreat, collapse, or otherwise behave shamefully in the face of it. At Gabbard's I learned that I could be hit and hit hard, and still come back fighting.

Secondly, I learned I wasn't very good at karate. That the analytical mind and sharp memory that carried me through school and in the work place was helpful, but not sufficient for karate. Regardless of how well my mind understood what I ought to be doing, it didn't mean that my body would follow through. It still took repetition, and drill, and getting it wrong many, many times before I could get it right. Isshinryu was hard. It didn't come naturally, and that wasn't something I was used to. Weirdly enough, this made it all the more interesting to me. Every step of improvement I had to earn and it felt like an accomplishment in a way that academics never had. Not being intrinsically good at karate didn't mean I had to be bad at it forever. It just meant that I had to work that much harder to become good.

Those lessons were the ones that stuck when I left the dojo. I got pregnant; we moved across the country, and I couldn't seem to find the opportunity to start at another dojo. My fitness levels dropped, I slowly forgot my hard-earned sparring skills, eventually I forgot how to do most of the kata, but I remembered what I could do when I put my time, effort and energy into it. Mr. Gabbard had given me my first view of a wider world of martial arts by letting me stand on the shoulders of his experience.

It was six years before I would restart my training in Isshinryu with a teacher quite different from Mr. Gabbard, and in a very different dojo. I started as a white belt again, which was appropriate given how much I had forgotten. Yet the white belt sat a little oddly, because I did still have those lessons from my first go-around that I had never lost.

As I began my karate journey again, the oddly sitting white belt began to teach me something itself. In my first incarnation as a karateka, I had not cared particularly about rank (or at least believed that I did not care). But as I began to dig my skills out of my rusty memory, I noticed something. I wasn't a white belt anymore, even though I wore one. It felt like I was playing pretend to wear it when I came to class, and I began to realize that I wanted my belt to reflect what I could do. That was when I realized that I did, after all, want a black belt. Not because I cared what color I had tied around my waist, but because I coveted the skills and mind-set that would make any other color seem as bad a fit as the white belt was at that moment.

So I began my climb back up, learning karate the same way one gets to Carnegie Hall – practice, practice, practice. But this time, I had a more specific goal. If I wanted to be a black belt, rather than simply have one, what did that mean? What made someone a black belt?

Here, I ran into Mr. Rodeghier's oft repeated maxim "Black belt means sensei." He says it often enough that it clearly resonates with him, yet looking around the larger martial arts world it's easy to find people with black belts who are clearly not sensei. Some of them have formidable skills, far beyond what I have, yet those skills are not transmitted. Others, not always the most skilled themselves, are clearly fabulous sensei with a gift for teaching and transmitting the essence of their art. So, if black belt means sensei, and yet the two categories don't completely overlap, then what is the difference between them?

The difference is in the orientation. A black belt is a symbol of the skills acquired in your journey as a karateka. Not that it's the endpoint - far from it. But it symbolizes that you know the basics of your art; you are a serious student. To use an analogy, it symbolizes that you know your ABC's and have learned your spelling, and now you're ready to start writing. A sensei needs to know these things, but being a sensei has very little to do with what you actually know, and everything to do with who you feel responsible for. If black belt means sensei, it's because a sensei is a black belt who has looked beyond him or her self outwards to the students coming along behind and decided to take responsibility for helping them along the way. They put their students up on their shoulders and let them see further than would be possible otherwise.

I stand where I stand on my Isshinryu journey because of my sensei. Regardless of where my journey takes me from here I want to emulate them, to boost the people who come after me along their own ways. Because even if we are not all giants, it is still a worthy goal to have shoulders strong enough to stand on.

Essays

Well, I finally got a look at the essay topics for my black belt. I knew I had to write three, but I could only remember two of the topics: What in your opinion, is a black belt? and What does karate mean to you? I couldn't remember the third topic for anything. So once I got a look, I figured I'd come talk about it here a bit, which should serve the dual purpose of grinding it into my memory a bit, and providing a written record in case it does slide out again.

The third question, being much of a kind with the previous two, is: What, in your opinion, is a sensei?

This could conceivably provide some serious overlap, since to my mind, one of the meanings of a black belt is that the wearer is a teacher. And since what karate means to me also has bearing on the meaning of a black belt, it would almost be easier to address all three questions in one giant essay. I wonder if Sensei would go for that?

So on to the pondering. I've been pondering the other two questions for nearly a year at this point. Time to let the hindbrain cook on the third one.

In other news, Sensei has the death flu that's roaming around town right now. Sensei D. and I taught class Tuesday, and I had it by myself Thursday, since Sensei D. is now down in New Orleans for Mardi Gras. Tuesday was very casual, with only two students. Last night, however, was pretty successful. I tried a couple of new drills garnered from my book on developing speed (Loren Christensen), and both were fairly well recieved. One drill was highly revealing, at least for my and my partner - and I suspect for the other pairs as well. The drill consists of circling one another as if fighting, up to and including fakes (which should be responded to as if in a fight), but no real thrown techniques. At random points, the designated person yells "Freeze!" and then "A" or "B" (each team as an A and B partner). The pair freezes, and then the designated person has 1 second to throw a technique to tap an open area. For me and my partner (Sensei's daughter), the opening for her was almost always a roundhouse to the chest - which is a kick she very rarely uses in an actual fight, and you could see the gears in her head turning as she noticed this. For me, I was nearly always slightly out of position. Never badly, but enough that I had to make an additional move to make a technique connect. Step forward, step sideways, turn - I was always just slightly off kilter or out of range for an effective technique. Which - duh! - of course I'm going to be slow on the attack if once I see an opening I have to both shift and throw the technique. I suspect it's my subconcious trying to slow the fight down, but its result is only to slow me down, not my opponent. Not exactly effective technique there.

Score! Something specific I can work on that should increase my effective speed. I'll have to tell Sensei about the drill when he gets better and comes back. I think he'll like this one.

Belt Musing #2

For the first belt musing see here.

When it comes right down to it, a belt is a piece of fabric that holds your pants up, or your jacket together. In the case of a karate gi, it usually doesn't even do that, since the jackets and pants really don't need it. The function of a karate belt is symbolic. It functions as a visible sign of where you are in your karate journey.

So, given that, what does a black belt mean?

For some people it means the end of the journey. The first year as a shodan has a higher drop-out rate than practically any other part of a karate student's time - excepting the first few tenuous months. For those people, a black belt is their graduation certificate, the symbol of their having "learned" karate. If that is how one sees the black belt, then it's not at all surprising that people would drop out - after all, why would one keep going to school after graduating, unless you're one of the few inspired to become a teacher?

Even of those who stay, some feel the black belt symbolizes a graduation, the shift from student to teacher. A mark of "I know what I'm doing," in some essential way.

This isn't to say these people are wrong. A black belt often is a teacher - indeed I would think it difficult to become a black belt without doing at least some teaching, if only for the extraordinary amount of learning that occurs when one sets out to teach something you're sure you know - only to discover that the student will teach you far more than you teach them.

Yet that isn't how I feel about a black belt. Maybe it's because I've done at least a little teaching from fairly early in my karate career. Maybe it's because I know down to my bones that I will never be done learning about karate. Maybe it's because I've become aware of just how little I will know, when I become a black belt, standing there with my bucket beside the ocean of knowledge. But to me a black belt doesn't feel like a graduation certificate.

It feels like being handed my library card.

If the black belt certifies something about me, it certifies that I've learned my ABC's. I can write them, pronounce them, even sound out words with them. I'm making that phenomenal leap, from letters on a page to words, sentences, meaning.

The black belt means that I've mastered the fundamentals of my karate craft. That I have my understanding of stance, strikes, blocks, focus - all the vital minutiae - sufficiently for me to start seeing the meaning behind all this stuff. The katas become less about the individual steps and strikes and more about flow and bunkai (explanations of the purpose of the moves, for the non-karate readers). Fights become less about finding the target and hitting it - but not too hard! - and more about strategy and tactics.

It's a world away from "toes forward, heels out, knees bent," and yet it incorporates all that - just as someone writing a letter must still form their 'H's correctly, lest a shirt become a skirt. The letters must be correct, yet the letters become words, and the words become sentences that one could never imagine when still struggling to understand the individual letters.

And that is what a black belt means to me - the opening up of meaning from my letters of kicks and punches to the stories of karate.

Belt Musings #1

As people who read my blog regularly already know, I'm a brown belt looking at a probable test for black within the next year to eighteen months. Part of that testing is submitting three essays. I don't have the sheet listing subjects to hand, but one is on the meaning of the black belt, one on the meaning of martial arts in general, and the third is something more personal (Why do you take karate, or why did you choose Isshinryu, or something of that nature). Towards that end, I started writing on the first essay (What does a black belt mean to you?), only to discover that my thoughts were running off in several different directions which didn't seem to all fit well together in a single essay. So I thought I would make some blog posts on the subject and get my thoughts out in the open where I can get a good look at them - maybe see which themes develop into something essay worthy.



When I first started karate, I really didn't care at all about advancement or what color I had wrapped around my waist. My sensei was pretty casual about advancement - he only gave two formal tests: one for yellow; one for black. Other than that, he simply announced promotions just before the end of class as he thought you were ready. I was at that dojo for two and a half years and was promoted to brown just before I left. That final promotion was the first inkling I had that I did care about rank. Not because I was excited about being brown, but rather because I felt I didn't deserve the belt and was hideously uncomfortable about receiving it. In a dojo primarily known for fighting skills, I had been training for the last five months pregnant, unable to fight. I'd been training katas, largely by myself while the class fought, and without anyone other than my sensei himself to check me. There was no way I had the fighting skills that dojo expected of a brown belt - and even if I had, there was no way for me to show it.

That discomfort was underlined when six years later I tried a dojo in a different form of karate. That sensei requried newcomers to continue wearing the highest belt they had ever earned - his reasoning being that students on the floor deserved to know the potential skill level of the opponents they faced. Which was horrible from my point of view. The brown belt I already felt I hadn't deserved often left me acting as the senior student even as I was still learning their first form and basic exercises.

By the time I got back into Isshinryu, I knew that I cared very much that my belt not overrepresent my abilities and knowledge, but I still thought that I didn't care about advancement in the other direction. I wanted the knowledge and skills, not a black belt around my waist. Offered the chance to restart at white, I lept at it. With nearly eight years away from serious karate, I didn't feel I could live up to a higher rank.

At first, I was right. After that long, my skills had gotten pretty rusty, but they started coming back quickly. At the time, we were not in a formal dojo, having classes out on a volleyball court, and belt testing was sporadic, as Sensei had little to remind him of who was ready. Several times he would mention I was ready, and then forget to set a date. I was ready to test for yellow within a month of coming back - but I didn't actually test for nearly six months.

In those six months I discovered that I did care about that belt around my waist.

It wasn't that I minded wearing a white belt, per se, but it began to feel like playing pretend. I was coming to class wearing that white belt, and yet with skill levels well beyond people two and three ranks above me. It didn't make for good class dynamics, as someone who worked hard and long for an orange belt is unlikely to feel great about being trounced by a white belt, even when they know why the white belt is good. As an orange belt, I ended up running class at least once, because when Sensei was called away, the blue belts were not willing to teach me, but were more than willing to have me teach them. The belts weren't matching up with the actuality on the dojo floor.

And so I discovered a lust for a black belt. Or, more accurately, the lust to become a black belt. I had been uncomfortable wearing a brown belt, because in reality I wasn't a brown belt - I was a person wearing a strip of brown fabric around my waist. I was uncomfortable as a white belt later, because again, I wasn't a white belt, just wearing one. I discovered I wanted to become a black belt, to have the skills, abilities, and discipline that would make any other belt seem like a mismatch.

Now I'm a brown belt for the second time and it's a whole lot different. This time it's a good match for where I actually am in my karate journey, and I'm comfortable wearing it. However, part of being a karateka is the drive to improve. Being comfortable can never mean being complacent. So I have become ambitious. The drive to learn and improve is in some sense, inseparable from the drive to advance. So unless I give up my desire to do karate at all, then the black belt is going to mean a great deal to me. Because if I continue to improve, then eventually I will reach the point where I am a black belt, regardless of whether or not I wear one.