The Circle of Knowledge

I was reading something the other day (I forget where!) that talked about the circle of knowledge. Imagine yourself at the centre of a circle and everything inside of that circle represents your amount of knowledge of a particular topic. Everything outside of the circle is knowledge that you do not yet possess, and of course, that is infinite.

Now look at the circumference of the circle, this lies between what you know and what you don't know; it represents your awareness of what you do not know. Now think about what happens as you learn more - the circle gets bigger, but so does the circumference. The more you learn, the more you realise you have yet to learn.

I am finding this little analogy to be true in many areas of my life but it is particularly apparent to me with karate. As a white belt, you learn a punch or two, a kick and a few basic blocks. When I first restarted karate last summer I quickly picked up these basics and (cockily) thought to myself, "yep, I know that, when can I grade?".

Obviously this was not the best attitude to have but I was overly keen to get to yellow belt so I would be back where I was before. I've reached that place now, one step ahead in fact and my attitude has been tempered a bit over the last few months and as I learn more and more I am now starting to realise just how much more there is to learn.

In last night's session we spent a lot of time focusing on two kicks - the front kick and side kick. For the front kick you need to bring the knee right up in preparation, thrust the hip forward for extra reach, deliver the kick quickly and snap back the leg as quickly as possible and land quickly and lightly. Oh, and you also need to keep your guard up - no flapping the arms around like you're trying to take off! Garry observed my kick and said that I was not retracting my leg fast enough or far enough so as a special exercise for me for the night I had to over emphasise the retraction and hit my opposite knee with my leg on the retraction before landing.

Ok that's the front kick; it's the most basic kick and it's not too complicated so far. Onto the side kick. The preparation is different, you need to bring the knee right around your body so that it is past the centre line that you are aiming for. You thrust the leg out to the side whilst twisting your body. The back foot should do a virtually 180 degree turn. Then there is foot positioning. The part of the foot to make impact should be the outside edge, not the flat of the foot. Furthermore, the foot should be pulled back so that it is the heel that makes the most impact as the force drives straight down through the leg and down into the heel. And don't forget that guard!

Now just when I thought I was starting to pull all these little details together, Garry throws another spanner in the works. He stood to the side of me and said I had to punch his hand with my front arm whilst I performed the kick! This was the opposite movement to what I had been doing thus far. My front arm was held out as a guard and tended to sway back a little to aid with balance but now I had to bring it right back and down. Apparently it makes for a much more powerful kick.

We had to put the two kicks together and add a reverse punch and I had to remember several little details of the punch as well. In this moment I felt a little overwhelmed. So many things to remember and its then that I realised that my circle of knowledge was expanding, and with it, my realisation of how much there is still to learn.