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.

Wado Kata: Nai Han Chi

Last Monday we had a relatively small class of all adults. Garry decided to do something completely different and teach us a traditional Wado-Ryu kata that is not part of the Higashi syllabus.

The kata is called Nai Han Chi after the stance in which most of the kata is based: Naihanchi stance. This is quite an awkward stance in which the feet are about two shoulders widths apart and the outside of your feet are facing forward parallel. The toes come inwards ever so slightly depending upon the shape of your foot. This is awkward because that position makes the knees want to bend inwards and this is not natural for the knees.

Excess training in this position can in fact be bad for the knees which is why the kata was dropped from the Higashi syllabus. However, it's always good to learn knew things and Garry made us aware of the way in which the knees were affected before we started and showed us how to ensure that they pointed outwards instead of inwards.

Aside from the weird stance, there were two other odd things with this kata. Firstly, it is performed on one horizontal line. Apparently it was designed to be practised on a small boat! In actual fact its small enough to be practised in the loo of the new building my company has moved too! I did try practising it the other day but then I heard somebody at the coffee machine outside the toilet which put me off :-)

The other weird thing about the kata is that all of the twisting movements are done with the upper body. Usually we twist at the hips shifting our weight from one stance into another. For example, a front punch followed by a reverse punch are performed in two distinct stances. In this kata there are movements which feel like they should be performed in Gyakusuki but they remain in Naihanchi. For example there is an elbow strike performed to the side which is very similar to the one in Pinan Yondan but in Yondan you shift into a Gyakusuki stance but here we stay in Naihanchi. So your feet are facing forwards but your upper body needs to be turned to the side for the elbow strike. This requires a lot of flexibility around the waist and feels just plain weird!

Anyway it was really interesting to learn something new even if it's not something I'll be whipping out for my next competition.

Don't Beat Yourself Up!

Some people just beat themselves up a lot. They are never happy with their performance and always think they should be doing better or working harder. In last nights karate class, I took this 'beating oneself up' thing a little too far and actually punched myself in the face!

You may well be wondering how on earth one can achieve that given the techniques available at white belt...

Well let me enlighten you! Pinan Shodan, towards the end of the kata when you are working your way towards the back of the hall. You've turned to do a soto uke, and then followed with a front kick and reverse punch with the left hand. You then take that left hand and do another soto uku with it. Your arm starts off in a horizontal position perpendicular to your body and to do a jodan soto uke all you need to do is rotate the forearm upwards, perpendicular to the body. I managed to rotate my arm backwards instead of upwards thus delivering a nice backfist to my right eye!

Unfortunately for me, I was kinda 'going for it' in this particular kata so I really spanked myself quite hard! It knocked me for six a bit and my eyes went all squiffy for a few minutes. The next morning I found a nice bruise just below my eyebrow :-)

It was a good class last night. Only three students turned up! So we got lots of personal attention from Garry and spent the entire session concentrating on Pinan Nidan and Shodan. I learned a lot, but the most important thing I learned - don't beat yourself up!