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At seminars and events where there are lots of regional managers, I often get frustrated when each of them corrects me in a different way, and sometimes those ways seem at direct odds with each other. I’m sure if you’ve attended a grading or a special event in your region, you may have had senseis offer you seemingly contradictory advice. It’s something that lots of people complain about, and it’s something that I had just resigned myself to. When sensei Joe Estrada or Sensei Jason said, “You just do whatever the person in front of you says,” I assumed that that was simply their way of saying, “It’s just one of those things, live with it.” But the more I study karate, both within GKR, and looking at other styles, and trends in history, the more I understand why that’s the only answer that makes sense. GKR can be finicky about the tiniest details, especially in stances and within kata – I would say that it’s one of the trade-mark characteristics of our style. We don’t do thousands of techniques, but the ones that we do, we try to make as effective as possible. This approach tends to create the expectation in us, that there is a single, definitive way to execute every single technique. However, the alarming truth is, this is not the case. Just look at something as simple as a straight punch: you’d think that there wouldn’t be much room for interpretation as to the optimal way to do such a thing, yet if you look around, even amongst the 9th and 10th dan masters of the world, and you’ll see that each has their perspective on what’s the best way to punch someone. And the thing is, each of these people could probably punch you hard enough to kill you. So ultimately, if you primarily use your hips, or you use waveform power generation, or you send power through your body from a foot pulse, or you maximise the force with a shoulder roll, or some other technique – if the other guy’s dead, the other guy’s dead, so why quibble over how many pieces he’s in? GKR has now introduced a new term into its teaching vocabulary, and it’s one that strikes terror into the heart of any technically-minded student; the term is “Deliberate vagueness,” as in, “It’s not that I don’t know what I’m talking about, I’m just using ‘deliberate vagueness’ to encourage you to think for yourself.” Which of course is fine, so long as the powers-that-be don’t expect deliberate precision at gradings any more. If they do, I suggest that you respond, “Well sensei, in line with the new policy from GKR HQ, I’m performing my kata with deliberate vagueness!” Anyway, the idea is, rather than proscribing an exact, precise way of performing every single technique, in certain cases, senseis will deliberately avoid clarifying them to the N’th degree. This forces the student to think for himself, and experiment to find out the optimal way of doing something. Furthermore, there are many occasions where it just doesn’t matter, so why force people to do it one way in preference to another? Even if you look at something as fundamental as stances; does it really, really make a life and death difference if the stance is a couple of inches longer or shorter or wider or narrower in most cases? Thinking for yourself is part of your growth as a martial artist, and it’s the only way that you can adapt your karate to your own body. I strongly suggest that whilst you continue to follow your sensei’s directions, you don’t wait until you get your black belt to start thinking for yourself. |
