This is actually the part I wrote first :-).
I'm happy and enjoying life, thanks in part to seizing the opportunity to apply Karate principles to every aspect of it. Rarely a day goes by that I don't consider how a martial arts principle enhances a relationship, business strategy, or my enjoyment of some artistic expression. You could say that I have a better understanding of who I am, the role I want to play in the dojo community, and vice-versa.
I could live a full and happy life without ever doing another Kata. I would still consider myself a karate-ka, perhaps not by the dictionary definition but in the continuous application of principle.
I'm eternally grateful to Aoinagi Karate for the way I am able to interpret and make sense of almost everything. I wouldn't want to give up Kata, mind you--I spent five months of this year living alone in a remote mountain cabin, and one of my few non-work activities I naturally gravitated towards was to review Kata in the large clearing outside. Karate is much more than Kata for me, and that Kata itself is much more than the ritualized physical routines we have as an initial entry-point for learning the principles and exploring the themes.
I'm returning to dojo and the physical aspects of karate after an absence of about four years. I was away at school for two years and have spent two years juggling my living and career arrangements in an attempt to get back into the dojo on a more regular basis. With the support and encouragement of Kathy Fischer, I made a difficult decision in 1994 to set aside several career offers in information studies and librarianship in order to return to a healthy and holistic lifestyle in San Diego, where Aoinagi plays a major role. It would have helped to have a job lined up, some poor and challenging decisions in that area have limited more than just my Aoinagi attendance.
Over the years, I've had many motives for coming to training, training on my own, and studying the martial arts in general. We may describe it as the same ``path,'' but my reasons for walking along it have been wildly different at different times in my life. I might have shown up to train some weeks for...
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I'd like to finish these essays by sharing a few of the things that are bringing me (back) to the dojo and the Aoinagi community in recent months.
The contribution of Karate to my life really does come up all the time, and like any grateful person, I want to repay these benefits by sharing them with others who are interested.
Sometime in the last five years, I've acquired comfort working with classmates, and the ability to have rapport with a variety of people in a short time. That doesn't make me an awesome Karate teacher in itself, but I believe those were two things that really limited my potential as a teacher before. Regardless of my ability to physically show up, I'm actively finding other opportunities to contribute to the dojo, especially where it overlaps with my work.
Sadly, I've watched my body melt and pudge over the four years that I've spent countless 18-hour days doing mental gymnastics with nary a run, bike, or Kata above & beyond hurried commutes to class and work. The two martial arts classes I tried in Los Angeles improved my appreciation for Aoinagi, but I chose work and school above training, a choice I continued to make through early 1995. Thankfully, my base fitness is still with me, and I'm looking to burn off and build back to the level of health and fitness I previously took for granted.
Karate, especially Kata, rewards me with a physical-spiritual connection that doesn't happen for me with any other form of exercise. I get a nice runner's high from biking, running, and lifting weights, but it's just not the same. Some Kata are attached to physical places, emotional periods in my life, and feelings(? or something) that don't lend themselves to words. Doing a Kata intensely yields not only physical benefits but is a reliable means of catharsis, which I understand as purging the ballast of the soul. Sitting down with a guitar and belting out songs that are meaningful to me gives me a great emotional outlet and can call up emotions and memories-beyond-words in the same way Kata do, but the physical connection is lacking. Maybe I should be combining song with the dance-and-grind made popular by artists like Prince and Madonna, but somehow I find Karate a more appealing outlet for integrated spiritual-physical expression and experience.
Where I once failed to complete my over-ambitious Shodan project, I'm now bursting with ideas for how to contribute and have fun with my Aoinagi affiliation. The following are specific examples of information-related projects. I had four other thoughts that are too broad to drop in here but I would like to propose in the near future, perhaps after re-reading the Gyodan Curriculum.
I never thought I'd have a career outside of research and teaching. I've always applied ideas from the Karate dojo to my work
and relationships at school, and my creative ideas for how to apply Karate concepts in the
Academic world as both a student and employee had pretty much leveled out.
In April, 1995, I abandoned a safe job with the University and shortly thereafter embarked on an adventure in business with the mentorship of Sensei Neville Billimoria. Business offers a whole new (and amusing) environment in which to interpret and apply the concepts of martial arts. This potential is even more enjoyable as I'm sharing work with my Sensei who has years of experience applying Karate concepts to Business.
Sometimes I can inspire myself to go out and practice Kata intensely alone. Upcoming tournaments, demonstrations, and tests are sometimes good motivators, but not always, as is the case with this test. I think this idea is repeated all over--training in a group is the only way to keep your Karate alive.
We now have all sorts of technological innovations can be applied to the teaching and learning of Karate (or anything). Once I dreamed about a style of notation similar to musical notation for recording and learning Kata. Today, a digital video library of Kata and techniques available the world over is a no-brainer. Something like that will do a good job of refreshing some technical nuances and details of the Art. But it will not keep Karate alive.
I can't imagine an archaeologist uncovering a digital video of a Kata in the year 2996 AD and `getting it.' No amount of digital video, books, and so forth will enable that archaeologist to start a dojo and pass along the same principles and spirit that we have alive here today. I can imagine a Sensei descended in the Aoinagi lineage using techno-tools like that in 2996 to enhance the learning experience of her students--they could watch Kim, Kisaki, Mabuni, Nishiyama, and other original artists sharing Kata and techniques in the time and culture where they were developed, performed by the creator. I think that would be a priceless learning tool. But there will need to be a lot of human beings keeping the spirit and motivation of our Art alive from now until then.
I intend to be one of them.