Karate and Your Path to Excellence is a broad topic and needs to be addressed in three dimensions. The path to excellence is not style-specific. The Dirt Wasp Podcast is a podcast with a strident take on the world and it is all backed-up. We came to each other via the last item of the list that makes me lose my mind, “Drink plenty of water.” it is a lazy addition to any list. That addition of that phrase contaminates all that has been said. Which leads to the idea of lazy methods of instruction because the lazy forms of instruction are just as grating as a lazy list.

Go Practice Your Karate

“Just go practice, you’ll get it,” is a lazy comment from an instructor that is serving one of three items. These three items are their agenda(s) and none of them are your agenda(s).

1. There is no guidance – They don’t want to teach you

2. They don’t understand – They can’t teach you

3. They a lazy – They lack effort

Malcolm Gladwell is not going to come out of the sky and hit you on the head at the magical 10,000 hours. Then you are going to understand it all. That is not going to happen.

Malcolm Gladwell

Repetition is supposed to help in making good karate. But bad repetition is a formula for failure. And we often talk about the idea of what is going to happen when we are faced with a challenge to our lives. the challenges that may face the lives of others, or our family. Yet the idea of repetition is the key. Lazy, poor repetition is not valuable when the preverbal chips are down.

The Music Teacher is a Great Example

“Stop, take a break.” The music teacher will stop habituation of bad behavior, training. They hear it and can correct it. They guide, they understand and they are engaged. Music teachers are sitting right there, observing and listening. The music teacher is a great example of how a good martial arts instructor should approach their teaching. (If they already don’t).

The Brain Likes Simplicity

To achieve karate and your path to excellence the teacher is actively ensuring you are doing the best practice. And we all know, “Practice makes perfect,” is not true. “Perfect practice makes perfect.” these are not simply phrases they have power in your mind. And they are complete ideas. One is a failed idea the other is successful.

To get the rest of the topic and especially the idea of deeply v. directly, take a listen to the podcast below.

And you may enjoy these podcasts on similar topics in the world of martial arts.

Losing the PathThe End of KarateConsistent

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KRIS WILDER

Kris Wilder is a martial artist based in the semi-arid rolling lands of Eastern Washington. He has authored many martial art books, including the classic, The Way of Kata. Making no apologies for his obsession of Football he can be found telling any who will listen about the nuances of the Canadian Football League.

Your Mastery of Karate Beats Force.  We take a trip into the world of semantics, rock, and roll, and boxing.

All of these are used to break down the differences between the words, power and force. Both of these words are getting used interchangeably in our day-to-day usage. There is a significance between the words and the results on the back end of the use of is also striking.

Batman

The superhero movie, the Spiderman, Ironman, Black Widow, it makes no difference they all save their problems with force. Using punches, kicks, and clubs are the given tools for superheroes to solve the immediate problem. It’s all forcing the issue and it’s how things get solving. You have an option your mastery of karate beats force.

Castle in Wales

Government Loves Force not Power

Governments love force. It is what they know and they are good at it.  We take a walk down a path of how a fictitious misplaced business sign leads to the seizing of property. Forcing and a threating are the methods governments like employing, it is their stock and trade. If you are disagreeing with the idea, it’s is because you have done what is asked of you. As a citizen you are doing what your government is asking of you. Not a bad thing, however, force always looms.

The former Soviet Union has a wonderful example of force with attention to meet the needs of their citizens they built the most unattractive housing for their people. And if you think this behavior was exclusive to them, take a look at some of the public housing in the United States. Not anything other than ugly, ugly buildings forced upon the folks.

Your Power Should Be Similar to Lemmy’s, less force lots of power

Metallica, a big deal in the world of area filling rock shows, and these guys know who they are and their place in the universe even when they meet Lemmy Kilmister of Motorhead.

Michael Dokes, Former World Boxing Association Heavyweight Champ.

Your Mastery of Karate Beats Force

Do you want to see skill get over on force?  Watch Muhammad Ali ducks 21 punched in 10 seconds as Michael Dokes attempts to hit the greatest of all time. Muhammad Ali Dodges 21 Punches in 10 Seconds.

Your mastery of karate beats power every time, on the training floor and in the world at large.

You will enjoy these other podcasts.

I Don’t Have to do AnythingAverage Karate and You Choose itRory Miller – Clarity

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KRIS WILDER

Kris Wilder is a martial artist based in the semi-arid rolling lands of Eastern Washington. He has authored many martial art books, including the classic, The Way of Kata. Making no apologies for his obsession of Football he can be found telling any who will listen about the nuances of the Canadian Football League.

Breaking your body and karate. Religious orders and martial arts are not monolithic in their expressions. Yet there is a practice that both have and some still do engage in and that is the mortification of the body. In some religious systems, the old practice of mortifying the body, was a form of penitence. This was a way of proving how contrite the practitioner was. How sorry they were in respect to their transgressions. Tools, where used the tool of choice, was the flagellum. The religious orders used an old Roman whip to beat themselves. Using a Roman whip from the age of Jesus is not lost on us.

Breaking Your Body for…Reasons

Martial artists – Karate practitioners, some Kung-Fu as well as other systems use tools to strengthen their bodies. These martial artists have the goal to build muscle and bone in an attempt to harden the body. The idea being a hardened body is in preparation for potential combat. Tools are used to achieve the hardening of the body. These tools may take on the shape of a jar full of gravel to drive one’s fingers into. Using the same jar as a weight increasing grip strength is also done.

Attempting to Harden the Body

The devotion to penitence or the devotion to building one’s body can be exaggerated. Breaking your body and karate. This exaggeration can take place to the point of damage and that is what this podcast is about. The blind adherence to ideas and techniques that no longer serve, but in fact damage.

The originating point gets a treatment. And the new world we are living in is takes consideration. The purpose of that type of training. Why that kind of training gets using and how we can bring it forward into the future safely. And how we can let some things go because they not only no longer serve the purpose but may be doing damage to our bodies.

We have more information on how the body works than ever before in history. Why would we not avail ourselves of such knowledge and act?

You may enjoy this related podcasts

The Immortal Sensei Does Magic for YouGoing Deep into The BodyKarate is Better Than Jujitsu

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KRIS WILDER

Kris Wilder is a martial artist based in the semi-arid rolling lands of Eastern Washington. He has authored many martial art books, including the classic, The Way of Kata. Making no apologies for his obsession of Football he can be found telling any who will listen about the nuances of the Canadian Football League.

Your Success in Karate. The conversation is splitting into two streams, but only after the breakdown of the idea. “Education is not something you can finish.” – Isaac Asimov.

Isaac Asimov

Helen Keller has something to add to the idea of continuing education as well.  And Keller’s story made more powerful in the context of her disability. B.B. King, the blues musician pointed out in a statement that once you learn something nobody can take it away from you. That is part of your success in karate. We will get deeper into the idea in a moment. Wait there is a proof point from Socrates as well.

The Black Belt Bolt

We all know about the Black Belt Bolt; the day the student gets their black belt they are out the door never to return. The reason this occurs is our school system list the grades you need to do and then you are done. It is the world we have constructed and it works for an industrial society. Learn to be productive and then go earn. Yet, longevity in martial arts is a world apart in behavior.

If we walked the talk, we would get rid of the belt system, but we don’t. That is an incongruency we indulge in. We don’t match our talk with our words and when I say we, I am including myself in that. I use a belt system and wear a belt system around my waist.

Some people are born to exceed past that the belt system. They are born inquisitive. The joy of learning can be taught, but an inquiring mind is born in my opinion.

Here is a Karate Test

Did you learn more in the first year after your Black Belt examination or all the years of colored belt? The answer is the latter. Every time I have asked this question it has the year after black belt answer. Your experience may be different and if it is you are rare – or you stopped learning. That is a sad place to be.

The podcast below goes on in respect to addressing The Black Belt Bolt. How The Black Belt Bolt damages your success in karate and it provides an answer or two to this issue.

The answer is a hard pill to swallow. You will be better off seeing it for what it is. Then moving forward, learning, growing. All the while beholden to your journey in the martial arts.

Practical SystemsBlack Belt DiscountLittle Value to a Black Belt

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KRIS WILDER

Kris Wilder is a martial artist based in the semi-arid rolling lands of Eastern Washington. He has authored many martial art books, including the classic, The Way of Kata. Making no apologies for his obsession of Football he can be found telling any who will listen about the nuances of the Canadian Football League.

Little Value to a Black Belt. It has little value. And that statement has a sting to it as it discounts the effort you have put into the art.

Comparing a black belt to an Engineering degree. And going one step further a degree in ancient German love poetry, two of these have little value.

The Nothing Promise of Karate

The nothing promise is a clash of worlds. The internal value that exists within the heart of the newly minted black belt. I suspect an engineering degree has some similar short-lived rush immediate post-graduation.

The people of deep meaning to you have little value in the eyes of others. You may have trained with a truly gifted martial artist. You may have learned an extraordinary amount but it doesn’t have such a place in the world we live in.

The Value of the Black Belt

That is the topic we take a deep dive, the little value to a black belt. Over the course of the podcast we answer the question, “Why does the world have such a fleeting view of the culmination of years of work?”

The value of serving yourself, of serving others, and ultimately your community. By keeping your eye on the ball, the prize as the rhyme goes you get a new focus. The understanding of how people see the value of martial arts will release you from disappointment. As a result, you will get a long-term plan.

It may be a plan you did not foresee for yourself now that their is a clear understanding that the world doesn’t care. That isn’t a nihilists view. A view of no meaning, it is a view that is real, the world doesn’t care, it is indifferent to your struggles and achievements.

Podcasts on Karate Below

Enjoy the podcast with the link at the bottom of the page. And enjoy a few suggested podcast along similar themes.

How to Spot the Great Karate-Ka IKarate Instruction an Exquisite View Black Belt Discount

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KRIS WILDER

Kris Wilder is a martial artist based in the semi-arid rolling lands of Eastern Washington. He has authored many martial art books, including the classic, The Way of Kata. Making no apologies for his obsession of Football he can be found telling any who will listen about the nuances of the Canadian Football League.

Average Karate and You Choose it.  Just following orders. A lot of evil has been done in the name of, “Just following orders.”  Are you about to build a bridge between the Nuremberg Trials and average karate? Yes, yes, I am. It has to be said in today’s world that there is a bridge built here, but not a comparison. Comparing content is not appropriate, yet in processes comparison. Yes, absolutely.

Bad Choices at Any Level

John Adams, the second President of the United States gets a going over too as his actions didn’t ring true. He pissed off a Dutch shipping company and The Supreme Court of the United States while trying to stick it to the French.

War trials, international maritime law, and the French. And there is more, but first mediocrity.

The advantage of acting at your peril, or disadvantages of course need to be taken into consideration before you bust out of the mold.

Many organizations encourage mediocrity, martial arts not so much. Martial arts ask you to push the boundaries.  The boundaries of physical ability, mental toughness, and Swept into the flow. 

Rock and Average Karate Choices?

Neil Peart the drummer for the rock group RUSH. Yes, a drummer, wrote some lyrics and when that needle dropped on that album, yes black plastic discs with music pressed into them. Peart blew my mind with his simple statement. I am sure it was not his original statement but it is still a strong statement in its simplicity.

Three proof points mediocrity can be a choice even in an ascendant environment.

Choose thoughtful action to escape mediocracy, otherwise, you are doing average karate and you choose it, because you chose it, just followed orders, or accepted a choice made for you through your inaction.  

If you are not engaged in exploration you are engaged in mediocracy. The idea is more complex than that simple statement however, what if you took a moment and looked at you martial arts in this way, it is a great exercise and not necessarily permanent.

Get the full experience in the podcast listed below.

The Best Style of Karate to Lear for a Great LifeEmotional ChoicesI Don’t Teach Kids Karate

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KRIS WILDER

Kris Wilder is a martial artist based in the semi-arid rolling lands of Eastern Washington. He has authored many martial art books, including the classic, The Way of Kata. Making no apologies for his obsession of Football he can be found telling any who will listen about the nuances of the Canadian Football League.

I don’t teach kids karate. It’s a statement you and I have heard many times over the course of our martial arts adventure. Frankly, I don’t hold it in high regard.

Understanding the desire not wanting to teach kids is clear in my opinion. The folks that make this type of declaration are coming from a place of honor and responsibility. This stuff is not for kids.

Would you put an eight-year-old behind the steering wheel of a Bugatti? Absolutely not. And when you look at karate and martial arts in that light it makes sense. Putting that eight-year-old behind the wheel of a high-performance sports car is not a responsible act on the part of the teacher.

Whether a driving instructor or a martial arts instructor. Further how on God’s green Earth are they supposed to understand what these kids are involved with?

Frustration Can Be a Result of Teaching Kids Karate

As an instructor trying to communicate the depth of karate, and other martial arts can be unsatisfying. The kids just don’t get it.

Framing Kids Karate

It is all about the framing. Framing is not about introducing new material but reshaping how the already existing material is seen.

If the framing of karate is about hard-core fighting skills for kids that is not going to land. Those developing brains are not ready for that information.

If it is about the other aspects of the art then that frame may well work. It has been my experience that the latter works exceptionally well. Good technique is necessary, no question, but other aspects take the lead.

Podcast on Teaching Kids Karate

The podcast dives deeper into this idea of the framing of the art of karate. How and why a teacher may want to explore these other parts of the martial arts when teaching kids karate.

You can listen to the entire podcast below. Choose to agree, disagree or ponder the ideas presented. You may possibly reframe the notion of, I don’t teach kids karate. Or you may add to your existing ideas on the topic.

Here are a few other podcasts you will find of interest.

You Think Karate Loves YouIain Abernethy – The Road Less TraveledMark Loucks – The Karate Adventurer

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KRIS WILDER

Kris Wilder is a martial artist based in the semi-arid lands of Eastern Washington. He has authored many martial art books, including the classic, The Way of Kata. Making no apologies for his obsession of Football he can be found telling any who will listen about the nuances of the Canadian Football League.

Karate Is Dead and You Killed It. The lament is ongoing and omnipresent. If you are on social media (who isn’t) and you follow martial arts you are like me. We both have preferences in who and what we follow, me more traditional, followed by Boxing, MAA, and Wresting.

The lament is simply this, “Are traditional martial arts dead?” or some other version of the same sentiment such as, “We do traditional martial arts” with one of those statements, the conversation is on. Twitter conversations, blogs, and podcasts like this one.

Karate Conversations are Messy

The problem is often, when discussing karate it is often done in a hodgepodge, method. The most popular topics are the topics of the day. These issues often not linked to a larger spirit to the culture. In other words, the conversation starts at the bottom of the problem and tries to solve the issue at that level.

What if I told you that is no way in solving the problem, as the old joke goes, “You can’t get there from here.”

I’m going to go further. You and I created and are creating the problem. We are responsible for precisely what we are unhappy about. What we are calling the death of the traditional arts.

We like tradition, yet, and perceiving a moment through tradition gives us a stable foothold in our world. We can observe an action, a moment, an event and put it in an identifiable container.

Our Karate World is Defined for Us

The containers are always taking on a defining for us. We don’t have to think, nor work out an issue. The masters, our ancestors are telling us what it is, how to see it, and how a situation, or moment takes on its shapes.

But you and I broke it. We did the breaking with our actions. Further, we don’t even know we are responsible.

In this podcast, Karate Is Dead and You Killed it, we are seeing how our genetics are taking on the tasks of defining. We are driven by our needs to transform everything we touch. I will also build a bridge between Jack Warner (Warner Brothers Studios), Walt Disney, Apples over history, and modern candy.

Enjoy the podcast as all these elements come together. In the end you will realize traditional karate is dead and you killed it. Oh, and I had my part in the killing too.

Here are a few other podcasts you will find interesting.

Practical SystemsKarate and Your 1st MindYou Do Traditional Karate?

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KRIS WILDER

Kris Wilder is a martial artist based in the semi-arid plains of Eastern Washington. He has authored many martial art books, including the classic, The Way of Kata. Making no apologies for his obsession of Football he can be found telling any who will listen about the nuances of the Canadian Football League.

The immortal sensei does magic for you. Let’s live forever! Let’s be immortal. Great idea I suppose, but then there are some horror movies built around that idea of being immortal, living forever. But it’s talking about being the immortal in the sense of the immortal teacher.

I know we have all engaged in this behavior of immortalizing our teacher. The words sound similar to this, “You should have seen what my sensei could do!” Remembering back to being a young kid, I was watching my Taekwondo instructor break a board.

Breaking a Board and My Mind

A guy who was holding the board to be broken was sitting on top of the shoulders of another guy. My teacher leaped into the air and broke the boards in two with a jumping front kick. Amazing to me! That moment is still stuck in my head to such a degree we are here and I am talking about it. There are many stories and No I don’t want to sound like Grandpa Wilder here. “You know back in my day,” or, “You should have seen, insert moment here.”

Sometimes it is appropriate to share a story if it is beneficial to the moment. One story I shared recently was I was watching John Roseberry do a kata. Roseberry was a bad dude in the sense that you know he knew how to roll. Roseberry was a Marine Corps drill instructor, 7-time Marine Corps Judo champ, and 4-time All Armed Forces Judo Campion. (If, by chance, I got a number wrong one way or the other the essence still stands, combative sports excellence.)

I remember watching him do the first karate kata we had learned. Roseberry did the kata and when he finished, turning to my friend and I said, “That’s what we’re doing.”  My friend finished my thought with, “Yeah but that’s not what we’re doing.”

Everything was the same except the movements being infused with this power and understanding. Power and understanding coming from years of study. Roseberry just took this same set of movements into the stratosphere of understanding and experience.

Stories of Our Teachers

Here I am talking about John Roseberry, there you are talking about your instructor your coach, whoever it might have been. Each of us is pointing to the thing that happened as the Immortal Sensei Does Magic for You.

The immortal Sensei will be remembered for a time. Until they’re forgotten by the 3rd or 4th generation away from their experiencing of the teacher.

These teachers are not going to make any new movement. They’re not going to make any new words; they’re not going to make any new anything.

So now they become, The Immortal Sensei Does Magic for You, or more accurately, the immortal sensei that did magic for you.

Then the canonization begins that occurs in our brains where we make a photocopy of a photocopy of a photocopy, of the moment.

The Immortal Sensei Becomes Pale

The degrading of the information is inevitable. The moments are like a jpeg versus some sort of high-resolution graphic format. Do you know a Jpeg? You can send a Jpeg back and forth electronically with ease. Because the format goes in and says, “You know we don’t need this number, we don’t need this piece, we don’t need this pixel.” This lowers the resolution of the graphic file. As a result of this action, the file can move through the electronic system with ease.

But if you continue to do that over and over with a scan, or a photocopy pretty soon you have a kind of mosaic.

Karate Fists & Samurai Swords. The Samurai swords and fists of karate are not the same. One is metal, one is bone. There is a massive difference here but sometimes strategically, there isn’t a difference.  So, what we’re going to do is we’re going to dive into Musashi.

Lawrence Kane and I have been working on a new book. It’s called, The Musashi Field Manual:  The Sword Saint’s Secret for Winning the Tests of Life.

I want to share a section with you. In doing the research on this it changed the way that I have always seen a classic moment in Musahsi’s life and when we get into the moment know it is not a mutually exclusive type of thing. It’s not a zero-sum version of the events. This is an opportunity to delve into another layer of the moment not necessarily an alternative viewpoint. It is about the similarity between Karate Fists and Samurai Swords.

All of these viewpoints as I’m going to present them can all exist the same time in the same place. I’d like to read to you from this section of the Musashi Field Manual is based on his final work, The Dokkodo, 21 precepts to Musashi wrote down to guide his students to give them some direction as he was taking leave of this life.

Musashi started writing it 2 years before he died it’s not long it’s only 21 precepts but it’s part of his legacy. Although we are talking about karate fist and Samurai swords, there is a connection buried within Precept 19.

Respect Buddha and The Gods Without Counting on Their Help

This is a powerful, yet unsurprising statement coming from a strong, self-made personality like Musashi. In feudal Japan the polytheistic Shinto religion was predominate. Shinto, which translates as, “the way of kami” (generally sacred spirits or divine powers), came into use in order to distinguish indigenous Japanese beliefs from imported Buddhism. While Buddhism is about enlightenment, Shintoism is more about balancing a person’s relationship with the spirit world.

The kami were thought to be mercurial in demeanor, acting out if displeased and potentially even when appeased, which lead to various shrines, ceremonies, and rituals designed to help humans get along better with the spirits. Musashi simplified his relationship with the divine, maintaining a respectful reverence yet not counting on otherworldly help. He certainly did not dispute the existence of a god or gods, yet did not expect anything from him/them either.

Franklin or Seneca?

This perspective is pretty much in line with western views of theology as well. For example, the phrase “God helps those who help themselves” is one of the most quoted “biblical” phrases not actually found in the bible.

Attributed to Benjamin Franklin (1705 – 1790), it likely originated in ancient Greece. Whatever its origin, this phrase mirrors Musashi’s thoughts. Roman Stoic philosopher Lucius Annaeus Seneca the Younger (4 BC – 65) expressed the same attitude when he wrote, “Luck is when preparation meets opportunity.” This, clearly, is what Musashi was getting at.

He was always training, always learning, ever prepared to use his unconventional strategy to prevail. A good example of this took place in the year 1612 when he fought a duel against Sasaki Kojirō (1583 – 1612), the preeminent sword master of the time. Musashi showed up three hours late carrying a wooden bokken that he had carved out of an oar rather than a steel katana.

The Long Sword of Kojirō