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THE
PENNY PERSPECTIVE
Both
sides of the coin
It
is an undeniable fact that in life there are two sides to
everything.
Take
the Canadian penny for example.
On
one side of the coin we have a picture of her Majesty
Queen Elizabeth the Second, her name, and a Latin
inscription printed around the inside edge to the coin.
Now if we turn the penny over and look on the other side
of the coin we will see that there are five individual
items - can you name them? No cheating now - after all
you are a martial artist - so just sit where you are and
think about this for a moment. You have seen hundreds if
not thousands of pennies in your lifetime so how hard can
this be.
What
five things - and yes there are only five - are on the
obverse side of a Canadian penny.
How
well did you do?
Two
out of five - one out of five - five out of five?
How
long did you last before you went and found a penny and
checked for yourself or asked someone else for the
answer?
As
I said a moment ago, there are two sides to everything in
life. There are two sides to every argument, two
different points of view if you will, and even if you
feel that you have a justified defence for your side of
the argument I am sorry to be the one to tell you, but
that does not necessarily make you right. But not to
worry you are not alone, history is full of examples of
people who defended a position that they thought was
right, only to find out in the end that they were utterly
wrong.
In
the end being right or being wrong has nothing to do with
the point I am trying to make, which is simply, that
there are two sides to everything and if you want to
"see" things as they really are then you really
do need to try and see both points of view.
So
what does this have to do with karate you ask yourself.
Well
just as in life, in karate we also find that there are
two sides to every position. One defensive and one
offensive. The perfect example of this in Shotokan karate
is kata. Kata has been defined as many things, "a
series of defensive and offensive movements against a
number of imagined opponents", "a battle
against ones self", "a path to inner peace
through physical meditation" - and so on, and so on.
Yet no matter how you might personally define kata there
is one inescapable fact, there are two sides to every
kata, and if you ever truly hope to say you "know"
a kata then like the penny you must first know both sides
of the coin.
So
with that thought in mind let's take a closer look at how
most students go about practicing their katas.
Without
a doubt the most common way of training kata is for the
student to stand on a particular spot on the dojo floor
and then go through all of the kata's movements in their
proper pre-determined order, and then look down at the
floor to see if they "got home".
Once
is not enough of course, and so they will do this over
and over again until finally they begin to feel that they
have a clear understanding of the kata and all its
intricate movements.
But
I ask you, what about the other side of the coin.
What
about looking at the kata from the attackers perspective?
You remember the attacker don't you, the "unseen"
opponent that you have defeated time and time again as
you moved through the kata on your way "home".
Well what about what the attacker wants. For one thing
they certainly don't want you to be victorious when it is
all said and done, no sir, if they had their way you
would have been defeated very early on in the kata, at
least by move six. You do see their side of the argument
don't you, after all their task as the attacker is to
make sure that you don't get through your kata unscathed,
instead of finishing "on your spot" the "unseen"
attacker really wants you to walk off the dojo floor
thinking to yourself - "boy did I screw up - oh well
you can't win them all - better luck next time".
Chalk
up another "win" for the attacker.
So
just how do we go about looking at a kata from the
attackers point of view.
Well
as in any two sided discussion the only way to really see
things from the other persons point of view is to put
yourself in their place, to take their side, and when it
is all said and done to see if you still think you are
right. So it is with any kata.
To
understand the defenders position you must also make a
point of trying to see the kata through the attackers
eyes, and to do so you must now put yourself in the
attackers place. You can do this with or without a
partner, either way all that matters is that you attack
or defend at the appropriate time and place, while always
viewing the kata from the attackers perspective. Do this,
and do it regularly, and you will find that training your
katas from the defenders point of view will begin take on
a whole new meaning, who knows, over time you may find
that like the penny you now have two sides that can been
clearly seen and understood.
In
the end the object of any kata is to try and "see"
from all points of view, to defend and attack, when and
where necessary, to try and eliminate the small lapses in
concentration, to reduce unnecessary movements, in the
end kata is about learning more about yourself, and as in
life growing from the experience.
As
for the penny, on the reverse side you will find : a
maple leaf, the date, the value, the word "Canada"
and on the right hand side in small type the mark of the
mint that made the coin.
See,
that wasn't so hard.
Now
- what is on the obverse side of a 1948 Canadian silver
dollar?
Remember
Observation
is a pre-requisit to success.
Part
the clouds - see the way.
"The
objective of karate-do is to contribute to the evolution
of
the human spirit through physical and mental training."
Sensei
Peter Lindsay
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