Many people think that fighting and self-defence are the same thing. They are not.
 
In a fight, the goal is to inflict maximum punishment on another person in order to “beat” them. There is a winner and a loser, with no goal of avoiding a conflict or escaping the situation. This is true whether in the ring or on the street. Most martial arts schools have the goal of teaching people to fight.  Karate-Do Shotokai (KDS) is not one of those.
 
Fighters will try to maintain a distance that is close enough to be able to attack the other person, trading blows as necessary. They learn to use fakes, feints, and combinations of techniques in order to gain the advantage and find an opening in the opponent’s defense. The goal is to win.
 
The skills of well-trained fighters are admirable, and I have no problem with the choice of people to train in a sport or fighting style—but other ways are equally valid.
 
It disheartens me when I read comments from people who believe that if a martial art is not “effective” for fighting, then people are wasting their time training in it.  Who gets to judge that? Is teaching people how to fight and the glorification of violence really so desirable?  Are people who do activities like painting or playing a musical instrument just for the enjoyment of it also wasting their time? A martial art is not useless just because it does not emphasis fighting above all else.
 
Self-defence, on the other hand, is the ability to protect oneself against an attack from one or more assailants, and hopefully escape. Many attacks in these situations will come from relatively untrained people who may try to use the element of surprise and launch an all-out attack. Learning to maintain a safe distance and to be observant are invaluable tools.

The best self-defence is to avoid conflicts or potentially dangerous situations in the first place. Letting our ego get the better of us and getting drawn into a fight is not self-defence—in fact it is the complete opposite. Once we get into an altercation anything can happen and we have put ourselves at risk unnecessarily. Learning how to deal with an unprovoked attack is not a bad thing, but the goal should be to escape the situation as quickly as possible and get to safety.
 
KDS students will learn skills that, over time, will result in an improved ability to defend themselves. We practice defending against strong and determined attacks from one or more people, learning blocking and counterattacking techniques and how to use the elements of distance, timing, and body mechanics effectively. However, it is not a self-defence class, as such, but rather a classical martial art. Not everything we practice must have a direct application in a self-defence situation.
 
In any case, true self-defence should go beyond merely learning to defend against a potential attacker. Do you exercise and eat a healthy diet? Do you wear a helmet when appropriate? Do you text while driving or do other stupid things? For most of us, these are far more likely to be dangers than getting attacked on the street.
 
Self-defence and sport are valid reasons to practice a martial art, but there are many more benefits beyond that. Over the course of more than 40 years, I have personally spent many thousands of hours practicing and teaching karate. That’s a lot of time to spend on an activity just in case someone attacks me sometime!  
 
In a classical martial art like Karate-Do Shotokai the struggle is ultimately more with oneself than against others. There is much value in practicing an interesting lifelong learning activity that promotes physical and mental fitness. 

This is Part 3 of a 3-part blog entry. It was co-authored with Neil MacInnis. This section provides some suggestions on how you can improve your practice of kata.

Make kata fun! Where kata forms a large part of the Karate-do path, you are far more likely to stick with your journey if you enjoy it. If you dread kata or if you finish kata feeling exhausted, frustrated and demoralized, you need to lighten up. Celebrate your improvements and consider mistakes as challenges not failures. If you nail a kick without wobbling or landing out of position, you should feel good. If you just can not get a turn right, take a deep breath and don’t let it haunt you. You are more likely to make mistakes if you are ruminating on missteps than if you are focusing on successes and challenging yourself to get things right. Enjoy the process.
 
Don’t feel too self-conscious. If you flub a move, it is so easy to feel ashamed if everyone around you nails it. Don’t sweat it. Everyone learns kata at different speeds and the best of us make mistakes or have momentary memory lapses where we forget a next step. Breath, relax, and try to get it right the next time – don’t worry about if people noticed your mistake. Chances are they are busy dealing with their own challenges, and even if they did, who cares? The path of Karate-do is a personal one. Enjoy each step and have fun!
 
 Be aware of the others in the kata group. Try to synchronize your movements with those of the leader and others in the block. This is a way to model the movements of more experienced members. It all teaches us how to be aware of others at the same time as being focussed on your own movements.

Don’t be too concerned about what each technique or combination of movements “means” or what the practical application of each one might be in a self-defence situation. It can be useful and interesting to take specific techniques out of the kata to practice them with a partner sometimes, but no one really knows for sure what each technique was originally intended to do. For example, the opening movement in Heian Shodan is gedan-barai. Or is it actually an outside block followed by a low hammer-fist strike? In addition, many of the sequences don’t make a lot of sense on their face. Advancing three steps while doing rising blocks generally presupposes that an opponent is doing three punches while stepping backward. Hmm. But again, kata is a method of learning how to concentrate and use our bodies and each movement doesn’t have to be taken literally.
 
 Be relaxed and breath naturally throughout the kata. Breathing smoothly from the lower abdomen with the shoulders down. This is also the case for when we are facing a partner. There is no syncopated breathing in Shōtōkai and we should never hold our breath.
 
Practicing kata is a Zen-like activity. It keeps us focused on the here and now, feeling our breathing and our bodies without undo concern about the practical meaning of each movement—even though each movement should be completed with intention. But we can only start to get there after we have practiced a kata enough times that we can do it without needing to think about what comes next. Some have called kata a form of moving meditation.

• Neil MacInnis & Clarence Whynot

This is Part 2 of a 3-part blog entry. It was co-authored with Neil MacInnis. This section provides some suggestions on how you can improve your practice of kata.

What can you focus on to improve your kata?

Clear your mind. Kata needs to be practised with a focus on each action and the transitions between them. If your mind is distracted, you will shift into a robotic mode where you mechanically go through the motions, but without really doing the kata. Little is gained by such practice. We want to make the kata come alive, which requires all your concentration and body awareness. This also makes its practice far more interesting. It has been said that kata is a form of moving meditation.
 
Practise the Kata with the goal of making the entire form a single motion. It begins and continues to completion without stops and starts, each motion distinct yet linked. Even when the hands and feet aren’t in motion, we aren’t completely stopped—the hips and body weight continue to shift, however slightly, as we transition to the next technique.
 
 Practise the kata slowly until you are familiar with the moves and are confident that you are completing each with proper footwork and body involvement. In fact, you should continue to practice it slowly most of the time. The slower you do the kata, the more areas for improvement become obvious. Take advantage of this and polish your actions. There is a saying, “fast is fancy but slow is perfection.” The kata will never be perfect, but it can always be improved.
 
 Practise with intent. It is easy to fall into the habit of moving through the karate forms and forgetting that you are not just practising static moves, but that you are practising active strikes and blocks. Maintain that intent; as you punch feel your body extend as if your fist is seeking a target; as you block feel your body contract and expand with the movement as if you are blocking a massive attack that requires your whole being to redirect.

Maintain outward pressure on your knees. Don’t let them sag inwards—keep them pushed outward slightly and engaged as you move from stance to stance. Feel the slight tension of your leg muscles directing force down the outside of your legs to the outer edge of your feet and your heels connecting your upper body to the floor.  Keeping this outward pressure on the knees will facilitate the effectiveness of your actions and protect the joints. This is a skill you want to be automatic, and the more you develop it during Kata, the less attention you will have to devote to it in other practises, such as when someone is trying to hit you!
 
 Focus on your footing. Your heels should remain firmly connected to the ground as much as possible. Your movements rely on your body transmitting energy by pushing against the biggest thing around you – the ground on which you stand. Impact from a received force should travel down through the back leg to the floor and be returned through the leg muscles. Be conscious of your feet as you move through the stances. In addition to having weight in the heels, be aware of which direction your feet are pointing and the distance between them.
 
 Try practising the kata as a mirror image occasionally – instead of going left go right. This will give your mind a workout and skills learned on one side of the body bleed through the mind to the other side. Practising the reverse movements can help to improve doing the kata in the “normal” direction.
 
 Practise your kata with energy in your hands. By energy we don’t mean something mystical, just that they should be engaged and not limp. You can’t drive a nail with a piece of rope.  In karate (literally Kara = empty and Te = hand) your hands and feet are your tools, and they should be ready and properly formed throughout. Fists should be tight with the thumb tucked, bladed hand attacks should be ridged with the fingers extended and tensed. You should never be unarmed; that is your hands and feet should always be in a ready state with intent, ready to strike out. The more you practise this the more it will bleed into your other practises without your having to consciously remind yourself to do so.
 
 Be gentle with yourself. When we start karate, we all have limitations. We might be too inflexible to kick high. If we can kick high, we might have no aim. If we can kick high and aim, we might have no power or perhaps our kicks are too slow. Kata is a time to be kind to yourself and work on your flexibility and body control. Where Kihon is typically preformed at the speeds you would utilize in partner practise (Kumite), the slower pace of Kata lets you really work on your body control and mechanics.
 
Focus on your focus! This might sound odd, but most of us do not come equipped with a razor-sharp focused mind; focus needs to be developed. In partner practise the more focus we bring to bear on our partner, the faster we can respond to attacks and the smoother and more fluent those actions will be. By focusing on our body during Kata we train our minds to automatically move our bodies correctly and fluidly. The last thing you want to be thinking of during partner practise is which way your feet are aimed! Develop your focus during kata and your focus during other practise will also improve.

Stay tuned for Part 3, which will provide additional tips.

This is Part 1 of a 3-part blog entry. It was co-authored with Neil MacInnis

Are you unsure of what the point of Kata is, why it is important, and how to get the most benefit from its practice?
 
The internet abounds with hints, tips and strategies for perfecting kicks, punches, and blocks but information and guidance on kata is fairly lacking. Various interpretations of what the moves “mean” in relation to self-defence can be found, but is kata really just a recipe book of techniques strung together to form an imaginary scenario?
 
Kata is one of the three core practises of karate, along with Kihon (repetitive solo practise) and Kumite (partner practise). At its most basic, kata is a series of turns, strikes, blocks, etc., that are completed in a choreographed sequence, but it is also more than that. It is also a mental exercise and a way to learn how to develop body awareness.
 
Almost every school of Japanese karate has their own take on the kata as laid out in Karate-Do Kyohan, the definitive text by Gichin Funakoshi. In Shōtōkai the forms of the kata stay largely true to the written descriptions       found there, although some elements of the kata were modified to better correspond to key Shotokai concepts such as always maintaining a relaxed body condition. Because of this, not all the advice in this article will be fully relevant to practitioners of other styles—even though there may still be some points of interest for them.
 
The goal of kata is to train one’s body and mind—learning how the body works and how to fully focus on the movements. In Shōtōkai the Kata is done with all moves at more or less the same speed, versus the rapid and slow combinations of speeds found in many other schools. There is a continual focus on measured movement throughout; each technique is concluded individually but linked to the motions before and after. It should flow. Most of the time we practice the kata relatively slowly to be able to concentrate on the details of the movements and weight shifts. Even the most basic techniques should involve an awareness of the elements such as torso rotation, use of the elbows, engagement of the hips, pressure in the knees, etc. We want to feel the kata as we move through it.

Part 2 of this blog entry will offer a list of in-depth suggestions on how to improve your kata.

Some martial arts schools prize students who have a lot of physical talent - the natural athletes. These students are easy to teach and can win competition trophies for the Dojo to display.

I enjoy teaching these students as well, but I get even more satisfaction from teaching students with less talent but who have a desire to learn. These students will progress more slowly, and they have to work harder to develop the skills, but seeing that progress is very gratifying. I am very proud when I see these students improving.

Shotokai Karate is for anyone who has the desire to learn and the willingness to work to achieve their goals.

I am happy that I discovered Shotokai Karate as a young man. When I was in my early 20s I undoubtedly would also have enjoyed a competitive style of martial arts, but in my 60s I realize how fortunate I am.

I am not as fast or strong as I was when I was a younger man, but I am still improving in many ways. One of the beauties of Shotokai is that it doesn't rely solely upon those physical traits; instead we study things like timing and relaxed body mechanics to continue to make our karate better. This is a gift. I am technically slower than many of the younger students in my class, but I can often seem to be faster just because I have better timing.

Many martial artists stop training when they get older because they no longer feel they are improving. That's not surprising if what they are practicing relies primarily on strength and speed - which obviously diminishes as we age - or they have had too many injuries from competitions. Others become just coaches/teachers. I also get a lot a gratification from teaching, but I also want to continue to train and develop my own skills. Shotokai karate lets me do this even as I get older.

We are finally and happily coming out of the third wave of Covid-19 in Nova Scotia. Lets hope that there won't be a fourth wave. I had originally started this blog post last year, before the start of the second wave, hoping that life would be back to normal by now. Ha!

It has been a challenging year and we have had to significantly modify that way that we ran our classes and even suspend our practices several times. For many people like myself karate is an important lifestyle choice, but fortunately it can be put on hold for a period of time and resumed later. Many people have not been so fortunate and have had to continue working under risky or overwhelming circumstances in order to keep the rest of us safe or to provide us with necessary (or not-so necessary) goods and services...or just to keep food on their table. Many thanks to those people. The least that the rest of us can do is wear masks and follow public health guidelines to the best of our abilities. A small price to pay. The Heath Department might not get it 100% right all the time, but they are trying to keep us safe.

Another thing we can do is get vaccinated. Vaccinations in their various forms have saved millions of lives and have prevented much suffering over the years. Nevertheless, their effectiveness in reducing deaths and the spread of the pandemic are unquestionable and I believe that we are all responsible to others around us. Also, it is just good self-defence!