SIDE NOTE: RECIPE FOR A BETTER KUKI

As much as a new Shodan in karate, ni-dan in iai, and ikkyu in aiki has no business being a tip guru, I do think I’ve learned some things over the years that somebody could benefit from. I wish when I started, there was as much wealth of information as there is now, but honestly a good portion of it is counter-intuitive. Nerdverd, an infamous character from my past, was a prime example of this. He looked up EVERTHING on the internet and believed it. One of his problems was his inability to take what we said at face value. One example of this was looking up a school kata that was way out of his range, teaching it to himself, and then wanting to try it with (or, more accurately, on) me. Learning the 4^th kata when you can’t remember the first or second isn’t exactly the safest of strategies, let alone, using a poorly done video you found on Youtube as a teacher. But I digress.

There are some things I wish I knew when I started martial arts, and I would like to share them with you. Some of them, newbies, you might not understand right away, some are obvious, and some you just with agree with. I stayed away from the generalization of “take BJJ or Muay Thai” because frankly, they aren’t options in rural areas, and a lot of people have no business training in such arts for a ticket to UFC, or whatever dumb idea they have in their heads. A lot of schools are gladly taking your money for that reason. Not to say you shouldn’t experiment with other arts- you should, if you can afford it. However, if you really want to take multiple arts, you should do so because you love it and it’s a good fit for your personal talents, not because you feel to have to in order to become “a good fighter.” If this is your attitude, BJJ and Muay Thai really don’t need you.

Anyways, here goes:

1) 1) Go to as many low-cost seminars as you can, even (or especially) if they are not in your art.

If you live in a rural, suburban, or secluded area, you understand what I mean when I say training can get a little claustrophobic. You live many miles from the nearest MMA school, and the closest thing you can get to a good sparring match is with the same people you throw down with all the time. It’s especially important that you get as much exposure to outside school as you can. If you don’t, you get stale. Then you get to competitions and wonder why you get hammered.

Research potential seminars that are in your price range online and plan several months ahead of time so you can go to them. This goes for camps and competitions as well. Any chance you can get to learn a new technique, view a new style, etc. can only be good for you. Sure, there are bad seminars. I’ve went to a couple. But they never have been total losses to me. I’ve always met someone interesting I can spar or share information with. The prices for some of these seminars can be downright expensive, and unless you have a real desire to train under somebody (like your teacher’s teacher in Japan, for example), it’s probably not worth the money if you can’t afford it. There are a lot of good seminars out there; you just have to find them. Some of them you may have to drive to, or stay over a night. Again, if you end up learning something new, it’s not a total loss.

Remember to share whatever you learn with your mates back at your school. If you’re lucky, they’ll go to different seminars, and you can benefit from them. I had a lot of opportunities to go to these things when I was younger. Now that I have a crappy job, it’s hard to make plans. If it’s in your area, reasonably priced, but you’re not sure it’s for you, GO. You just might learn something. If you started your training as karateka, train with a boxer. If you started with boxing, train with someone who can kick well.

2) 2) Regardless of what style you know, earn to use at least one weapon you can use with both hands- so you can laugh at yourself when the weapon in your non-dominate hand smacks you in the side of the face.

This is more an exercise in humility than anything else. Say what you will about the need for kata or weapons, but nothing brings you back to reality faster than a wooden nunchaku hurdling into the side of your cheek (on either set of your body). And there’s nothing wrong with doing weapons training for the fun of it- it’s good exercise, a good break from regular training, and it helps you develop coordination (even if your body can’t keep up with your brain, and you knock yourself silly).

You can’t be a good weapon-wielder without an appreciation for distance. Good fighters know when to get in and when to get out. For some people, like myself, a couple jabs to the face is still not enough to get my feet moving. I’ve learned a lot from weapons sparring. I am less afraid because I have this (false) notion something longer than my arms with protect me. Although I am still not the best at it, I have watched a lot of fights, and I’m developing a better understanding of reach, and how to manipulate it.

The thing I think that’s most valuable about weapons is that it forces you to have good technique, even if you achieve this by accident. There are a lot of bad empty-handed kata practitioners out there, but few exceptional weapons masters. That’s because the addition of something that could potentially blunder you is not forgiving in the least of poor talent. You have to be good, or you get screwed up. I have tonfa bruises to prove it.

3) 3) Learn to make mistakes, and do them often. It beats not practicing.

There’s nothing that a teacher hates more than a kid who sits there and argues with them about

why they can’t do something, as supposed to just trying it again. They complain about their injuries, their past experience in their last art (“we didn’t do it like that”) etc., for the primary purpose of avoiding admittance that they screwed up.

If you can’t admit you did something wrong, you are unteachable. End of story. It is not even necessary (and in the early stage of training, it may be impossible) to know what exactly you did wrong, or even how to fix it. Welcome to the long road we call “training”. Rome wasn’t built in a day, and you won’t be a good martial artist for some time. Accept it.

Once you get over yourself and your need to perfect everything, you are teachable. This is when you grow the most. The moment you become afraid to make a mistake is the moment you stop learning.

4) 4)There is more to life than class.

Yes- because going to class 6 days a week for 3 hours a day is so much fun! I’m saying this with half-sarcasm and half truth. It can be, if you’re into that. But most of us aren’t. Most of us do not have a desire to be professional, or have a sponsorship or movie deals. Most of us work 8 hours a day to afford the approximately 3-10 hours of training we can actually fit into our lives. To train so much as to not do anything else is not only exhausting for your personal live, it’s not good for your martial arts, either.

Two cases in point, my time writing my senior thesis and a child I called Paparazzi Kid(because of his dad). I did a senior thesis on kinship relations in martial arts schools at the same time I was going to karate 4 days a week. It…shall we say…sucked. Nothing sucks the joy out of something quicker than busting your ass on it and then sitting down to write about it for fifty pages. I remember as I wrote about the ins and outs of kata transmission that I was losing it. I was thinking about martial arts all the time. I prodded everyone I knew about stupid stuff like “How do you fold your gi?” and “How much do you really like your sensei?” I must have been quite annoying at the lunch table. Looking back, it was an interesting concept- looking at martial arts as an anthropologist- but I read that senior thesis recently and I think it’s crap now (even though it did win me an award). But, now to Paparazzi Kid, whose dad…well, had a very misguided future planned for him. The boy was in iai class before I started- God knows how long- and within a year I was the same rank as him. He was good too- phenomenal technique, actually- but a boy nonetheless. The kid did band, hockey, basketball, etc., and he did it to be the best. Problem is, when you take on a laundry list like that, you are bound to forget something. In his case, it was iai. From the story I have gathered, this kid would come home exhausted from school and sleep through class. Not surprisingly, he wanted to quit. What the kid does now, I don’t know, but every once in a while, his dad stops in- kinda disconcerting that his kid doesn’t come in with him. I feel like if the kid had cut just one of his activities, and cut down the number of times he came in a week, he would have been just fine. The whole thing makes you feel like it was never the kid’s choice to do it in the first place. But, this is a good story of a kid with potential that had just too much on his plate for martial arts to work for him.

Another is a kid named Lurch. A new black belt and my next pick to leave soon. The kid comes in four times a week, only to leave every class early to make it to one of his dozen activities. Talk about burnout. Anyways, the point I am trying to make here is don’t make martial arts your life. When you do, something is bound to go- like your sanity. Dave Lowry wrote an excellent article in his book, In the Dojo about this subject. If you get a chance, read it.

The truth is when you go to the dojo, everything from the outside is left at the door. But if you’re always there, don’t you lose that sense of adrenaline-high escapism that brought you to martial arts in the first place? The bottom line is that the more time you spend working that kata, after a certain point, you will get worse. Allow yourself an off day, or less training a day, so you can reset your body and brain.

5) 5)Kids…they’re practically chicken. Unfortunately, most of them grow up to be your colleagues.

Like it or not, kids rules this world. They control everything with their mom and dad’s pocketbooks. Few, like my parents, tell their kids these days that if you want something, you need to go get it yourself. It’s simply a different world, everybody, so you have to deal with them.

The truth of the matter is, 95% percent of all gyms, dojos, and schools in this country have children in them- either in separate classes, or mixed with adults. They float us financially. And a lot of them (ready for this bombshell?) have been lied to about how good they are. This isn’t an argument about rank (that’s a whole different issue which I won’t get into), so shut up about the whole thing about kids getting black belts for now. The important thing is this; you DO need to care about them. Two reasons; number one- they are from the same school as you, and number two- they will eventually (Darwin-willing) grow up to be your potential sparring partners. That said, it is in your best interest to help these defunct little brats any way you can.

For example, if you are a boxer, and some black belt kid in your karate class is punching a bag completely wrong, go help him. True, Darwin will probably weed out this child the moment he tries to actually punch somebody, but think of this- if the kid is small and awkward, that’s probably the reason he’s in karate in the first place. His parents probably thought it would protect him from bullies. And as much as thinking about the kid getting pummeled would probably amuse you (I have to admit, it amuses me), remember that you used to be a kid too. If you were unlucky enough to grow up on the streets and you live now in the ‘burbs with this kid who’s probably never seen blood before except in movies, then share your knowledge with him. You don’t want this kid getting hurt for the obvious reasons of not fucking his hand up for life on the bag, but also because he carries the same school name that you do. Do you want it to get out that your school sucks because one dumb kid couldn’t defend himself?

Also, this kid could grow up to teach other children how to punch wrong, thereby infecting the potential sparring partner gene pool. In five years, you will have a whole generation of new black belts that can’t punch, and it takes a very long time to correct something like that. In the interest of your future, don’t you owe it to yourself to have good martial artists to throw down with, instead of people with the same belt color as you who can’t fight at all? You’ve heard the saying “children are investments” and they are. Invest a minute of your time into a little kid, and he/she will suck less tomorrow.

I know, I know. All of you are saying, “But wait- what if the kid’s a douchebag?” Well, take this in comfort. If the kid is a real douchebag, he/she won’t be there for long. And you can always write nasty blogs about them when they are gone.

6) 6)Get off your damn computer and go practice…dammit.

Seriously- I’m not kidding about this one. Stop blogging about how such-and-such is a lousy fighter and how BJJ is inferior to your style of monkey-jitsu while you shove a whole bag of chips in your mouth. Nobody cares. If you really want to make the martial arts world a better place, go out and work your own stuff.