Karate

Since September 1999, on Tueday, Thursday and Sunday evenings, I have been attending a Shotkan Karate-do class in Amherst, Nova Scotia. My Sensei is one of only fifteen people in Canada to have attained the level of fifth degree black belt. Our dojo has more than one hundred students with varying levels of skill. I have attended three of three gradings (examinations) and passed each time making me a sixth kyu or a green belt. I attended a interclub tournament February 1999 as a yellow belt and finished second in the adult sparing devision and later this month I will be going to the Nova Scotia Provincial tournament so you can expect an update soon afterward to inform you how I did.

Despite what a lot of people think there are very few "Karate chops" in Karate, it focuses more on punching and kicking. Karate means Empty Hand, do means The Way so Karate-do means, The Way of The Empty Hand. Consequently, unlike almost all other Martial Arts, Karate-do does not use weapons. Shotokan is just one of several kinds of Karate-do. While the teaching is done in English, the counting, most of the movements and a few other common words are spoken in Japanese I find this gives you a feeling for the heritage of Karate-do and gives it a mistique, most people catch on to the Japanese very quickly.

The level of Karate-do belts starts at ninth kyu or white belt, then down through yellow, orange, green, two purples and then three browns. The final brown is first kyu. At that point you switch to black belts (assuming you pass the rigorous testing) and start from first degree and then go up to ninth degree this takes many, many years of training and requires the student to give something back to the Karate-do society by starting a dojo of their own. What is after ninth degree black belt you ask? Death. Once someone reaches ninth degree they have reached the pinnacle of their Karate-do career until you die at which time, if you have done great things for the Martial Art itself you will receive an honorary tenth degree black belt.

Karate is very misunderstood many, people seem to think that it will transform you into a fighting machine that could demolish any opponent after only a few classes, this is not true. You are only really trained as to how to fight when you reach black belt level. Sure you will be better at defending yourself after a couple months but you will not be at all effective until later. Part of this is because higher belt levels are more skilled. However a lower belt in Karate is in fact a danger to themselves and others because until you advance to higher levels, the movements that a individual studying Karate learns to do first are attacks, because they are relatively basic compared to blocks which require a high degree of coordination. So if someone knowing only how to attack were involved in a situation that may become a fight, the only way they would know to defend themselves would be to lash out which might provke a fight during which they and othersmay be injured. Where as a black belt could defend themselves without attacking and avoid an all out fight by simply discouraging the would be attackers.

Karate News

October 28th: I attended the Nova Scotia Provincial Tournament but unfortunately there were only two people in our division, me and someone else from my dojo. What is unfortunate is that had we been competing with the adult green to purple division we probably would have beaten most of them so the results are kinda skewed. In Kata, or form, I finished a close second.
I intended to make up for my loss by winning in Kumite, or sparing, but a botched call by the judges gave my opponent the victory.

December 2nd: I went to my fourth grading today in Truro, Nova Scotia. Everything came together nicely for me and I'm quite sure I passed easily.

December 3rd: It has been confirmed, I did pass so now I'm a 5th Kyu Purple belt. I'll get my new belt and a certificate on Tuesday (December 5th), then it'll be official.

December 5th: I received a certificate and my new, highly fashionable, purple belt today.

February 5th, 2001: Tonight a very tragic thing happened, the screw that holds my pummeling bag (a punching bag which I also kick, strike, bite and yell at) to the floor, which allows me to wail upon it without it thrashing about and breaking things, was torn out of the floor and was thrown across the room by the sheer force of my front thrust kick (the kind people in movies break doors down with). Fortunately I was not injured, but an evil assasin behind me was struck and severly injured. He intends to sue and despite the fact that he was trying to kill me, my lawyer tells me he will probably win. Okay, okay. So that bit about the "evil assasin" isn't true. I just made it up, I'm so ashamed.

February 24th: Today there was another one of those mini-interclub tournament like the one last year. I attended and participated in Kata and Kumite and finished second in both out of three people. I was most pleased with my performance and I have no grievances with the judges this time. These two silver medals are my fourth and fifth bring my total up to five, all silver. At this point I would almost welcome a bronze although I hoping if I do get a non-silver medal it'll be gold.

March 31st: Two major development today. I went to a grading, number 5, in Halifax today and tested for my second purple belt. No this does not mean I will be wearing two belts it is just like a Private 1st or 2nd class or at least I kinda. I was lucky to get to the grading at all since we had just got quite a bit of snow and some other types of nates precipitation. I have Ross Galbraith to thank for getting me there. Thanks Ross. Anyway so while I was there I bought a book called The Textbook of Modern Karate by Teruyuki Okazaki and Milorad V. Stricevic (MD). Okazaki is at present a 9th degree black belt, which is as high as you can get without being dead. He travels about the world and runs gradings and clinics. I have had the great pleasure of being tested by him on two occasions, for my orange belt and for this grading just past. When I approached him he was happy to sign it and did so after some difficulty with the date which was entirely my fault but that is beside the point.

April 1st: The Textbook of Modern Karate is, in my humble opinion an excellent book. After spending some time perusing the knowledge contained within it I was able to jump over buildings and float around like they do in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. Okay so that was a lame attempt at an April Fools joke, what can I say it's harder through text than it is in person where you can con people out of their houses, money and loved ones. Ah Americans, if you compliment them they'll believe anything you say. But I digress, I found out today that I passed which although not unexpected is good to know, I'll get my certificate on Tuesday but this time, for the first time, I won't get a new belt. From this point onward there are only two more belts in my future, brown, and Black.

April 3rd: I received the official certificate of grading today and am now an official 4th Kyu which means I am slightly more than half way to Black belt status. In about two years (minimum) I'll have my Shodan (1st Degree) Black Belt as long as I can get in enough classes despite going to University.

April 17th: Today my elder sister, Emily, attended her first Karate class she went withme and claims she enjoyed herself, hopefully she will continue to come to classes. At least this way I have a drive that has a reason to drive me unlike my parents who do it because they are nice. Interestingly enough Emily will be able to use my old belts the whole time as whe progresses up the ranks until we both get to black belt level, should that occur.

April 19th: My younger sister also decided to come to karate with us so now all of the Evans children are Karatekas.

April 26th: My younger sister has given up her Karate ways. And then there were two.

July 7th: I attended my sixth grading today. This is my sister's first one and she did pretty well except she nicked some lady's nose during sparing (a no-no since for white belts sparing is more like two people doing kata than an actual fight). We also were instructed by Frank Woon-A-Tai, a sixth degree black belt and the head of Shotokan Karate in Canada. He is a very good instructor and I found the training to be very benificial.

July 8th: We did pool training today which is training in your gui (and a swim suit) in the pool. It's very cool and really speeds up your techniques and gives them more power once you are out of the water since the added resistance of the water forces you to improve your form.

July 10th: I got my brown belt today and my sister got her yellow. I'm very pleased to have finally received my brown belt because as a 3rd Kyu I can go to more classes, participate in more tournaments (including the Nationals) and it looks better than purple. I wouldn't go so far as to say it commands respect but it does sorta do something like that.

October 6th: I went to the Canadian Karate Nationals today. I was competing and was most pleased with my performance. I should at this point reveal that I was the lowest ranking competitor there and was competing agianst black belts who had more training than I. In kata two of the four judges voted for me while two others went with the other guy. Had it gone to a tie breaker I had a good chance of winning because they had picked my worst kata by far. However they weren't having any ties. The head judge voted and I was eliminated. Oh well. Kumite (sparring) was great. It was free-sparring and I was against a black belt and yet I was doing more than holding my own. My blows were landing but I wasn't following through sufficiently, so no points were being scored. I blocked everything except for a few punches that hit my shoulder (and scored a point!) and other punch to the chest giving him a full point and a win but only after I kept the balck belt at bay for an entire round and into overtime and hit him in the face twice. It was great. The Nationals were in all massively amusing. I would at this point like to thank my Aunt Karen and Uncle Scott who chauffered my cheering section (Emily) and me around and who, as well as my cousin Alison, put up with us. Thanks to the lot of ya.

Summer 2002: Well I started going to Karate classes but then I had my appendix removed and couldn't go back for 6 weeks after that and then I was working and my friend from England was visiting and frankly, I've retired from Karate due entirely to laziness as opposed to any sort of disagreement with my dojo's philosophy or training methods.

October 2003: Yep, I'm still not going to Karate. Basically there are better fighting styles (Jujitsu and Aikido come to mind, of course I'm not attending classes for those either) and I don't feel like making a time commitment. Meh.

Below is a link to my dojo's page and to some other Karate-do related pages.

Links

My dojo's homepage.
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