Kyoshi’s Training Tip of the Day

Quite often, especially in free-sparring with pads, I’ve seen students reach to hit or make contact with their opponent. Sometimes they’re actually pulling back while punching as if to hit and retreat at the same time so as not to get hit. This is not good, not only is there no ma-ai, there is no stability to deliver an effective blow nor shift. We must learn to close the gap, get in-close and deliver a controled blow without the fear of getting hit. This will build confidence and give the opportunity to use the various techniques we have for in-close fighting. At first you may get hit, however, this will diminish quickly if you use proper and good technique when attacking. Good cover-up prior to execution of the technique creates natural blocking and parrying.

When I was 5 years old, my father started me on the martial arts path. One of the main reasons he did this was because I had a temper problem, and an anger problem…….yes, even at 5. My father knew a guy that he worked with who had been studying karate for about a year and he was telling my dad about the kids class. So my dad took me to watch a class, and then after talking with the sensei, I was going home with a gi and would start the following Saturday.  12 years later I earned my Shodan at 17, but my temper and anger problem wasn’t cured, but it was under extreme control. Learning karate was not the hard part, dealing with myself was.  As my skills became more effective as I grew in the ranks, the battle within me had to be won every waking moment. On November 29th, 2008, the tip of the day was about controling your emotions or they will control you. On November 16th, 2008 the tip of the day was about doing kata perfect and judging someone and not knowing what injuries someone may have thus causing them to not being perfect. On September 4th, 2008 the tip of the day was you get what you give. Please read these three tips before going on. I mention these three tips of the day because they will tie in together. 

In general, being a martial artist and having your temper, anger or emotions get out of control, can be dangerous. One of the hardest things to teach students is emotional control. So instead of a lengthy tip, (I’ll try to keep it short) I’ll repeat a few things, however, this training tip should be one of the most important tips you’ll read.  One thing I’ve learned is that ANGER will never, never, ever, ever solve anything, nobody wins. When somebody or something upsets you, then that somebody or something already has control over you and your emotions. The thing we have to remember most is that we don’t know what happened to that person prior to coming in contact with you, this is a perfect opportunity to help this person rather than adding to their grief because we were selfish. Examples: When driving, the person that cut you off and was speeding might have a loved one who is in need, or maybe they have a sick loved one and their mind was not on driving, you will never see that person again so why get upset and try to get them back? This is where road rage begins. When shopping, and the sales person wasn’t very helpful or wasn’t very nice (in your opinion), maybe they weren’t very knowledgable on that particular item, maybe they’re new, maybe they have been working long hours and haven’t had a break because someone else called in sick, maybe they heard they are going to be layed off. When in a restaurant, maybe the cook burned himself so the food was late, maybe the waitress was dealing with another angry customer and she forgot about your needs, maybe the waitress has a family member in a bad situation and her mind is on that and she forgot to add the extra mayo on your sandwich. When being pulled over by a Police Officer and he is not being very nice (in your opinion), maybe that Officer just left an accident where a child was killed, and he has a child of his own, maybe he just left another irate motorist, or maybe he just left a situation that may have cost him his life. Maybe he was looking for a car that matched yours that was used in a crime.

I’m not making excuses for these people and their situations do not always justify their actions, however, if we knew everybodys situation prior to coming in contact, would you still get angry because things didn’t go the way you expected? Would you feel compassion or sympathy for these people? Think about a situation in your life where your mind was elsewhere and you weren’t considerate of others and you made someone angry, now you just added an angry person to your situation. That’s what your doing when you get angry at someone. Bottom line is again, we as martial artists CANNOT get angry for things that are so unimportant in our lives.  Learn to stay calm, speak calm, choose your words wisely, and not only will you make someones life better, you may even get what you want………….

I would like to wish all the members of the NAMKA a healthy and happy holiday season, and also to those who are non-members who read the Training Tip of The Day. 2009 will be a great year for NAMKA, we will continue our journey of preserving and spreading Matsubayashi-Ryu and growing as individuals through training and studying. I want to thank all students and sensei for their hard work in this quest that we, as a group, set out to accomplish.  God Bless you all…..

Love, Kyoshi Caponigro

If you ever watch a skydiver, long before they pull their parachutes, they free fall, when freefalling they put their arms out straight and their legs are straight and they are face down, they stay in this spread out position until it’s time to pull the parachute. When freefalling, the body doubles and triples it’s speed every second while plummeting to the ground.  What does this have to do withkarate?????  On 8/18/2008, the training tip of the day was: Conditioning….not for karate only. This past Friday, 12/19/08 while at my property in NW Florida, a 3rd degree black belt instructor visited me to scope out some spots to hunt. He located the perfect tree in the woods to place his tree-chair. He decided to show me how you bring the chair up the tree, the process is a long one and can be physically demanding, you use your arms to adjust and slide the top up and hang, and then you use your legs to lift the bottom, and then use the bottom as a support then you raise the top again and repeat this process like a tree climber until you’ve reached the designated height. Many hours of cat stances and side squats are needed for this type of training not to mention the arm strength as well. I was very impressed with the whole process. Once he reached 12 feet up the tree, he kind of sat on the upper portion of the chair facing the tree, the upper portion was not set right and he fell back and the freefalling began… he managed to resemble the skydiver exactly the way I previously explained it including the speed of decent, however, there was no time to pull his parachute and he landed perfectly in the skydiving position, face down, arms and legs spread out. For a brief moment there was no movement, slowly he began to move and I heard him regain his breathing, I asked him if he was ok and he jumped up and said yes I’m fine. (I thought about promoting him to 4th degree right there at that moment). He grabbed the chair and climbed back up the tree.

The training tip of the day is again, don’t ever give up and conditioning can save your life…………………..and so can a parachute!!!!!

I was looking through some old periodicals and found this lengthy article from 1999, The gentleman is a shotokan practitioner living and training in Japan……..following are some of his quotes from the article.

While training with famous Shotokan teachers, their firm belief is that the only way to master Karate is to master it’s basics. All senior instructors insist on close attention to kihon waza(basic techniques) at all times and are noted for their own ability in this area. At Takushoku University the format was always the same: basics and more basics. The more advanced the class became, the more basic it became. Fundamental Understanding of karate, quite simply, an understanding of the principles of the basic movements. This does not necessarily imply an understanding at an intellectual level: one’s body must learn how to move. Eventually these natural basic movements provide the foundation upon which everything else is built. Half of the special advanced kata class sensei is referring back to the five basic Heian (Pinan) katas.

The constant reference to basics implies simplistic, easy or elementary, the very opposite of advanced or complex. It is important to understand that karate is fundamentally simple. That’s not to say that it’s easy, but that every subsequent movement is based on a prior movement. One thing stems from another.  A misunderstanding at the basic level cannot be corrected higher up the chain.

One of the things that epitomizes karate training is it’s preoccupation with basics.

If your own training is directed and focused, then the most basic of classes can be as advanced as you choose.

When we reach a certain level of expertise and are awarded a title, that title should be respected. In law when someone reaches the judge position, we address them as “Your Honor”, when the President of the U.S. is addressed it’s “Mr. President”, when addressing my superiors at work, it’s either Mr. (their last name), or “Sir”, unless they tell me to call them by their first name. In the Martial Arts there are many titles, some styles use more titles than others, some people give themselves a title. In Matsubayashi-Ryu, we use “O’sensei” or “Grandmaster” for Shoshin Nagamine, we use “Master” or “Soke” for Takayoshi Nagamine, “Renshi” for 6th Dan, “Kyoshi” for 7th-8th Dan, “Hanshi” for 9th-10th Dan, and of course Sensei for instructors. Please address those who have earned the rank, the respect of the the title. When training in a different style as a guest or at a seminar, you still address the superiors accordingly.

This Friday December 12, I will celebrating my 48th birthday, but more importantly my 43rd year in the Martial Arts. When we are 16 years old, 35 seems old to us. when we reach 35, then 48 appears old. At 48, no age seems really old any more. All our young lives, we FEAR growing old. When we have ourselves reached middle age, we are surprised to find that our aging does not concern us as we had expected. When we are old enough to no longer count the years, we become intensely aware of what the alternative to old age would have meant to us. We relize how thankful we should be.  The fear of growing old, like so many fears, is born from inexperience. When we ourselves grow older, and wiser, growing old has it’s own virtues. As I look over my long and productive life in the Martial Arts, I will remember my successes and failures, triumphs and disasters. Never hesitate to admit a mistake. Never fail to grow from making one. MAKE NO ATTEMPT TO HIDE YOUR ERRORS, from others, or from yourself. Success in life may generate courage and confidence, but wisdom comes only from adjusting to the failures in our own experiences. The more you train, the more you’ll grow and the more you will understand. Confucius once wrote: “He who claims to know all is a fool, for his learning has ceased. He who knows naught and knows he knows naught is the enlightened one, for his wisdom will be great.”

So here I am at 48, it’s an odd and rather nice thing about aging, the closer we approach a particular age, the younger it seems to become.

Due to personal and work related responsibilities I have been unable to keep up the Training Tp of the Day these past few weeks nor work on the videos. As time allows, I will periodically post the Training Tip of the Day as this month is busy for me also. My apologies for the lapst in in this endeavor, however, there are 128 Tips of The Day that you may review.

I recently attended my son’s graduation from the U.S. Army boot camp in Oklahoma. I must say it reminded me of the days when karate had similar discipline, it seems it’s been lost somewhere along the wayside…. Everybody stood at attention, looked straight ahead, uniforms were perfect, nobody moved. They addressed the DI’s with respect. They all were together as one. When my son took his jacket off, he folded it a certain way. When we ran into a Colonel off base, my son stood up straight and waited to hear what the Colonel had to say, when the Colonel said at ease, relax, my son still stood with total attention and respect listening to what the Colonel had to say. Ahhh the memories, the obi (belt) never touched the gound, the gi was folded a certain way, the belts ends needed to be even, when tied. We bowed before stepping on and off the deck. When we lined up we looked straight ahead, and most of all, when we did ANYTHING wrong, push-ups were the norm. The discipline that was instilled in us helped us to be the best we could be and it helped us learn and we didn’t waiver…ever.

As martial artists we are expected to remain calm under any circumstance. Just like the physical techniques, our emotions must be developed and polished also. There are different scenarios that occur during class that test our emotions from time to time and we must keep those emotions in check and use them to our own advantage. If we lose control of our emotions then we lose control of our physical capabilities. When something occurs that makes you upset or extremely mad, before reacting, respond by analyzing the whole picture, take deep breadths, self talk and find a way to be productive, maybe even just smile for a moment, are a few ways and always try to remain focused at all times. Anyone can teach kicking and punching, but not everyone can teach the development of emotion and controlling the emotion. As instructors we must create situations in training to foster emotions for our students and guide them in responding to these emotions in a calm demeanor. Remember, control your emotions or they will control you………

Wishing everybody and their families in the NAMKA and Matsubayashi-ryu worldwide, Happy Thanksgiving

From Don Caponigro, Kyoshi