Tuesday 25 May 2010

Your Japanese word of the week is...

"tadashii" 正しい which means "correct" or "right".  Now before I start, I should point out that I will by no means claim to have all the "right" answers or that anything is 100% "correct".  But perhaps I should set up some context...


A few weeks ago, Takagi Sensei (front row, centre, with the Japanese flag on his karate dogi) came to visit.  Some of you may remember Takagi Sensei as one of the sensei I trained with while I was in Tokyo and is one of the few remaining people to have trained with Otsuka Sensei, the founder of Wado karate.

But since the founding of karate, Wado or otherwise, it's been governed by people and, unfortunately, people are governed by any number of motivating factors.  As such, factions and splits arise in karate just as they would anywhere and, in some ways, it can be worse in something like karate which essentially involves the passage of knowledge rather than simple ownership of an entity.

And the end of one of the sessions, someone asked Takagi Sensei how do they know if they are doing the "right" moves.  His answer, typically, was that it depends; it depends on what you're doing and your beliefs.  But more importantly than that, he stressed that whatever path you choose, you still need to take ownership of it and learn as much as you can.  The onus is on each person to do the find exemplars to follow and work hard.

While it seems rather broad and blanket-y, I will say that it is true to a certain degree.  I really feel that having had the chance to train with a variety of instructors, I can decide for myself who's example I'd like to follow, be it the kind of person the instructor is as well as their technical knowledge.  People like Marta Sensei (R) and Takagi Sensei (Centre).


Speaking of techincal knowledge, the seminars really focussed on the basics and other foundational aspects of movement.  We did a lot of ido kihon (moving basics) and only on the last day did we do any kata.  Then again, it's often the simple stuff that's hardest to do well and it probably helped a lot of people to be able to see Takagi Sensei demonstrate the principles behind the moves.

Special thanks for Norma Sensei for sending me these pics.  And here's one I never expected.....  Takagi Sensei hugging me haha.....

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Hi!
Lawrence久しぶり☆
空手頑張っているんだね。
学校は忙しい??
またBlog見に来ます♪