Karate that is my own....

On rare occasions in my training, I have partook in Kobudo. (Weapons training)
.....The Bo (staff) the Sai (tri pronged dagger) the Tonfa (mill stone handle) and the nunchaku (flail), it's not that I wanted to train with these weapons, it's just that where I was at the time one or the other were the flavour of the day.

This hangs outside my Dojo
Only now do I understand it. 

I actually found no value in the training itself, as it was always a one off and the Weapon was never revisited.
To spend several hours learning a Bo Kata I could never possibly remember let a lone how to manipulate it and use correct technique was simply a waste of valuable karate training time......

Bruce Lee is accredited with saying......." absorb what is useful, discard what is useless and add what is essentially your own "....

Now, what you and I see as useful or useless will differ. And in martial art training that is how it should be. Martial arts at their core should bring out individualism......
For example, my flexibility may no be good enough for a particular kick but yours might be......and so on....so with is in mind whatever martial art you do the focus should be on making it your own....
I have written before of the realization I had at a Gasshuku in 2019, where it became clear I was trying to make my body fit my karate and not my karate fit my body. The two need to blend and absorb each other, especially if they are going to be effective.

To be effective it is important that you can be effective....

The Sensei who has the biggest impact on my training is Mr Michael Clarke 8th Dan Kyoshi of Okinawan Goju Ryu.
He would talk and write
( you can read for yourself)
of taking ownership of your Karate (or martial art) and being responsible for it.

In a brief conversation with him after training one day, this was something else I realized I needed to do. After training in martial arts for more than quarter of a century, if I didn't know how to train myself by now then what the hell is it that I have been doing. Especially as I was an accredited KUGB instuctor and qualified to teach Karate by the Australian Government.

Peacefulness..... gone now is the clutter......all that remains is training.  

My Karate is now my own to explore. The Kata a gateway to understanding the use of my Karate weapons not those of Kobudo.
The Karate tools I have in my Dojo offer a method of strengthening and hardening those weapons and offer a sense of distance, timing and balance to training.
I have now discarded that which I have found useless from the countless hours of training I have done to keep in line with a syllabus or to keep others happy. I train to what physical attributes I have and not to those I don't or those that afford injury.

My Karate is at last my own.

Martial art or something else....

I was sat thinking after working with the Dojo tools about what karate has become and that so many of us say we do martial art but actually do not.....

Many karate tools are found
In an Authentic Dojo 

Martial arts began as a form of self defence, this much we know. Fighting methods were developed and designed to hurt, mame or even kill.
So why is there all this other stuff, like Budo and all the inward direction of training?

I think largely it has come about over time from the culture from which it (karate) was borne.

As Westerners we take up a Martial art for learning self defence. In my experience anyway.

Tools are designed to develop Weapons....

'Punching air' may develop a certain level of technique, but does nothing for developing a weapon. A weapon that can absorb an impact as well as create one.
Tools used in Karate develop a Martial body and Martial mind.... something that many Karateka simply don't understand, or do, but find the training too hard.

Other tools develop strength.

So, before you know it, you are no longer training in a Martial way training in air, but are doing something completely divorced from it, as you try and understand all the other STUFF that is attached to what you thought you were doing in the first place.

More tools....Martial in nature....

Its easy to become sidetracked and lose focus as to why you began a Martial art, for in the beginning and not knowing any better, training is accepted for what it is. Unfortunately its probably not what you thought and actually does you a disservice leaning more towards health and fitness.....

As for Kata, well, that is there to help develop and broaden the Weapon arsenal and to help show us how to use them. Its not for show or aesthetics. Kata in itself is another tool.

To sum up.....you can't train in Karate without having the mind of developing a weapon (body/mind) and you cant do that merely by punching air, that's why tools are used, and you can't develop the weapons arsenal without working on Kata.....

Sounds simple enough....but how many of us are actually doing something different to that of what we think we are.

Weapon forging..... too hard?