Hooked on Haiku - Dojo Moments

You may have noticed that I have added a new addition to my side bar called 'Hooked on Haiku'. I have dabbled in creative writing for several years now, mainly short stories and poems and I have decided to have a go at writing Japanese style haiku poems.

In case you are not familiar with haiku I offer here an explanation of what a haiku poem is and how to read and interpret it.

William. J. Higginson, in his book The Haiku Handbook, describes a haiku as: ...sharing moments of our lives that moved us, pieces of experience and perception that we offer or receive as gifts.

The haiku is written as a three lined poem in which the moment to be shared is simply described, without use of simile or metaphor, in order that the reader can quickly reconstruct the event in their own mind and then hopefully experience the same emotional reaction to the image as the writer did themselves.

Traditionally haiku poems were nature or seasonal poems, for example, here is a seasonal poem by Basho, one of the four great masters of Japanese haiku:

on a barren branch

a raven has perched -

autumn dusk

It's quite easy to reconstruct that image in your mind isn't it?

More modern haiku poets have moved away from only writing seasonal or nature poems and now write haiku about all manner of subjects. Sometimes there is still an allusion to a season but this is not always present or obvious. For example, here's a poem from Takako, a modern Japanese haiku poet:

fresh washed hair

everywhere I go

making trickles

The only real requirement is to provide strong imagery and sensory information to help provide a very rich description in very few words. In Japanese, haiku poems consist of 17 sounds but most scholars now agree that this equates to 10-12 syllables if written in English because English syllables are generally longer more drawn out sounds.

I have entitled my collection of haiku poems - Dojo Moments, and I will endeavour to provide a new one each day! Feel free to comment on them or give critical feedback. I have provided a link from the side bar back to this post so that you can still leave comments once this post disappears into the archive.

Enjoy!

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The Students Guide.... a review

The Students Guide to Surviving a Traditional Dojo. By Matthew Apsokardu.




A review...

I wish this e-book had been available 2 years ago when I first signed up for karate! Aimed at potential, new and experienced students it starts by answering the most basic questions that a new student may have such as how to tell a good traditional dojo from one that's just trying to make money. The book deals matter of factly with some nitty gritty practical details that are often overlooked by experienced sensei. For example: how to tie a gi and belt properly, personal hygiene issues and the wearing of jewellery.

In an easy to read, well laid out format it informs the student of how to behave in a dojo, how to relate to the sensei and how to get the best out of training. For more experienced students there are tips of how to stay fresh with training, how to train your mind and advice on reading to discover the broader context of martial arts. Many martial art traditions are simply explained and there are several useful illustrations and diagrams.

My only gripe with this book is that though issues about sparring are dealt with in a lot of detail, there is nothing at all about the practice of kata/bunkai or the importance of continuing to practice kihon throughout your martial arts life. This may lead a new student to think that martial arts is just about fighting or that sparring is the most important part of a martial art.

However, overall I think this is a useful starting point for new-comers to the traditional martial arts and covers many issues that you won't find in other martial arts books. After reading this book the new student will have a much clearer idea of what to expect from their martial art and what their martial art expects out of them.

Link to the book here: A Students Guide......




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Fighting off the big guys...

From the InBrief section of the Daily Telegraph 25th June 2009:

"A grandfather fought off a knife-wielding robber using his martial arts skills
to throw him over his shoulder.
Alan Thomas 68, who is just 5ft 5in tall, took on the taller armed attacker
after he discovered him inside his home. Mr Thomas who has taught martial
arts for 37 years, was stabbed in the hand before he could act, then hit the
intruder in the face and hurled him over his head".

What a great story! Just shows that with training the little man can prevail. Bring on those large partners for me to train with...

Women training with men

We have a grading session coming up in July and several people from my class will be grading, including me. So last night Sensei decided to put us all through our paces by assigning us to our grade groups and taking each group through their entire syllabus.

My syllabus for 3rd kyu includes: a striking combination, a kicking combination, 3 katas, a striking combination against a pad, a kicking combination against a pad, demonstrate two defence techniques against a mawashi geri and finally 2 rounds of free sparring.

I would normally pair up with another woman to do partner work, irrespective of grade differences, but as we were in grade groups and the other purple belts are all men I had to partner a man. This made for quite an interesting experience.

With the pad work the men can clearly strike and kick the pad with more power than the women. A year ago I would have found it difficult holding the pad for a man because I found the shock wave you feel going through your body with each strike difficult to tolerate. Last night it wasn't a problem - I must be toughening up!

I also did the self-defence techniques with the men. Here I had to contend with making my techniques work against their greater height and weight. One technique I do involves catching the leg as the kick comes in, elbow strike into the ribs, grab them on the shoulder and sweep the standing leg from under them. I've practiced this many times with female partners and have got the technique to work. But against the taller, heavier men I found it really difficult to grab the shoulder as it seemed so high up and sweeping the leg was much harder - their extra weight seemed to root them to the ground more securely. I think I need to give them a push to unbalance them a bit more first.

But this was a great lesson in how you have to vary the technique to make it work against a variety of opponents. I think we should partner the men more often because firstly it will toughen us up (they show no mercy!), and secondly it makes us work harder to get our techniques to work.

This was a great energetic session that left us all feeling on a high. Roll on the grading...

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Kumite - it's not about fighting

I attended an extra kumite/fitness training session yesterday with my club. Sensei puts these sessions on about every 4-6 weeks and it allows us to focus just on this one aspect of karate (plus a bit of circuit training at the end). These sessions are open to anyone from his 3 clubs (approx. 160 people) and 10 of us turned up!

This is a shame because this extra session was to help us prepare for an 'in house' kumite competition next month. Alas not many people have put their names forward for this either (which contrasts with the very good turnout we had for the in-house kata competition held a couple of months ago).

So why do people shy away from kumite? Remember we do non-contact kumite (touch contact in reality) so you're not going to get hurt.

I think people misunderstand what non-contact sparring is about or what it can teach you. To me this kind of sparring is not about fighting- you have to actually hit people to have a fight and feel some aggression towards them. So if it's not about fighting what is it about and what use is it?

On the physical side it improves fitness and endurance; it speeds up your reactions and it makes you observe your opponent very carefully. It doesn't teach you any techniques that would be useful in a street attack, but it doesn't try to - it's a sport. However, it does teach you mental techniques that would help you in a self-defence situation.

In fact I think it is the mental benefits that really brings kumite training into its own. When sparring you have to find the courage to face your opponent and have a physical confrontation with them. For some people that is very difficult, some people have to dig pretty deep inside themselves to find that courage, but I do believe it's inside all of us somewhere - training will help bring it out.

It also teaches you resilience, determination, patience, self-control and awareness. These are all positive character traits that may help you in a real attack situation if you are ever unlucky enough to be in one, but they will certainly help you in other areas of your life - your work, interpersonal-relationships or just dealing with any situation or challenge that life throws at you.

So next time you have a chance to do sparring, don't shy away from it, rise to the challenge. Remember - it's not about fighting, it's about finding something deep within you.





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