Embracing the old as a foundation from which to seek unlimited, infinite growth and development.
This is what traditional is to me. The word “traditional” might imply to some people stagnation, sticking rigidly to some meaningless rituals and kata, so maybe I don’t love the word traditional, but I don’t have any other. But to me, traditional karate in a Shotokan karate dojo is using the kata as a vehicle to understand timeless principles that were discovered through many generations and building on top of that.
Sensei Nishiyama used to stress that kata gives us many examples, and through those examples, we must find out the underlying principles; kata is a symbol of principles.
We want to take advantage of wisdom accumulated through generations of experience, trial, and error, as a launching pad. Traditional karate people are always asking questions, not just accepting—they are seekers. We don’t just come to karate classes for adults or kids karate classes to get a workout and to spar a little and have fun, even though we do work out hard and enjoy it; we constantly seek to understand the many physical and mental aspects of karate deeper, and through that, expand our limitations as human beings.
I think of my own experience: before I came to Sensei Nishiyama, I trained hard three hours a day, doing 300 repetitions of at least 4 to 5 basic techniques, and sparred a lot. Then, when I arrived at Sensei Nishiyama’s Shotokan karate dojo, I am thankful that after the first class he handed me a white belt and told me, “Step by step, understand.” I realized that all this hard training had acquired many bad habits. In the first year at Sensei’s dojo, I trained 5–6 hours a day only to undo those bad habits. Now I understand that without Sensei Nishiyama’s guidance, I would not discover karate principles even in five lifetimes.
We are lucky that each generation can be fed with the experience of previous generations and build upon it to reach further levels. Whether in kids karate classes or karate classes for adults, we must be willing, patient, and open to receive.