December 7, 2019

At the age of thirteen there was nothing I wanted more than to have the karate technique of Hirokazu Kanazawa. At that time, it was considered in certain circles that Kanazawa Sensei had the most immaculate technical karate skill. There is a youthful purity in wanting to do something more than anything else at such an early age. It is imbued with divine inspiration. I’m sure many can remember when that moment struck — the moment you wanted to do karate more than anything else. I would spend hours looking over photographs of the great Kanazawa Sensei and then attempt to bend my body into a similar shape. It got to the point that as a young adult running my dojo, folks visiting from overseas who had trained with Kanazawa Sensei would comment that I must have been a student of the master due to the similar look. At the time, I found it very complementary.

Then something happened when I turned thirty. For some reason my whole approach began to change and what was unique to Kanazawa Sensei did not seem to necessarily apply to me anymore. I was a bit befuddled. I even felt a little lost but not to a point of desperation, rather interestingly to a point of inspiration. My karate began to change in subtle ways that were not necessarily out of conscious design but on a deeper, more subconscious level. Driven by my personal inquiry and life experience, my outward physical karate was becoming a manifestation of an inward soulful journey.

I have often thought that for karate to be truly viable in society it has to offer real solutions to what ails the culture at a particular point in time. In other words, it must be a zeitgeist. A very simple example would be that karate practice can offer self-defense in times of turbulence or a journey of self-discovery in times of peace, and this ability to remedy a situation is the power of its design. In a similar vein, karate must offer real solutions to the development of the individual for a personal practice to be truly meaningful. Each individual has a unique circumstance of strengths and weaknesses that are addressed via an honest internal dialogue that guides a challenging personal inquiry/practice. Ideally for karate to be personally viable each must walk their own unique path, and in the truth of that “way”, find their own karate — the “outward manifestation of an inward journey”. This is the catalyst of authenticity. In other words, this is the personal zeitgeist. Today, I still deeply respect and admire the great Kanazawa Sensei and his wonderful technique. However, my karate is now completely different…

…as it should be.