Sean falls down

As 2020 comes to a close, we look at words that had almost no meaning in 2019. Words like: Coronavirus, COVID, pandemic, and Zoom. Schools that would never entertain the idea of teaching martial arts online (our dojo included) found themselves clinging to Zoom as a lifeline to keep their students involved and their dojo alive.

I did a final one-on-one Zoom session with Sean yesterday. He was in his bedroom, wearing street clothes (including socks), and practicing Tekki Sho. His stance was a little wide, and his feet slipped out from under him. One moment I saw him, and the next moment he disappeared below camera view. He climbed right back up and commented that his socks caused him to slip. I said he slipped because his stance was too wide. He didn’t believe me, so I put on a pair of socks and demonstrated Tekki Sho without loss of balance. I then explained the following to him:

There is a difference between low stance and deep stance. Young, agile, athletic martial artists should be in a low stance. This lowers their center of gravity, stabilizing them, and knocking their opponent off balance. Older martial artists learn to deepen their stance by dropping their hips. They may not be as low as the young, but should be just as solid in stance. Most people can appear lower by leaning forward or spreading their legs too long/wide. Yes they appear low, but they’re unsteady.

Regardless of age, or stance, your bent knee should be directly over your foot. Unnecessary strain is placed on the knees if legs are not perpendicular to the ground. This will probably cause knee damage down the road. Many of us old timers trained in extremely low stances with knees and feet misaligned. Many of us old timers also underwent knee and hip replacements. We train smarter nowadays, working with body mechanics instead of against them.

I'll often ask students what is the root word for 'stance'. The answer is 'stand'. I'll then tell them, in Karate, the proper way to stand is to drop your butt and sit down!

Clean, crisp techniques

A few of our students entered online tournaments the past few months. While I applaud their efforts and commend them for competing in these difficult COVID times, I couldn’t say I was impressed by their performances. Not trying to be mean or overly judgmental, but simply recognizing that they performed better in the past.

Then I thought about it – We haven’t been in the dojo since March 16th. We’ve been working out in street clothes, wearing shoes, outside on concrete or indoors on carpeting, marble floors, or wood floors. Balance, shifting, and footwork is not the same. We cannot spar or work ippons. Almost all of our techniques have suffered, so why bother? We’ve essentially been treading water, waiting for social distancing restrictions to lift and we get back to regular training. Once we’re back to “normal” we shouldn’t be too far out of practice.

I then watched the other competitors’ videos. They did not particularly impress me either. Worldwide, techniques have suffered. While talking to other martial artists, two particular words kept coming up: Clean and Crisp. A non-martial arts friend asked me to describe clean and crisp. I had difficulty putting the ideas into words; I just know it when I see it.

I admire our students for training and progressing slowly (or at least not falling behind). It gives me hope that we will improve rapidly with clean, crisp movements once normalcy returns.