Category: Feel Good Story

The title is a saying that Sensei always used to have. He’s always been a firm advocate of maintaining only one style and never branching out to anything else. Although I’ve always been prepared to agree that one needs to study consistently in one style in order to properly learn, I’ve always been of the opinion that one needs to allow oneself to at least TOUCH on other styles, other techniques and other training methods, in order to add some variety to one’s overall martial arts toolbox.

Over the years, I’ve had the opportunity to train with a variety of schools and dojos, learning what i could from different styles. After all, if the techniques you’ve practiced for decades don’t work in a specific situation, what would do? Give up? Let yourself be injured or killed? Doesn’t sound too ideal, to me. With that thought in mind, I’ve always been quite open to studying and training with other styles.

With that in mind, one of the biggest sore points in my training, especially in the past ten years, is the fact that I moved out to the Prairies for my job, which took me away from Sensei and his dojo. Although I’ve had some opportunities to train in other schools since then, I’ve been sitting at my current level for a very long time. Rank has never meant all that much to me. I believe that some white belts can have wisdom and skill that some black belts never achieve. Especially if you’re in a style/dojo that graduates black belts in two or three years.

But my thirst for knowledge never ends, and my ambition to climb stems not from wanting another gold bar on my black belt, but from wanting to learn new techniques and methods and to know the answer to that ultimate question that all dedicated students ask, at some point in their martial arts career: What’s next? It was the driving curiosity behind that question that had me set out to try and find a solution to promoting to my next level.

In 2019, I had a comprehensive conversation with Sensei about my training and how the flow of my life and career had gone. We agreed that it was unfortunate that I had spent the last decade out west, as I might have climbed a couple of ranks within that time. But he agreed that if I was willing to put in the time, money and frequent trips to New Brunswick to train, I could see my next rank within the next year or two. Then, we had a second child. Alexander was the unexpected blessing to our lives that would require an increased presence within my home and wouldn’t make it appropriate for me to be running across the country four or five times a year for the next two years. I had to adjust my plans.

In 2020, I started calculating ways to stabilize things so that I could make my continued learning possible. Just when I felt there might be a glimpse of hope in my efforts, COVID-19 struck and locked the world down in a way that hadn’t been seen since before my lifetime. I was once again at a standstill. I wanted to continue my training, but only if I could do so without having it be at the cost of my familial obligations and finances.

I recently found a school of Uechi Ryu karate in Alberta. Although it would be several hours’ drive, that would be far better than a few thousand dollars for a flight to New Brunswick and being away from my family for extended periods of time. I reached out to this dojo and asked what the thought might be on helping someone promote to their next degree. I’ve been in open exchange with the dojo since last week, and it will be interesting to see if this is the path that allows me to continue my black belt path in this style.

I often say that life rarely cares about one’s plans. I don’t really need to prove that statement. A look at how my life has turned out in the past three years is a documented testament to that very fact. Although Sensei may likely disapprove and believe that stepping into another dojo in this fashion may dilute the teachings that were imparted on me, I need to be realistic of the facts. Sensei has closed his dojo. He no longer teaches. Continuing on my journey with him would be contingent on conditions I may not be able to meet. But you can’t keep a good karateka down. It’ll be interesting to see where life takes me, in this respect. ☯

Last autumn, I decided to step up my at-home karate game by making and installing my own makiwara. You can read the post here, but I have to say that I was pretty proud of the accomplishment and I did get SOME use out of it before the winter hit and training outside was no longer optimal. My son Nathan was quite helpful with drilling the holes and installing the bolts that hold the 2×4 wooden planks together, as well as binding the cord and making it stable. Although many makiwaras are floor-mounted, I had no such place to appropriately install one. So Nathan and I dug a 3-foot deep hole at the corner of our backyard and placed the post into the hole, filling it with dirt and yellow clay.

In case you haven’t read the previous post (or any of the others where I’ve used the term makiwara), a makiwara is a hard, stable striking surface that’s usually made of wood. Depending on your style, background and training methods, they usually have a pad or designated striking area. In Okinawa, they usually scoff at the use of padding with preference for striking the bare, wooden surface. If you’ve ever seen photos of an Okinawan karate master’s knuckles, you know why this can be a problem. I built mine so that the top, striking area is wrapped in nylon cord. This allows for a harder striking surface than a punching bag, while preserving some of the bone structure in my hand.

Anyway, a couple of weeks ago I was in the middle of a rather spirited boxing circuit in my garage. It involved a full minute on the punching bag followed by 45 seconds on the makiwara. That was one set. I did this for 30 minutes in total with no breaks in between. Somewhere around the 15-minute mark, I was striking the makiwara and the entire post shifted sideways and the dirt and founding around the bottom collapsed. The next couple of punches basically had the makiwara bouncing up and down as I struck. I had uprooted my homemade striking post. It was now useless.

Because I’m not a big of giving up, I put some thought into how I could repair it and ensure the same thing wouldn’t happen again. Just to be clear, I’m no Hercules. I have no illusions that my strikes are so powerful that nothing can withstand them. But even though water is the softest stuff in the world, single drops will eventually penetrate stone, if continued on a consistent basis. I had to recognize that prolonged use of the makiwara would always result in some level of damage, in the long term. The question was how to prolong its existence.

Nathan and I went to a home improvement store and purchased a bag of “Post Haste” concrete. Basically, this stuff is designed to harden and set within half an hour. Perfect. We followed up with a trip to our local dollar store and bought a plastic, 10-galloon bucket to mix the concrete in. $8 for the concrete and $4 for the bucket. Probably one of my cheapest repair projects. We were good to go. Nathan was excited and was itching to help me repair the makiwara and wanted to be involved in all the steps. Great.

I started by removing the makiwara, which unfortunately came out of the ground far too easily. This spoke to how unstable I had it, in the first place. I then used a shovel to scoop out the excess dirt and yellow clay and set it aside. I followed the instructions on the bag and placed two litres of clean water in my bucket, followed by emptying the contents of the concrete bag into the water. I was surprised that the water came to the surface, displaced by the density of the cement powder. I used an old wooden staff to start mixing the concrete.

It was tougher than I thought and it started getting too dense to move the stick. I had Nathan add a bit of water to help with consistency but when the stick came free and moved, I splashed myself with concrete. All over my left leg and all on and in my sneaker. Bloody marvellous. I would need to hose all of that off before going inside, as I really didn’t want to try running concrete through my washing machine. It gave Nathan a laugh though, who was quick to comment, “Haha, Daddy messed up…” He’s such a GREAT helper!

Now that I had it mixed at least to some level of consistency I felt would work, I had Nathan hold the post wile I poured the cement mixture all around the post into the hole. It was rough going and didn’t pour nicely since it was so thick. I had to scoop it out with a small dowel and pat it down to ensure that it filled all the cracks and crevices within the hole. It also didn’t help that Nathan’s idea of holding the post steady included allowing it to slip at an angle every few moments. Kids…

Once I managed to get the concrete poured properly, the hole was filled almost to the top, which would be topped off with yellow clay at a later time once the concrete cured completely. Within about five minutes, the concrete had set and hardened enough that the post could stand on its own without being held. Despite having made a mess with the water and splashing myself with concrete, I had managed to repair the makiwara and it would only require some quick finishing touches once the concrete finished setting the following day.

As of yesterday, the makiwara seemed to be firmly in place, with the concrete doing its job and holding it strongly. I added the bracing to the rear and replaced the yellow clay over top the concrete. Although I have my eye injections today and didn’t have time to test it out, I can’t wait to reef on this bad boy and see how strong it’s become. At just $12, it was a much cheaper alternative than finding a different means of striking a stable surface. Only time will tell how long the repair, or the makiwara, will last. ☯