Youth and Kobudo

 

When I became a brown belt studying with Charles Murray, one of the ways he prepared me was to ‘shove’ the Isshinryu kobudo kata into me. Almost everything, most of which were not sho-day test requirements. Then I reached Shodan and he shoved the last form into me.

 

By shove I mean he taught kata after kata. And we were training together 3-4-5 times a week and about ½ the time was devoted to kata practice. What I did not know that he was returning to the USAF as a career choice, and that was the completion of my Isshinryu kubudo instruction for life.

 

As for bo, when he trained on Okinawa, he was goju folks practicing kobudo, and they were using bo’s 2” think, So when I bought my first bo, I got one with an extremely heavy, dense wood, It became the bo I trained with 90% of my time, My father surprised me with 2 hand carved bo as a present, they were what I used for competition, but it would take a week to recondition my grip to use them in competition.  I also trained with heavy sai and tonfa.

 

So I practiced repeatedly, I competed in tournaments only to force me to work. I did get mixed up on occasion. This was before books, movies, the internet and all the rest. I remember one time beginning one bo form, and finishing with another form. They had sections with similar movements, and it only took an instant to get mixed up and shift into the other form. There was nobody to question what was right, It took a week of very hard work to straighten the forms out.

 

Now I began teaching youth through the Scranton Boys Club (and my program was the first to admit young women there too.)

 

No one was guiding me. No one cared about how I did. Nor was I looking for others opinions about my program.

 

While I was attending tournaments, the youth I was training at that time were not going.

Just as I was trained,  they were being focused on the empty hand studies of Isshinryu.

 

But at the tournaments I attended, there were youth kobudo divisions. They performed well, but were not using full sized weapons. Instead smaller bo, sai or nunchaku, and some were using other weapons. I realized why, young bodies no matter how trained, did not possess adult muscle and fiber to handle full strength weapons.

 

Of course it did not bother me, for I was not teaching young people any weapons.

 

My decisions are my own, I am just explaining why I made my choices, Others can and did do as they wish.

 

After a few years several youth did go to those tournaments, and with their parents.

Afterwards their parents separately asked to meet with me. Then they questioned why their kids were not being trained in weapons so they could compete in that too.

 

I explained first, remember unlike those schools charging fees for that additional instruction, I was teaching for free.

 

Second, I only was teaching in the order I was taught, I had no intention of doing otherwise.

 

Third, I only permitted the students to train with me 2 hours a week, believing they had far more important things to do than just train in karate. Serious training in weapons would mean increasing that training time by a serious amount. Something I would not do.

 

Four, on an instinctive level I had no interest in training young folks to strike into others bodies with sticks.

 

That was the first time I verbalized my thoughts on the matter.

 

Others could do as they wished, but this was how I saw things.

 

A few years later I hosted 3 open youth tournaments, for a $5.00 fee. And I did have youth weapons divisions, for I understood the reality of the world. But my students did not compete in them.

 

Personally again along the way, I did learn several weapon studies which would seriously work for self defense. But never did teach them to youth.

 

Just before I moved away from Pennsylvania I had occasion to judge in a youth weapons division. There was one young man who moved around well with a sword. But I noticed the score a friend, who was in serious sword study, gave him a score of 1.

 

Afterwards I approached him. “I noted the score you gave him You know a great deal more about sword than I do, What was he doing wrong.” 

He thought a minute, evaluating what I was asking and then responded, “First he was not using a sword, but a aluminum replica of one, most likely not to cut himself. And the way he returned his sword to his case was very wrong, What he was doing if the blade was live, would cause him to cut his fingers off.”  I learned a great deal from that exchange, Both what I did not know and learned something new to look for.

 

Now in many of the youth kobudo kata I watched they were using fake weapons. A favorite one was pretend kama, with fake blades. Kids looked so cute to mom and dad doing those forms Of course what mom and dad were paying  for that instruction, was to teach their kids to slice kama into others bodies. Fake or not, the reality of what they were studying.

 

I moved to New Hampshire. Among the first things I did was to attend New England tournaments to observe the level of competition.

 

At one of those tournaments in Methuen, Mass. I watched a teen kobudo division. The winner of first place danced around with a kintana (with a fake blade). And the judges gave him the win, and if the blade had been live his fingers would be missing. That said a lot about what was being taught some places, and said more about what the judges did not know.

 

When I restarted training youth, again for free through the Derry Boys and Girls Club, I expanded my kata curricula with supplemental kata studies. I also found that it took 7 to 9 years for the young to reach sho-dan with the program. At brown belt they did learn one weapons form, But at that time they were no longer young.

 

As for my entire program I shifted Kobudo to a dan study.

 

I had developed experience that true kobudo instruction, for me, was a force enhancer that developed more power for the adult over decades of study. 

Most of those studies were most important to develop adult power. Some of the studies were more serious in nature. And that training was restricted to those that proved they were ready for more serious studies.

 

I see karate as first a way to share with everyone they CAN learn through their own efforts.

Most students only stay 2 of 3 years, moving on long before they get into advanced studies. But sharing with them they CAN learn on their own, a more powerful life lesson that lasts for life. When the student develops enough power, then it is time to move into weapons studies. The brown belt gets a taste. Much more later if the choose to continue to train.

 

Everyone crafts their program to meet their own vision. Whether they are following a more traditional model or other wise. This is the same around the world.

 

I just followed those standards I believed in.