Reflections on 25 Years in Karate

Back in 1997 it occurred to me that with so many different experiences in my near 25 years of training and teaching, perhaps I should record them to be able to refer to those experiences in the future. I had learned a long time before the value of creating notes of my training. Because it is said if you don’t write it down it didn’t happen. And I had notebooks filled with what I had learned and seen.

 

So I began to write and write and write. The completed document was 86 pages long, with an appendix about those who I had trained with. In effect I had written a book.

 

I did review what I typed, manually correcting some things, correcting typos and grammatical errors to some extent.

Then set it aside not looking at it again till now.

 

I find it a fair summation of what I went through, why, how and my opinions on many things.

 

It was not written for others to see, that being so I could be more honest of my opinions about what I experienced.

 

At one level I don’t need this, after all I went through all of this. But as the experiences added up, as the kata/forms learned increased, etc. it is helpful to put all of what happened in the actual time context for my sanity.

 

Of course there are many details that are not there. An example of one of them follows.

 

For example one night with Tristan Sutrsno he was teaching us how to walk silently in a forest ( something he acquired in Indonesia ) to step and not break a twig underfoot. Then to flow your weight on the front foot after ensuring nothing breakable was underneath. Something not normally in karate instruction anyplace I have trained.

But more strange I had already been trained in the process. That training came from the tai chi walking practice taught to me by Ernest Rothrock. The manner of stepping in tai chi was identical to what Tristan was showing.
 

I did not explain that to him, just focused on doing it as he was shown.

 

Over the subsequent years I have not had the need to show my students this. But the memory remains bright.

 

Taking the time to record what one has done can be useful to oneself in the future.

 

And what you don’t take the time to record, why then it may not have happened.