Stepping Out

  

My personal training in Isshinryu began in the dojo, but as the years passed more and more I found myself training and teaching outside.

 

When I began teaching in Scranton, the Boys Club was not open over the summers. So I took my class to McDade park outside Scranton and held weekly classes there. We had class on the grass. There was a small bridge over a culvert for rainy times and I used that for students to practice Chinto kata. Or we did kata on the steep hillsides of the part. And at times we went into the park woods to practice kata.

 

Wherever I went on vacations camping I would practice in the campgrounds. When I traveled to business meetings I would awake early to practice kata outside in the parking lots all over the nation.

 

When adult program began in Derry, as the Boys and Girls Club there was closed Saturday mornings over the summer, Saturday morning  adult class would be held in the yard outside my house. Lots of grass, hillside to train on, and many other locations for more diverse outdoor locations.

 

I used to have a lot of shade trees behind my house. But they were weak fast growing trees planted by the original owner. As storms past many of the ‘broke’ meaning I had to have them removed. That still left many trees on my property.

 

For many summers we would hold an overnight karate camp class in my back yard. Being able to practice karate in my back yard for them, midnight ninja games of tag or hind and seek and many other experiences. Sure they had fun but also experienced their karate in a different way too.

 

 

One time when a tree was taken down, the stump was left on the back yard behind my house, to stay there for a time. We used to practice standing Sanchin kata on that stump.

 

Another time, another tree, when it was take down the trunk were cut into one foot sections. I moved them to the end of my drive way and lined them up.  6 of those tree trunk sections all lined in a row. That made for an interesting place to practice Naifanchi kata, walking on them.

 

Then there was a narrow path near my house with large bushes at each side, That made for a perfect place to practice Chinto kata. To do the form and remain as close as possible to the center of the path. If you were off you ended up going off into the bushes.

 

 

But as we got older we moved those early morning classes inside the Boys and Girls Club, never forgetting the lessons working outside taught us.

 

I like to think that when I did those things that perhaps I was touching an older Okinawan tradition of training outside

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