Touch and Empowerment

Values As The Bottom Line: The Art of Teaching Everyday Warriors

Touch and Empowerment

Jill Baker Shames, El HaLev, Israel

This is for the many martial arts instructors I have worked with who place VALUES EDUCATION at the top of their teaching agendas. Because of my work at El HaLev, many of you have asked me for tips on how to incorporate empowerment, especially women's empowerment, into your curricula.

Want to start changing someone’s life in less than 10 seconds? Try this.

Let's say,  assuming you have already developed enough gender/body type sensitivity NOT to always choose the biggest bruiser in your class, that you choose a young lady or woman in your class as your partner to help you demonstrate a wrist grab, shoulder grab, bear hug, shirt grab, arm bar, etc. 

What would happen if before you touch her… you ASKED HER FOR PERMISSION? That’s right. I said “ASK”, as in “May I…?”

Surprised? She probably will be too. And possibly a little uncomfortable, given that it is unlikely that anyone in this youngster’s/woman’s life has ever asked her for permission to touch her--- not her parents, not her doctor, not her boyfriend, not even her female friends.

And when you see that mystified look in her eyes, or in the faces of her classmates, that’s when you get that incredible teaching moment: “Susan /Desiree/Mei Li, your body belongs to you. You have the right to decide who touches you, when and how. No one, not even Sensei/Master/Sifu gets to touch you if you don’t want him/her to. May I?”

If she tests you by saying “no”, just bow (or do whatever you do for courtesy) and find another demonstration partner. But don’t worry; she will almost always will say “yes”… with a smile (and an eye roll if she’s between the ages of 11-15). And then everything goes according to the usual script… except  for one thing. You have planted a seed.

I know some of you are saying that that is not how things are done in the martial arts. That is not what your teacher did with you (big surprise!) and, heck, that is certainly not how an assault happens.

Right. That is the point. This is not an assault. This is an exercise. You are teaching this student and everyone within earshot that one of the discernible signs of an impending assault is the sense that the person you are dealing with has no respect for your boundaries. 

You have given this student the power to say “No” even to you, a "superpower" in day-to-day life more powerful than any punch, kick or choke they will ever learn. 

And in helping them find their boundaries and defend them, you are also giving your students the ability to say “Yes!” with a whole heart and a composed mind.

So if you really want to" touch" your students in a way that could make a real difference in their lives, then, to quote the 90’s country phenomenon Shania Twain:

If you wanna touch her
Really wanna touch her
If you wanna touch her, ask!

Now, make it a habit.

*By the way, this works just as well on male students. It teaches both male and female students an important lesson about the limits of authority: theirs and those of everyone else in their lives.

Dishing It Out with Sensei Uri Wolff

Sensei Uri Wolff "dishing it out"

I can't believe that it's already been a week since I had the pleasure of attending the dojo opening of my "Dojo Brother" Sensei Uri Wolff. Uri has been teaching for several years. I have attended two of his previous openings. 


However, this one, the most understated of them all, was also, for me, the most meaningful.  I expect it is because this one represented the greatest change in Uri's karate life. This is the one marking his setting aside other pursuits and dedicating himself to teaching martial arts full-time. This dojo is the doorway to his dream.


Uri's workouts are always... workouts. While I and my students use our training time for training and save our physical "workouts" for other times, Uri runs two-hour classes. 
This allows him to integrate the two, much as our (un)common instructor, Sensei Michael Rosati did and does. 


Hundreds of pushups, jumping jacks and kihon (basics like punching and kicking) later, the lesson really begins. This one was devoted to Yakusoku Kumite (Prearranged sparring). I really enjoy working out with Uri's students, especially his senior students, who are happy to have someone to work with who "dishes it out" and enjoys "taking it" as much as they do. 


Uri's prearranged fighting sequences are probably 5-6 steps longer than any I have ever seen. For example, first the Opponent tries to punch you. So you block, punch to the center, hit him on the head as you go past, throw in an elbow for good measure, wrap your arm around the attacking limb, bring the head down, knee, change direction, take down, throw in a kick while you're at it.... I should ask for a Users Manual at the beginning of class and just following along to see which juicy targets might be on the menu for the evening.


I am about 2/3s Uri's height. My arms and legs are barely half his in length. This discrepency in body type gives me an excellent vantage point for testing out the practicality of Uri's multivariate karate applications. Some of his techniques are a bit of a stretch for me, but most are exceedingly practical. The only thing that is impractical for me is remembering them.


Whenever I mention my self-diagnosed "age-based disability" to Uri, he smiles and says: "You just need to come more often". And that is exactly what I intend to do.

SMILE: This Too Is Karate

This past week, I have had the pleasure of working out on both Thursday and on Monday with several of my students. The holidays tend to lure people home. And our dojo is a kind of home. Most of my students have been with me for at least 8 years. Some of them as many as 15. The atmosphere is familiar: warm, chatty, plenty of inside jokes and smiles. 


There have been times in the past in which I missed the "edge" of a more formal training environment-- the performance pressure and rapid-fire challenge. But working out alone is, surprisingly, something of a pressure cooker. Working out with others is a welcome hiatus from the scrutiny, responsibility and discipline of going up to the training floor with me, myself and I.


I learned long ago the power of smiling. At Sensei Rosati's dojo, we would do endless Jumping Jacks and interminable sit-ups. I quickly discovered that the best remedy for the uncertainty and discomfort was to smile. The longer it went on, the more I smiled and the more I smiled, the easier it got.


Since that time, I have read scientific studies that support my experience. While everyone knows that happiness brings smiles, it seems that the reverse is also true: smiling, just the physical act of activiting those hundreds of tiny facial muscles used in the act of smiling, appears to stimulate happiness.


In my running practice, now transformed into something of a Chi Running practice, I find the same effect. I enjoy. I smile. I smile and the world seems to light up around me. And I enjoy even more. Relaxing is easier. Breathing is easier. My last run was so enjoyable, in fact, that I skipped over my 30 second walking intervals and just ran. For the joy of it.


So, was it the smile that brought out the joyous energy or the joy that produced the smile? I know what my teacher George Donahue would say. 


Whenever I ask him if *this* or *that* is the correct position for a stray hand or foot, he inevitably answers: "Well... It depends." "Then, which way should I practice it?" I unfailingly ask. "Both," he inevitably replies.


Both.

This, Too, Is Karate...

The very first day I started learning karate, my teacher, Sensei Michael J. Rosati, told me something I have never forgotten. He said that learning karate would change the way I do everything... the way I walked, the way I drove my car, everything.


I had no idea how right he was.


Today's workout was running, not strictly a Martial Arts workout. However, I took the suggestion of one of you readers out there and bought the book Chi Running by Danny Dreyer. Essentially the book is based on principles and practices the author developed from applying what he learned practicing Tai Chi to his running. It advertises itself as "Effortless and Injury-Free Running". From what i can tell, that is right on the money.


I was not surprised but certainly pleased to find out how consistent his approach is with what I know about good body mechanics from my practice of karate, both from my many years with Sensei Rosati and from my more recent work as part of Kishaba Juku.


The lessons here are so many and varied, I expect I will be writing about them for a long time. But let's begin with the idea of form and alignment.


Maintaining an upright posture is central to Chi Running. It is a cornerstone of both seated and moving meditation. And, in karate, it is the foundation from which all movement flows. As I was running, I was concentrating on maintaining good form, engaging core muscles and larger muscle groups, relaxing smaller muscles I didn't need to perform the task at hand. The fact that running is a simple set of natural movements gave me plenty of opportunity to scan my form: shoulders relaxed, head up but chin tilted slightly forward, elbows back, core engaged, etc. 


The two things that were the most challenging for me were making sure I landed midfoot and keeping my calf muscles relaxed. Since i like to run in 1 minute Run/30 seconds Walk intervals, I used my 30 second Walk breaks to shake out my muscles and keep them as relaxed as possible.


Of course, I couldn't resist the temptation to experiment a bit. Once in a while, I would contract my back muscles somewhat more and slightly release my abdominal muscles to create what KJ practitioners might call a forward-directed arch. Arches in the body store and direct power. Did it work for Chi Running? You betcha. Which just goes to prove the truth of two of my favorite things to say in class: "Good body mechanics is good body mechanics " and "What works... works". Apparently, I have a gift for stating the obvious.


All in all, it was a wonderful run. Just as the book promised, I didn't feel as if I worked as hard physically as I usually do and my breathing was natural all the way, even though a few times I chose to keep running through my 30 second Walking breaks, just to see how it would feel. Piece o' cake.


And, of course, it was an excellent exercise in moving meditation, as is just about anything we do when we focus without judgement on our what is happening in our bodies.


The real challenge will be learning how to bring that non-judgmental attitude, often called "Beginner's Mind" from my running and my meditation back to my karate practice.


Fortunately, Sensei Rosati was also right about something else he said that very first day. He said: "Don't worry. You have a lifetime to learn this."


It might very well take me a lifetime, but no worries. I plan on squeezing out every sweet drop of it.

That's What Friends Are For

Last night I managed to practice some of the techniques I have been working on from the kata Wanshu--- while I was walking my dog. How I did that is a testament to the patience of our pets :-).


Tonight, when I actually had time to concentrate on my workout, I decided to continue working on my Bo Swing and spend more time on Wanshu. 


I was going to work out alone but, fortunately, one of my students decided to join me. It turned out to be a wonderful reminder of some of the advantages of working out with others whenever possible:


1) Another set of eyes and ears: As many times as I have gone through the video I have been using to sharpen my performance of Wanshu, I don't see all the details or retain all the details. What a pleasure it is to have another set of eyes and ears picking up on details that have alluded me!


2) Another memory bank: When I brought up the issue of adding Poking Power to my Bo swing and showed my student what I was working on, he recalled a lesson with visiting Kishaba Juku practitioner Chris Walton in which Chris had him working on keeping his elbows bent in and closer to his center. Viola! Just the ticket to getting the extra juice I need to add the poke without losing momentum from the swing! When I think of how long it might have taken me to figure that out by myself...


So, in case this hasn't been clear from the start, I don't romanticize working out alone. It does have some advantages and, knowing you can continue to advance on your own, is important to staying in practice even when the vicissitudes of life make attending classes difficult or impossible. And, yes, sometimes figuring things out on your own makes a deeper, more lasting impression than learning them from someone else.


But, over and above time efficiency (amen!), there is a special joy in sharing this particular obsession with others, a joy that has probably been part of the warrior experience since the beginning. A joy and a reassurance that, if this be insanity, at least I'll have company in the asylum.


And then, of course, it's always nice to have someone else to hit.

Pokeless in Rehovot

Chogi Kishaba- Armed & dangerous

For unknown reasons, I entered into the new week with a desire to practice. Unusual. Generally, the end of a restful Shabbat brings out the restlessness in me. My running shoes go on and off I go. Tonight, my gi pants went on and up I went, a woman with a mission.

Starting with Naihanchi, I went through all my kata, loosening the arms, tightening the lats and activating the hikite. An experiment that is typically Kishaba Juku: How does it affect my body mechanics? What practical advantages does it have? What problems does it raise? 


And typically mindfulness meditation: How does it feel? And noticing how easy is it to forget to pay attention whenever the mind begins to wander.


I was on a roll, so I figured, why not get into my weapons kata as well? I had spent some time in the Fall, working on Sai but I hadn't swung a Bo staff with any seriousness since my visit to George Donahue in August. 


That was when I discovered a fundamental fault in my Yamane-ryu Bo swing. No poke.


Bo has never been my forte. It was my first weapon and certainly the one with which I have the most experience. And the most frustration. After more than 20 years of swinging the bo, I have picked up a few things, but have had no real sense of making progress. I know a few kata. I have gotten better at impressing people who don't know what they are looking for. However, whenever I swing the bo for one of my teachers, I get that "where-shall-I-begin" look and instructions to keep practicing. 


This time was different. This time George was able to point out something very specific that I was doing wrong. Something I could work on. No poke in the swing. That is, I was cutting the air as if I was swinging a sword, as if my goal was to strike my opponent where the neck meets the shoulder. However, I was not stabbing in, as if I intended to skewer him through the throat as well. 


It took me a while to understand what he wanted. When I understood, I was struck by the fact that this striking-blocking-stabbing concept was exactly parallel to the way I had been taught to strike-block in empty-handed karate when I switched from doing straight Shorin-ryu Matsubayashi to the body-mechanics oriented Shorin-ryu Kishaba-Juku.


My demons wasted no time stirring me up. How could I have missed something so fundamental for so long?  And when I tried to make the change that August day, I found the older habit so ingrained, it was nearly impossible for me to even imitate the new movement.


And why hadn't I noticed it before?


Switch back to tonight. Maybe it was the restfulness of the day. Or the sense of accomplishment I had from practicing my other kata. Or the relaxation of inhibitions that comes after a workout. 


But I worked on my bo swing by striking at the heavy bag, poking the letters printed on it and drawing back into a block. And then I worked on my kata, letting myself forget the details of the moves but forcing myself to poke when I struck. 


I found that the physical issue was not as daunting as the conceptual one. I thought I understood the strike; I thought I simply wasn't doing it right. It turned out that I never understood the strike at all.


Over the years, I had worked on speed, on looseness, on the elliptical throw. The poke, stabbing into the target in the middle of the strike, meant everything else would have to change. But change to what? 


However, at least for one night, I gave up the pursuit of perfection for the satisfaction of investing in change. Can I strive to make a change in my way of being, at least with the bo, and be satisfied merely with that?


For one night, apparently so. The rest of eternity will have to wait, at least until tomorrow.

Beginner's Mind, Eureka Addiction and Naihanchi

Slowly, very slowly, my voice has been returning and, with it, my strength and ability to concentrate and work out. Interestingly, running came back to me much more easily than karate. Running is a much harder physical workout but it requires very little mental or emotional investment. I have managed to sustain a healthy relationship with it so far. Any effort feels worthwhile.

Karate, on the other hand, is an art form and one in which I invested a great deal. So I have expectations. 

For example, my expectations of my students are that they show up and make an effort. That they be respectful and honest. And that when it is time for them to move on, that they will have the integrity and confidence to look me in the eye and say goodbye. 

I used to think that was not a lot to ask. I have learned that it is.

As for myself, I am still trying to figure out what my expectations are. All I know is that they are high. High enough that I often have to drag myself up to the dojo to practice. With no colleagues to hide among and no students to teach, I'm all alone there on the dojo floor. Me, my perfectionism and I.

Lesson #1: Beginner's Mind is NOT... avoiding practice knowing you'll always fall short of your own expectations.

This week I had the privilege of substituting for one class of a Karate/ Martial Arts Instructor Course. The Head Instructor asked me to teach about my style. Once i accepted, it didn't take long for the demons to catch up with me. 

How could I possibly represent my style? All I could do was run mental clips of George Donahue, Paris Janos, and Chris Walton, not to mention Shinzato-sensei and think: "Look at that. I can't do that. I'm still a Beginner (6-7 years later); how can I show them anything?"

After far too much time worrying,  I finally got to teach the class: relaxed, enjoyable. No problem. 

I started with a little history of Okinawan karate to help them understand the context of the art, in particular how it is related to Shotokan karate, the style most of them represent. We ran through some concepts: moving from and through the center, koshi, Figure 8s, arches, compression, torque... and did some exercises that play with those concepts. And I threw some of Sensei Rosati's Yakusoku Kumite at the end, just for fun. 

In other words, there are, in fact, some things that I know and some things I can do. I don't know them or do them nearly as well as my teachers, but I still have plenty to show to people who either don't do them at all or haven't had the opportunity to focus on them as I have.

Lesson #2: Beginner's Mind is NOT.... insisting that you still don't know anything.

So, today, I was ruminating about what to practice. That's Something you don't have to worry about when you run--- Just turn on the music and run. And it's something you don't have to worry about when you go to class. Someone else does the worrying for you. When I finally managed to skirt around all the obstacles I threw in my path and got upstairs to practice, I decided to practice Naihanchi. And Naihanchi. And Naihanchi. And Naihanchi....Over and over again.

Not my first kata. Not my fanciest kata. Not even a wall-to-wall run-through of all of my kata. Just the one kata that, according to Kishaba Juku, serves as the basis for rediscovering and revitalizing them all.

I think I  may know what I am looking for every time I climb those stairs up to the dojo. I'm looking for a mini-epiphany. I have had so many of them since I began to practice Kishaba Juku that I am thoroughly addicted. I expect at least one every time I practice. Totally unreasonable. What teacher could possibly meet an expectation like that? And, because I am alone, the teacher that I expect to be that brilliant every time s/he steps on the deck...is me.

So, I have plenty of meditation and spiritual practice ahead on taming my Ego. Tormenting myself doesn't seem to work. Neither does selling myself short...

And, about that epiphany? Yeah. I had one. Something about the looseness of the arms, the snap it creates and changing directions. I've already started worrying about whether I'll be able to remember what it was next time I practice.

Addiction-1, Reasonable expectations-0. And counting.