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.