What’s Going On?

Hi Folks. From time to time people come to visit our training sessions at the Buntingford Karate Club, sometimes they are spies from other clubs (whom I usually spot as such within seconds of them arriving) but more often than not they are other Martial Artists, usually with a Karate background who come to see what we do and how we do it.

The result is nearly always the same: they come and see me at the end of the two hours training and tell me that they don’t train like that and/or that they have never realised there was so much more. Often they are from clubs that just train at their grading syllabus, as if gaining a grade is the sole idea behind training – It Is Not!

Some years ago I worked with a guy who, like me, held a black belt in Shotokan Karate. He came in to work one morning with a black eye and some cuts about his face. I commented that it must have been a pretty tough training session and he said that it was nothing to do with training. He had come out of the underground at Harrow on his way home from work and got beaten up and mugged. I asked him if he had used his karate and if not why not? He told me that he did not know what to do!

In my club I teach formal Karate based on the Shotokan school but I also use a lot of street self defence techniques. Karate is, after all said and done, a form of self-defence. It’s all very well being able to produce perfect forms and great katas but if you get attacked you really should know how to defend yourself.

So, if you belong to a club that just teaches you how to pass a grade ask yourself “is this for me?”.

Sensei Bill.