Never expecting anything in return from students apart from training hard and consistently, I was pleasantly surprised by the invite to a thank you dinner last night - gesture much appreciated. As the night progressed, more and more karate and training talk came up. Me being me, suggested we have post-dinner training there and then. At first this student seemed a little hesitant or maybe ashamed that their “dojo” was only a small space in the garage with very limited lighting – comparable to training under street lights. If anything, I’d be more worried about the quality of beverage selection for their ‘sensei’ 😊 for the night. So, a dark, dingy dungeon for karate, who cares as long as one is training and not relying merely on attending the dojo to practice.
Anyway, an informal session kicked off executing and refining techniques and before we knew it, an hour had already been spent on just the one kata alone. To be able to focus on one thing and only the one thing where you are so deeply entrenched in whatever it is you are doing at the time, where the outside world is forgotten, where it’s just you and the kata - What a fulfilling sense it is. It's as if you become the kata as if it were a tangible – if that even makes sense. To be able to enter that zone is such a beautiful thing. Hopefully your training and karate makes you feel the same way too.
