By Allan
So I was finishing up training last night and was talking to the other Karateka about taking notice of small details. Here's my little story.
After my first visit to Okinawa, I realised there were three things I wanted to do. The first was to go back as soon as I could. The second was to take my mate Craig with me (Terry wasn't in Brisbane at that time..was living in Japan), and lastly I wanted some advice from someone who had a lot of experience training in Okinawa - advice on making sure I don't stuff up my opportunity to be part of a dojo (well two dojos actually - a Goju ryu Karate dojo and a Matayoshi Kobudo dojo). So I tackled the last thing first.
After making contact via e-mail then phone (I think ... it was some time ago now), Craig and I travelled to Tasmania to train with Mike Clarke sensei. Before we started our second training session, he mentioned that, after cleaning the dojo floor following our first training, one of us had hung the broom up the wrong way around.
What a strange thing to mention you might be thinking. He had made a point to tell us to leave things exactly as we found them. To be honest, I had not ever thought about a right or wrong to hang a broom from a hook on the wall before. Of course, it wasn't really about the broom was it? I was a bit too stupid to realise it at that time.
We tackled the first and second things on my list six months later, with Craig and I going to Okinawa to visit the Minei Karate dojo and Gaja sensei's Shubukan. Not on that visit, but a trip or two later, we were leaving the dojo one day and Craig nudged me, saying to watch Tokimitsu sensei. Sensei was heading out the door first, and, as he was leaving, he reached into the shoe rack and put Craig and my footwear down onto the genkan facing outwards so that we could slip them onto our feet easily as we left. Soon after I noticed leaving a restaurant, he turned someone's thongs around from facing inwards to outwards.
Now these small gestures may be second nature to people in Okinawa or Japan, but to a white boy from Brisbane it was something new. Mike Clarke sensei's lesson about paying attention to all the little details has been an important one. (Note, I didn't make the connection between the broom and the things straight away, I am not that sharp. It tooka while for the penny to drop). As an outsider going to Okinawa there are many small things that are not said because they are probably obvious to an Okinawan. I have since had the misfortune of seeing many foreigners miss small details, not even realising what they are doing may be causing offence. All because they are not paying attention to their own behaviour and not paying attention to what is going on around them.
Of course, it's not just about social faux pas, if you pay attention to all the small details in the dojo, you'll probably accelerate the improvement of your technique too. Karate is more than punching and kicking, it's also about how to store your cleaning products.
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