Karate-Woe
There is a fair amount of infighting going on the organisation John and I joined last week. However, that is nothing new. Of course we would have liked to stay with our old organisation (and preferably with our old club) but there is not exactly a choice in the wider Tadley area, and what matters is the training.
Nothing else.
It did feel good to move like that again. For two days afterwards, every individual muscle in our upper bodies ached, including tiny, little ones which I never knew existed, around the sternum and armpit. This after a single beginner’s session with just a few basic punches. It means we still have it! However, for training with the hard, full-on school of karate (as ‘Go Kan Ryu’ could be translated) we got off lightly. I have had some hard, full-on training in the past, and I’m not refering to kumite (sparring).
I thought the club was friendly, the students sincere. Personally, I would have liked to whip one of the intermediate grades a bit more into shape, but you get slackers at that level. However, I was not so sure about the ‘sempai’ assisting the class. His belt looked black, with a white stripe. Was he a provisional shodan? Surely not. The belt was awfully dark, but perhaps it was a very dark brown and he was a senior kyu grade, like us.
After the session, I grazed the forums a bit. Turns out that the belt is indeed black-and-white and is worn by assistant instructors or sempais. I wondered why they don’t just wear their own grade. Everywhere I have trained before, higher grades routinely help out. In fact, I could see doing that myself, once they get over the fact that we are not really white-belts, but flunked Shotokan shodans. (Wearing a white belt when training in a different style is seen as polite. Personally, and from the looks we were getting, I think it is intimidating, so I’m enjoying it! )
Apparently, senior GKR students are often approached to join the ‘sempai program’ which imeans special instructor-training. Even though wearing a separate belt still looks silly to me, this sounds like a thoroughly good idea. These students will have had three or more years of stringent training behind them and know their stuff pretty well. Having carefully trained assistant-instructors (sempai really means ‘senior student’) stands the organisation—the most commercialised of any I have seen—in good stead.
Then I came across claims that they slap a black-and-white belt onto 8th kyus (yellow) after 3 months basic training. Surely not? Here’s what the website has to say: ‘Experience is not essential ‘. It is true. You can join GKR as a trainee instructor with no experience in the martial arts and get yourself an NVQ in karate, or something.
I’m beginning to believe a bit more of what I’m reading in the forums.
The senseis (‘master’ or ‘teacher’, full instructors), do not reveal their real grade to the class. Some of them are below shodan (!) and it is considered ‘disrespectful’ to ask. Why? I have never come across this. In fact, our former Sensei, whom we respect deeply, calls himseld ‘desperate Dan’ because he never bothered to grade higher than first dan, and who cares? It’s not a secret. But he is a shodan. I am not, and I don’t teach at that level. Other than that, I don’t give a stuff about peoples grades. I can tell from the way they move.
As for the ‘Self Defence Consultants (GKR door-to-door salespeople), this is the guy who signed us up, and he made a hell of a good impression. Unsurprisingly, he trained outside GKR, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t good people in it.
We are there to train. Anything else is entertainment value.
Tags: Tadley Times, Tag Index
Denni