I'd Rather Be Training

I have had people asking me about why no martial arts posts for such a long time.
Frankly, I just get tired of posting. In the time it takes to write up a lengthy blog post,
I could have been training. Life is all about choices and priorities.
These days I would rather be doing something physical than talking/writing about it.
Still running, lifting weights and training to my hearts content-living the dream.

I will spend a few minutes on this short post-
The martial arts training over the last several months has been fantastic!
We have a great thing going on with our research group. We keep adding new people, last week there were 10 of us working out as a group. Good Training and sharing ideas in a research group creates
an extremely positive energy that is contagious.
 It's like the good old days, especially when Hanshi Steve Stark is teaching our Tuesday night class. I keep telling the younger members of our group that this is as close as they will ever get to training with Taika Oyata. It's beginning to sink in as they try and imitate what Mr. Stark has been teaching or answer his questions about particular kata motions and what they mean. It makes me laugh, that deer in the headlights look,exactly like I used to have when trying to duplicate what Mr. Oyata was teaching or answer his questions.

Our group has been working on many different things-most importantly we now have a
finished, completely fixed up version of Shi Ho Happo No Te, as taught directly to Mr. Stark by Taika Oyata.This is by far the most detailed, powerful version I have ever seen.
I have been working on this quite a bit, polishing it. It has become my newest martial arts obsession.

We also have been working on different drills, footwork and hand technique, as bridges between other drills and exercises.. Some of these are exercises we have created that tie into previously
 existing exercises, some stand alone and cover very specific concepts. It's all very interesting and fills some gaps between exercises/concepts as a teaching methodology.
For instance, imagine a drill  somewhere between Exercise 2 and the original Spiderweb, that ties it all together-this is just an idea of what it could be.  I am not going to explain any of them  or post pictures or videos.Why would I? You do the work, put the time in and figure it out for yourself.
It's fairly easy to figure these things out, it just takes 32 years of  constant martial arts training to see it all, put it all together.

 The question I ask myself and the people I am training with -"Are your martial arts evolving"?
Are they? They better be-If not, you are either not training enough  or not training with the right people-you  may not  be putting enough thought into what you are doing, what it means, applications.
There are many layers to every kata, drill/exercise and technical application. This Art has many subtleties, nuances that are easily overlooked without a deep understanding of body mechanics, hand and foot motion. It takes constant practice and years of dedicated training to truly understand these things, where they become second nature-you do them without conscious thought, they are part of you.

If you do the same thing over and over, without questioning why or looking for ways to do it better, you are standing still.If you are not training at least 2-3 days a week, you are standing still.
Stand still long enough and everyone else will catch up to you or pass you by.
It's painfully obvious in training sessions who has been working on their martial arts and who hasn't.

P.S.
Don't make excuses- I have heard them all and still keep hearing them.
I could write "The Karate Training Excuse Book" , multiple pages of all the reasons people constantly miss training sessions, no longer take the time to train,  why they quit, who hurt their feelings-why they are butthurt and sad, how they are planning to train again, eventually...............(yawn)
" If it is important to you, you will make the time "( quote by Mike Anderson)

Don't tell me how good you were 5, 10, 20 years ago, I don't care about that either.
Show me how good you are right now or please don't talk to me about martial arts.

Here is a picture of myself and Taika Oyata when I received my 7th Degree Scroll in Oyata Shin Shu Ho Ryu. That is all the inspiration I will ever need to continue my training.

I think about my teacher and his martial arts every day. I work on my martial arts every day, that is how and why they are evolving.