Get back on the dojo floor

Karate training has been part of what I do for over 15 years. Something changed in 2008, however, and my training has come to a sudden slowdown. Whereas I always trained 3 times a week – Tuesday and Thursday in the evenings and Saturday in the morning – I’m lucky nowadays to get a Saturday morning workout twice a month. I am in a drought and I don’t know what to do about it.

At the peak of my training, I’d make a point of packing my karate gi when going out of town on business and visiting a local dojo to train. The highlight of my travel/training episodes took place while on vacation in Pescara, Italy in 2004 when I found a local dojo and trained one evening. I felt a strong sense of camaraderie with my newly-befriended Italian karate brothers and sisters whom I would only see once in my life that evening. They made me feel very welcome.

There are highs and lows in life and all things that matter, karate included, so I know this slowdown will eventually pass. But that doesn’t keep it from bothering me. A recent and pleasant memory of my training was one Saturday after a workout when I video-recorded me performing a kata named Gosoku. It seemed to be one of my better moving meditations of physical expression - one that I hope to one day do again.

Here is a video of it:



So in my era of martial art flatness, I’ll continue spending time watching old videos, hoping that one of them will inspire and motivate me to get back on the dojo floor.

Pax Domini sit semper vobiscum