Insights from 50+ years of Martial Art Training

After 50+ years of martial arts training I learned a thing or two that may be helpful for you. After 10 years of judo, Kung Fu, Shotokan & Shorin kan Karate training, I started my karate training in 1979 with Seikichi Iha, who was then a 7th Degree in Okinawan Shorin Ryu Shidokan Karate. In 2002 Sensei Iha was promoted to Grand Master, Hanshi, 10th Dan. He promptly named his school Beikoku (American) Shidokan Karate. I slowly rose in rank to become one of his senior students.

While Sensei Iha focused on self defense karate, he explained that most people only needed to learn punch-kick-block percussion karate. In one-on-one training he taught us what he perceived we needed to know. Consequently, while the extensive Beikoku Shidokan Karate curriculum remains consistent throughout the Association, he taught more advanced self defense applications according to the circumstances of the students, or whatever he happened to think about or research while you were with him. After class, while working with other students on kumite or bunkai, he'd often walk up, perform an application, then just walk away. When someone asked him to repeat it, or explain what he did, he'd usually reply, "you'll understand when it's time." Being a quick learner, some of these applications have taken decades for me to understand and then often while performing kata on my own.

I often performed a technique in a manner he had just demonstrated at a seminar and he'd ask why I did it that way. When I said it was what he just demonstrated he'd say, "that is for them, not you!" This confused and frustrated me for many years until I realized he was teaching me street-focused self-defense applications to teach my students (military, first responders, etc.) could use, rather than just the 'punch-kick-block' applications he showed others.

Sensei Iha passed away on August 3, 2024 having just turned 92. In class, at a seminar, or through individual training he would teach us self defense applications. None of us were at all of these sessions. Plus he taught his students what he thought they should know. Our challenge now is to attempt to share and combine the different advanced self defense karate applications that he taught so many of us. These self defense applications are found in nearly all martial arts. Once you see them performed you realize it was in front of you all the time yet you just were unaware of that particular application.