A Different Kind of Birthday Party
Today we celebrate my daughter’s sixteenth birthday, and it will be like no previous birthday celebration. Obviously the pandemic has changed how we observe all sorts of events. However, last night, I put together a collage of photos for today’s family birthday Zoom.
While looking through the pictures, few of her birthdays, I realized, were alike. One year, she invited thirty kids from different friend groups and wanted them all to sleep over. We told her that was way too many kids. She insisted, because she’d already told them all they were invited. I negotiated with the grandparents (remember they live in our home, too). We landed on a solution: a two night birthday event. She divided her friends into two groups of fifteen. On Friday night, several came and celebrated. Some slept over but many (mainly the boys) went home. By Saturday evening, the first shift had cleared out and the second arrived.
Another year, she wanted a beach birthday party. It was too cold to swim in the ocean in January, so we had a family celebration then, and her actual friend birthday party took place on the beach, in June. We managed to pack a Porto’s cake into a freezer bag, and had cake with her on the beach. Keeping the candles lit was a feat. A friend kindly provided a tent for the party.
Ceremony and Change
For every birthday, some things were consistent: candles, a cake, gifts. Other things shifted: family and friends celebrating together, or separately, or the place and even the time. We try to be flexible. As she grew, what she needed and wanted changed, too. As a baby, mom and dad could be sufficient. Later, toys, books and sweets mattered to her, and the presence of friends grew in importance. As a teenager, time with friends became paramount. Last night, she had a Zoom movie night with a close friend. Next weekend, she’ll Zoom with the teen group. Today, we’ll have a separate family group.
Likewise, as your skills grow in karate and in life, what you need and want from it will change. Some things will remain the same: karate can remain a stabilizing force in your life, helping to keep your focus on health and well-being. As a child, you may care about trophies, contests and tournaments. When you are a young adult, a sensei might require you to compete in tournaments and ask you to demonstrate your breaking skills for the dojo during holiday events. As you age, however, you may be more drawn to the spiritual aspects of karate: meditation, teaching, perfecting your techniques. Karate provides space for and places importance on all of these things.
What is Karate Outside the Dojo?
During the pandemic, we’ve had to alter our methods for teaching and how we perform promotions. When California first went into lockdown last spring, we took a hiatus while figuring out our next step. We scrambled to keep our community together when financial disaster struck our dojo. Like the schools, we shifted to instruction primarily over Zoom. Promotions, however, were still held outdoors, in parks, along with occasional in-person classes as permitted by the county. We could not make attendance at any in-person event mandatory, since that might penalize members with elderly parents or persons with health conditions at home. Sensei R. researched the effects of the virus and its spread; he encouraged us to purchase sports masks. During workouts, he required thirty feet between participants, and substituted hard cardio work-outs for kumite matches. He found a way for promotions to take place.
Most promotions we performed, in order to avoid attention, required participants to wear work-out clothing. We only wore belts to signify rank. As the pandemic worsened in our area, we had to reduce attendance at promotions to just the persons promoting and the judges.
Right now, our promotions do not look like those we held in the dojo. Gone are the gis, sparring matches, fellow students shouting encouragement, sharing food afterwards and big parties to celebrate our accomplishments. Here’s what’s remained: beginning and ending meditation, perfecting one’s kihon, performing rank-related kata, syllabus and exercise requirements (push-ups, sit-ups and squats), hard physical and mental exertion, the ceremony of presenting an earned belt, both praise and correction from one’s senseis and senpais.
What is Karate Without Kumite?
Kumite, long considered part of the core of Kyokushin, is a shadow of what it was in our current practice. We miss it. However, we would miss lost friends and family members, and peace of mind much more, if we permitted it, and one of our members or their families contracted the virus with devastating consequences as a result.
Water as Spiritual Strength
Karate teaches us that life is change. When our dojo joined the IFK, we adopted the wave as our symbol and sewed it into our gis. According to the IFK’s USA site:
The International Federation of Karate logo, worn at the top of the right sleeve of the Gi, has as its central symbol a rising wave, which is taken from Saiha Kata. This wave symbolizes the fact that no matter how great an obstacle or problem you may encounter, with patience, determination and perseverance (Osu 押忍) you can rise above and overcome it.
United States Kyokushin Karate
My daughter, by the way, loves water. When we took her to the beach as a toddler, she charged right into the surf. My husband or I needed to be right behind her to insure she did not go to deep. She loved the ocean and had no fear of it. In elementary school, she decided she would eat no fish because she, herself, must be part fish.
She still loves water and still applies its lessons of perseverance to all she does: learning and teaching karate, programming, academics and her new job as Dungeon Master.
Water as an Ancient and Enduring Symbol
Water is necessary for all life; many cultures use it to symbolize purification, renewal, wisdom, or even the flow or time or life itself; its symbolic nature is unparalleled.
The quote, “Still waters run deep” appears in Shakespeare and, according to Wikipedia, was a Latin proverb. Even the Biblical 23rd Psalm of David refers to deep water: “he leads me beside still waters” (paraphrased.)
Confucius said, “Balance is the perfect state of still water. Let that be our model. It remains quiet within and is not disturbed on the surface.”
Water is also an important symbol for Daoism, the grandfather of Buddhism, including Zen, and karate. It is used to show how the soft (water) can overcome the hard (rock). In the words of Lao Tsu:
“Water is fluid, soft, and yielding. But water will wear away rock, which is rigid and cannot yield. As a rule, whatever is fluid, soft, and yielding will overcome whatever is rigid and hard. This is another paradox: what is soft is strong.”
Lao Tsu
Mas Oyama appears to be referring to Lao Tsu’s quote when he says, “Always remember that the true meaning of Budo is that soft overcomes hard, small overcomes large.”
Since water adapts, changing its shape to fill any container that holds it, it refers to both adaptation and consistency. It takes the shape of any vessel, but remains water. Its essence is not in its shape. When heat or freezing temperatures are applied, it may vaporize or freeze. However, when temperatures are not extreme, it remains in a liquid state. In short, water changes but remains what it essentially is.
Kumite as Challenge
During our last promotion, I repeated something to my kohai that I’d hear Sensei R. say to me and many others: “On this day, you fought yourself. You had to face your own exhaustion, limitations and fear. You fought those and overcame them.”
While we do miss the ability to spar with each other, we do not find obstacles in short supply during this pandemic. The spirit of kumite: the desire to overcome any obstacle, like that ocean wave invoked by the IFK, remains with us.
In karate, and in life, we want to be like water: adapting to what we must, but holding fast to our essential nature.
