Patience is our dojo theme for 2016. Sensei defines patience as "bearing the unbearable". To me this sounds more like resiliency, but I suppose the two words really aren't that different. As I end week five of my training, I can safely say that patience is key. Sometimes you just have to grind away at something until it becomes tolerable. I had a good lesson in patience this week...
As I mentioned in my last post, the area I am working the most one right now are my stances. Bottom-line, I am often weak and unsteady. However, sensei taught me something else this week. In front stance, a fighter will bend their front leg and straighten their back leg, with their hips facing forward. This is the basic stance for most moves, offensive and defensive.
What I have found, is that holding this position for a long period of time is exhausting. The quadriceps of my front leg, the large muscles on the top of my thighs, usually burn after only a few minutes. I've been looking for ways to avoid this, as it makes pretty much everything else difficult. One solution I found was to try and maintain a higher stance, like in Okinawan karate.
You see, in Japanese karate, the karateka is supposed to crouch down, with their front knee over their toe. This crouching position is very taxing on the knees of an amateur, such as myself. But in Okinawa, as many people learn karate not for sport, but just as a routine part of life, there is no crouching. While the knees are still bent, there is less emphasis on the need to get as low as possible. The same body mechanics are in play, just in a more subtle way. To me this seemed less taxing on my legs, so I went into class this week with the intention of trying this higher elevation stance.
What I found is that the position was awkward, my body wasn't used to it, so I naturally melted back into the front stance I was used to. The one that kills my quads. Sensei must have seen this because he had a solution. He told me that I was putting 90% of my weight on my front leg, and that as a result I wasn't driving forward with my back leg. Instead I should put 60% of my weight on my front leg and 40% on my back leg. What happened when I did this? I found holding front stance infinitely easier!
After class I spoke with sensei, and I told him that I felt foolish for putting so much weight on my front leg for the past four weeks. His reply, "I know." As in, 'I know that you've been killing yourself for the past four weeks with improper technique'. But before I could retort, or potentially be offended, he followed with, "It builds strength."
So there you have it. Sensei was allowing me to do the wrong stance for a month not because he didn't care, but because he wanted me to push my muscles to work harder. Now when I do front stance at 60% weight on my front leg it feels like a cake walk compared with the 90% I was putting on it before. I think there is a lesson there, and I think it goes back to patience, or bearing the unbearable.
There was a lesson in the pain that I was receiving, and even though it was painful I was still benefiting. Pain isn't a bad thing, rather it is an opportunity to get stronger. Just asks my legs!
