Nantanreikan Seibukan Karate Dojo
Mon/Thurs McKernan Community League 11341 78 Ave NW, Edmonton, AB Edmonton, AB, Canada

Josée Gulayets Photography

Sagurite : "searching hand." Shimabukuro Zenp Hanshi

One of the great advantages of our dojo is that we can call on the expertise of our members to augment our training. This evening, as we often do, we called on Anna, a veteran yogi, to finish our class with stretching. She responded with some exercises which were as effective as they were sometimes painful.

Christmas Day karate in the locked-down pandemic.

Merry Christmas/Happy Holidays from the Nantanreikan Seibukan Karate Dojo.

Shinnen akemashite omedet gozaimasu. Happy New Year from the Nantanreikan Seibukan Karate Dojo!

Just two of the Christmas treats given to Lucy and me by our great students, the Hallex family.

Lucy leading a drill in our Zoom class this evening: shmen tsuki (front punch) in heisoku dachi (feet together stance).

My sensei is one of the finest karate teachers in world. He has produced many national and world champions. I am nowhere close to his level. I told my class the other week that they're not going to become world champions. We're not a dojo of elite athletes. Yet, for that reason--because we are merely average--my students prove that they are very, very special. They're ordinary people, with an ordinary range of abilities and fallibilities. Some, like me, came to karate relativ...ely late in life. Still, a good number of them show up as the dojo (even if that's online regularly in the pandemic) three or more times every week. They sweat and push and try to relax into speed and power. They face the limitations of their bodies and the formidable challenge of working to exceed them. They move through forms passed down through the centuries and become part of a great and noble tradition. They listen; they watch; they learn; they try hard; they support each other; they delight in their colleagues' successes. And through all of that, they get better: stronger, faster, more supple, more open, more humble, more steadfast. In these times, that's so rare. Academics, pop psychology, and pop songs alike urge us towards the particular positivity of the day. Don Miguel Ruiz, who writes on spiritual enlightenment, says, "Imagine that you love yourself just the way you are. You love your body just the way it is, and you love your emotions just the way they are. You know that you are perfect just the way you are." This is not the way of karate. Every time a karateka steps onto the floor, they cannot deny their imperfections. They come to develop their bodies, not to adore them. Their sweat is the forging of muscle, sinew, and spirit. My students don't train because they love themselves just the way they are; they train because they want to change, to be better, just as they know they should be better as human beings. They will not become world champions through their relentless work towards those ends, but they do prove that even now they are ordinary people doing something extraordinary: following the way of karate and being elevated by doing so.

Jnetsu : passion.

"In essence, the theory of shared reality suggests that we are most likely to feel closer to each other when we turn our mutual attention to something beyond ourselves." Ian Leslie