from the August, 2013 issue of Kiai!

Pearls from Promotion Essays

 

Senior 6th dan, May 29, 2013

Sei Shihan Nancy Lanoue
Every day I create challenges for my students so they can experience frustration, embarrassment, fear and judgement. I do it so they can learn to stay calm, keep their dignity, not lash out and move through those feelings without losing their center. I need that experience as much as they do, and I continue to need it in my fourth decade of practice not because I am particularly obtuse, but because the insight gained from struggling with our strong emotions is elusive, and will be lost to us if we don't wrestle with it again and again.

Sandan, May 31, 2013

Senpai Yesica Barrera
When I was young I thought there were only two kinds of people: good and bad. There were no gray areas. Good students and bad students, good teachers and bad teachers. Good friends and bad friends. I also categorized myself in those terms, always afraid of being on the bad side. At Thousand Waves, I have learned that there are no such extremes. I am compassionate with my students and myself as I aim to shift my way of understanding growth and learning. We are all in the grey area, whether we are student or a teacher. We are all learning from each other and helping each other do our best. I believe this is possible thanks to the atmosphere created by the practice of assertiveness, humility and awareness.

Senpai Carla Riggs
Our practice has helped me learn to receive critique and feedback in a constructive way, and this makes it possible for me to accept critique in other areas of my life. … I have learned that feedback can be positive and not shaming. … I have also learned that my teachers are human and that occasionally they might be less articulate than usual in sharing feedback. … My challenge then is to listen and learn and to respond with respect and not be carried away by my emotions. If my emotions in the situation threaten to interfere with my ongoing training or with my relationship with a teacher, I have a responsibility to speak with the teacher about how the interaction affected me. This must always be done with respect and with awareness that my teacher is committed to my well being and wants to improve in their teaching skills. 

Senpai Joshua Keesecker
Training in Seido karate over the last 13 years has helped me to develop calmness, awareness, spirit, physical and mental endurance, reactions and focus, balance, flexibility. This is the karate that I use in everyday life. Luckily I have not needed the fighting aspect beyond positioning, awareness and my voice. Catching something that drops or reacting to a situation more quickly than others is probably a result of the constant dedication we all have to training our minds and our bodies. However that is about the extent of using physical karate outside of the dojo. I remind my students that the best fight is no fight. The goal is to not fall prey to those situations. It is however, imperative that Seido karateka can recognize situations, and be available to guide themselves and others to safety, only considering the strong techniques as a last resort.

Nidan, May 31, 2013

Senpai Margarita Saona
Karate has been vital in helping me take the wide view and learn to appreciate the present moment. I have learned to accept myself and the world to a certain extent, to realize that I need to be aware of things like death and suffering, but that I also need to see all the goodness and happiness that are out there, to know my own limits and to appreciate the small things that I can do for those around me.

Senpai Pamela Robert
While it may be a human propensity to strive for balance, there is almost as much to be gained in facing imbalance. In Seido karate, we learn both how to find balance and how to recover from imbalance. ... When we lose balance, we learn to employ non-quitting spirit, to try new techniques, and to practice particularly when we don't feel like practicing. Thus, karate teaches us to be fluid, like the river that goes around obstacles, rather than be undone by them; and in turn we learn ... to employ similar strategies to deal with the inevitable obstacles that life throws our way.

Senpai Sayira Khokhar
The hardest realization I had to make was that I cannot be the best at everything. I have physical limitations in karate and I have to learn to work around it. ... Finding my balance is a long process. It is not change I expect to happen overnight. I know it will take awhile to feel normal. Unlike before, I know what I must do to heal. I am beginning to learn the meaning of "striving with patience".

Senpai Sam Boyer
I have a very complicated relationship with the concept of balance, and the many facets of balance. I always struggle with it, but I have slowly learned that struggle is a part of balance. I have learned that balance is not a stopping point. Instead, it is a continuous process. … I struggle with the very meaning of balance itself. From the moment I became self-aware, I struggled with balance. Until the day I die, I will continue to struggle with balance. But it is that struggle that defines me, and that struggle is my purest understanding of balance. Balance is not a state, but a process, and I will continue to refine my understanding of balance for the rest of my life.

Senpai Bill Kouis
I need to be at the dojo as much as I need to breathe air or eat a healthy meal. ... I marvel at my mentors, [Sei] Shihan Nancy and Jun Shihan Sarah. I see order and balance that I attempt to emulate. I see it in the way they operate in the dojo as well as in their personal lives. I will never forget when I made an appointment with Jun Shihan Sarah and she pulled out her calendar. There were entries months in advance. I had never seen such a thing. As a result I began making entries in a calendar and no longer rely on an increasingly failing memory. Much easier.

Senpai Matt Birnholz
Stepping onto the training floor, I was quickly challenged to test my physical and emotional limits, and, more daunting yet, to confront several buried vulnerabilities with an open, trusting heart. In the process, I discovered a need to reorient my instilled self-critical reflexes toward another, more adaptive paradigm: "striving with patience." To this day I am still making that transition, and I expect to grapple with the fundamental lessons of patience and perseverance for many years to come.