While on my recent honeymoon in Hawaii, I managed to find a bit of free time to make use of the excellent waves to help improve my balance.
For those of you who haven’t been, Hawaii is famous for the power of it’s waves, and even though the photograph above doesn’t show 40′ foot monster waves eating surfers, you’d be surprised at how powerful the ocean is, and how easy it is to be pulled off balance!
Having read about how Miyagi Sensei used to train his sanchin kata neck deep in the waters of Okinawa, the child in me decided it would be cool to do the same. Also I remember reading that Miyagi Sensei had visited Maui on his travels to Hawaii, so it would be another chance to walk in his footprints in a way.
There really isn’t much point to this post, I made no great discoveries into how to keep my balance under hard conditions, I just confirmed once again to myself that I still have a lot to work on. I found I was constantly pushed off balance, and it felt very much like doing kakie (pushing hands training) with Kinjo Seikichi Sensei of the Jundokan.
I’d be uprooted from the feet up, pulled forward, pushed backward, and forced to the side. Constantly kept off balance and not given a chance to settle in order to re-establish myself, and think about how to regain control.
It is said that he who controls the balance, controls the fight. The strategy of the sea, off-balancing and keeping off balance gave me no opportunity to control myself. The strategy of Kinjo Sensei keeping me off balance in Kakie training, gave me no chance to establish myself and work on controlling him (even though he was well into his 70’s!!).
In terms of relating this to self defence, once you make the decision to strike, it must be done with full committment and followed up on immediately, not giving the opponent a chance to settle. This will greatly affect his ability to launch a committed counter attack.
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