Training vs. Exercise
By Dan Blackmore
16 June 2014

Practicing karate is a physical activity, but there is more to it than body conditioning.  When I talk about body conditioning, I am talking about increasing flexibility, strength, cardio, speed, and improving posture and coordination.  Body conditioning is important for one’s health and will help improve one’s performance in martial arts, but is only one component of karate training.  It’s like the difference between speed and timing: it doesn’t matter how fast the technique is if it does not land at the right time.  An opponent with a great sense of distance and timing may shift off the line of attack, out of range, or interrupt the incoming attack.  When it comes to fighting, highly developed skills in perception and timing trump physical conditioning.

In the book, “Moving Zen: Karate As A Way To Gentleness,” C. W. Nicol recounts his time spent in Japan training karate full-time in a traditional Japanese dojo.  He makes a few observations at the end of his 2.5-year journey that illustrate the importance of karate training over mere physical conditioning.  Initially, Nicol focuses on making a “strong fist” by ignoring the training put before him by his Sensei and punching the dojo’s makiwara to build-up knuckle calluses.  He eventually realizes that he has made no real progress, so he begins to follow the lesson plan.  After continuing training and achieving Shodan, he sees how wrong he originally interpreted the purpose of the makiwara.  For Nicol, the makiwara is not meant to be a physical tool to forge fists of iron, but a mental and spiritual tool that forges the character of the person using it.  At the time of writing his memoir, Nicol has found zen in the practice at the makiwara: time, the outside world, and all the worries therein disappear as he focuses on heartbeat and breathing to maintain the rhythm of his counting.  After 2.5 years spent in Japan, his upper body muscles decreased in size, but the power in his punches had increased.  He was calmer and more in control of his temper.  He was able to hold his own when facing more experienced students.  All of this progress would not have happened if he kept focusing on training only the physical.

I believe that once we’ve been working for years on our body conditioning and we have the fundamentals under our belts, we should look back and apply new knowledge to past lessons.  Revisiting the heian kata, for example, we may notice minute details that we may expand upon, or see a different application that we hadn’t considered before.  When we pair up for drills, try to get a sense of your partner’s distance and timing and not just execute the motions of the drill.  When doing drills up and down the floor, visualize an opponent and pick a target for attacks.  Maintain a wide field of view for all training, and not just locking eyes onto one point/target.  When engaged in kumite practice, try not to think about what you want to do, or what your opponent might do to you; stay relaxed and ready.

Some people might use their martial arts class as their “fitness day,” and attempt to squeeze all of their training and body conditioning into one session.  Now, it’s fine if one takes karate classes as a form of fitness training, but the distinction must be made that simply learning technique does not mean learning karate.  The difference lies in gaining experience in the intangible aspects, such as reading an opponent and remaining relaxed even as you are engaged.  I believe that it’s important to be able to distinguish between body conditioning and martial arts training, and learning how to use exercises to focus on one aspect or the other.  I would encourage martial arts students to spread-out their “fitness days.”  Work on your physical conditioning outside of the dojo by walking, jogging, swimming, biking, or hiking, etc. whenever you can.  When you remove the idea that you need to get a good physical workout in the dojo, you are left to focus on the principles that will be beneficial in the long term.