05/12/2026
A wonderful post from O'Malley sensei at Matsubayashiryu Finland. I heartily reccomend you follow his page! Perhaps his refusal to dwell in deep philosophising is exactly the deep philosophising we all could benefit from!
For today’s class we completed the introduction to the technical templates — Kihon Undō.
During the session one of the students very astutely noticed that I was counting to seven before asking the group to turn and go back the other way. She asked if there was some special meaning to the number. Naturally, I told her there was. It meant we had run out of space and had to turn around.
Karate — and probably martial arts in general — often attracts a lot of deep philosophising. Some people love to assign hidden meanings, talk about ancient secrets, and wrap simple movements in layers of mysticism.
The teachers I work out with on Okinawa never did any of that (with me). They made things simple, direct, and practical. My recollection of their teaching leaves no room for mystical interpretations of physical training. The prevailing philosophical advice was straightforward: be a nice person.
We can get caught up in the mysticism, in trying to find special meanings, in talking endlessly about secrets and ancient ways.
Or we can practice.
Photo — me attempting to look mystical at Droichead na Rossan.
