He Was Slow and He Didn’t Want to Be A Karate Instructor!

Karate Instructors and Slow People

Way back in 1967 I wanted to be a Karate Instructor. I had started at Chinese Kenpo, and we wore white uniforms and the Instructors wore black. I wanted to be a Karate instructor. I wanted to teach Karate. I wanted…badly.

karate instructor

Martial Arts Knowledge is the Key!



A year passes, a year filled with immensely hard work, where I NEVER missed a class, where I studied EVERYTHING I could, and I was  a Karate instructor. Then, one day this fellow comes in and signs up for some lessons, and I was given him to teach.

He was physically slow. He wasn’t stupid, he just had a body that moved slowly. There was nothing I could do to make him faster. I tried everything I knew, from stop watches to contests to whatever. He had a slow body.

The problem was that he didn’t understand how to move the body. I could tell he was sitting way back inside his head, firmly ensconced, knew that there was nothing but meat to him. He wasn’t even up to the point where he cold isolate muscles in the arms…he was just meat.

I thought of him many times over the years, and I tried to figure out ways to make people faster.

Speed is an interesting thing. In the beginning, speed is bound by your belief in the necessity of muscles to move. In the end…it is an illusion. Something you control by thinking at people and making them accept your viewpoint of reality.

The best and most efficient method for increasing martial arts speed is to be in one place, relax, and be in another place.

Don’t try to be fast, just visualize your body where it is, forget about it, then visualize the next position.

Don’t bother with the inbetween.

I am here…….I am there.

And that’s all there is to it.

And, you can use feedback of your body if you have a rough time doing this.

Listen to the sound of your uniform popping. Listen to the sound of the fist closing. These, and others, are good ways to travel through that inbetween land from slow to fast.

Eventually, with practice, you will be fast. It is just a matter of dedicating yourself, and cultivating proper thought.

This has been a page concerning one of my experiences as a karate instructor.

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