KARATE-DO: Hit and avoid being hit?

By Humberto Heyden Sensei

If Karate is an art of self-defense, as it surely is, to really be effective it must change as time passes.

Karate's techniques developed within an environment where the strongest aggressions were physical, a face to face confrontation; that is, an environment where you were not shot at from a distance with a revolver or a rifle, or at least not very frequently. Today this is not the case, you can be attacked with extremely sophisticated weapons, say laser-sight rifles, in these cases Karate techniques are totally ineffective. However, I am not denying the fact that you can be attacked going round any corner, seriously injured or even killed; this in fact happens every minute in our world and we must be prepared for such an event. Even so, in my opinion, even considering the very violent environment our city streetsrepresent, this is not the only way we are assaulted. I am convinced that physical aggression is the least important attack that an individual is exposed to today. I must furthermore clarify that if we were in middle of a war or in highly conflictive environment, our karate training would have to be methodologically different from that commonly taught.

In my opinion the most adequate self-defense is the one that best prepares the participant to defend himself from surrounding aggressions. In our present society we are subject to permanent aggression, in much subtler ways than a armed individual. I think the main aggression today is of a psychological nature and can be observed in many different ways.

What really makes it a severe problem is that the aggression normally appears camouflaged and adorned in a very attractive fashion. We are permanently manipulated by propaganda, the publicity, little by little modern men and women lose their identity. They live confused within a manipulated mass, ordered to work, ordered to consume and not only told to consume, also what to consume and even how to think. Each passing day our modern society lives more and more directionless, without really knowing why and for what reason it exists. This has created a valueless society where the only valid measuring tool is market value.

On the other hand, different economical, political, religious and other power groups try to manipulate men/women for their own benefit, with no interest whatsoever in the side-effects their actions may have on the individual. As a result the individual lives in a growing state of stress, more and more agitated, anxious and in a constant depression. We have actually reached the point where it seems that those that are not "stressed" or "depressed" are not actually living fully, of course, the exact contrary is the case. Considering that humans have gradually lost their connection with life, they are sinking in quicksand and they do know not how to get out, even if they do actually notice they are in serious trouble.

How can modern society, and the men and women that form part of it, defend themselves and escape this sad fate?

I believe that the main aggression that modern people confront today is as I stated in the previous parragraph, it is therefore very narrow-minded to define self-defense restricted merely to hitting and avoiding blows.

I believe that karate as a self-defense method must prepare men and women not only to confront physical aggression but also the strong and constant psychological attack they are exposed to. It is almost unnecessary to clarify, but I believe the latter defense is the most important, because defense against physical aggressions is actually inherent to karate's technical structure. The question is now: what methods can obtain a better effectiveness in karate as a self-defense system considering the modern conditions?

If we strive to see Karate as a "Do" (a way), it must be able, in my view, not only to offer an adequate self-defense system, it must also be capable of bringing harmony and peace to the participant. Thus it will step by step insert him in a system that will gradually take him closer to himself. Only then will the objective of the art be attained and he will be truely able to say: "Karate-do protected my life".