Last night during training, Koyama Sensei discussed the topic of energy, or ki in Japanese. He was talking about the importance of bringing intensity to our performance of techniques. It’s important to put ourselves into our training like we would put ourselves into the words, “I love you” when we utter them to someone we care deeply about. Practicing karate-do is much more than learning technique. It requires that we bring the energy and spirit of who we are into our practice.
Negative energy is often obvious and easy to understand. You say something that makes me angry an my body bristles, my eyes narrow and later you say you felt arrows flying out of my eyes and into you. When we do kata we want that kind of energy emanating from within us. The only difference is that this is not a “negative” energy that comes from me being angry or wanting to hurt you. It is more of an energy generated by our commitment to the proper execution of the technique, the commitment of expressing through my body the meaning of the kata and the techniques that make it up. Thus, one thing karate can offer us is the opportunity to take the negative energies of life and turn them into positives by directing them into the development and beauty and grace through kata training.
Energy is also something I study in the context of culture and communication. In studying energy as it functions in communication and culture it is important to remove the valence — to remove the presumption that energy is either positive or negative. Because energy itself is neutral. It is neither good nor bad. It just is. It may be generated by something negative (e.g., fear) or something positive (e.g., love), but either way energy is just energy. The fact that it exists more strongly in some instances or places, and less strongly in others is what we must study to understand what is created by it and what it sustaines. If we classify energy as “good” or “bad” too quickly, we miss the opportunity to understand how energy creates and re-creates the worlds we live within.
When it comes to learning and teaching karate-do, paying attention to energy is absolutely essential. Paying attention to energy—particularly our own—must be as much of our karate practice as is our effort to exert it in a positive and powerful way. Some days I go to the dojo and my mind is preoccupied with the stresses and struggles of my day and my relationships with others both within and outside the dojo. My energy is consumed by these stresses and struggles. Other days I go to the dojo and the struggles and stresses of my day easily recede into the background and the energy I exert finds its expression in the movement of my body, the easy flow of energy and the lifting of spirit that comes when my presence of body to mind allows me to experience myself and those I am sharing that energy with in a more pure and direct way. If I compare these two kinds of days at the dojo, I am tempted to say that the day dominated by stresses and struggles was a “bad energy” day, and the one where I was more freely present to my body and its movement was a “good energy” day. But, this would be a mistake because in doing this I will be led toward presuming that I can and should prevent future “bad energy” days while creating “good energy” days. That’s not a bad thing to do. It’s just that doing so takes me away from the more basic point, which is to pay attention to how energy is present in me and how it moves through me to others in the world.
What do you think?