Dear Students, Teachers and Friends,

Hope everyone had a great Spring Break.

This Wednesday the arrow catch will air on "Ripley's Believe It Or
Not" on TBS. I believe it comes on at 6 and 9 pm. I have no idea of
how the final show is going to come out, but they did promise to
edify our school and our students.

We will have testing for the clubs on the 6th of April at the main
school, so we will not be having regular classes.

On April 12th we are heading to Kansas to help with the black belt
testing of Kyoshi Kennedy's crew.

The Pikes Peak Championship is April 20th at Air Academy high School.
We will be having a referee and volunteer seminar at 7pm on the 19th
for those that want to help at the tournament the next day. If you
are competing, please get your registration forms filled out right
away and give them to your Sensei.

Lesson Of The Week

Shingitai: Mind – Technique – Body


The first line of our student creed states: "As a student of USA
Karate, I will train my mind, my body and my spirit." Most people
understand that we are working on three different aspects so that we
can improve ourselves as a whole, but many fail to understand that it
is the unification of all three that is the real key.

When it comes to karate techniques, many people understand the
physical laws of generating body power, angles of movement and
physical strategy or tactics of defense. The real key, however, is
the harmony of "shin" the mind and attitudes, with the "gi"
(technique) and the "tai" (the body). To understand this concept, let
us discuss briefly the concept of natural laws.

There are basically two types of laws in the universe – man-made laws
and natural laws. While you may be able to violate man-made laws and
not get caught, and therefore not see the ramifications of those
actions, natural laws are different. Natural laws work all the time,
in all circumstances, for everyone. If you try and break a natural
law, you will get caught every time. These natural laws can further
be broken down into physicals laws and mental laws.

Physical laws are those laws that can be demonstrated in the lab in a
controlled environment. Mental laws however, are only proven through
experience and intuition. These mental laws which are harder to see
and understand, are centuries old and were at one time not shared
with the general public because they were afraid these principles
would be misunderstood or abused. Today these concepts are openly
discussed, but still only a small percentage of the population are
aware of them. The knowledge of these principles is an operations
manual for increasing human potential.

Be assured that these laws are universal. If you jump off a 10 story
building in New York or Tokyo, you will go splat just the same. It
doesn't matter if you were never told about the law of gravity,
whether you believe in it or even if you agree with it. It is neutral
and applies consequences evenly to everyone and is in effect 100% of
the time.

Mental laws work exactly the same. When your life is going great it
is because your thoughts and actions are in harmony with these
natural laws. If you are experiencing problems, it is almost always
as a result of you having violated one of these mental laws, whether
you are aware of them or not. The only way you can tell if you are in
harmony is by the results of your actions or the consequences.

An example of a mental law is the law of control. You basically feel
positive about yourself to the degree to which you feel in control of
your life. On the other hand, you feel negative about your life to
the degree that you feel some external force, person or influence
controls you. The feeling of not being in control causes most stress,
anxiety and tension in a person's life. This explains how a martial
artist is able to remain clam during a crisis situation, because they
feel that even in the worst-case scenario, they could still control
the situation.

Today there are many people that play karate – for sport or as a
hobby. The karate-ka however, follows the path of karate when he or
she understands the concept of shingitai (mind-body-technique) and
encompasses that into their daily life and training.


Respectfully,

Terry Bryan