Metsuke - where to look at the end of a kata

Metsuke - Where do you put your eyes during practice ? Do you focus toward your opponent's eyes, at his hands, his chest, or do you stay unfocused on the whole background ? 

The answer to these questions is "YES"... No kidding - but we will get to this later. 

For today lets get in to the devilish details...

Where do you focus your eyes at the end of a kata ? 

Your eyes should be looking down in the direction of the last fallen opponent.

Now you need to retreat back to the place you started from. You still need to display a certain level of Zanshin. So where do you look ? 

From our last class at the Dothan Dojo with Patty Heath Sensei this is what I gathered : 

• For all regular MJER kata (Shoden, Chuden, Okuden sets) you should keep looking slightly down until you are back where you started. Then when your Right hand leaves your tsuka, your eyes look up (Horizontally)

• For Batto-Ho Shoden & Okuden : keep your eyes down until your back foot gets level with the front one - after noto. Then, raise your eyes.

 

Please note that only your eyes are moving, not your head which should always stay vertical. Do not let your head lean up or down, only your eyeballs should move.

Does God hate Tai Chi ?

First it was Rock’n’roll music - the work of the Devil, not so long ago Condoms were spreading AIDS in Africa. Now Tai Chi practitioners are on the highway to hell.

In yet another demonstration of tolerance and acceptance, the Wynyard Baptist Church on the northwest coast of Tasmania (an island off the coast of Australia) has banned a group of senior citizens from practicing their gentle and devilish martial art.

Church leader the Reverend Morse says a council of leading parishioners decided the gentle martial art’s philosophies were incompatible with the Bible’s teachings.

"Half of Tai Chi is Taoism and Zen Buddhism, which is in total contrast to what we as a Christian church believe in." Rev Morse said.

He goes on to say "It's about a type of meditation, and what they call search for enlightenment, where you go into things like yoga do or, like in the martial arts, meditations where you just emptied your mind and let it go wherever it wanted to.

Well that stands in opposition to Christianity, which says we are to be in control of our faculties."

“Yoga do?” Could this be a new synthesis of Yoga and Karate do ? I wonder if the Reverend has any idea what Yoga, Tai Chi or martial Arts are about ?

I had heard these guys down under are a little weird. Surely they could benefit from a little enlightenment. Thank God, such silly things would not happen around here !













Embracing the Devil - A Group of Senior Citizens Defy God
Bring back the Inquisition !