Hajime Keiko

The author practicing with Nigiri Game

Hajime Keiko is the official start of training in the dojo for the New Year. There are many ceremonial practices at the dojo that take place throughout the year, but this is the kickoff of training.

Every year on New Year’s Day I have always gone to my dojo and have trained mostly on my own, sometimes I have a partner, but mostly it has been on my own. It has always been a personal thing that I have done, as a commitment to my own training. I have done this for as long as I can remember.

Usually a few days after New Year’s Day, I would hold the Hajime Keiko for the students of the dojo. I have tried to express the importance of the first training event of the year to the students, but alas it always seems that there is always something more important going on than Hajime Keiko.

This year I decided that I would hold Hajime Keiko on New Year’s Day, and can you guess what happened? No one showed up for training but me.

I know that my ideas might not be the most popular, and a lot of people do not agree with my opinions, but that is ok this is America.  In my dojo, I do not train people like most dojo. I do not line people up and march them up and down the dojo floor, making them punch and kick. Most of those that train at my dojo already have their black belts, I teach more in the Okinawan fashion, where I present something and let them work on it, I go around and offer corrections and advice, but I do not make everyone do the exact same thing all of the time. In part I leave it up to the student to be responsible for their own training. The harder they train, the more time I take to offer them assistance.

I rarely take on new students, instead most of the people that ask, get sent over to my father’s dojo, where they will be in a class with several other beginning students, it is easier, as most people do not like to train hard and sometimes get bored with working on the same things over and over.

I spent a great deal of time providing instruction to my students and making myself available to them over the years, often times sacrificing time, that I could have used to spend time with my wife or children, or time I could have spent learning something new.

This year, I am thinking that I will spend my time training myself and doing what I want, what I need, developing my own karate. I also have some things I want to change in the dojo, to assist me in my own training. Maybe someone will show up and maybe they won’t but either way, it doesn’t matter, because I am doing what I want to do.