The Karate-savage!

......And the colour was Blue!

Sat, 05 Jun 2010 10:08:45 GMT

……………And the colour was Blue

Time for another blog as I have just past my Blue belt (5th grade) grading. A bit of a quick one to be honest as I went through a lot of thoughts in my previous blog.

Blue belt was a really important belt for me. It feels like finally I am getting somewhere with all the training. Obviously a bit more time left before getting to black but still I am really happy in any case!

Next I feel is a couple of really big steps to take. First 4th Kyu with Heian Godan, a tricky kata to say the least. Lots of small details that I can now concentrate on during the autumn term. Luckily enough I already know the general outline of the kata so I can now concentrate on making it look good. As with everything in life the devil is in the details! I have also decided it is probably a good idea to start wondering about Tekki Shodan. If I can figure out the general bits now over the summer and during the autumn then once I’m up to 4th kyu then I can do the same start concentrating on making my kiba dachi look good!

Kanku Dai also looks really cool so I would really love to start tackling that as well. We'll see first with Tekki Shodan though, its a really crazy kata if you ask me!

The other big thing I need to concentrate on is my speed. It seems to me that once I can crack that big nut then I am really on the way……

I’ve also started realising that now I’ve reached this level, a certain level of quality is suddenly required! No more making silly stupid mistakes! Weirdly enough I’ve also started realising that once you reach any level you start living that level as well. Not sure whether that makes sense to anyone out there, but if it does come and tell me.

So now I’m Blue, I’m basically going to think BLUE!

Anyhow congrats to everybody who made it! And thanks to Sensei Björn for taking us to this stage! I look forward to more ! Thanks to everyone else in the club as well who takes time out to give me and everyone else a hand. I really believe we have a fantastic club, and I am really proud to be a part of it!

Me and some of the gang from Haninge Budoklubb

Have a nice summer everyone!

Richard

Richard Savage ...

Click, Click, Click, and 42

Sat, 08 May 2010 17:49:36 GMT

Click, click, click………..

Not so long ago I turned 42 (in April). If you read The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, by Douglas Adams it says that 42 is the Meaning of life, the Universe and everything. If you have no idea what I am on about, take a look here : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aboZctrHfK8

Not quite sure whether I can confirm that though! But I thought it was worth sharing in any case!

Anyhow I am rambling, back to my blog…….. It took “Deep Thought” in the film seven and half million years to come up with the ”ultimate answer”, I am hoping that it will take less time to reach Black Belt but I must admit at times it feels like it might take this long!

Having a birthday tends to make you look back a little rather than look forward, it is at my still relatively young age a chance to reflect on life the universe and karate. A year ago at this time I was Orange Belt and 8^th kyu. I knew nothing about Heian Sandan. Heian Yondan, or Heian Godan for that matter of fact. Looking back over a whole year is a luxury, you can really see how you have learnt something, developed and hopefully improved (!). But in reality life, and karate for that matter is never that easy, how do you drag yourself from a hard days work and drive 40 mins to go and train?

Well this is where the phrase click, click, click turns up in this blog. I tend to try and think that every training is a matter of trying to turn the dial (towards the better). This can be quite simply and if you are in luck, one click in the right direction. For example I battled for 4 weeks to try and figure out how to do that little dive into a cross leg at the first chia of Heian Yondan. I just couldn’t get my two-cell brain to figure it out! Once I did then everything else is just a matter of figuring out the details. Heian Godan was the same, it took me about 5 weeks to get the click in the least sequence where you, as I call it flap your arms around like crazy and do a bit of a sort flying dragon hidden whatsit with your arms. For those of you whom have this figured out you might think this sounds crazy but for me it was THE most difficult thing to figure out!

These were fairly big “clicks” in the big scheme of things but sometimes you can simply go away from training with the satisfaction that you tried your best and hopefully got your body to do something generally good. Other times it can be a bit of aha experience, ie “oh why didn’t I think of that before?” These aha experiences are particularly good in the learning experience.

In a way this is the drug of Karate: always trying to reach for a personal improvement. Or as Sensei Björn, puts it “the least you can do is the best, on this day, at this particular moment in time, nothing else matters”. Sometimes, however it seems that my best can be really really good, and other times it can stink! I’m hoping the stinky bit disappears more and more over time!

Anyhow grading to 5^th kyu very soon! So we will see whether I’ve managed to assemble enough clicks over the last 6 months to take me to this level!

Vi hörs! :-)

Richard Savage ...

"The List"

Sun, 31 Jan 2010 20:07:45 GMT

January 3rd 2010, Grade Status 6th Kyu, Belt: Green, Grading? Sometime in June 2010. “The List” So first of all I would like to thank everyone who has approached me and told me something positive about the blog. Its nice to hear and it gives me the feeling that perhaps I should continue for a while! So for sometime I have been promising to tell you all why I train Karate. This has been much harder than I thought to get down on virtual paper as it were. This blogging business isn’t as easy as it looks! So here is “The List”: Topping at Number One: “The impossible goal of achieving absolute perfection with what you’ve been given”. The more I started thinking about my list the more I realised that most of my reasons tend to circulate around this one. The more you train Karate the more you want to get better, and perfect something, anything, everything! As soon as I have managed to grade to a particular belt, this never seems to be enough for me, I am always looking forward to improving what I know already, learn a new kata: to perfect something new and in general just keep going! This sort of leads me to the second reason (bare with me it will make sense the more you read)  Number two: My name is not Mark Knopfler, my name is Savage. Let me try and explain it this way. I think any musician particularly Mr Knopfler has managed to achieve an almost perfection in what they do. If I can get even close to this I must find what exactly it is that I am good at. Because it ain’t playing the guitar! I quite simply found my way to Karate: if I can get close to achieving some sort of perfection with my own body then I will quite simply die a happy man! Training Karate for me is like listening to Mark Knopfler, a poetry in movement and perfection which is absolutely incredible! It seems to me that I can with enough sweat, tears, and work, actually get close to achieving something with Karate, perhaps not perfection, perhaps I won’t have time to even get close but by god I think I can actually get close enough in any case! And this is why I train Karate, because If I can get even slightly close to the perfection of Mark Knopfler or the beauty of any Black Belt that I train with then I truly will be happy! Reason number three: My Head and my Body: I tend to travel and work at particular moments very intensively. If I can for a moment in my life forget all these problems then I am probably doing myself a big favour! So how do I forget? Well I can tell you this, put yourself in front of lets say a 2m high man with a black belt called Harald ;) and try and fight against him, will make you forget in an instant any issue you may have had at home or at work! Sorry to pick on you Harald but you are the perfect example! In reality, any fight is going to of course make you forget! Tied into that the fact that my body seems to be reaping some pretty big benefits as well. I’ve lost about 8kg, any problems I had in my shoulders and neck because of too much work with a PC seems to have pretty much disappeared. So they you have it! This is pretty much the three reasons why I train Karate in any case! Finally I would like to dedicate this list to everyone I train Karate with. Everyone gives me a great inspiration to just want to keep going.  Thanks!
Richard Savage ...

How did it go then? To be Green or not to be Green? That is the question.

Thu, 17 Dec 2009 19:49:32 GMT

Dec 17 2009, Grade Status: ?, Belt ?, Grading Yesterday evening. So for those of you who were not at the grading last night, how did the grading go?! Weeeeeeellllll, as with all gradings you are as nervous as hell. I was too nervous for example to even drive to the dojo with my own daughter, she came with some friends of mine whose son also graded. On the way I seriously thought I was going to puke in the car.... The night before, my friend Joacim asked me, how I felt, and I said I am not sure what felt worse: Doing a big presentation in front of 75 people which I did about 3 weeks ago or the grading. Joacim said something very wise, he said of course the grading is worse! Why? Because at the presentation I am the one with all the answers! At the grading, only one person has the answer and that ain't me! (That would be Sensei Björn instead of course!) This is so true! So for those of you not living in Stockholm it was snowing like hell on Tuesday and I wanted to get the dojo on Wednesday in time, which leaves a lot of time to stand in the dojo worrying about EVERYTHING!!! The higher up you get the longer you have to wait this is of course pure torture! I am unfortunately it seems the only person in the whole of Stockholm that evening who was grading up from 7th to 6th Kyu, which meant I did my test with my comrades of the green belt grade. In a way a sort of poetic logic to it all if you think about it! WELL? How did it go. I have only one answer for you: YEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEESSSSSSSSSS SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! OH WHAT A RELIEF!!!!! The joy is hard to explain, I've been on a roll pretty much all day today! So why go through all this stress and torture for a mere coloured belt? Well I did promise in my last blog to tell you why I train, but I think that I will leave that to the next time as the grading is just too much in my mind right now. One of the obvious ones is the the whole idea of wanting to achieve something better... A road towards a sort of perfection with your own body without any other tools other than yourself, and your head! Sounds easy? Well it ain't! Until next time, I would like to dedicate this blog to those who have helped me out this last season, the unsung heroes as it were: 1) Everyone I have fought against, it has been a pleasure. Thank you. 2) Sensei Valle and Daniel who seem to go the extra step to help me out whenever I ask. Thank you. 3) Sensei Björn for all the shouting and explanations for us dumb seagulls, so that you feel obliged to try and do your best! I look forward to all the shouting next season.  GOD JUL och GOTT NYTT ÅR!!!!! Vi ses 2010 for more pain and joy!  Richard stil a very stupid seagull in the big scheme of things------- But at least I seem to be improving in some ways! ;)))))))
Richard Savage ...

My name is Savage

Tue, 08 Dec 2009 21:37:45 GMT

Date:December 8th 2009. Grade status: 7th Kyu, yellow belt. Grading: Any time very very soon!

My name is Savage. Richard Savage. I guess being a Britt I should start off my blog like this. I was born in Wales, UK, grew up, studied, trained karate (more on that later). After studies I lived and worked in Paris France for 6 years where I met my wife (who is of course from around here) when I was 23. We moved to Sweden in '96 and I am classified in expat slang as a love refugee. ie why else would you want to live here? But joking aside I do love living in Sweden.

BTW sorry for the English language thing but even though I speak Swedish it would take me ages to write all of this in Swedish, and furthermore my lovely wife would have to correct it. This way all mistakes are mine alone. I hope you like it in any case.....

So what do I want to write about? I looked at the blogs being created and was totally inspired to try and join this honorable crew. Sammy, who has a fantastic blog, which is totally inspiring and gives me a unique view into what it is like to be 2nd Dan. Harald's blog which gives us a lovely view into his temporary sejour in Japan is both funny and extremely interesting. I love the pictures of him with the small Sensei! And last but certainly not least Esra's blog which gives us a wonderful view of life in Team Sweden. Congratulations to you all, if I even get close to being so good I will be happy. So back to what I want to write about: I wanted to try and put into words what it is like trying to get to black belt. Its as simple as that: the joy, the pain, the frustrations and sometimes hopefully the great results of all of those things put together!

I'd like to dedicate this first blog to Sensei Sven Ljung who trains in the Shotokan Club in Ljusdal. Sven is both my friend and builder and helped extend my summer cottage up in Hälsingland. Sven is in fact responsible for getting me into Shotokan and I therefore hold him responsible for all the pain and enjoyment I go through! Thanks Sven! You can find out more about Sven at www.ljusdalskarateklubb.se/Instruktorerna.htm

Basically the story went like this: Summer 2008, Sven and I were painting my cottage together. As many do we started talking and chatting about what we did in our spare time. Me? I was too stressed to do anything, had just turned 40, workedtoo hard and was frustrated because I never seem to find the time to go the gym. Sven? He had trained Shotakan for a number of years and told me all about how basically great it was. (This took longer than an hour) I happened to therefore mention that I did in fact train Karate 21 years ago in the UK. A style for those of you interested called Tang Soo Do, the Korean budo version of Tai Kwon Do. Sven asked me why don't I go and train? These simple words grew like an Oak tree inside me! I was 40, the kids were old enough to look after themselves and I thought it was about time I started to have some fun myself and also I was rather worried about the large stomach that was appearing on me. And that my friends is how it all began.

Next time on this blog why I train and what makes me keep going. Plus how I did in my grading of course and how that felt!

Until then I wish everyone luck in the upcoming grading!

Richard Savage ...