Snow Training
Published: 1/4/2012
By Sensei Spencer
In the early years of my training, one of my first instructors always threatened us with what he referred to as snow training. I lived in an area that saw a pretty heft layer of snow each winter, but we never ventured out into pines to practice in snow drifts and the frigid temperatures. According to my instructor, this was something his instructor thought was keen idea. Secretly, I’m glad that he never tested my endurance or resistance to frostbite in this manner. Now that I live in Phoenix, where snow is merely a mythical force know only to Vikings and ski bunnies, and now that I am in the sensei position, I have rebranded the old product and renamed it heat training. Last summer my class and I did weekend training in the park. I don’t know if you’ve visited Phoenix in the summer, but if you do I suggest you learn the location of every piece of shade and water fountain within a ten-mile radius of your destination. To say Phoenix is hot in the summer like saying Alaska is a little cool in the winter. This area is called the valley of the sun by a Chamber-of-Commerce with a sick sense of humor. It is an ideal place to conduct this type of training.
Our training was conducted in the park and not in the dojo. In the dojo one can train in air-conditioned comfort with the benefit of smooth floors, but the park presents a whole new set of problems. The terrain is undulating, muddy, and littered with canine surprises. After we started training, I began to doubt that this was a good idea, but as we trained, I realized this place was a microcosm of a real world battle ground. A life preservation moment will not take place in an ideal environment. Sometimes you must get out of the dojo to test what you’ve learned inside the dojo.
The heat caused students to tire more quickly. Well…. except for the children that thought the purpose of the exercise was to run as much as possible before and after class. Although their faces were as red as the center of a dartboard, when mom and dad picked them, I fortunately had no fatalities. What the older students discovered was that they could do more than they had expected under these less than favorable conditions. Breathing the heavy muggy air that hung over the park, was good because it forced the student’s body to work harder and taught the students the real world difference between inside and outside the dojo. The uneven clumps of grass forced the student to pick-up their feet and to center their body over their foundation. Balance was sometimes compromised when the sick-o grounds keepers over watered the mud that they loosely referred to as grass. The students found they could not spin on the balls of their feet while executing a turn as they did in the dojo. Performing kata in the park forced the students to use their vision because a miss step could lead to injury. Stepping between clumps of grass is like walking through a minefield, but in a real confrontation no one is going to be scoring the foot position within your stance. The only thing of importance, outside the dojo, is the viability of your stance’s foundation. Jumping kicks practiced in the dojo had become a no-brainer part of their Chinto kata exercise, but in the park the student had to monitor where they would land. Executing a jumping kick and landing a in muddy area could send the student’s feet sliding out from under them. These are conditions the student will run into if they are forced to execute life preservation skills in a real world confrontation. Unfortunately, the karateka that only trains in the dojo can be lulled into a false sense of security. Everyone has heard about the black-belt that got knocked to the ground and beat-up by the local untrained tough guy. Maybe if his/her training had been outside in the heat as-well-as inside a comfortable dojo they could have remained on their feet and been victorious in the conflagration.
Training outside the dojo does come with risk. We did have a couple of sprained knees and skinned elbows, but by the end of summer our strains and scrapes were not too much worse than those that happened inside the dojo. The students became aware of their surroundings and began to compensate. Each student was allowed to drink water as they needed. In the desert heat this is not up for debate. If a student became ill, they were allowed to sit down and rest. This training is not a rite of manhood; it is more about increasing awareness than testing a student’s spirit.
I was reading a book by David Lowery entitled, “In The Dojo” and came upon a blurb about the early places where the samurai trained. The movies all have these swordsmen training in large halls with polished wooden floors with Spartan oriental wall decoration. In fact they trained outside in large courtyards. They faced the same elements that would be encountered on the battlefield. The idea of the traditional dojo came later when the lords of the land began to prosper, and could afford private areas in which to train. Other martial artists have written about their training outdoors too. In Hayes sensei’s book “My Journey with the Grandmaster” he wrote about training on the beach. Training on a beach teaches the karateka timing. It is timing that ebbs and flows with the motion of the tides and storm fronts. It’s finding the elements of the natural world inside the form. Shimabuku Tatsuo sensei’s dojo was open to the elements. It had no roof and was simply surrounded by a block fence. Sometimes the ground became so hot that students could not stand on it to train. Tatsuo sensei sprinkled water on the ground to enable his students to continue training. Original Isshin-ryu students trained in all the elements. Training outdoors kept the samurai prepared for what they might encountered in real combat. Is this a good enough reason for the karateka to train in the elements or has our need to reality train been eliminated. Has the dojo made us weaker, or has karate become vehicle only for self-improvement? If you believe the latter don’t waste your time snow training.
Another reality training option is to practice wearing street clothing as opposed to a karate uniform. During our heat training, we did not train in leather shoes and jeans, but if you’re in a real confrontation it is unlikely that you’ll be wearing a loose-fitting martial arts uniform. You do not know how tight clothing affects your kicking and punching ability, and unless you’ve experimented while dressed in street clothing you cannot accurately assess your limitations. Ask yourself how high can I kick wearing work boots? When I was young, we all purchased Chuck Norris jeans, so our kicks would not be impeded. Okay… that was a long time ago, but the truth is that we thought about things like that in the old days. Modern clothing and footwear can give you an advantage in a confrontation, but only if you recognize how these items can best be utilized. A women wearing high-heels at first glance looks to be on an unstable platform, but if they were to kick one shoe off and place their body weight on that foot, they immediately improve their foundation. The other shoe can be used as a weapon when driven forward with a heel-thrust kick. It is kind of like adding a spike to the bottom of your foot. One moment what appeared to be weakness in the next can become a deadly weapon. In my cowboy days western boots were a martial artist’s enhancement. The pointed toes could be used to apply force to a small area while the upper portion of the boot protected the shin and instep when delivering a kick. Heels of the boot driven down an aggressor’s shin could cause a great deal of pain. The downside of wearing boots is that your balance is somewhat compromised. Each karateka should evaluate their clothing to know their strengths and weaknesses. Training wearing normal clothing is an option that a serious karate student should explore. Training in the park wearing street clothing is simply another layer of snow training.
Snow training is up to the individual karateka. Do it… or don’t do it. It’s your choice. Without a doubt my students questioned my sanity, when we began training in the heat, because even the lizards were in the shade laughing at us. You must listen very carefully to hear a lizard laugh, or possibly what I was hearing was a heat induced audio hallucination. Anyway… did I mention it was hot! I tried telling students that perspiration cleansed the body and hoped that would minimize the complaining but it made no significant difference. Okay… I lied my students didn’t complain, at least not where I could hear them, but the class did get smaller and smaller as the summer dragged on until only a few students remained. My hope is they got a perspective of how things can be different outside the dojo, but even if they only got a horror story to tell their own students in the future, they still got something out of snow training.