The Return?

Some thoughts on social distancing in the dojo.

Now the first thing to point out is that I am no expert on the virus or on the transmission of viruses via the airborne droplet method, although it does appear that very few other people with an opinion on the topic are either 🙂

There is a big collective sigh of relief going on at present among certain factions of the martial arts fraternity as we are starting to be allowed to get back into the dojo.

That is the key phrase at present “we are allowed to”, not “should we?” or “is it genuinely safe?” or “what are all the implications” or “am I fully informed?”…I could go on (and no doubt will 🙂 )

Many of us have done a “covid aware” instructor course on line which was, to be polite, probably worth as much as the paper it is printed on. I wonder how many people checked the veracity of the information contained within that course or the qualification of the people running it to issue any sort of validation at the end of it.

I suspect (and again, I may be being unfair, but I doubt it) that the majority just got excited about having a certificate to put on their social media and gave it no more thought than that.

I do know some (well one person actually) who has done a full risk assessment and sought proper medical advice however the majority are basing their return on “we are allowed” and “I’ve got a certificate”.

Now, there are a number of reasons for the rush to return, some down to plain enthusiasm for the art, some who just want “life as normal”, some who think the benefits outweigh the risks, some for purely financial reasons, some for a mix of any of them. None of anybody else’s reasons are really my concern, I have opinions obviously but there is nothing to say they are any more valid than anybody else’s, we are none of us experts (certificate or not! 🙂 )

The big argument with the announcement of thing opening up has been on the subject of social distancing, “why is it ok for pubs/gyms/yoga to open up but not martial arts classes? We can easily keep distance as well as them, if not better!”

The reason most things are opening up are not because it is now safe but because there is a financial imperative to do so. It is considered “safe enough” IF everybody is sensible and sticks to the rules.

“Safe enough” equates (as I have said previously) to “acceptable losses”, we are at the stage where the majority will probably be ok, there will be local spikes where people don’t pay enough attention ( or are just unlucky) and the relatively few we lose will be balanced out by the wide scale economic damage that’ll be done if we don’t start opening up.

Which brings me back to the “we are allowed/should we?” debate. Of the instructors I know the mix seems to be about 66% to 33% in favour of “ we are allowed” and people will make their own choices on that, as will I.

However, this brings me back to the topic of “social distancing” and how it supposedly works and protects you from infection.

The rules have varied widely from country to country and are typically between 1m and 2m apart. The UK advice, in our typical woolly fashion is that it should be 2m, unless that is a bit difficult, in which case you can go down to 1m.

The point of this separation, as far as I can make out, is to avoid the transfer of droplets, breath to breath, between individuals. There is some leeway on this because there is also a duration component it seems. If someone passes you in the street at less than the required distance the risk is pretty low within the few seconds window of the transition.

So, one of the big arguments I hear within karate circles is that, if classical training is your thing, that we are ideally situated to maintain “social distancing” due to the way our classes and training are structured. As long as we stick to kihon and kata training and observe good discipline we can easily maintain our distance.

Now, I’m not one to rain on anybody’s parade (honest 🙂 ) but have people really thought this through?

So, as we said, the point of the separation is to avoid the transfer of breath droplets by staying safely out of each others space, particularly where any exchange could take place for an extended period of time. It is difficult to find definitive timings on “droplets in the air” as this is very dependant on the size of the droplets (which vary considerably in combinations in each breath) and external conditions. The closest I go was “some considerable time” for some droplets but for the sake of this consideration let us take this to mean seconds, rather than hours or minutes.

Unlike a number of activities, even if we maintain our distance participant to participant we are not static in space. Distanced line work or kata still involves moving through a space recently vacated by the next person in the line, either in front, behind or, in the case of kata, either side.

Now, I am aware that I am probably larger than the average but my average step length in stance for line work is around 1.5m, so lets assume that the average is closer to 1.3m. This being the case, each time I step forward I am moving directly into a space previously occupied around a second ago by another participant, repeat this 5 times and I remain in that same relative breath space with each step. The same is true for them during the return phase, whether we move forward or backwards. Add kata performance into the mix and the same effect happens, except we now have 4 people in the mix.

Now the thinking could be that this is similar to passing someone in the street as you are only in the same space for just a few seconds, however, although you are never in the same physical space for long you are effectively in the same “breath space” for significant amounts of time. It is not unreasonable to assume that during a 30 minute kihon workout that you will sharing “breath space” with any given individual for at least 15 minutes. Move on to kata and you are now sharing breath space with more individuals for another 15 minutes.

This can sort of work outdoors as environmental factors can aid in the dispersal of exhaled droplets far easier, and typically you can err on the side of caution for spacing as well. In a confined space this is far less of an option and droplet have no external factors to aid dispersal.

Have you ever walked into a dojo well into a physical session and been able to taste and smell the air. This is a combination of sweat and breath in aerosol form floating in the air that surrounds everybody in the room (you wouldn’t be able to taste or smell it otherwise).

So, and this is just an opinion, the only way to remain in separate breath space for true social distance is if your drills and kata can be done in a static location.

All that is doable but requires quite a lot of thought and a change in training method for students who may not be ready to change the concepts of everything they have previously learned.

You can reduce the amount of airborne droplets by making participants wear face masks but current wisdom would appear to be that this is not a good option for people engaged in strenuous physical activity due to potential CO2 build up by breathing your own recycled air over a prolonged period.

I am not offering any answers in this piece as I personally don’t have any. I am not suggesting that you should refrain from returning to the dojo, that is down to your own choice as “we are now allowed” 🙂

All I am doing is making the point that it is not as simple as washing your hands at start and finish of training and sticking to 2m spacing. It is just something extra to think through as part of your risk assessment and whether it rates low enough to warrant taking the chance.

The truth is I have no idea what the numbers are on this sort of risk but it is a factor that tends to get glossed over by the assumption 2m apart fixes the problem, no 2m apart reduces the risk because you are typically not sharing “breath space” if you are in a static situation or if you are mobile but just briefly passing through someone else’s space.

So if your risk assessment tells you that you are managing all the risks effectively and you are happy that you’ve covered all the possibilities and made rational choices before returning to training then more power to you.

If your thought process is “but we are allowed” then you may need to go into a little more depth.

Have fun 🙂

“You are not true Karate-Do…and are false!”

This is an interesting one as this was sent to me in a private message, intended as an insult, by someone who IS true karate-do apparently, who then ran off and hid, by deleting his post, leaving my group and blocking me on social media, rather than having a grown up conversation, (and it should have been a grown up conversation, the man is 58 and I am 62 ).

Although I have remained relatively unscathed by this sort of behaviour during my time interacting on-line I am aware from many of my peers, most of whom have many decades of karate training behind them, that this (and much worse) is not uncommon from those who know themselves to be “true” karate-ka

Anybody who knows me will be aware that I would obviously be devastated to be on the receiving of a telling off from a white belt who, having returned to training after a very long break, is able to recognise my lack of understanding of the true way of karate (because I tried to engage in a discussion rather than bowing to the wisdom of a trite “old masters” meme).

Ho hum, I have no doubt he’ll find his spiritual home out there as there a plenty of places for people who think (or rather don’t) that way. ( Have a good life Michael 🙂 )

However, having said all that there is a point to be made here as he could be said to be partially correct.

There is a very good chance that I am not “true karate-do”, although in my defence, I do not and never have claimed to be. I am just a man who teaches what he knows about the physical aspects of karate. I am not a life coach, a spiritual leader, a guide to the mysteries or anything else people may want me to be. What you see is, pretty much, what you get.

Now, this obviously depends to a very large extent on what your definition of “true karate-do” is but I think it would be possible to make a fair argument that I am not it.

I certainly came up through the ranks in a group that prided itself on it’s “traditional” values and am well versed in the rituals and dogma of karate-do.

Since I went down the path of independence I have certainly cut down significantly on the rituals and pretty much completely abandoned the dogma. It comes from a culture that is not my own and does not fit comfortably with my views or the training culture that I try to operate in and adhere to.

Does this mean that I have also abandoned the values that went with them?

I don’t believe so but my personal values were already well established long before I got involved in serious martial arts training and I do not need a set of rituals to enforce my behaviour and interactions with others. I am who I am in spite of my martial arts training, not because of it.

I come from a generation where mutual respect, good behaviour and good manners are expected as a matter of course, despite the external picture I may occasionally (and intentionally) paint 🙂 , and the marketing of martial arts practice for children as a way of parents abrogating this responsibility to a third party for money is not a positive move in my (obviously outdated) view.

I am fairly old school and gave up teaching children some years back as it was not what I wanted to be doing with the limited time I had but a phrase I used often in those days was “I’ve never met a child who needed a slap, but I have met many parents who did!”

Does karate-do achieve the desired result with children?

It certainly can do and can have some very positive effects so I have no real argument with that.

However, the same can be said of many, if not most, organised activities that provide a focus and a goal, karate is not particularly special in that respect. It can also have some very unhealthy attitudes and outcomes in the suppression of free thought as well that need to be watched out for if you are trying to produce well rounded and complete individuals from young children (for some adults it is seemingly way too late).

That is all a bit of an aside however to the topic of whether I am “true karate-do…and false”

My personal statement would be on the first part, am I “true karate-do”? I have no idea, it is not something I claim, I do not really have an opinion on it nor is it a particular aim of mine. It is one of those things best decided by those who know better than me (as mentioned at the start ) and will be down to your definition…although if pushed, I would say not.

Am I “false”, that will come down to the picture you have painted for yourself of me, and, to be honest, is not my problem.

I very much try not to be, what you see is what you get. Although I would say that even if I was, (it’s called marketing, apparently, and is all the rage at present in the karate world 😉 ).

I make no claims of anything past being a fat old man trying his best (and not always even that ).

However, stick a karate Gi and a black belt on someone and people will paint their own picture of who and what you should be, not who you are.

Don’t be surprised if that leads to disappointment occasionally.