For a while now I’ve been thinking about creating a post centered on each of our style’s patterns (kata). This desire has been growing steadily over the past few “COVID months” as I’ve been spending so much time training alone in the basement dojang; training in a deliberate and conscious manner, trying to identify weaknesses, trying to understand the motivation for and use of certain techniques. During these times, when I’m performing patterns alone and at my own pace, I’ll become aware of certain things. For instance, I’ll become aware of how a slight change in stance renders the subsequent move more stable or powerful. Or I’ll notice how at certain points I ‘slur my words’, running techniques together and in doing so, I reduce their effectiveness. So here it goes, the inaugural ‘pattern’ post – Musings on The White-Senior Pattern.
First, here are the steps of the pattern.
- Step the left leg back into a right front stance
- Upward block
- Rear inward punch
- Dodge
- Rear inward punch
- Rotate 90 degrees and repeat three more times
I have the impression that a lot of students view the White-Senior pattern as some sort of throw-away pattern and I can certainly understand why. The moves are so basic and so easy to memorize. There’s so little (apparent) technical challenge to their execution. An upward block. A rear inward punch. A dodge followed by another rear inward punch. Turn 90 degrees and repeat. Mastery seems immediate. What could be easier? The pattern doesn’t even include a kick! It’s a pattern that one learns during the first one or two classes and thereafter it’s performed mechanically and without attention or awareness. This is a shame because this pattern is truly useful and there really is a great deal to examine.
To begin with, this is my go-to pattern for warming up before a training session. I use this pattern to run a ‘diagnostics check’ of my body, especially of my shoulders and knees. Historically, and more so as I’ve gotten older, I’ve had some trouble with my knees, perhaps provoked by years of running without the muscle balance brought about by performing other cross-training exercises. The White-Senior pattern lets me ‘test the waters’ and look for problems or moves that I might need to be extra-aware of that day. This pattern provides a great opportunity to warm-up the joints before turning up the workout’s intensity – squeezing the synovial fluid out of wherever it has pooled in the bursae surrounding the joints so that it lubricates the entire joint as it’s meant to. My training sessions usually occur after an 8 hour workday and often it takes a little bit of time to ‘wake up’ my body and shake off the lethargy induced by a day spent in a chair, at a keyboard. The White-Senior pattern helps with this waking up. Typically, by the time I finish my third pattern (gold belt) I’m beginning to feel some energy.
I start the White-Senior pattern in low gear, making my first moves resemble the type of Tai Chi with which most Westerners are familiar. That first outward block is not executed while imagining that I’m blocking an attacker’s incoming strike. Rather, I move my attention to my shoulder socket, noting how everything feels there. I scan for tightness and muscle tweaks. The same is true of the rear inward punch that follows. How does that shoulder feel? How does that arm feel in its socket? How does my back feel as I twist into the punch. Do I detect any kinks from having sat at a desk for most of the day? I find the first dodge especially important. I slowly sink down, bending at the knees and under complete control, aware of how the muscles around the knee joint feel. Do I detect any weird joint pain inside the knee? Is that ITBS pain with which I’m so familiar staying at bay? The same attention persists as I stand back up and deliver the front-direction’s final rear inward punch.
And then I turn 90 degrees.
That’s how White-Senior begins for me, but after the first two turns I usually have a pretty good initial read of the ‘diagnostics’ and my attention moves more fully to the techniques themselves. There is so much… opportunity… in this pattern. Opportunity to examine fundamental and foundational moves. Consider the rear inward punch. In its execution I’m aware of leading with my hip, inducing the twist in my lower body that, as it unwinds, ripples upwards to my shoulders where, with the striking elbow held sufficiently high, the hand is finally launched outwards to become an effective strike.
Or, consider the outward block. Am I practicing a big motion with the understanding that if I were to ever need that block in real life, it’s very likely that adrenaline would end up making the motion smaller? Am I leaning back a bit as I execute the block? Is the orbit that my blocking arm makes a good distance from my body, or is it too close, rendering the block ineffective if it were to be used to actually block.
Or even more fundamental, what about my stance? It has to be wide enough for me to be stable and allow for an effective hip drive for my rear inward punches. One can’t get a hip drive when standing in a narrow stance. I move my attention to my center of mass, that spot somewhere around my navel. As I execute my techniques, I focus on how I move my ‘center’ and how my balance shifts. Do I lean into my punches just enough to help lock in the kinetic chain that runs from my fist down to my feet, but not so far that I could easily be pulled over? Am I balanced as I block?
Finally, how about my turns? With focused awareness I turn 90 degrees on the balls of my feet and then step back, making the stepping leg weightless and sliding its foot back. Does the sliding foot stop at a point that leaves me once again in a stance that is wide enough and over which I’m well balanced? I see a lot of students simply lift up their rear foot and pivot on their front foot, passing through a long moment in which they are unstable with all of their weight stacked on the pivoting foot.
I typically start with the pattern’s right side. Often, as I’m finishing the left side, I’ve begun to imagine an adversary directly in front of me and I’m using the techniques comprising the pattern to block and counter-attack this adversary.
So there you go – my thoughts on the White Senior pattern. If you haven’t already done so, I hope I’ve convinced you to go back and look at your ‘beginner’ pattern with a more sophisticated eye to see what other lessons or insights might be hidden there.