The Cutting Edge at Ligo Dojo
Two Ligo Dojo Students test for Shodan at Kancho Royama's Seminar in Japan.
Read why Remaining at the Cutting Edge of Kyokushin Karate's Technical Development
is Vital to the City of Durham.

We at Ligo Dojo believe that two key elements are vital to our long-term success in Durham, and as an organization that will eventually extend its reach beyond Durham. First and foremost, we must benefit our community, and, most importantly, the youth of our community (see below photo of kids training at Ligo Dojo) in fundamental ways. Second, we must do our best to remain at the cutting edge of the technical development of our art (Karate, the means with which we empower our young people, adults, and our community towards greater physical and spiritual health), so that we can teach our students in the best way possible, and compete with area for-profit schools who, in many cases, fail to emphasize the personal character and integrity developing elements of karate training.

Above: Kids training at Ligo Dojo. Our dojo serves an equal mix of adults and kids, men and women, and paying students and kids whose training is subsidized by our multi-agency funded "Young Warriors Program." We will be holding our end of winter grading next week, and there will be a new page posted showing the activities and promotions of our kids in Durham. This photo (above) is from our end of fall grading, 3 months ago.

Three regular Ligo Dojo students (including Amy K. foreground above, and Amy W. background above) and our instructor Nathan Ligo (below) all participated in Kyokushin-kan's annual International Instructors' Seminar in Fukushima, Japan this past weekend. All three senior members tested for new rank, and gained knowledge and experience that they will bring back to the students at Ligo Dojo in order to keep the material taught in Durham competitive on an international level. Both female brown-belt students seen here have been training at Ligo Dojo for three years, and since Ligo Dojo is only three years old, they will become the first two of Ligo Dojo's student body to achieve the rank of Shodan (first degree black belt) . . . i.e. provided they are given passing grades. The results of last weekend's test have not yet been announced!!

Nathan Ligo tested this weekend for his "Shihan License" a certification of "teacher's teacher" offered in rare cases as a very high level certification by Kyokushin-kan International Karate Organization in Japan. The results have not yet been announced, but Sensei Ligo fully expects that this test/promotion will become, in his case, at least a YEAR-LONG test, in that it is very likely that the Kancho Royama and the Kyokushin-kan technical committee will hold off on promoting him at this time and in hopes of seeing (and inducing!) a further deepening of knowledge before next year's test. In the midst of an extremely difficult year in terms of the nonprofit management tasks of operating our new dojo, Sensei Ligo set himself to this challenge, specifically, in order to keep himself in shape and do the best he could despite what was actually probably inadequate preparation due to time constraints. Some martial arts organizations in Japan give these certifications away "for the right price", but we are proud to be supported by an organization in Japan that holds us to such a high standard that they would risk losing promotion-hungry international members to other organizations in order to maintain this very high standard. Two years ago at this same test, from 15 overseas seminar participants who tested, 12 were asked to repeat the test the following year.

19 year old Matt C. of Ligo Dojo (top left above) also traveled with us to Japan this weekend to participate in this event. Seen here in the front row from left to right are Sensei Soon-Li, a guest instructor who taught a 90-minute seminar on Ikken (chi training), Kancho Hatsuo Royama (chairman of Kyokushin-kan), Fuku-Kancho Hiroshige (vice-chairman of Kyokushin-kan), and Nathan Ligo.

Members of the Kyokushin-kan technical committee, Shihan Okazaki (right) and Shihan Ishijima (left).

Kancho Royama had us outside training in the snow.

Nathan Ligo is seen here (second from left) during his promotion test. We've added 4 video clips (below), including 3 showing kata performed during this test. Why kata? What exactly is the importance of learning kata well? Sensei Ligo tries to explain to his students this way:

"The basic motions of karate ("kihon" in Japanese), the movements students learn from their very first day training, are like the 1+1's and the 2+2's of karate training. Tournament fighters sometimes believe that they're doing the "rocket science" of karate, but really it's the life and death self-defense situation, in which the karateka actually has to defend his life against multiple attackers, that should be thought of as rocket science. Can a scientist who only knows 1+1 and 2+2 figure out how to get a rocket to the moon and back safely again? Surely, not. Rather he has to continuously work to deepen his knowledge past simple addition to long division, geometry, calculus and beyond. It is the practice of kata, in karate, that might be likened to the geometry and calculus of rocket science. Of course, calculus alone doesn't get a rocket to the moon; the scientist also has to practice real-world applications of what he/she learns while solving the necessary problems to learn how to apply it to finally get the rocket where it needs to go. Hence, kata without kumite, just like kumite without kata his meaningless in terms of learning life and death self-defense. What does Kyokushin-kan, Kancho Royama and the Kyokushin-kan Technical Committee do really well? "Bunkai" in Japanese or "application" drills are the exercises that we use, with a partner, to apply in a controlled situation the movements of the kata against an "attacker" to better understand the meaning of the kata, thus connecting the kata to the kumite, or the 1+1's to the higher level studies of self-defense. If 5 guys with knifes attacked you, could you defend yourself? If you had all the materials but you had to get a rocket to Mars, could you do it? For that matter what can you learn through the study of the rocket science of self-defense that you might then apply to the more common, but sometimes just as hard to solve, problems of life? We practice kata, one component of karate practice, to learn self defense. We learn self-defense, to learn to better handle the challenges of life. To master one is to learn tools that we might use to apply towards the mastery of the other. What is mastery in karate training? Is it a 4th degree black belt or a "shihan" qualification? Of course not. These are just steps along the way in a lifetime of study. Fujiwara Shiahan asked recently, "Does a new belt change the person who wears it on the inside?" Of course it doesn't. It's just a new belt, a measure that we use as a learning tool to get us where we ultimately want to go."

Here are clips of:

Seienchin Kata

the Oshiro no Kon kumi-bo (a "bunkai" or "application drill to better understand Oshiro no Kon)

The Sai kata "Tabata no Sai Dai"

and a clip of Sensei Ligo in the lobby at night learning the motions of a new bo kata, "Yubi no Kon" so that he can take it back and teach at Ligo Dojo. The fellow teaching the movements of the kata is Ishijima Shihan, the 2005 Kata World Champion from our First World Tournament held in Moscow in 2005.

Overseas participans in the weekends' camp doing sit-ups in the snow.

Seminar had 140 participants.

(more material including video clips coming soon)

Ligo Dojo students paid for their own trips to Japan, and all Ligo Dojo students are invited every year. Four days in Japan for a three-day seminar seems extremely long nonetheless. This picture was taken at the top of Mt. Tsukuba about one hour from Tokyo. We had one day free to "see the sights" before heading home to the dojo. We arrived after a 20-hour flight at 5PM and were in the dojo teaching at 6PM.