三戦 - The Three Battles (Sanchin)

三戦 - The Three Battles (Sanchin)

Goju training is deeper than you think.  Even as we train, we may not know the how deep our technique goes.  Kata Sanchin is one good philosophical example within the Goju discipline and maybe I can help you understand why Sanchi is so important.

Sanchin is traslated into "3 Battles."  The three battles in Goju is the representation of the continuous battle between your body, mind, and spirit.  While Kata Sanchin has zen buddhism (zazen to be specific) aspects of training, it is practiced not only to strengthen the "GO" or hard aspect of Goju but bring the three elements of training together in alignment.

Breathing, posture, muscle tension, basic technique, stance, and movement... there is a lot to deal with when practicing Sanchin.  With help from your senpais and your sensei, working to improve your muscle memory in the correct fashion will help you develop your body.  The mind and spirit are another story. 

I have always equated the development of my spirit to the development of my self-confidence.  I have always looked at the improvement of self-confidence to be the culmative successes of short-term and long-term goals. These successes, no matter how small or how large, affect who we are and affect our perspective in life.  Our failures only amplify the successes we achieve. 

Your mind is the hardest to develop.  For practitioners, this is undoubtedly the most frustrating to develop as well because it ties both your physical attributes as well as your spiritual ones.  Our mind, our consciousness, is the start.  How many times while training have you thought, "wow... I would like to learn that technique?" And how many times have you gathered enough courage to attempt that technique only to utterly fail in your first attempts? 

This is becuase our minds are the gateway to bigger and better things.  When our minds touch something that touches our heart... then passion is born.  When passion is born... we physically get involved.  As a good friend told me... this is a cycle... Wash, Rinse, Repeat.  This cycle, regardless if you succeed or fail, is one of the most natural cycles that we as humans face.  It applies to many different things and can be experienced at different levels of intensity.

While it is easy to "ingnite" your mind through passion, keeping or maintaining that passion is the hardest to do.  This is where it gets difficult to train your mind. We have a natural tendency to travel the path of least resistance and find ways to make things easy for ourselves.

Thinking, moving, and developing your personal faith (religious or just personal resolve... doesn't matter) is easily done when focusing on the aspects individually.  Even when praticing Kata Sanchin, it is very simple to learn, memorize, and understand the basic concepts of this basic kata.  However, the Kata does not come "alive" until you have learned how to bring all the aspects together.  Kata Sanchin teaches us this and was developed as such. 

While Kata Sanchin has the most simplest of movements in all 12 Goju Kata, It is definitely the most difficult technically.  This is because of the demands on the body.  Simple (basic) movements means that the karateka must show his mastery of the techniques.  With demostrating mastery of basic technique, your body and breathing must be in sync with the natural flow of the Kata.  Any practitioner will tell you that this more difficult that it seems and can be quite frustrating as many have experienced light headedness from trying too hard.

There are many aspects beyond what I have explained above that need to be mastered by the body (zazen) and the body alone. The mind and spirit fall into balance when that can be accomplished (which is developed simultaneously).  You cannot make progress with Kata Sanchin unless you hone all three aspects together.  It is the continuous battle between the three aspects that helps us find our own unique equilibrium.