OUR WORLD: Power Pose

Knee deep in the Gulf of Mexico, a group of karate students performs hakucho kata.

In unison, their movements create a pattern of ebb and flow between balanced poses. A constant drizzle of rain soaks them as the waves test their balance.

It was an end-of-summer workout, one where martial arts students came together for a day of training at Delnor-Wiggins State Park in North Naples. The beach workout, an annual one for the students at Minami Dojo martial arts school, is a chance to bring karate out of the classroom and into the lives of the students, says the school's founder and master instructor, Lynn Kureth. With students of all levels training at various locations, Kureth said the tradition started as a way to bring his students together.

"It develops fellowship. It helps students to build relationships on a different level and to have a better cohesion with the dojo," said Kureth.

Exercises originally taught in the dojo are tested in outside environments where weaknesses will be amplified. For example, a kata is a pre-choreographed slow-motion pattern of movements to develop form. Karate katas often imitate animals, and the hakucho kata is based on the white crane.

"The different types of the steps that are found in the hakucho kata have to do with the ways that a crane would step. They are either stepping over something or stepping through something," said Kureth.

"The bird will strike with its beak and we will strike with our fingertips."

Pat Hurley, a first-degree black belt and sensei of the school's Ave Maria dojo, said the on-location training forces the students to focus on their balance. Familiar exercises from the dojo become unfamiliar when standing on the beach or in the water.

"It causes you to really focus on how you may need to improve. When you do karate on a sandy beach it is like lifting weights for your balance," said Hurley.

"Karate is more than self-defense. It is a mindset. The way you develop your training and practice helps you with school and it helps you with work. It helps you with dealing with other people and everyday life," said Kureth.

"Someone might ask me 'When is the last time you used your karate?' My answer would be 'every day.' It is in how I deal with people or how I drive down the road. You aren't aggressive. You see someone who is going to be aggressive and you back off and let them go. You choose the battles you wish to fight. Some of the battles aren't worth fighting."

Connect with David Albers at www.naplesnews.com/staff/david-albers

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