Seigans and Commitment

Post by: Kris Green 

On this, the 950th day of my Seigan, I find myself wondering what has helped me

continue with my commitment? I’m not doing it for a record; it’s a personal 
challenge. 
 
Some of what’s kept me going is definitely an obsessive personality trait. 
That’s the part that has me log each class. (That’s how I know that I’m 
averaging just over 63 minutes per day.) Mostly though, it’s the desire to 
improve myself physically, mentally and emotionally that’s kept me going. 
 
I started simple, challenging myself to keep an official seigan going. Then I 
tried to bump it and do an hour each day. It doesn’t always work: sometimes I’m 
sick or injured or too busy or make other excuses and only get in 30 or 45 
minutes. But I always feel a little bad about it the next day – there’s the 
obsessive part of me. A half hour sometimes feels like I haven’t quite gotten 
what I want out of my workout, especially since I’ve started trying to bring 
more balance to them. 
 
A big key for me is variety. For a while I achieved this by making each day’s 
workout different. I’d do my kata as slowly as possible one day (I made the 
motion-sensing lights in a racquetball court turn off and stay off while doing 
kata once!) The next day, I might try to get power out of the kata, or focus on 
my stances or balance. Or really envision all the attackers and different ways 
to apply the movements. Some days I’d do a thousand kicks, or a thousand 
punches, or both to work on stamina. 
 
Recently, though, instead of doing the same thing for the entire workout, I’ve 
started to bring variety into each day. I’ll break the hour up into segments, 
like three 20-minute segments or four 15-minute segments. Then each segment gets 
a different focus. I may do one segment for conditioning, one to go over the 
most recent moves from kenjitsu, one to run through some self-defense moves, and 
one to work on my kata for third degree. It’s amazing how quickly the time 
passes. 
 
Another trick is to add in a little outside element to your training. For 
example, if you like to watch cartoons, have them playing while you work out and 
make them part of the workout. Scenes change quickly in cartoons, and every time 
the scene changes, you could swap to a new sparring combination, or add in an 
extra punch or kick to the head of your imaginary opponent. 
 
Anything we do in class is a potential source for a workout, and everything can 
be modified for different situations. Try doing all you upper body basics 
sitting in a chair, or doing the lower basics from seiza. 
 
Start small, build up, and pretty soon you’ll realize that you’ve made it 100 
days or more! Keep a record of your workouts so that you can vary them and to 
encourage you to remember to do it. 
 

Photo by: Salvatore Vuono