Training is Messy Business: "Seiketsu o mune to subeshi!"

Keep yourself clean.

It's Yoshukai Karate's fifth precept, and it's the only one that is really, really specific.  Like I mentioned yesterday, I feel like these precepts were listed in order of importance, and even though "keep yourself clean" is the fifth in a list of five, it's still pretty important.  Anyone who has ever grappled will tell you that.

If you attend enough clinics where groundwork is taught, you'll end up meeting a guy whose submission of choice is the "perenially unwashed gi of death."  And it works.  We all get a little grimy when we work out, and I can't remember ever rolling with someone who was completely Tide-fresh, but the gi of death is a little much.

So, why after four general precepts dealing with the general development of good character and personal safety do we find a specific order on cleanliness?

I imagine at first, it was a necessity.  People train, get dirty, and train some more.  And, if you have enough roommates, you may need to launder sparingly or at least at a respectfully-spaced rate.  But, given the necessity, I still think Soke Yamamoto had a higher purpose in mind.  Cleanliness is one of the traits of people who are generally taken seriously.  In class, the student with the clean, pressed dogi generally looks pretty sharp.  And, I'll admit freely, I sweat so much that it doesn't take long before any of my dogi look like it has been worn for years.  Also, remember that we study traditional martial arts, and whether the art originated in Japan, China, Korea, or other nearby Asian nations, we're dealing with a culture of respect for whom decorum, discipline, and order are all ways of life.

Why write so much about cleanliness?  Well, since I've been working out more and more, I've found that I am one dirty, messy fool after a walk/jog and adding in a forms workout or HIIT/Tabata.  In fact, Saturday night when Blair and I went on a short walk to burn off a few post-dinner calories, I returned to find that I looked like the windshield of a tractor trailer.  Bugs must've figured they'd found the Promised Land and laid down and died on me.  Pretty gross, huh?

But, all the cleanliness-talk aside, while you're training, enjoy the grit and grime--I do!  It's like being a kid again; just going outside and playing (sorta) and getting dirty (ok, not as dirty).

And, when your workout clothes or dogi gets dirty, I suggest Überweiss:  The East German laundry detergent!  "It's new; It's German; It's extra tough!" 

"Überweiss.  Es is das beste, nicht wahr?"