Welcome to Martial Art Talks! The MAT is an interview blog series where I speak with the best and brightest the martial arts industry has to offer.
The first person to hit the MAT is Koryu Uchinadi Renshi, Sensei Danny Spletter. In addition to being a 4th dan in KU, Sensei Spletter also holds a 3rd dan in Shoto Kan.
In our talk he shares what he feels are the most rewarding and sometimes frustrating aspects of being an instructor and gives us a taste of what he will be teaching at the 2017 North American Gasshuku! Feel free to watch our interview or read below!
JT: How did you get introduced to Koryu Uchinadi and Hanshi Patrick McCarthy?
DS: I was a part of the Australian Karate Federation in Brisbane; they would bring him over every year for a seminar. He would explain, in depth, katas we were doing and until then I had no idea that they had applications—or had asked and never received an answer.
JT: How would you describe your teaching style?
DS: I fall back on the JKA style of teaching, which is more Kihon oriented, in the KU sense. I still very much like that formality. I roll out with that more traditional style karate. I like things to be fairly disciplined and orderly.
JT: Take me through the step-by-step process you go through teaching or assessing your students.
DS: That’s hard. It depends on the student. The way my curriculum is set up is we have the solo first and then the two person. I think that gets some muscle memory about where the body should be moving. But, sometimes it’s very difficult for people to imagine that other person there, so there’s some fusion.
JT: What do you think is the most frustrating part of teaching? In KU and/or just generally.
DS: I’ve thought about this the last few years: KU really requires a good partner and it’s very difficult when you have mismatched students. It occurs to me that’s probably what happened with the evolution of Karate from Okinawa to Japan. You originally have these small classes with individual attention, possibly two to three people, then moving to larger classes, it would be a very difficult task to make that transition and teach two person drills to a mass amount of students. I find it works better for us to have smaller groups, more individual attention and to limit the ratio of students to instructors. It certainly works out and I find the students progress much faster when they have a evenly matched partner.
JT: What’s your greatest strength as an instructor?
DS: I try to be pretty organized. I’m a chef by profession and the culinary term is mise en place, which means “to put everything in its place.” That’s why I’ve set the curriculum up to be very orderly. That works for me in my personal life. The students that we have seem to be very comfortable with that. They know where they’re headed and there are no mysteries.
JT: What is your greatest strength as a student?
DS: The stand up from JKA. The stand up impacting is where I probably feel the most comfortable.
JT: What’s the most frustrating part for you as a learner?
DS: As KU has progressed, it’s gathered a lot of drills. With the limited amount of time I have, its sometimes difficult to practice those drills and I really have trouble keeping up with them. We have a group of black belts now that are learning those drills and we’ll be able to work them together. Like the old adage says “karate is like boiling water, if you do not heat it constantly, it will cool.”
JT: What will you be teaching at the Koryu Uchinadi North American Gasshuku?
DS: I’ve volunteered to do the Kihon section at the start. We call it the Kihon Kickoff, with “old school” Volume 9 (Basic KU Curriculum) and REALLY work those drills. Hopefully, we’ll get a bit of a sweat up to start the Gasshuku!
JT: What do you think is the best part of the Gasshuku experience?
DS: The thing I love about the Gasshuku is the networking and the people. Sensei McCarthy always says it attracts like-minded people, but I guess its not just like-minded in the martial arts, it’s a group of people I genuinely enjoy spending time with. I’ve been all over the world and it really seems to attract a similar group. They’re all pretty good people to get along with. I always have fun.
JT: If you had one piece of advice to give, what would it be?
DS: Follow your passion. Do what you want to do because life is short!
JT: Thank you so much Sensei Danny Spletter for taking the time to speak with me. I look forward to working with you at the Gasshuku!
