Thread by @Nantanreikan

When I was a boy, I practiced judo. Before class, the sensei, Vic Hunt, would always wash his feet before class in the dressing room. I was puzzled. It seemed the opposite of athletes hitting the showers after hard workout.

Years later, I read the marvelous memoir about karate in Tokyo, Moving Zen, by C W Nicol. He wrote of two Canadians who were tough fighters, but habitually wore dirty uniforms. Worse than that, they reeked horribly.

This was intolerable to the fastidious Japanese, and some furious black belts muttered that the Canadians "were going to get their parts scattered." They ended up getting expelled instead.

Now, as an old man trying to teach traditional karate, I understand a little better than my younger self.

Dojo 道場 means a training hall, but its literal translation is, "the place of the way." The dojo is special to anyone to takes their martial arts practice seriously.

In the West, "wearing your Sunday best" implies the respect and reverence the pious have for the church. Karate is not a religion, but it is a tradition also respected and revered by its practitioners.

That view converges to how the Japanese culture esteems seiketsukan 清潔感, "the spirit of cleanliness."

As Nicol's tale implies, there is a tangible reason for the wedding of good practice to clean bodies: the respect and care you are required to show your training partners.

This is also a lesson of the pandemic: just as bodies must be clean in the dojo, so must the air. Seiketsukan means good ventilation, air purification, and masking, so your exhalation does not contaminate others.

So I will prepare for class tonight as I always do: by showering thoroughly, donning a freshly laundered keikogi (practice uniform), and putting on an N95 mask. Vic Hunt wasn't Japanese, but it's not a matter of ethnicity. He would understand.

To do any less would lack respect for others in the dojo and the way of karate itself. Anyone, regardless of their fitness or level of skill, is capable of showing respect. That is our bottom line.