Most people think Karate is about fighting.
Punching. Blocking. Winning.
And yeah — it starts there.
But what happens after sixty years of practice? What does a martial art become when you stop trying to prove something?
I drove ten hours to the south of France to train with Heyoten, an 8th dan Karate master who has been practicing since before I was born. We sparred, we talked, and somewhere between the kumite and the philosophy, I stopped thinking about techniques altogether.
He also built a dojo in Burkina Faso. From scratch. But I'll let him tell that story.
What is the purpose of Karate ?