Malta Parks and Rec Karate Classes

Malta's Department of Parks and Recreation started a new session of Karate Classes on Wednesday, July 7, at the Malta City Hall building.

Sensai Michael Morser, a third-degree black belt, has been a long time student and teacher of Shito-Ryu, a type of Karate that was made popular in Okinawa, Japan.

"The way I look at karate is, you use it for self-defense, but it takes a lot of control," Morser said. "We learn a lot of movements that can seriously hurt people. You have to know when to use it, when not to, how to gauge situations. A lot of it, I tie into self defense, so it seems weird but we do a lot of training to try not to have to use it."

The classes offered are broken into two groups; ages five to 14, and age 15 to adult. The students present in Friday's class were all ranked orange belts (9th Kyu) and will be competing soon.

"We are just now getting them prepared for the Montana State Games," Morser said. "We have one that is going to be doing some bo staff, some Japanese weapons in the tournament, and everybody will be doing kata and sparring. One wants to do breaking."

The current group has been training and learning under Morser since November, where they started off as white belts. After the summer tournament is over, the group will be testing for the 8th Kyu and the yellow belt. Students will work until they get to 1st Kyu, where they can earn the coveted first-level black belt. The top black belt is tenth degree.

"For first-level black belt (Shodan), it usually takes four to six years," Morser said. "It takes a lot of practice. The idea of karate, the way that it works, and is effective is that it has to get ingrained. A lot of practice, a lot of doing katas, doing the movements over and over so that it's ingrained and you can do it without thinking."

At the orange belt level, the group is learning their second and third katas. After the students receive their yellow belts, they learn three katas per belt.

Being that sessions go throughout the year, Morser can welcome students at any time. First-time students will learn alongside students with higher belt levels, also being trained by those further along.

"In my opinion, the best way of learning is to do it yourself and you explain and show it to someone else," Morser said.

Though traditionally students of the same rank spar together, Morser believes that sparring with different ranks will benefit the newer ranks.

"My idea is that if a white belt trains and gets used to the black belts, then by the time that they are black belts, they should be better than that previous black belt," Morser said.

Morser will be heading to break in August, but the next session will start in September.