Why 'Falcons'?

People have often asked me why I called my martial arts family/club 'Falcons', well this is to tell you why I ended up doing that.

I suppose first up, I should say that the word Falcon is in reference to Karearea or Falco Novaeseelandiae - the New Zealand Falcon, the bird - not the Ford Falcon car!

In the Zen Do Kai system, a Third Degree Black Belt is generally awarded the title of Sensei and at this level it is considered that they are starting to put more of their own individuality into the classes they are running. So with this we are allowed to create our own 'family', with a name and a logo which defines what we see that defines us.

When I started training way back in 1988, Martin Brady was the family head of the Wolves Martial Arts Group that was running the classes in Masterton. It made some sense to me that although I should recognise where I came from in some form by using a creature of some sort. So I started looking at New Zealand fauna - rather limiting apart from a great range of birds. I did consider the New Zealand eagle, reckoned to be one of the largest in the world, the problem with that idea was that it was extinct - not a good way to start a legacy! I looked around comparing other birds of prey and ended up deciding on te karearea.

There were a couple of things I really liked about te karearea compared to some of the other birds.

• It is a hunter, going for the live game rather than carrion or 'road-kill'. To me, that means that it likes a challenge. Any bird can eat something already dead, but to go for something that is resisting, to take the slightly harder path - that helps people grow.
• Both adults share the incubation of the eggs for 32 days. The chicks are fed by adults until they are able to hunt for themselves. As an instructor it is important to create a nuturing environment for students to learn and grow.
• It is a small bird compared to other falcons throughout the world. Fast and agile, it is considered to be a fearless and brave defender of its territory. Good things to think about when training in martial arts.

I did consider calling the club Nga Karearea (Maori for 'the falcons'), but had the horrible feeling that people could make the assumption that because it was about martial arts it must be a Japanese word. I sort of wish now that I did go for the maori name.