I was careful to say *I*'ve ever seen as, if you look closely at the photo, you'll see that these diligent karateka are in fact my children and therefore this is special to me...
The act of cleaning the hall before training is a great way to make sure everything is clean and tidy and hopefully reducing the likelihood of splinters or at the very least making for a more pleasant experience. We don't have a dedicated martial arts hall so this is fairly necessary - I was scolded after one week's lesson when we hadn't been able to sweep the floor and had done some floor exercises and everybody's white do bohk's were filthy! But to be honest the kids love doing samu. And so do I!
I like the idea of devoting some time to cleansing (nurturing) the place where we'll train. It's almost a pre-training meditation. After all you're lost in the act of cleaning and making sure the floor is free from splinters or miscellaneous objects which may injure (in the past I've found-as I'm sure others have- thumb tacks on the floor, paper clips and small lego blocks which are REALLY painful underfoot!...). Of course this time can only be achieved if you turn up nice and early without being rushed-that's what I like. It may be considered a calm before the storm (especially when I'm teaching the little ones!) but I do have a job getting the brooms off the little ones who love to do it partly to play with the brooms and partly they like to help dad out.
I don't think they should do it out of obligation to me, but one day they'll see that it's nice to do it for their own benefit and for that of the others they train with. Doing this simple chore puts us against ideas of servitude if we're not careful. It's not only about serving others (although
the word samu may allude to this) it's about working through a concept of diligent application for each and every one of ourselves.
This cleansing ritual is very useful. My opinion is that it's about helping others through a simple task as well as helping ourselves through applied and continued service to the hall and our co-students. This helps us retain a sense of ourselves-we're a member of a club: black belts masters, 6th gup all perform cleaning tasks. This helps us all see that we work together to help each other grow through martial arts.
