Matsubayashi Shorin Ryu kata

I always found it most important to learn about other Okinawan systems.

 松林流 型 

Slow & Full & Bunkai

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CaLs8HrEsh0

 

Dangerous Saifa Kick Drill

Again, something to consider.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Ldw66BZhDE&t=86s

The use of caution must be mentioned.
 

On Any Given Day......

Back in 1984, once upon a time in a land far, far away… I think that is how good stories are to begin.

I was a minor competitor in the old Region 10, which was included Pa., Md, and NJ.  Individuals entered Black Belt competition for many reasons. In my case not being with one of my Isshinryu instructors, and training myself, I realize that the competition was about the best way to push myself that I could find.

This was before the internet, back then the most informed information about the arts outside of your instructor or friends in their arts, was the karate magazines. As time would prove those magazines were not necessarily accurate either.


 The definition of what karate was (outside of your system) in those years was a bit more open than people believe in today. If you stepped on the floor and held your own, it was karate, and possibly would stand the test of time – or not.

I primarily competed in Kata and Kobudo. And the competition was fierce there. 

There are judges then who can remember those days. Pat Burns, Bruce Heilman, John Hamilton, Rom Martin among others. 

And the competitors with all their skill, some of them to become National Champions, by the standards of that day. They drew in other National level champions to contest against them too. It was pretty heady stuff to be on the same floor as them.

I just want to recall one memory that might make that point.

Back then when competitors tied for first place, the had to compete again. And in kobudo division the competitor who only had one form to compete with was at a disadvantage. The competitor who could perform a different kata with a different weapon had an advantage.

 

This was Cynthia Rothrock, from those days.

Unfortunately I can find no photos of Edward Hampton.

Well, as I recall on that day I was in the same division as Cindy Rothrock, and another of the competitors was a senior student of Manny Agrella,  Edward Hampton (if my memory serves me right.

Suffice it to say, for me it was another practice session. However Cindy and Edward, were unreal that day.

(1)That day they tied, then had to do another kata, 

(2)Both of them did a different form with a different weapon. Again they tied. 

(3)Both of them did a different form with a different weapon. Again they tied. 

(4)Both of them did a different form with a different weapon.  Yet another tine they tied. 

(5)Both of them did a different form with a different weapon.

That’s right 5 times they tied, and they used 5 different weapons that day.

The fact that they had or borrowed so many different weapons to compete, gives testimony to the lengths they took their training.

I am not sure who won, my memory remembers the day, but not the outcome.

It was a different time. Perhaps the time pushed the competitors just as well.

 Were they the best? After seeing so many fine forms over those years I know there were many times many who were skilled. A different time, a different day and anything might happen.

Among the judges I have mentioned.

 Bruce Heilman, Ron Martin, Ann Heilman

 

Victor Smith and Joe Brague

 

Pat Burns demonstrating a takedown

 

A study in Chinto

 This occurred in the early 1980s.


On Saturday morning, while driving to class, a new way of considering some of Chinto’s application potential presented itself to me.

Consider this section in Tom Lewis' Chinto Kata:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ISvoUoyBSIQ

   
You draw the right foot back and twist your body clockwise into a right cross stance as you perform a double rising wedge strikes. [feel free to derive a better term!]


Then your left foot steps forth (with a crescent step) and you perform a simultaneous left low strike and right high strike.


Next your right foot steps forth (with a crescent step) and you perform a simultaneous right low strike and a left high strike.



My application analysis for this section has never been one I’ve been totally comfortable with, and the various studies I’ve completed have never fully taken these techniques into account.


Sure the obvious ‘missing’ front kick (a real hidden technique possibility) between movement 1 or 2 presents itself.  For movement 1. the potential for double blocking similar to boxing rope-a-dope is there.


Charlie Murray was shown how this movement could be used to trap an arm during his stay in Okinawa, but on the whole, I still wasn’t very satisfied.


What came to me was one series of potential against grab and yank situations. Perhaps many of us don’t worry about such, feeling our size or power make it unlikely that such will occur.  But such attacks do exist and the more we understand our kata potential, the more complete our response capability becomes.



Several other opening thoughts.


First, if you’re being grabbed and yanked, its unlikely you will draw back into the cross stance as Chinto shows. I choose to explore the stepping out into the cross stance (akin to its use in Seisan kata) as I perform the double rising blocks.

Second, when moving into the stances it is necessary to orient yourself to take advantage of the application potential. That means you aren’t necessarily moving straight forward as in the kata, but perhaps on an angle, yet the finish of the stance and technique are as clean and precise as doing Chinto alone. This requires you use your full body potential. Keep your weight centered on the balls of your feet to finish your body alignment correctly and use your knee release in your technique to fully exploit your body’s power.

Your skill in performing Chinto kata is fully required to draw forth these applications effectively.

Opponent grabs your left wrist with their right hand and pulls you sharply forward.

[First Movement} You step across with your right foot and twist your body clockwise to form the right cross step. Doing this you execute the double rising wedge strikes, by first turning your left hand (palm side) in towards your chest and drawing your right fist across your left forearm, then pulling your right hand back and turning your left palm away from you as you finish the double strikes.  This movement separates their grab with the action of your right arm.

[Second Movement} You step forward with your left foot, but when you place the ball of that foot down, and you shift your weight onto the left foot, your body rotates counter-clockwise as you set into left foot forward Seisan Stance but so your own chest crosses their arm about 20 degrees.

As this takes place your right hand opens and you rotate your right forearm so your palm faces away from you (though not called for, this pressing motion could be an opening for an arm grab too.) The other half of the motion is a left descending hammerfist strike. [For safe practice strike into your opponents lower left (as you see it) abdomen.]

There are a variety of targets of opportunity such as the left hand little knuckle striking into the point 1” below the male left chest nipple, but my all time favorite is to slice across the side of the ribs where there is no meat protecting the ribs, just lots of nerves and bone underneath.
[Takedown] Such as strike itself isn’t often enough. By grabbing their wrist and then stepping across their line of attack with your left foot, and striking (rolling across) their biceps tendon you can force the opponent down into the ground.

Opponent grabs your right wrist with their left hand and pulls you sharply forward.

[First Movement] You step across with your right foot and twist your body clockwise to form the right cross step. Doing this you execute the double rising wedge strikes, by first turning your left hand (palm side) towards your chest, and drawing your left fist across your right forearm, then pulling your left hand back and turning your right palm away from you as you finish the double strikes. This movements separates their grab with the action of your left arm.

[Third Movement (skipping the second movement) being creative], Draw your weight back on your left foot allowing you to step forward with your right foot. Your body will roll counter-clockwise during the right stepping motion but then roll clockwise at the completion of this section.

As this takes place your left hand opens and you rotate your left forearm so your palm faces away from you (though not called for this pressing motion could be an opening for an arm grab too.) The other half of the motion is a right descending hammer fist strike. [For safe practice, strike into your opponents lower right (as you see it) abdomen.] There are a variety of targets of opportunity such as the right hand little knuckle striking into the point 1” below the male right chest nipple, but again I favor slicing across the side of the ribs.
[Takedown] Such as strike itself isn’t often enough. By grabbing their wrist and then stepping across their line of attack with your right foot, and striking (rolling across) their biceps tendon you can force the opponent down into the ground.



Opponent grabs your left hand with their right hand (cross hand grab)

This grab doesn’t allow the previous techniques to work as well, but we can readily defeat it by drawing on the kata in a different manner.

[First movement] You step across with your right foot and twist your body clockwise to form the right cross step. Doing this you execute the left arm rising strike, by first turning your left hand (palm side) towards your chest, and using your right rising strike, to smash into their wrist, freeing your left hand

You can then complete this section as shown in number 2 above.

 Opponent grabs your right hand with their left hand (cross hand grab).  Your response is the reverse of above

A note on 3 and 4, the cross hand grab does not come free with the double rising strike, but striking into the wrist will readily effect release from the grab.

Opponent grabs your left shoulder (or upper left arm) with their right hand.

[First movement] You step across with your right foot and twist your body clockwise to form the right cross step.

While doing this your rising left strike opens their right arm to the left.
At the same time your are striking upwards with your right fist into their solar plexus. This creates one heck of a shock into the opponent.
Alternatively, you could be doing a right uppercut underneath the opponents jaw.

This last technique reminds me of the shocking energy developed in Hsing I kung fu, and similar strikes from Tai Chi

I don’t see this analysis as even close to completely describing this section of Chinto’s application potential.

My studies also point out these are very skilled responses. Simply knowing Chinto kata does not mean one is prepared to sell these applications. By way of example, this training would never be part of my kyu curriculum, and where I have a group of experienced Dans training with me, most of them would not choose to sell these applications during conditions extremis. In their case they would likely choose a different response.

But being trained in application and choosing not to respond with a technique series, is vastly different from not knowing its existence.

This shows how I was beginning to view the use of kata technique.


                                                                                                                                                                                       

Karate Ni Sente Nashi

 

 

Karate Ni Sente Nashi.  

In karate there's first attack.

Flavio Daniele wrote:

I do not agree with the modern interpretation of this, I see it this way: this is a change of attitude based on understanding, on self-confidence, on perfecting their skills through realistic training, both physical and psychological.

For the beginner, the expert Karateka attacks the opponent early, the defense is attack and attack defense too. In Karate (not those who play the sport karate) attaches at first, because what you do at the beginning is always under attack.

In this way the adversary that attacks will not have the ability to attack more than once, because his attack ends at the very moment when it is started. This is reality, this is not a game, when you have to defend your life. You can't play or cheating in these matters.

This is why the inhabitants of Okinawa always stress that you should never use Karate unless you are protecting life, both your and your family members or others who cannot defend themselves.

You live life with joy, peacefully and honorably, but when you defend you do to survive, and this requires that the attacker cannot absolutely continue the attack.

This means that he must end on the ground unconscious within the first two seconds of the match. Either he or you.

I no longer have who wrote this piece beginning a discussion.

Flavio Daniele from the first part of my old article intitoloato "dogfights":

"In the late 1960s, when I began practicing Karate, one of the first precepts that felt often say, was" Karate ni sente nashi "(Karate does not attack first). Precept construed, by more, then as now, as a kind of moral teaching of aggression. Interpretation which has created and continues to create, a misrepresentation on one of the most important strategic principles of martial arts: know seize the moment, act without intentions (wu wei).

Munemori Yagyu, Japan's medieval swordsman, taught that "the key to victory is to let your opponent to take the first move", Musashi himself recommended "win when the opponent attacks". Why insist on leaving the initiative to the opponent? How is it possible that "starting after you arrive before" as he teaches, also, the Taiji Quan?

What is certain that doesn't stick to the first not for some sort of "chivalry" behavior, nor for an ethic from "martial" oratory, but for a strategic principle, discovered experimentally by the masters of the past, which has its roots in our nervous system's ability to act in direct and immediate manner to a stimulus (danger) that threatens our physical safetybetter than you can do with any planned action and super coached.

The action is deliberate, and is almost always attack, unless you have arrived at the top of art, takes place along a path (neural) thought-action that involves the mind that, no matter how fast, will always be slower than the simple re-action that "bypasses" any mental process.

In short: the man reacts more quickly than acting. This strategic principle has now also a scientific demonstration is made at Birmingham University, where analyzing hundreds of volunteers who are challenged to a duel with electronic guns, have discovered that people who extracted per second (re-acted) was on average 21 milliseconds faster than those extracted (acting) first.

In my book "the three ways of the Tao", released in 1997 by the way of instinctive combat writing:

”… Instinctive combat training has no pre-established schemas and standardized movements. We must learn to "feel" the energy of the other and to respond as a function of its movement, one should not "think"; just so you can execute different techniques one behind the other in a quick and fast. ". And later "to ...The instinct is faster, thinner, more absolute and is in direct relation with reality more than the conscious mind. ".

If it doesn't, few among us would reach the age of majority: the first stumbling falling flat on the ground, the first classic tile in freefall there smashing her head. Fortunately, mother nature has given us an emergency software, which allows us to survive, not just when skiing on a trivial banana peel, but even when we are in extreme situations of danger.

Situations that do emerge spontaneously extra-ordinary quality that we possess. Quality inherent in our nervous system occurring because the thinking mind, short-circuited by the extraordinary event, it cannot interfere with the body's natural intelligence that knows what to do without thinking (see the book by Daniele: Xin Yi Quan – the art of Instinctive Fight-Ponchiroli publishers).

The question that now arises is: how to train this reactive spontaneity? How do you stand out? How do I prevent the thinking mind blocks spontaneous action (wu wei)? There are basically two ways: a more challenging from a physical point of view, the other more challenging from the mental point of view. As regards the practical results, at least in the initial stages, the two are equivalent.

The first, the Maestro would say Xu is "hard work", because it requires to face each other and try and try again until you don't know how, but there you have it made. This way on the one hand has the advantage of being fast enough, but the other has the drawback that with the passage of time, dropping the physical prowess and appannandosi reflections, loses effectiveness and leads over a certain level because you know to do, but you don't know how you do it, and thus, having no knowledge of the various steps of the process, we do not know where to intervene, what work to improve our level.

The second way is "smart work" because it requires, in addition to technical aspects, a labor of listening and understanding of their potential both mental and physical, to work on the non-action, transformation requires you to make the body aware not only of what he does, but how it does and why it does it. Only in this way the body


Angel  Lemus 

Flavio I really enjoyed your post, thank you. Especially these two lines resonated very powerfully in this subject-

Yagyu Munemori, swordsman of medieval Japan, taught that "the key to victory is to leave the opponent performs the first move", the same Musashi recommended to "win when the opponent attacks."

 

 

Flying Armbar – Silat

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OFJJCia9Quo

"...you have to learn the art as well, not only what is for combat
"you know you can stop the fight"

 "don't try to fight him, show that you have superior movement".

Angel  Lemus   

This is what I love to see. Very nice!

Michael Craig It's not what you commonly associate with "Flying Armbar" definitely more applicable. 

Very interesting the way he torques the shoulder up and in back to past the 'victim's' center before and as he changes level. It's very aikido-esq, I think.

Paul Browne 

I know the technique well but I've never seen kneeling used to bring the opponent down,, must try that. Thank you for posting it.

Mikasan  McLaughlin 

I was shown that as a Pinan application but certainly can cross to Naihanchi or Wansu.

I do like his applications.

John  DeStefano 

I like how he says, "...you have to learn the art as well, not only what is for combat". 

Also that it isn't about speed, it's that with every movement, "you know you can stop the fight" and "don't try to fight him, show that you have superior movement". 

These are the sorts of gems that I think should help guide our practice.

Michael Craig 

Paul, I tried it tonight. It's not the cartwheel throw like uki did in the video. But it is very effective with the level change so sudden

Everything old come around again - KUNG FU the series

Searching around on my TV I just discovered it contains a channel I had never seen before. The OUTLAW channel.  Reruns of old Western TV shows and movies. 

 

 One of those series really caught my eye, it was the old show Kung Fu. I have not watched those shows for decades. Now, viewing them again I can see how in my pre-karate days the series caught my interest.

 

 It was the travels around America of Kwai Chang Cane. He was a Shaolin Priest, hunted by the Chinese government for killing a cousin of the Chinese Emperor, while searching for any remaining family in America.

There were many stories there. Some in China, some in America. Assassins from around the world were hunting him, at the same time many of the stories connected individuals he met on his travels to his youth training in the Shaolin Temple.

Much of the fighting, in many arts from around the world, was done in slow motion. However they attempted to show the potential of those arts at the same time.

It is fun to look at the past in any case.

I suggest you join in the fun.