Take the Next Step

In the later 1980’s I began to work on my own application analysis studies. I first began to study the least likely techniques to use and from my study discovered they had great potential. That led to principles of application and more study.

Principles like ‘a technique can stop any attack’ means you have to work to make that potential realized, and in turn at that time I worked up a great many ways to just use Seisan kata’s opening technique as an initial study. Later I discovered that you should not limit yourself to what an initial technique where it would start or stop. “You control the vertical and horizontal of that decision.” A technique might be defined as  fractal of a movement, a standard movement of the kata,  perhaps starting in the middle of a movement and concluding in the middle of the next movement, or even a sequence of movements together.

With that later principle in mind one of my development was “Take the Next Step”.

While one trains for technique superiority, in power and speed,. often that is not the case. Your student might be young, or less powerful or aged or disabled. Of course I now resemble this with my Paraneoplastic Neuromyopathy & Neuropathy, being disabled. Well if we look to kata, there is a remedy to use as a Force Enhancer to increase the student’s ability.

By extending the technique in question through including the next step from the kata you increase the effect of the movement by attacking the opponent’s lower body. The next step becomes a sweep or reap to their legs. The student’s hips being larger that the opponent leg, makes the initial move unbalance them and then drops them with the following movement, each time.

This understanding led to further analysis.

Isshinryu Seisan kata is performed several ways. With a Straight Stepping motion, with the Crescent Stepping motion, or with a combination Straight and Crescent stepping motion. Each method is effective. However I was only trained using Crescent Stepping. Having observed each in other schools after reflection I decided to stay the course with how I was taught.

I then discovered that the motion should not be constant throughout the stepping. Another Force Enhancer was to perform the first ½ of the stepping motion at 1/3 of the speed and power, and the last ½of the stepping motion accelerating to 2/3 of the speed and power. Thus exploding into the technique, and also exploding into the lower leg use as a sweep or reap.

Thus every motion of any kata would be enhanced.

While later developments would come, this is what I did then.

The accompany video was saved in 1990 showing one example of this principle. Note I am holding my son here, he was 1 year old at this time. Perhaps the truth is he was telling me what to do.