….. a remembered
post from 2005
So much of our vision of karate’s origins is filtered
through today’s experiences and knowledge. A current discussion on the
understanding of Kusanku as a night fighting kata on ITOL perhaps make me
realize why some have difficulty thinking there is even a remote possibility
such is the case.
Just go back 100 years in Okinawan history. Individuals who taught did so privately, most likely they were studying karate because
it was to be needed in their clan’s role in society also likely outside to
boot.
And lighting would have been at relative premium, I doubt
electric lights were available across the Island. And even traveling to and
from your instructor’s house you may well have been walking through the dark.
So the intent of low level application wasn’t a theoretical possibility.
Was the origin of the
way to fight in the dark? Perhaps, or
perhaps the story was a way to heighten awareness and suggest some
principles. Some of the discussed
applications seem quaint or impossible, but then if you haven’t been outside in
rain and fog where you can’t see your hands, or in varying nighttime conditions,
what is or isn’t reasonable is just opinion, not experience. Believe it or not.
Couple that with nothing but physical and oral
transmission of the art, and tying a story to a kata doesn’t really seem that
unreasonable. That and the fact we have almost no idea as to what they actually
trained in those days, just today’s reflections through time. So the story may be true, it may just be an
instructive pointer, or it may be deception. In fact the best deception may be
its so true the non-trained won’t believe it….. Now that would be a true work
of art wouldn’t it.
But this isn’t about Night fighting but a different
journey across a bridge, one I’ve never left behind.
I’d like to take you back in time when I was a beginner,
only 30 years ago. There were no applications to kata technique in my
instructors training, and the stories, well perhaps they came from the Sensei,
or perhaps the occasional magazine or book. I can’t say but they did enter the
picture of my training.
I vividly recall when I was a new student the instructors
were working with a brown belt in the dojo alcove by placing two bo’s on the
floor on an angle, and that student was doing a kata between them. I didn’t know what he was doing, always had
enough of my own training to work on not to know what the seniors were doing.
Several years later Murray Sensei took two bo and placed them on the floor of
his church basement and I discovered what they were for, running Chinto between
them.
I think Murray Sensei mentioned to me in his Church
basement that Chinto Kata represented a fight on a bridge, with attackers
coming from two sides. But as we didn’t do kata applications it didn’t register
as much. BTW, the kata was being done
between the bo’s to test that you were staying between the sides of the
bridge.
Very private aside, Charles did offer one Chinto
application, where when a Ninja was diving at your out of a tree you would
reach up and drill them into the ground.
Interesting concept but in 30 years I’ve not had a ninja attack me that
way so it may just remain such, and I realize I don’t think I’ve mentioned it
to my students either. O’ well perhaps they’ll try jumping me from a tree and
learn that lesson the right way.
But time passes quickly.
In the early years I had begun my program at the Scranton Boys Club and
in the summers we held class at McDade Park which had a small bridge over a
culvert. So for those students doing
Chinto, the story became a reality, doing the kata on a bridge.
Now in Okinawa te there are roughly three Chinto
directions, with the almost same structural techniques. The Itosu Chinto’s go
straight forward and back (12 to 6 o’clock) for the most part. The Tomari
Chinto goes from side to side (3 to 9 o’clock). The Kyan Chinto goes from 10:30
to 4:30. Dan Smith of the Seibukan relates Kyan chose the 45 degree angle from
his police work, finding that the best angle of entry to apprehend a suspect.
It is the Kyan no Chinto pattern which most closely
represents Isshinryu’s own.
Running the kata on the bridge made me realize that they
you work to stay in the center. There is a tactical reason for this, the
stronger you’re on the center the easier to force your opponent off the bridge.
Conversely the less you’re on the center, the easier for your opponent to force
you off the bridge.
So Chinto on a bridge was teaching me a lesson of
tactics. But if you do Chinto and even if you turn exactly correct you quickly
discover you can’t stay over the centerline, the shape the kata is such that at
times your line parallels the centerline
This became an advanced practice for my dan students on
occasion. Moving from Scranton in my
yard I have a narrow path between a series of bushes (as well as rows between
my field of blueberry bushes, and I exchanged the bridge with the narrow path
but kept the same mission. Working
Chinto to stay on the centerline.
What I discovered is you have to make subtle stance
adjustments to do so. This was not alien to what my instructors taught us. The manner in which several kata were taught
required tuning up the stance as your body awareness grew.
Now you may be seeing this as a quaint practice, trying
to make sense of a story, but there was
a more tactical answer. At the same time my studies into technique application
advanced. I grew more and more fascinated at the power in turning, and Chinto
exploration became one of my tools with its continual turning techniques. When working the applications how you have to
sometimes shift a technique came into play, working with what you are presented.
It seemed pure kata wasn’t necessarily the answer. But couple that with my
Chinto movement studies and I began to realize how the same subtle shifts
coupled with the kata movement application potential allowed you to keep the
centerline of the attack you were working against, without shifting away to
‘sell’ the technique.
So the center line of the
bridge becomes the centerline of the attack or of the opponents body,
the line to work, to stay on the center
to dominate and control.
A method of kata practice mirroring the reality of application.
Or just a small story of one strange practice of somebody
who listens to old tales too hard.
For the record, the new Chinto student does not enter
into this practice. Only after about 3 or so years into Chinto do they begin to
study this concept, and that’s just an opening movement in a larger, lifetime
study, IMVHO.
So Chinto being a fight on a bridge…. A fight to control
the centerline…. A method of training to supplement reality of application….
Take your pick.
1 comment:
There are stories like this for a number of kata. All are interesting, but who knows the true origins of many of the older kata. The main thing is to practice them diligently. Often, after many years of practicing a kata, you will have an "aha" experience and come to understand something at a different level. These are the peak moments in our karate journey.
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