Tuesday, June 6, 2023

Seishin-ryu karate kata "front and back line naifanchi" ... Naihanchi

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hFM3Ue6jPEU



Seishin-ryu karate kata

"front and back line naifanchi" ... Naihanchi

A creative form of Seishinryu karate practitioner Kazuo Kikuchi.

Seishin-ryu karate, the "genealogy of Shuri-te", made "Naifanchi" the basic and most important training type. The "front and back line naifanchi" in the video is a development of this, and it is a unique naifanchi type that moves back and forth created by Kazuo Kikuchi after training.

 This kata, created by Kazuo Kikuchi from the Naifanchi kata of the ancient tradition that moves horizontally, is the kata that is originally performed by aridans in the kata practice of Seishin-ryu karate.

The Seishin-ryū of yesteryear, which was headquartered at Seishinkan in Tokyo, created several basic types for beginners during Kazuo Kikuchi's lifetime, but this one in the video is for advanced dan who has completely mastered the basics to refine his work.

There are some masters who state that "there are a wide variety of kata in Seishin-ryu karate" based on images taken during this period, but the fact that videos of various kata demonstrations such as Seiryu remain is that some dan people who have been approved by Kikuchi are only demonstrating in front of the camera as "references" of "other kata", and Seishin-ryu karate during the life of Kazuo Kikuchi is not a training system that demonstrates many other school katas.

As for kata, if you exclude the basic type proposed by Kikuchi, you can diligently learn a few types centered on naifanchi. That was the teaching. Kazuo Kikuchi's Seishin-ryu karate is not a teaching that you should practice as many kata as in the Karate Museum.

One of the characteristics of Seishin-ryu is that there are many original terms for basic operations.

 The movements and names of forward and reverse thrusts in the general karate-ryu school are completely opposite in Seishin-ryu karate, and one of the features is that the inner and outer receptions of other streams are called inner yokote and outer yokote in Seishin-ryu karate.

 Kazuo Kikuchi's Seishin-ryu often devised direct striking kumite in a way that was different from full-contact karate, and after leaving the Karate Federation, he practiced with the disciples in which the practitioners applied ink to each other's fists and when they poked each other's faces, ink marks were left on their faces.

Kikuchi also had the name "Waken", but no disciple was allowed to use the name "No" during his lifetime. Also, the highest rank of Seishin-ryu karate during Kazuo Kikuchi's lifetime was 6 dan, and there was only one person. In fact, 5 dan is the highest rank.

 In addition to karate, Seishin-ryu also included "iai" in the training system, and there are videos of its kata demonstrations, but Seishin-ryu iai is a "very special thing" that was practiced only by "a small number of dan practitioners" approved by Kazuo Kikuchi, and Iai-ryu practice is not taught to ordinary students and inexperienced black belts.

In the video of Seishin-ryu Iai, there is a video of a 5th dan person who served as deputy director of the Motobu dojo during Kikuchi's lifetime, performing an Iai demonstration, but ... This is just a video he took in private as a souvenir when he purchased the sword, and has nothing to do with the teachings of Seishin-ryu Iai or the spread of Iai practice.

 The old Seishin-ryu Iai-enbu video that is currently leaked to the streets is a reproduction and use of a certain master's runaway without his permission. And the current situation is that Seishin-ryu Iai has been circulating without permission and materials on kata operation, and people who have no formal training experience in Iai are issuing dan.

Therefore, as of 2015, there is not a single master who has officially learned Seishin-ryu iai from Kazuo Kikuchi and has disseminated (and is qualified to) it in its original and correct form.

There are also cases where teachers who falsely promote their own congregation "apart from common sense teachers" and dan people who were excommunicated by the living Kikuchi for scandals claim to be high dan after the death of Kazuo Kikuchi.

Finally, the family of Kazuo Kikuchi, who died prematurely in 1983 at the age of 58, had no experience in martial arts and had no involvement in the legitimate succession of Seishin-ryu.

 Therefore, there is "some kind of confusion" among former disciples and groups that are too weak to have anything to do with the teachings of Kazuo Kikuchi by pulling out black belts from other schools, and groups that are practically lost in terms of Seishin-ryu karate-style instruction, so if Seishin-ryu karate is to stick to the traditional "original Kikuchi teachings", it is necessary to carefully examine the teachers, sects, and groups.

 

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