Charles Murray's comments on Bob Bremmer's Seisan

When I was a student under Charles Murray I recall him describing his training in Agena under Tatsuo Shimabuku. Shinsho Shimabuku told him Bob Bremmer was Tatsuo's best student performing kata. I then found this video on You Tube and shared it with Charles for comments. This was his reply.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1APcI-1U8hM

 

Vic - 

  In reviewing Bremmer's video again last night (that you posted) I was reminded of a couple of things.  One is that notice that he takes his stance and locks into it before he does any hand movements -- not stepping into his stance and executing his blocks or punches at kind of the same time, like we do. 

Also notice his stance itself.  My Okinawa notes were that the difference between Seisan and Sanchin stances were only that with Seisan you are tight from the waist down and that with Sanchin you are tight all over.  That appears to be just what Bremmer is doing.

Anyway I found this interesting because though I remember Shinsho telling me to do things like Bremmer is doing  as part of Chinkuchi training, I had thought that I was remembering this wrong until last night when I relooked at the video. 

And since Shimabuku Sensei was so big on Bremmer and him being #1 and Nagle #2 and him being one of only 3 Isshin people proficient with Chinkuchi, watching this video again has given me something to think about.

Anyway I thought I would share that with you.  Also it appears that much about Chinkuchi came from Goju Ryu versus Shorin Ryu so that might explain the emphasis on tightness in the Seisan stance.  So just thinking.  Hope all is well there with you and the family. -- Charlie

 

When I was training with Charles, he described his training in Chinkuchi with Shinsho.  But soon after that he left to resume his career in the USAF. I never attempted to train that way myself, keeping to how I was trained.

 

 However training with a lot of people on my time, I am of an opinion there are many superior methods to use Isshinryu and drop an opponent. As long as that works, I do not hold one method better that another.

 

Still this may give some insight at what Tatsuo was working toward.