I found this story long ago. I have no idea where I saw it or who wrote it. However, I think it describes something that we have not experienced. Of course believe it on not.
2-18-2017
At the age of ten, my father hoping he could stem the tide of bloody noses I seem to be coming home with, sent me to one of his old Marine buddies too see if he could do something with me. This was 1960, well before the karate/kenpo/gung fu craze. Judo and Jujitsu were the standard, and this being southern California there where plenty of schools offering this. By ten I had had a summers worth of Judo at the local YMCA, but it really did not help be to ward off the local school bullies, if anything else if made it worse.
So one week end I was sent off to my Uncle Don house, where he was going to help me out. He had converted his garage in to a dojo. It was a double car garage and it was huge. He and some of his old China Hands friends would gather a couple times a week and usually all day on Saturdays. The fact that Uncle Don's house was jogging distance to Zuma beach, and he had a pool the size of Rhode Island, and a barbecue pit that could hold whole pigs had nothing to do with it I am sure. Where and how they got their training and who had trained them I have not a clue. They had been stationed in Hawaii, Japan, Shanghai and who knows where else. At the time they just called it Okinawan Karate or Tode (at least to my ears). It never occurred to me to push to hard on these issues, as it seemed to be somewhat of a sensitive issue.
They had all fought in the Pacific, and most had been in well before WW2. Some had Japanese wives, or Chinese, but these ladies were all from either Hawaiian or California. They had known every Marine Wake Island, and it was very clear that most of them had a love/hate relationship to all things Japanese. Now that I have a little more experience under my belt, I recognize that some seem to be doing Goju and most doing what is probably Shorin ryu or one of the other Okinawan ryu. In the first couple of years there was no one doing Shotokan, later, few showed up. There seem to be a gentle rag going on between these new guys and the old hands, the theme being that the Japanese version was crap!. The method of learning Kata was to learn them in small pieces, that is as single techniques.
Once you had got the technique's down, you learned how to thread them together. You learn several ways of performing the kata. The first was a smooth fashion, focusing on correctness and breathing and timing. The second was slowly, with tension, the focus now was strength, and control of lower and upper breathing. The third involved the use of an 'adult' performing various shoves, pushes and other of the like to insure that yours stances were set, and your techniques were correct and powerful. Lastly as a 'combat' set. Very fast, very strong, as if each movement was a matter of life or death, as if you were in a rage.
Continuous kiai was to be done; this was a growl from the stomach, and shouts from the chest at the key points. Testing. As part of training, body condition was paramount. There was a whole set of exercises for this, the most often used was testing. We did not call it that, I do not remember a specific word for it, we just did it. This involves being push from the front and back, being pressed down, pulling and shoving your leg's and so on. As you became stronger, the strength of this was increased.
You were never hit! It was always a push with an adult who was senior; it became a work out for both! For techniques, one would perform the technique, let say an inner block, someone would throw the punch and you would block. You had to block at the correct place on the attackers arm, with good power and coverage. As time went by the punch was sent deeper and deeper until it was a thrust punch through you. As this happened you learned to rotate you hips and feet to make way for the punch. At the higher levels it was fast furious work that really prepared you for close in stuff. We would perform inner and outer blocks against each other until my arms felt numb. Rising blocks against hammer fist and so on. It was hard brutal training that was reserved for the adults. You had to work up to all of this.
We would do kind of leg raises against each other; think of doing a front kick with only the knee raised, lower legs straight down with the toes pointed to the floor. We would do this against a partner to toughen up you legs. Bag and board work. The Makiwarawas your friend. We had bound and unbound boards, not sure if you call an unbound board a Makiwara! The purpose was not to put callous on your hands, although it was a by product. The purpose was to strengthen the whole body, arm and hand to be able to throw a full power punch or kick. Distance was very important of course. We also used a heavy bag full of pea stones to work on, this is the only place I have ever heard of this being used. It was interesting! Sweat Box.
There was a box, which was padded on the inside; one went into this box to workout. The prime purpose was on of tension exercise, pushing against the walls and front. Allow dynamic tension for the whole body. The box was very strongly built. The purpose was not for hitting or kicking, it was to push against. It was an interesting way to build up your strength. There was never any discussion as to the purpose of Karate. It was to kill, maim, knock them down, and break their arms and so on. The question of performance art would have been met with incredulous laughter. As for perfection of character, again they would have been rolling of the floor with laughter. Yes it helped discipline, but if you wanted to be a better person they would have told you to go to church! Judo? Juju ? and other arts. It seems that most had some training in judo and jujitsu, maybe akijutsu, not sure about the latter.
Many of the karate techniques ended up with a lock and or a throw. I do not know if this was stuff they added or stuff that was part of the bunkai, never occurred for me to ask. Maybe some more later. Looking back now, I wish I had taken notes. Who would have thought that it would be of interest. Since I did not get exposed until much later to other dojo karate, I assumed that all was done this way. Which all of you who have been doing this for a while, remember that if you do not write it down, it will not be passed on!, it Will be come legend, it will become some old wives tale, it will be forgotten!
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