My notes on Hidden Techniques

 

I found an older comment on Hidden Techniques in my private Principles file

Interesting topic: hidden techniques. Of course it depends on what you mean by hidden techniques. What are hidden for some are openly taught by other system, provided of course you were taught them.

 

1.   I am sure there are explanations which were not shared at times. That doesn’t mean they weren’t there, just not shared.

2.   Or there were systems where techniques were shared at various levels of training. Until you reached those levels those techniques were not shared. Such as at 20 years of training. The need for those techniques may well have not been needed, except in the past, so no reason to study them. Want is not necessity, one can teach as one chooses.

3.   Another tradition was planned extra movements between the kata sections. This was shown by the writings of Shiroma Shimpan and Mutsu.

4.   Other traditions did not share but the most basic applications, and you were encouraged to discover your own, but under the eyes of the instructor to guide them.

5.   Itoman shared many applications from Toude, which fit many of today’s karate traditions.

6.   There are family traditions which teach applications only after Black Belt.And those applications have nothing to do with the kata. Those are training tools, and the movement points are mnemonic devices to remember the actual techniques.

7.   Or you can define a technique as you will from a kata, and seek the skill to find each possible application there and develop the skill to make them work.  One of my Isshinryu instructors, Sherman Harrill, spent 40 years working makiwara so that each strike could,drop anyone no matter where he struck, and along the way shared 800 applications for the 8 kata of Isshinryu, and I only had a piece of his studies and work.

 

Whether there are instructor favorite applications, of course theoretically all you need in one movement, and the time to deliver it with skill to enter the attack and make it work. Of course that is the true secret of any technique.

 

Or perhaps you have two techniques, and then no one knows which you are to use.

 

I have a simple answer, any techniques which works is  real. If it drops an opponent it qualifies.

 

I have experienced several of these answers, enough to know that each of them can work.

 

A system or practitioner may or may not share as they choose. They are under no obligation to provide you with answers.

 

For myself the past several months I have been working on the use of a kamae found in the Isshinryu SunNuSu (Sunsu) kata. Having realized ago that kamae tend to be most viscous when fit into an attack.

 

Are there Hidden Techniques”? Depends on what you define hidden to mean. Be sure you don’t confuse the question with understand the meaning of a movement, with the different task developing the skill to effectively use that meaning.

 

What is called Carotid Choking is not a Choke - what is involved

Sunday, June 9, 2024

 

 

I’m sure it was in 1979 at a Cherry Blossom Karate Tournament in North Eastern Pennsylvania when I went into the locker room to change at the end of the tournament. A senior instructor, Joe Brague, was talking to a number of the competitors and turned to me and said, “Victor, come over here I want to demonstrate something to them…” The next thing I knew was I was on the floor regaining consciousness.


Brague Sensei demonstrated a carotid choke on me and I went down. That’s what happens. The pressure on the carotid sinus causes the heart to stop beating and the loss of blood flow to the brain causes unconsciousness in maybe 5 or 6 seconds.


That’s all you slowly count to 6 and you’re unconscious before you get there.


That was enough to get me looking into how chokes were performed.


In one karate magazines they demonstrated a technique that would set up that choke. I tried it out on a senior student and saw how it was working, so I started working my way through logical means of setting that choke. Eventually I worked out about 5 or 6 choking techniques.


This was one of two different choking sequences, the other being the trachea choke, which takes longer to set (say 20 seconds) and can be far messier to deliver.


A few years later at a summer camp I was asked to give a clinic, so I told them I was going to show how to choke, but when I started showing the techniques the camp director rushed over and asked me to stop, that it was too advanced for the students.


Are such studies too advanced? I teach youth and certainly do not teach them how to choke, but understanding the reason you must instantly break a choke is not beyond youth needs either.


Choking has always been a part of Judo. I remember an Olympic contest where the American judoka was contesting with a Russian judoka. They locked up and shortly it was over, the Russian went for a collar grab-choke and simply choked out his opponent.


But chokes are a layered answer. A while ago Police Science thought that teaching Police chokes would be a humane way to control assailants. You wouldn’t have to strike them, you’d just render them unconscious. Potentially true, but forgetting an important item, a Police officer trying to restrain a subject has likely been bodily threatened by them, and has their adrenalin rushing, in turn in less than in perfect self control. A carotid choke held say 20 or more seconds can be life threatening. A Georgia State Trouper explained at a clinic how frequently good ideas in Police Science end up wrong when the full picture comes into play in practice.


Tactically a choke is one way to finish an response to an attack. Shift, parry, strike, etc. till control is required and a carotid choke is certainly a logical way to finish that control, assuming one is in enough control to only do what they wish.


Chokes to the neck (carotid or trachea) have serious side effects. The neck can be dislocated or broken under some circumstances; the axis might be fractured against the atlas in such circumstances with paralysis a result. (under no circumstances take my medical technical opinions as accurate, they are only intended to generally refer to a complex set of dynamics that one should responsibility reach with a Doctor for accuracy).


Yes under the right circumstances they may be performed to show human frailty, but under no circumstances does ever going beyond a second or two to show the potential, are the potential risks worth going further.


While frequently demonstrated, it is always irresponsible to ‘safely’ put someone out.


This knowledge should not be hidden. The most important value is showing everyone never let anyone touch their neck. In fact if someone must know when it is most important that they react without thinking further, anyone placing their hands on their neck, anyone attempting to place their hands on their neck, or anyone seeing a strike coming towards their neck, gives immediate license to respond and make all of the above not happen.


Perhaps it best stated the neck is the gateway for strongest control of our person.


And of course the study of how chokes can be set has a more important value, how does one counter those attacks.


The paradox of our arts asserts itself. To become most technically efficient at neutralizing an attack, we first have to be able to deliver that attack with force, focus and speed.


So when having turkey and someone asks who wants the neck, it might give you something to think about.

 

Duane Wolfe The more correctly named lateral vascular neck restraint doesn't stop the heart. Attached is one of the few scientific studies on the actual results on the body. "• The results “demonstrate that the [only] important mechanism causing unconsciousness during VNR is decreased cerebral blood flow due to bilateral carotid artery compression,” the study team reports. Mitchell comments, “This did not come as a surprise. When the supply of blood-borne oxygen to the brain is cut off by at least 50%, the brain cannot sustain consciousness.” https://aztroopers.org/.../force-science-study-on...


 

Lee Richards Duane Wolfe is correct. This is not a choke and we in the industry should not call it that as it leads to lawsuit issues and jury issues in court. The techniques have been around for years but the Japanese characters we commonly use for these techniques do not translate to choke. U.S. students have commonly misinterpreted it that way and leads to major problems in the news media and courtrooms. To make up for that translation error, they began calling it a blood choke which is also incorrect.


Choke (Chōk) - verb
(of a person or animal) have severe difficulty in breathing because of a constricted or obstructed throat or a lack of air.


Carotid attacks allow the person to breath throughout the entire process.


Also, numerous members of various Law Enforcement D.T. groups I have been a part of have for years tried to find any documented case of a strike or squeeze to the carotid causing a blood clot and/or stroke. We have never been able to find a single documented case. Our attorney and on staff doctors at NLETC have tried for years as have others in our group. I strike it as a possibility, but totally a rumor until someone points to an actual case of hundreds of years of doing these.


http://tuite-kyusho.blogspot.com/.../the-choke...


The Choke Misidentification ConundrumThe Choke Misidentification Conundru

 

Victor

 

I am sure what I am describing is not technically a choke. My isshinryu instructors never taught me this. And when I was rendered unconscious back in 1979, when I returned to consciousness, that is what it was called. I only studied in America, never overseas anyplace, never saw the need to develop a more accurate term for this. And everyone I trained with in any art only did so in English.


This was before the internet access of today, but from various magazines that demonstrated various ways to use this technique (and most often it was shown but not described) I made my own independent study of a variety of ways this could be applied.


I did not teach this to my students (but it was covered in the training of those who made it to Senior Instructor training). It’s lesson were taught to all my students for defensive purposes. (If anyone puts their hands on your neck, as you can be unconscious before you can count 1,2,3,4,5,6.., that is when you should go ballistic on your opponent to stop that from happening.)

 
Make no mistake about it, that area.. the side of the necks, the location of the carotid sinus, is where what we are talking about occurs.

 
While I was originally told it was a ‘blood choke’ as the mechanism and many books parroted the same as occurring.

 
Decades later my Doctor and dan student, a surgeon, told me that what was occurring was pressure being applied to the carotid sinus, and what occurs then is the carotid sinus, as all sinus cavities around the body, triggers the heart to stop beating and reduce the spike in blood pressure from the ‘choke’ and when it is released the drop of blood pressure starts the heart from beating again.

 
The pressure against the carotid sinus is not the mechanism. He told me often in neck surgery the carotid artery is totally clamped off for the surgery to take place. Yet the patient is kept talking during the surgery, because secondary blood vessels keep enough blood to the brain allowing consciousness to continue.


Finding access to the internet, now over 30 years ago, I have gotten confirmation of this from many doctors and medical researchers.

 

But I don’t apply those holds, whatever they are, nor do I strike into the carotid sinus (even though I have many ways to do so.)


I just have done my best to preserve what I have seen for the instructors I have developed.
 

If the discussion goes further into medical study, I must tell you that my doctor made it extremely clear that only an idiot would turn to me for medical opinions.

 

textbook, 3rd Edition 1992, by Keith L Moore. ISBN 068306133X. Publisher:
Williams & Wilkins. Page 799 on, ....

Carotid Sinus: This is a small dilation of the proximal part of the internal carotid artery; it may involve the common carotid. A blood pressure regulating area (editor's emphasis), the carotid sinus is innervated principally by the glossopharyngeal nerve (CN IX) through a branch called the carotid sinus nerve..... the carotid sinus reacts to changes in arterial blood pressure
(editor's emphasis) and effects appropriate modifications reflexly...... the carotid sinus responds by slowing the heart, owing to the parasympathetic outflow from the brain through the vagus nerve. Pressure on the carotid sinus may cause syncope (fainting) (editor's emphasis), and if the person happens to
have a supersensitive carotid sinus, it may cause cessation of the heart beat (temporary or permanent).

This is a most important area of applied aggressor control techniques, clarity would be appreciated.

Regards,

BOB DAVIES,
Wu-Shin Chi-Dao
Yudansha
Durban
South Africa


https://isshin-concentration.blogspot.com/2014/10/anatomy-of-carotid-sinus-nerve-and.html

Karate is a thing of the Spirit

Karate has been described as the union of the Mental, Physical and Spiritual. I believe we are clear about the Mental and Physical elements of training. But the Spiritual side of Karate is less discussed.


Of course by Spiritual I am not referring to devotion to God, or any other similar aspects of life. Personally, that is something else, which each of us must address in our own way.

 

 
Along the way, I have come to define it differently and believe it is the most important aspect of Karate.

 

Back around 1990 when I was beginning my own exploration into kata application potential, I began to notice something. During a class an application possibility would occur to me, and I would demonstrate it to my students perhaps 10 times, and also in slow motion. An expression of movement in a kata which they all knew well.


Then I would have them try it, against a slow moving strike (for beginning learning purposes) where they would enter the space created by the attack and perform the application. They would turn it into another technique, not the application they were shown. As time progressed this happened with frequency.

About 5 years later I met Sherman Harrill, and discovered I was too finding a similar flaw in my attributes. I had long before, learned to keep accurate notes from clinics. What I found were perhaps ½ of the movement Sherman showed were inspired methods of training. The other ½ of them seemed as if, though logical, would not have a place in my training.


Years later from John Kerker I began to see how I was wrong in my understanding.


But although a different situation, at the core there was the same problem. The issue was one of the Spirit required for training.


In the case of students trying to  learn various applications. Even a slow strike involves experiencing the pressure of the attack. What I have found is even trained students many times, experiencing that pressure even in a non-threatening manner. Will not trust what was shown, and will shift to do something else.


Now in crisis, that is a good idea, for you must believe in your movements. But to do so in training shows something else. The lack of believing in the movement, a lack of faith so they shift to something more comfortable. And what I as the instructor has to do is work to instill their faith in the movement involved.


They have the physical and they have the mental required for the movement. But under any pressure, they have not developed the Spirit, or Faith in their technique.


For myself while I was stunned at how much Sherman would share with us, I didn’t appreciate what he was doing. Those applications which I thought I would never use, were kingpins of his studies. He didn’t distinguish between them, just showed one possibility after another. I did not understand what he was doing. Just continually exploring every Isshinryu potential that came to mind, and making all of them work.


It was a question of Faith in his method, to let no aspect of kata be unexplored.


The more I came to appreciate that Faith in oneself and one’s ability to execute Isshinryu faithfully the more over time I came to see that Faith was the Spirit with our studies. It is not enough just to practice the kata, but to totally believe in what you are doing.


When we hosted seminars with Harrill Sensei and attended other seminars with him, there always was a realization that there was more involved to what he was showing. In part, even his encyclopedic seminars were not the same as studying with him, where he would ‘know’ you and guide your progress in the art. He once remarked about this to me. Saying there was much that couldn’t be shown, because he didn’t’ know ‘the people attending. This was not a slight, but just the reality that there was time only to accomplish so much, not to ‘know’ them. There wasn’t enough time. The way an instructor comes to ‘know’ their own students.

While I believe there were several layers that were involved. When presented with such a body of technique as he shared, I would characterize them by what I did understand, simply those I felt were brilliant, and the other half which seemed logical but involved uses I would never make.

 

What I have come to realize, especially after a decade spending a few hours a year, with John Kerker, is that Harrill Sensei didn’t distinguish that way. I am now sure that was part of the key to developing the skill he possessed. Working even on the smallest application as if it was to succeed. His faith in his technique succeeding increased his efforts.

This process, developing Faith in one’s technique, required the simplest of techniques. Practice, continual practice. Working each application potential to conclude a conflict, every time.

It seems simple, but takes a great deal of work to make this happen. Over, and over, and over. Never ceasing.

To me this becomes the Spirit of Karate. And the union of the Physical, the Mental and the Spirit are together what makes Karate.