Karate in Transition - just my opinion

 

 

Japan in one fell swoop in the later 1800s took control of Okinawa, and put the need for the arts which can be collectively called Toudi out of work.. Those arts were working ones for the roles the Okinawan Bushi used in their lives, toudi being one such tool. They were out of work, further government stipends and the purpose for their Toudi no longer existed.

 

Perhaps as a way to give their young family members a sense of who they came from, the Toudi instruction continued just for them.

 

But Itosu foresaw another use for the training, as something which could strengthen the young men through training offered through the schools.

 

In order to get Karate into the school for physical education/character building/self discipline, he had to rework it to be less "antisocial" altering kata and it's original mentality for training he created something different from the original art but based on it making it more obscure to those later generations unfamiliar with its earlier practice and mindset.

 

 

For discussion I might suggest too much emphasis was being placed on the development of karate for the schools as the crux point of karate change.

 

Yes, there were aspects of the original arts that were changed to allow it to be introduced into the schools. But that alone did not change how karate was to spread. And for simplicity lets ignore the export of karate into Japan proper.

 

The original use for karate training was for a working art part of a Okinawan Bushi's job. It wasn’t designed for allowing one to instruct others karate. Then that became irrelevant as Japan was not going to employ them further in their roles.

 

So Itosu, et al, brought a new art, karate, forward into the schools, for the specific purpose of strengthening the young for life. And over time many other instructors in many arts also taught programs in the schools.

 

Those arts (for convenience let’s refer to them as karate) also began to transform and also be shared with the public. Instructors from many styles started sharing with each other, and as time passed for their own reasons some adopted the pinan kata (developed for the schools). Not to replace their karate but to supplement it, perhaps to be a way to indoctrinated new students into their art, and after they were taught to move past them.

 

There was also a movement on Okinawa that new kata could be crafted for a public adult version of karate for health, akin to the Chinese using T’ai Chi (a most viscious art in its own right). The Okinawan seniors even had 10 kata developed for this purpose (they can be found in the Nakasone Karate Do Taiken). But WWII intervened and all karate became less meaningful as 1/3 of Okinawans lost their lives, and most of the Okinawan karate seniors.

 

Then after the war interest in karate arose again, as they were in a depression, it was something they could share. The seniors were no longer there to provide guidance, and many things happened. Schools started adopting each other’s kata in part. No doubt partially to have something in common.

 

Some schools did not adopt the Pinan, some did, Some did not adopt the Naifanchi, some did.

 

Change has always been a part of what Karate was about, however it was the instructor who made the change in the past. Change continued to be the constant. Individual instructors choose to use changes or not. Okinawan karate cannot be thought of as one thing, It is many times many things.

 

Meanwhile on Japan karate took on new flavors, some linked to the past, some not so much. A very different karate.

 

But in 1972 America gave Okinawa back to Japan, and more and more Japanese practices invaded Okinawan karate too. Roughly at the same period karate began a 2^nd disporia into the world, and of course many things continued to change.

 

Placing so much of the coming change on the karate taught in the schools hardly describes what occurred.

 

 And of course a few words can not adequately describe what took place.

Naifanchi – Fighting with your back against the Castle or Fighting in the Rice Paddies

It’s obvious the lateral movement of the form Naifanchi first suggests the attackers are only coming from 3 sides. Suggesting this would be of use to a castle defender has a certain compelling logic to it.

 

Kata is not a static training tool, except when you first learn to follow it’s movements. In practice you can shift in any direction against attacks coming from those directions and still utilize the kata techniques.

 

More telling is to take the time and first look at an Okinawan castle such as the following.

 

 

Katsuren Castle Okinawa

 

At least from this view it doesn’t seem likely to have many defenders with their backs against the castle. And for any castle the purpose of the walls are to help the defenders, who are staying inside, fight off an attack from the outside. Of course this is just one castle.

 

I would not use the defense of a Castle explanation, but what about the one with rice paddies.

For one thing what most of us think of as rice paddies are not the way rice is farmed on Okinawa.

So we first look at an Okinawa field of rice.

 

rice on Okinawa

Ok, so maybe not stepping over rows of rice in rice paddies, but you still could be fighting stepping over rows of rice in a field.

 

Thankfully I don’t think we have many actual stories about actual Okinawan rice fights do draw upon. But I could update the story to use Naifanchi stepping to fight at a construction site on floor with mats rice before a floor pour. While you can walk across the mats of rebar, if you were fighting that could be dangerous by sliding off the rebar. But you could step across the rebar into the open spaces.

 

Still I wouldn’t teach Naifanchi for that purpose.

 

What the stepping across the rows of rice paddies does is help the student understand the stepping movement that I want them to use in executing the kata. I want them to set as if they were having to step over those rows of rice. Using that image to help shape the technique to come.

Of course this segments into my next kata story.

 

But first a plug for developing correct kata execution. While the technique applications of Naifanchi are powerful I do not believe they should receive any precedence over any other kata technique. I see that correct execution of any technique should be able to stop any attack, and training to develop the technique and the means of entering any attack to use it is the true study.

 

Of even more bizarre practice years ago I had a tree felled and cut up, the trunk into 1 foot thick sections. I piled a group of them across the bottom of my driveway, and they were never level but were in play if you walked on them. I used to use them for Naifanchi kata practice, helps develop more precise footwork.

 

On the other hand I see Naifanchi kata as being critical to develop one’s body to more correctly perform the Spinning low strike section of Chinto kata. The development of one’s center from correct Naifanchi (as of course I define it in my system) makes more powerful movement in Chinto, and one’s center requires more precise development of the lower body, correct chambering and correctly timed knee release I technique execution.

 

Here are some of my students doing Naifanchi kata a different way.

 

 

Kusanku - the Night Fighting Kata

At some level the idea of Kusanku being a night fighting kata often drives others to excesses about the value of these stories. Why would anyone design a kata to fight at night? The techniques of Kusanku can obviously be used at any time. And of course the Ninja variations of the story get even more ridiculous.

 

Actually the story explained how to use Kusanku technique to feel your way through the dark and if touching an opponent how the following technique would be used to respond to that touch. Of how to make sounds in the total dark to cause an attacker to move to that sound and in turn use that as an opening to dispatch the attacker. It told of a partly cloudy night, at times obscuring the moonlight so you could move more freely and at times moonlight shining would cause you to drop to the ground to try and obscure your silhouette from being seen. Of all the stories this suggested the largest application potential.

 

You have to step back a bit and think about Okinawa in the past, in the origins of Karate development.

In the past karate was frequently taught in private at night. In those days there were not electric lamps to light a path or road. Moving through the dark to your training location was a reality and moving in the dark (with ever changing conditions, footing, weather, etc.) was not the same as taking a stroll in the daylight.

 

At night youth messing around might be in the prowl. Animals, bad weather conditions, and other miscreants might be around. I remember reading instructions from one senior instructor if a group of people were moving towards you in the night, you should hide and let them pass, then quietly follow them to see if they were going to harm someone else, where you should then attack them from behind to end their violence.

 

Actually that story ties well to part of the Kusanku tale.

 

If we truly think about Karate’s past, fighting in a low level light environment was a specific set of training to experience.

 

Yambaru forest at night

For most of us today’s training is devoid of experience in a low level light environment, where the eye’s visual purple must extend sight potential and your other senses come into play. Hence in Isshinryu’s Code of Karate (from the Bubishi) the eye must see all sides and the ear must listen in all directions.

 

The eye seeing all sides not just referencing peripheral vision but using it to register movement detection. Likewise the ear must listen in all directions referencing awareness of sound from an approaching attacker is important to not be attacked without warning. The night by shutting down much of our normal sight allows these other uses of our senses to flourish.

 

In Isshinryu as our story has it one night our founder, Shimabuku Tatsuo, woke up hearing something in his house. He didn’t find anything amiss but realized that some of Kusanku’s technique could be applied to the dark environment. He is not alone in this thought, the Kashiba Juku group uses all of the kata in their system to explore their night fighting potential. Likewise a Shorin stylist on the West Coast in the 70’s, Steve Fisher, used to have two different versions of Kusanku a day version and a night version. I never saw him and they may have just been the Kusanku Dan and Kusanku Sho kata with different naming, but the concept of Kusanku used for night fighting remains.

 

Coming from the era with no studies in kata applications, when I began my own application studies I choose to explore how Kusanku could work in the low light environment. Years later attending a Bushi No Te summer camp in the Poconos with my 18 month old son, I ran the clinic at midnight teaching Kusanku from my night fighting applications. It was raining on and off, my son was asleep in his stroller sheltered from the rain, and between rain, fog and mud, I gave what I consider one of the unique Kusanku presentations I’ve ever done.

 

More than just exploring how Kusanku might be used, the story actually shapes how we execute the kata in our practice. Most specifically the section where we move forward with stepping knife hand strikes we use them as ‘feeling in the dark motions’ trying to feel an opponent in total dark. When the hand touches an arm, it rolls over with ossae (pressing power) and the following movement is the attack to conclude them.

 

As I came up in the era kata application study was not the paradigm how Isshinryu was taught, I always remembered the small tales about kata I heard. Then decades later when I began my own kata application studies, I used them for inspiration.

 

I had no reason  to believe technique for Kusanku kata was restricted to that of night use, but that is where I began my studies.

 

Several years later in 1990, at a mixed group Summer Camp, I was asked to host the midnight Friday night training session. I had taken my son Victor-Michael with me, he was then 18 months old and I had a blast, That evening, were I was the instructor with the less time in my art, and the rain was lightly falling, I gave my clinic. My son was sleeping in has baby carriage beside me. I announced I was going to begin showing them Isshinryu Kusanku kata, and some of its applications.

 

I believe the other instructors thought I was joking, but teach it I did, I remember having those attendees throwing a crescent kick and then dropping to the ground, and their faces were placed in the puddles on the field there. Then they learned to jump up and change direction again placing their faces into the ground in other mud puddles.

 

The applications I showed them were consistent with my theme of uses for Kusanku at night.

 

I doubt any of them will ever forget that night.

 

We did not cover the entire kata that night, later  the next day I completed showing them the form.

 

So I began teaching part of the form, then I began showing the applications I was working on at that time.

 

Over time I found many Kusanku kata uses for many different situations, but the Night Fighting version remains in my thoughts.

 

A clearer example of what I showed can be found here.

 https://isshin-concentration.blogspot.com/2017/08/kusanku-kata-and-night-fighting.html

https://isshin-concentration.blogspot.com/2011/04/embrace-night-night-fighting-kata.html

https://isshin-concentration.blogspot.com/2014/08/steve-fisher-and-moon-kata.html

Chinto - A Fight on a Narrow Bridge or a Narrow Path

Young Lee 1989

 

On first take it makes sense, there were stories of Karate-ka having fights on a bridge. In fact one variation I have heard has kata Chinto being used to conclude a ninja jumping at you out of a tree at the bridge’s end. The story should not be interpreted as Chinto is for bridge fighting, but it’s movements could be used in such restricted conditions.

 

When I was a beginner in Salisbury I often watched the brown belts lay two bo in the floor at parallel angles to then perform Chinto between those two bo. But Chinto was not my study then and I did not understand why, just observed them doing so.

Chinto is interesting because the three basic variants are using similar technique. The embusen between those lineages is more the difference than the techniques.

 

The Itosu lineage does Chinto on a 12 o’clock to 6 o’clock line.

The Kyan lineage does Chinto on a 45 degree angle from 10 o’clock to 4 o’clock.

The Tomari lineage does Chinto on a 9 o’clock to 3 o’clock line.

 

Yet the bridge does not use those angles, instead it is how you would orient yourself on the bridge to begin the techniques that sets the line.

 

A Okinawan bridge

  

My study finds Chinto among the most advanced Okinawan kata. The more so because one of its primary weapons, the use of turning, is so often obscured when people work the applications of the kata.

 

A bridge on the other hand does not seem to indicate turning is an important consideration, because the bridge is to cross the body of water or the deep canyon. And if you make a mistake in ‘reality’ that mistake could mean you fall of the bridge.

 

Of course we don’t fight on bridges or fall off them, just a potential reason to be more exact.

 

As I use the story for my students I go beyond the use of the kata for fighting on a bridge or narrow path. I then urge them to consider what that would mean. Safety would be to remain on the center-line of the bridge, for being forced to the outside might mean you could be pushed off the bridge.

 

To do this you must perform Chinto using very tight turns. In Isshinryu’s Chito you move off the center-line for one section but then return for the rest of the kata. That concept of working the center-line also helps you focus on the turns at a more precise level, crafting a stronger tool for the eventual study of turning as a weapon.

 

Actually in my Scranton days I used to take my students to McDade Park outside Scranton, where there was a small bridge over a culvert and have them perform Chinto keeping to the center-line of the bridge. I recall my instructors in Salisbury, Md. Placing two bo’s on the floor to represent a bridge as you would practice the kata. On occasion I’ve also done the same.

 

In my Derry years, with many summer outdoor training sessions on my property I’ve had students perform Chinto on a very narrow path between several bushes, and in the rows between the blueberry bushes in my back row. Then when they did not conclude in the beginning position I would show them how that worked for me and did it that way.

 

It’s fun if they have problems staying in the center to watch them see me do it that way exactly.

Precision in movement is the key to learning how to use the act of turning as a weapon.

 

The secret is of course while most of the kata can remain on the center-line, for one row of techniques you are a bit off the center-line but then the next turn puts you back on it.

 

You have to be very precise and learning to do so gives you more control of the act of turning to eventually become a weapon in its own right.

 

Another practice is when two people perform Chinto-Chinto at the same time but in opposite directions. This requrires them to understand the kata without using visual landmarks to establish their place as they perform.

 

Mike Cassidy and Young Lee 1989 Chinto-Chinto

Note in the aspect of turning Chinto to become a weapon, Chinto can be also paired with Goju Seipai to make a complementary study of turning technique. Of course this is a subsidary study beyond standard Isshinryu.

 

I would like to end this for those who discount kata stories. I have no idea if the concept of Chinto meaning a fight on a bridge is reality, nor do I care, I see this story as a useful tool to instruct the student towards a higher level of performance. That was always sufficient for me.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Stillness and Pain

 

 

One of the most painful blocks I ever felt was also among the simplest I have seen.

 

Long ago I was at a summer camp when Ernest Rothrock, who was also my T’ai Chi and Kung Fu instructor, was to give a seminar there. I was selected to be his attacker. Now I experienced before he never held anything back, because that is exactly what how his first instructor taught him for seminars.

 

He asked me to step in and strike him forcefully with a hook punch to his head. I immediately knew I would  regret doing that, but being a good solider did what he requested,

 

So I stepped in and threw a strong hook punch toward his head.

 

His response was he stepped in turning to face my incoming arm, then he just raised both hands into a vertical position. No strike involved.

 

I experienced a new level of pain as my arm struck his raised hands. For those raised hands became walls my arm struck into on the forearm and biceps of my strike.

 

Immediately I dropped my arm in pain.

 

Then he played it for fun. He said, “Karate boy. I thought you could strike harder than that. Try again.”

 

So once again I stepped in and struck at him again with my hook punch.

 

And once again he stepped in, turned and raised both knife hands, to do nothing else.

 

What I found it hurt even more, again dropping my arm.

 

Of course he again began,  “Karate boy. I thought you could strike harder than that. Try again.”

With an even bigger grin on his face.

 

And once again I experienced an even greater level of pain.

 

Then the seminar went forward, with everyone getting their own chance to experience the fun of doing almost nothing and letting their attacker hurt themselves by striking.

 

Afterwards and over a long time afterwards I worked out what I experienced and began to realize the value of that lesson.

 

I realized what happened, my arm just struck into his immobile raised knife hands. The power causing all the pain came from my own strike, Those raised hands just became immobile sharp objects I was striking into. That was the cause of my pain.

 

And that gave me a different way to look at technique. I recognized its power in a tjimande partner striking drill, that when we tried to work on it really tore up our arms so we began faking the attacks to avoid the pain. I recognized that was happening and backed off the drill at that time for greater study how to deal with that.

 

I then began to realize that the kata pause points that I had been taught as Kamae were really similar attacking technique to form the movement inside an attack, to let the attacker strike what was formed and pain to the attacker the result.

 

From stillness comes movement, movement from the attacker receiving pain.

 

All from a painful lesson on a distant summer day.

 

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