Isshin - Concentration the Art

Wednesday, April 8, 2015

Hand Positions from the Mabuni Bubishi pages

Tuesday, April 7, 2015

Laoshi Rothrock and I

One day in the late 1980s Rothrock Laoshi and I performed part of the Yang Longfist Tai Chi Chaun form together at a friend’s workshop. While he was my instructor since 1979, because of distance we had not worked out together for many years. I guess I paid attention for we are doing the same form.

Because of the many studies I had with him in addition to the Tai Chi, one time I had special T-shirts made up for he and I. The name Northern Tai Eagle was a joke name for those studies. Which at that time consisted of Yang Longfist Tai Chi Chaen, Sil Lum, Tai Tong Long, Faan Tzi Ying Jow Pai and Pai Lum. Make no mistake about this, it was not a system. But probably someone will start teaching it cause the name sound neat. That time of study did allow me to touch Chinese training.

ARS stands for A Rothrock Sub-System His shirt has GM (Grand Master), BC(Bill Collector) and ARGG(All Round Great Guy).

Kata Study for Life, a personal journey

Me in 1984

When you look at your karate practice as a lifelong activity and begin to think about training over decades, it helps to realize change is the only true constant.

At different times kata practice comes to mean different things.

There is first leaning the kata.

There is intense practice for a specific goal.

There is listening to your body and training based on what you hear.

There is sharing what you have learned and developing your own vocabulary to do so.

Realizing training leading up to competition requites one focus, and maintenance training within competition periods means something else.

Effective utilization of kata technique is very different from practice. There is no true anticipation of what will be the attack, Long term training can vary methods, and learning how changes in performance fit into the attack.

Hard repetition, soft practice, breaking the kata into training components with varying components, training in water, training at night, training in rain, training in snow, training on ice, etc. All allowing your performance to change to the conditions.

The selection of training varying day by day, as our lives move along day by day.

Now doing kata soft (which can be valuable) is NOT tai chi utilization. Tai Chi is a useful training method. It can allow you to explore softness in different ways from doing kata soft. It allows you to learn a new method to develop a sense of the circular motions found in karate.

However it is not a self study process. Regardless of method, the first thing is a knowledgeable instructor to teach the art correctly. Myself I started studying Yang style in 1979 and quickly realized being a black belt in Isshinryu meant nothing as far as tai chi was concerned. Even in slow motion, I discovered new ways to injure myself, new ways to use my body.

I was only interested in doing tai chi. I was not looking to change my karate.

But it became a full time study too. One of many. As I got deeper into the practice, I found the training in conflict with my karate. My solution was to vary the training at that time on the day.One day karate, one day tai chi.

One thing you come to realize it isn’t that you have to do the same thing every day to have good practice. What matters is you attempt to have good practice when you do train.

In time you learn do adapt to the differences, and to give both credit, keep them separate.

Tai Chi does have an impact on your karate over the decades. But in subtle ways. There is an intersection where a karate technique enjoys the feather touch with the tai chi motion, and that touch increases the movement. But it is difficult to explain, you have to feel it, and the personal knowledge it is useful is not necessarily seen by others.

My karate students do not study tai chi, nor do I encourage it. There must be a personal reason for the training.

Embrace life, make your kata become alive, flowing into each day.

Sunday, April 5, 2015

Two Works by Dr. Yang Jwing-Ming

I was just reminded of one of the most valuable books I have. Of course I can’t find my copy right now. It was the 1984 edition of Advanced Tai Chi 2 by Dr. Yang Jwing- Ming. At a time kata applications were first being discussed in the magazines as ‘bunkai’ he showed how each of the major techniques of tai chi could be applied. And going from memory the structure he used was this. Each movement was shown as working in 3 different ways;

Downing the Opponent

Chin Na

Cavity Strikes

I have seen others adopt this analysis with changes such as dividing sub-characteristics into separate divisions. Such as turning the 3 methods into 5 methods,

Downing the Opponent meaning using the technique as a takedown of throwing technique.

Chin Na controlling techniques which could also project the attacker.

Cavity Strikes or where the technique strikes into the body for effect.

Taken together a useful way to analyze motions from form.

It certainly in not the only way to do this, but it is interesting. It sure helped me understand what a logic of application could be.

The lesson about time you keep learning, is how often what was old is new again. Martial literature, which in most cases is a form of vanity press (one time publicational) even that which is provoking at the time of publication, dosen’t reach the new audience unless we share it exists from time to time.

Specifically the writings of Dr. Yang Jwing- Ming, sharing both his arts and other works from Chinese Martial writings,which were very thought provoking when initially published, are now often overlooked.

But when published they were at the front of the wavefront of what was happening.

For myself, from my beginning kata application was not a concern with karate. I later studied yang tai chi and various Chinese forms, more for knowledge that martial use, of course some of it came along with the rest. But I was not ready for that knowledge then.

At a later date, when Advanced Tai Chi 2 was published, a friend who was then teaching me his families form of ‘bunkai’ and some Indonesian tjimande, remarked that this publication could be what was in his tjimande.

My tai chi instructor certainly knew what the tai chi and Northern forms I had studied could do, but it wasn’t what I wanted then.

I first took Dr. Yang’s book, random ally opened a page and tried to use it. It worked. The Chinese forms just to be a more knowledgeable judge. Tai Chi was just to do tai chi. And that is what I got.So I turned to another page at random, That one worked too. I discovered I could use all of it. And I had not studied that.

In the long run it was more than just what I could do. It provided me a framework which I have used for application studies ever since, Now 3 decades later.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Comprehensive Applications of SHAOLIN CHIN NA

By Dr. Yang Jwing-Ming

This exhaustive work explains how Chinese Chin Na works. Written in 1995 as well as a series of videos and subsequent works on the topic.

Dr. Yang, IMO , used his engineering background and applies it to topic structuring Chin Na to provide specific development of the topic. Chin Na (Qin Na) is found in most Chinese systems in one way or another. While one work will never address every version, this work goes a long way to look at the topic.

At a major level he addresses the use of Chin Na against various attacks:

Against Barehand Attacks

Against Blocking

Against Kicking

Against Knife Attacks

Against Grabbing

Offensive Qin Na Techniques

More specifically against grabbing]

Wrist Grabbing

Arm Grabbing

Shoulder Grabbing

Chest and Rear Back Grabbing

Neck Grabbing

Belt Grabbing

Embracing

Hair Grabbing

There were also videos showing the techniques. They are most useful used with the book, Each assists the other, if you cannot train directly with Dr. Yang. Today searching YouTube most of these can be found there.

Of course these can be useful companions for skill building to accompany karate application studies. There is no question to gain all of these skills requires much time. Which few will take the time to do.

However as individual technique studies building skills to use is where this work becomes most valuable for most of us. There is required skill building and that takes time.

It is also important to realize they can be very painful and dangerous for your training partner. Using slow speed to build control, and soft application of these techniques will prevent injury.

When my wife took Dr. Yang’s course some of the members of the clinic would not listen to Dr. Yang’s advice and always went full speed and power. They continually injured each other.

It time you will appreciate that some of them are answers for how to apply some of your kata techniques. But the human body only is designed to work in certain ways.

Other systems developed similar techniques. Such as Ju Jitsu,

As for any body of knowledge