Ginchin Funakoshi and throws in his karate

 

Ginchin Funakoshi throws in his 1935 Karate Do Koyhan

 

The story of Wansu NO Tonfa, not a kata rather a drill.

Back in 1977 Charles Murray handed me he 1966 Shimabuku Tatsuo films he has borrowed from Sensei, to view them for his own studies. He gave them to me because he wanted me to teach myself the form labeled on the movie as Chiafa. Along with the film he also gave me a film editor to view the film.

 

Then after a lot of work I eventually developed something akin the the form on the movie. II viewed that movie, frame by frame with the film editor so many times I could not stand to watch it again. So how much what I worked out was like that movie kata, I can’t say. But I did it and got what I got.

 

I do know when Lewis Sensei trained in Okinawa it was not taught then. And when Charles trained in Agena in 1972 it was not done then either. Which is why Charles suggested I learn it from the film.

 

Then too soon in 1979 after I had been awarded my black belt Charles returned to the USAF. There was no Isshinryu convenient to Scranton Pa. to train with. I was on my own and my continuing efforts were my own too.

 

About 1981 my wife and I went on a camping vacation to the Grand Canyon of Pennsylvania. I spend a lot of time training at that campground. While I had no intention teaching my students the Chiafa form, the more I worked on my Chiafa, the more I realized I preferred a simpler form to teach tonfa use.

 

Back on those days most systems did not have kobudo training. Many competitors would take an empty hand kata and do that with a weapon. One of the most frequent ones to use was Wansu kata. I saw It performed with bo and with sai as well as other weapons. (this was well before the internet or YouTube of today). That gave me an idea.

 

I began to work up a drill for tonfa use, which in time I referred to as Wansu NO Tonfa. Many years later I used it as a subsidiary dan drill for use of tonfa. I still believed it was useful.

 

 

I did film that drill for my students use. 

 

I never competed with it, in time it was only for my adult students use.

 

Then in 1985 moving to Derry, NH, it remained much the same. I just soldiered on with the form.

 

When the internet became available about 1988 for me. In time I found the form on YouTube, but there were many variations of Chiafa. Some by Uzeu Angi, some by others. As I only was with my original instructors I had no reason to believe any were correct.

 

I did discover some were irritated I was doing Chia fa, and many lectures followed. Each one making me care less about what other were doing, for it made no difference to me after all. I was only interested in preserving what I was directed to learn and what I developed from there.

 

IMO the Tonfa no longer serves the purpose for which it was originally intended, The modern Police version, the PR-24, is longer by design not to permit earlier tonfa techniques to be used. Of course it still has many uses for the police, but that is not why I taught tonfa.

 

What I discovered over decades of practice, was each of the kobudo studies in my Isshinryu serves another useful purpose. Each weapon requires different handling, developing very different skills in the hands, wrists, arms and legs of those trained. Those subtle skills also transfer into one’s kata abilities when used.

 

Tonfa specifically develop the grip to control its spins, and that grip control works to develop stronger empty hand grip too.

A time for Caution

 

 

We are experiencing a period with tremendous social change the like of which we have never experienced before. No question the population had acted with great restraint to date, but as social pressures continue no one can predict what may occur.

 

That brings to mind how we may be training our students to deal with the unknown.

 

Not wanting to unduly alarm students, it also is not impossible that very strange things might occur too.

 

It might be time to suggest more strongly what they might choose to do and not do, along with continuing their training to build stronger capabilities within them.

 

I am not trying to give cheap advice, or pull up a historical quote.

 

Just suggesting careful planning what your classes will be might be a very good idea when classes begin to resume again and things may still occur.

 

The eye must see all sides, the ear must listen in all directions.

Self Training a memory

 

 

When I began my Isshinryu studies back in 1974 two classes a week were never enough. I trained outside in my yard and inside in my living room all the time. Two young friends from the dojo lived nearby and often they dropped by to train too.

 

Then one day Lewis Sensei announced that the club needed someone to clean the club each week and they would not have to pay dues in return.  That seemed a real bargain to me, so I offered to keep the dojo cleaned. I received a key and from that time forward that is what I did on Sundays and of course used the club as a place to train before I cleaned it.

 

I had to have more and began to take non class day trips to train at other IKC dojo, Princess Annne, DelMar at the state line, Dover Deleware on a regulaf basis I visited all of them and trained with those schools.

 

When I had to move for work and then had to start training in Tang  Soo Do  Moo Duk Kwan, I continued to work for the next year on my Isshinryu. I remember working out on my in-laws driveway, outside my house on the sidewalk early mornings. When it became time to take my mandatory vacation from my Bank work I returned to Salisbury camping near there, then attended class in Salisbury and Dover. Always training, allowing me to retain my Isshinryu.

 

Right after that Charles Murray moved to Providence , outside Scranton, and I began training with him in Isshinryu. However I also continued to train in Tang Soo Do as I had another year on my contract there. With Charles the training was irregular, classes were started for the youth of his church and I assisted him then after those classes was my own training. If he wanted to train he would call me at midnight and I always went over. Even in blizzards we trained even if after that training I had to dig a foot of snow off my car.

 

Mornings at the crack of dawn I would run a mile or so, then a ½ hour a kata, take a bath then walk ½ an hour into the Bank. After work I would then train evenings with Charles or in Tang Soo Do.

 

Time passed to quickly and I became a shodan. Then even quicker Charles informed me he was going back into the Air Force for his career. Before he left he taught me Shi Shi No Kon No Dai outside in his backyard where a line of thunderstorms came up, he went back inside to pack while I remained outside in driving rain working on that form. Then that line of storm passed, he saw I was still outside so he came out and taught me some more, only to have another line of storms come in, then he would go inside back to packing. I remained outside in the rain, working on the form. That repeated itself and finally I had the entire form.

 

He wished me well, I gave him my fondest hope for his life, then sadly went home.

 

Of course I worked and worked to keep the form.

No longer having an instructor I made adjustments to my training. This began in 1979.

1.        I began a youth Isshinryu program at the Scranton Boys Club.

2.        I started competing regionally at karate tournaments

a.        To push myself

b.        To compete continually against some of the best individuals in the country forcing me to improve in the process.

c.        I made regional friends among the competitors and that often provided me other schools to visit and train with.

3.        I continued my early morning running and training

4.        I began to visit those school of the instructors I met, training , learning, pushing myself  further.

5.        Then when we took vacation they became further training locations

a.        As when we traveled to the Grand Canyon of Pa. to camp, we hiked down to the canyon, in the campground I practiced outside continually working to find new things about my art.

 

The time came after another 5 years had passed that again I had to move for work. This began in 1985.

1.        I began another program for youth at the Derry Boys and Girls Club.

2.        That work meant I had less time for additional travel, so I focused more on the Youth Program.

  3.        I started an adult program at the Derry Boys and Girls Club after the youth classes. As it turned out I was teaching youth 2 days a week, then adults also on one of those days and on Saturday mornings.

4.        I continued to practice outside in my yard for personal development.

5.        Each year I would travel to Conferences around the country and at each of them would work out early mornings in the parking lot of those locations.

6.        I made trips to train in Salisbury (and often Dover too) as frequently as possible. At times driving 6 hours to train for 2 hours and then driving 6 hours back.

7.        I participated in annual Summer camps of mixed styles.

8.        I began teaching a Yang T’ai Chi group on Sunday mornings on my driveway. That continued for about 14 years.

9.        I continued to seek our new opportunities to train many places.

 

 

Then in 2011 things changed, I could no longer participate at the pace I had been doing.

 

So I cut back. The instructors I trained took over the youth program, I just supervised.

I focused on the adult program.

 

But as things progressed I could do less and less.

 

I continued to work on my new diminished abilities. After decades of work on my own t’ai chi, I was dimished and could not really do it. It took me a year but I worked out a way to do it as much as possible.

 

My ability to do kata was also diminished, but in a different way I continued to work on what I had.

 

Through all of that I would go outside to train as much as I was able.

 

Then in 2016 we moved to Arizona,   where I only have myself to work out with. I would go outside and continue to work on my t’ai chi and my karate. Limited as I was I could not stop what I have been doing for a long time.

 

Back in the 6 years when I was competing, I never had a camera to be filmed doing my kata. In fact for more than a decade I never was able to film my self.

 

Years later in Derry my program was able to buy a camera for the Boys and Girls Club. I used it mostly to film my students, not to find perfect performances, no matter how well they did. Rather to be able to analyze what they were doing more fully and their best performances ( at any level) to use a points showing where they would move through at that stage of development and to focus on where they would move forward from that stage.

 

I was able to film many of the clinics my friends gave my students, to preserve what was shared.

 

A few times I did film myself to save something for my students to eventually use, or to record where I was at that time.

 

But all of it rested on the fact I never stopped training whenever I could.

 

Training wet, training dry, training cold and in the snow and ice, training when hot.

Whatever the weather, whenever the weather,  would train and then train and then train.

 

 

 

 

 

Something that might help you with inactivity of these days.

One time I had 15 minutes of instruction.

  

Quite a few years ago I was visiting with Ernest Rothrock for weekend. I had studied Yang T’ai Chi and a wide variety of Chinese forms with him years before. I was out there to share a clinic with his students as well as study with him, and to visit.

 

So Saturday evening when we were talking after dinner, suddenly he got up and took me outside on his porch. There he proceeded to show me a drill that his instructor in Northern Eagle Claw began and ended every class with. He never named what it was and I didn’t ask questions.

 

The drill was not long and did loosen up my shoulders as well as my upper body. I could see its value.

 

So when I went home, I put that drill into my notebook and began continuing practice of it.

 

Roll forward a few years and I was attending a clinic with Dr. Yang Jwing-Ming, the clinic was on t’ai chi sword and chi kung.

 

It was interesting and though not the Yang T’ai Chi sword I was shown, I gained some idea of what others were doing.

More interesting when he described the books he wrote, and the books he translated for those books, I got a clearer idea of what those books were about from his talk.

 

That Sunday session was on the Chi Kung drills he was sharing. Before long I realized many of those drills were within that movement form Ernest had shared with me. During a break in the clinic I approached Dr. Yang and discussed that possibility with him. He agreed that was possibly what that drill was.

 

I continued to work on it. As it was so simple at times I had the youth I taught do it at the end of class. I shared it with my adult group too.

 

It won’t turn your hat around on your head, nor will it cure illness. However it is a great way to loosen up your upper body especially your shoulders.

 

Now with my disabilities and often sitting much of the day, I use it frequently throughout all the day to loosen my shoulders and relax my body.

 

It is simple enough that I could help you too.

 

 

The Curley Howard Floating Finger of Fate

Moe's brother Curley did work out a defense against his brother's two finger eye poke, but Moe, the Master, immediately surmounted it.

Not to be undone and learning a thing from Moe's response Curley developed his own technique, the Floating Finger of Fate.

 

 

The Moe Howard Eye Poke

An extremely effective defensive technique comes from Master Moe Howard, his two finger eye poke.





He often demonstrated how it was used on his brothers.

 

 

 Additionally he also shared how it could be countered. For what good is it to know how to use it if you don't also know how to stop it.