Kamae and the Wave

It always begins with a story. In this case it was one of my students, who was a Chief Engineer on an Oil tanker working it’s way toward Boston, up the East Coast. The Captain approached him and asked him to venture outside with he and the First Officer to check on whatever was causing a crashing sound outside on the deck. Though a hurricane was expected in several days, the weather was fine and the sea calm. As they worked their way forward suddenly a wave rose and broke over the ship. The Captain and First Officer found something on which to grab. My friend was not so lucky. The wave washed over him, lifting him up. He thought I sure to be washed out to sea, this is it. As fate would have it the wave crushed him against the railing on the other side of the ship. While banged up, and subsequently hospitalized in Boston, as a result of the wave, he was fine.

There is more to this story than the wave. The next day while in the hospital, the Captain came to visit. He was asked if he could return to the ship. They were putting out to sea to try an end run about the Hurricane. Well this Hurricane was fickle, and turned back out to sea while coming up the Carolina’s. So instead of avoiding the Hurricane as was intended, they ended up going through the Hurricane. It was a time when a Super Tanker became a submarine. Waves were rising in the sea. And the ship was going straight trough them, with water charging down the hallways. It was a very rough trip.

I often think of this image when reaching kamae in various kata. Representing the wave rising from the sea, then engulfing what stands before it. A good representation would be this painting.

The Great Wave off Kanagawa by Katsushika Hokusai

This was a lesson I learned the hard way, one with pain.

Back about 1981 at a summer camp, my friend Ernest Rothrock, was demonstrating some Chinese application techniques. He asked me to be his partner, and then attack him with a roundhouse punch. I did, He just stepped in and raised his hands. I felt great pain. So he said something like “Karate-boy can’t you strike harder than that”. Of course I did so, and received greater pain when he did it again.

The movement was slight, just raising two open hands (Knife hands), but the harder you strike the greater pain you experience. It then worked every time I’ve used it since.

Years later I was being shown a basic Tjimande 2 person set, part of which the attacker was beginning to strike with a jab, cross strike, then uppercut all 1-2-3. Extremely effective in its own right. But the partner was countering with a cross open hand shuto, then with the same hand (shuto) striking across into the 2^nd strike , and concluding with a downward open hand (shuto) into the uppercut. Very painful to the striker. I must admidt that I was not schooled in this way of striking, just shown the techniques. I had to decide to retain and work on the movements.

Well I did so. And quickly discovered 1) that this works 2) my students started pulling and changing the strikes as a result of the training pain. I had to learn how to make changes to practice, light touches instead of strikes was our solution.

Several years later I obtained a Panther video tape on a Tjimande variation. Really good presentation. I found the video contained the same movements for defense against the same attack, But it used three different hand positions in the similar defensive sequence. And they each caused greater pain. Of course we started including them in our practice.

In 1998 during a Wansu clinic with Sherman Harrill this movement utilization came up with the kamae in Wansu kata. During that practice, I decided to show Sherman the 3 different variations I had. Of course it became a learning experience, for he shared a fourth one. Useful if the person is quicker than you. I learned then he totally was a step beyond.

That was certainly enough to work on. However in time I thought on that Wansu Kamae, where the open hands are just raised. The entire idea behind Kamae made more sense to me.

In a kata, Kamae seem like holding points, where you gather your breath before continuing on an opponent. This is where that image of the wave now made sense to me.

I now see that Kamae represent entering at attack, and it’s stillness is the act of becoming an aggressive movement that the opponent crashes against.

Selecting the Kamae from Wansu Kata as the example.

Attacker steps forward with their left foot, and throws a left, then right punch and finishes with a left uppercut.

Or perhaps the attacker slides in with the right foot and throws a right jab.

Your response depends on the distance you are working from.

1. Either you step back into the Kamae, or alternatively you step into the Kamae.

2. You raise both hands into their opening the position, then drop your stance settling your arms down to complete the Kamae.

3. The left lead hand strikes into the biceps muscle of the striking arm.

a. The left hand strikes into the face of the attacker.

b. The left hand strikes into thefrace/body of the attacker.

c. The left rises to deflect a right strike away from you.

d. The left rises to deflect a right strike away from you. The right hand then strikes into the face.

e. The left rises to deflect a right strike away from you. Then you settle down into your kamae stance and your elbow strikes down into their body.

f. The left hand strikes into the biceps of the left strike, then the left hand strikes into the biceps of the right strike, finishing the left hand strikes into the rising left uppercut strike.

g. The left rises to deflect the right strike away from you, then the right hand rises to deflect their left strike away from you, at the same time the left hand strikes into the face/neck of the attacker.

I am going to stop at this point, but you should get the idea.

Then as you investigate advancing principles, such as if your back was against the wall, you can discover the same result with the ‘Kamae’ can be used without stepping, just re-centering your technique with attendant knee release, and the same alignment.

Before one rushes out to try this it is important they have been properly instructed in the technique formation and have trained long enough to really have faith in the technique.
Faith, the crux of the spirit of karate, is the most important ingredient in making a technique application work.

I was teaching this technique just this morning to my own advanced students. They strike and got a funny look on their face when they ran into my ‘Kamae’, but when trying it themselves, no matter how detailed the explanation was given, the pressure of another body moving in, even in slow practice mode, most often means they do something else than their kata technique. They shift their right hand towards the attackers body, or perhaps they shift too far to the left and strike into the inner elbow, both answer which allow their attacker to blast through. In fact for one demonstration, talking instead of correctly doing, I shifted my gaze to one of the other instructors as I was talking, and that strike was on my jaw. Even the placement of the eye’s affects alignment.

I would suggest, properly executed, ‘Kamae’ is a most violent way to interrupt forward momentum of an attacker.

There are a number of underlying principles here. Among which are.

1. When suddenly attacked stepping back is a natural reaction to give you more time.

1.a. Or step into their attack allowing them less time to respond and to when they are showing less power in their attack
2. Their biceps striking into your vertical knife hand allows the attacker to realize how much pain a biceps attack creates (I had previously learned this from my Chinese and Indonesian studies).
3. The more correct your alignment, the less they will be able to breach the wall their attacking arm’s biceps ran into.
4. The rear hand is insurance, it keeps the technique alignment correct, if there is a follow up attack it is in perfect position to respond naturally.

The wave rises and falls, This is symbolic and quite descriptive as that painting depicts

I see the quiet pause of Kamae formed inside an attack and by forming the Kamae the attacker finds the Tsunami within their own movement. The flow of the Tsunami through the Ocean moves without the water resisting, then when the land appears the power erupts.

It's all a question of angle of entry into an attack and the timing of forming the Kamae with full body alignment so the attack finds resistance before it reaches its own peak.

Force from stillness.

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

Although this is not the kamae from kata Wansu I have been describing this is me in 1979, just a reminder of other days, when I was young.