The eye must see on all side.
The ear muse listen in all directions.
I wanted to make them ever so much more to my students
studies. Not as words to memorize, but as experiences to use and build on.
What follows is the journey to do just that, which happed
over my decades ass an instructor.
This story began
when I was a Yellow Belt in Isshinryu and I had just learned my new kata Seiunchin. At that time I
knew nothing of it’s history or why it was included in Isshinryu, I just knew I had a lot of work to do to get
it right (of course what I thought of right was what a yellow belt thought of
as right.)
At that time Lewis Sensei was preparing for a local demonstration
and part of that demonstration was to have a yellow belt team show group
performance of Seiunchin kata done to music. (that was a new thing back then).
So he took
charge of the group preparation and drilled and drilled Seiunchin as he wanted
it into up. Over and over, class after class. Eventually we began to move in
unison. At that point the music was added, it was a popular tune back in those
days. The song was ‘The Hustle’. We did the kata with the music playing, but
the kata was not timed to the song either. We just did both together.
Then the
demonstration came, and it went well and then it was done. Never again did I do
the form to music.
Training moved
on, and I moved on with it. But because of that intensity, the manner in which
our performance incorporated Slow intense movements with heavy breathing, and
fast quick movements with normal breathing, Hard and Soft at the same time,
forever that would remain my Seiunchin performance.
A decade later I
was also showing my young students, as they advanced past Seiunchin, to perform
the kata also as a team performance. I wanted them to move to a higher level of
performance. And to develop the use of their eyes and ears to keep track of
what was happening around them, both for performance, and to move toward
reaching self defense skills through their training.
What I found the
group kata practice as students were advancing through the kyu ranks was also a
powerful way to teach all of them to use more advanced energy in their
practice. Not that was the end goal, just one more step appropriate for where I
wanted students to move towards, a foundation for later dan studies.
Then slowly,
step by step, I worked on other ways to expand the process.
I now began
students on a supplemental kata, our Sho (which was an Isshinryuized version of
Matsubayshi Fyugata Sho
One example, new
students who knew the form they began with, would often lack the focus to
perform their form when standing in front of the class alone.
But if I then
placed them in the middle of two brown belts, or two black belts, they would
show they could to a much stronger performance. And even look like they knew
the form at a black belt level.
That showed them
they were much better than they imagined they were.
And makes a
point how the black belts were also sharing there energy while doing the form.
(A thing I learned from that group Seiunchin performance.)
I then
incorporated another practice. Paired Kata Sho.
Where both
students stood squarely before each other and 2 people did the kata in opposite
directions at the same time. When they got used to it, they did so closely even
to having their down block in the kata, striking into each other’s arm at the
same time. Again requiring them to use their sight and hearing for that level
of performance. Many things happening at the same time. All of them beneficial
for developing what I saw student karate to be.
One level of
paired sho performance
There were other
ways I had the students use Kata Sho, beyond just performing the kata.
Perhaps the most
apt inclusion would be that of a very close order drill.
Where students
as a group stood shoulder touching shoulder of those beside them. And with
other rows having students behind having their chest against the back of the
row in front of them. The students would then try to do the kata Sho with the
smallest, tinyist movements they could possibly make, and to stay together as a
group. It was for fun, but also made them more aware that to attempt to do it,
they had to remain aware of what was happening around them. Always a lesson.
Then when
students had learned Seiunchin, some time later they were added to the kyu
Seiunchin team practice. Then the drilled the kata, as I had learn it, over and
over. Working to get to the flow and energy release I was looking for. Not for
public performance, just to move them to a higher level of performance.
One year I had
one of my friends in for a private clinic, Other friends were also there to
participate, My friend showed so much I decided to give him a break from his
demonstration. So I had the different instructors demonstrate their own kata, I
decided to do Seiunchin kata, and grabbed my son to help me. While I was his
instructor, we did not train together. What follows is just us doing the form,
his timing and flow just what I had the team do in class. Of course it was
exactly as I had been shown.
Other times I
would have 6 students stand as if on a circle, as 2, 3, 6, 8, 10 and 12 o’clock.
Their backs to the inside of the circle. Then they would do Seiunchin kata,
attempting to keep in unison during the performance. Further challenging their
use is sight and hearing to accomplish this.
Much later after
a student was well past learning Wansu kata, came another drill. They would
stand before an other student, the tip of their right shoulders aligned and
then perform kata Wansu in opposite directions staying in close order. Having
to not become entangled with each other during the ‘fireman’s throw’ section. A
much more advanced exercise in awareness, pushing sight and hearing to higher
levels of awareness.
One of the
things I insisted it that all brown belts
work on Chinto kata, learned at green belt, to work toward perfection.
Tirelessly I drilled on this. In the days we used tournaments as an occasional
practice, Chinto becamd the mandatory brown belt kata.
It was at this
level another paired practice began, that of 2 brown belts performing the kata
in opposite directions, maintaining there staying in unison. A much more
difficult practice. When Mike Cassidy and Young Lee were brown belts that was
one of their practices. Even 30 years later, no longer drilling together, they
retained the ability they acquired to remain in unison.
Chinto Chinto
Even at black
belt there were partner practices. This time using Naifanchi kata. And this
time done in a stack formation.
Naifanchi as a
Row drill
Long ago I read
in some magazine that Seniors on Okinawa would perform group kata from time to
time. The goal to remain together. And when doing so one might change the pace
unexpectedly to see if the others would match it. Then another might do the
same. A sort of polite Masters Duel. Seeing is they still used their eyes and
ears.
Of course this
is just what I have done. Now for my students, now instructors to choose to
follow what they experienced for their own students.
How
you train does determine what you are!
The eye must see on all side.
The ear muse listen in all directions.
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