The lightest brush of a feather of a memory across my mind.

 

It was 1995 when I first met Sherman Harrill at a seminar Garry Gerossie hosted for him in Concord New Hampshire.   And that day I experienced many wonderful things he shared, continuously from his decades of work on what Isshinryu kata could to.

  

From the first were so many things I had never thought of, and anyone who trained with Sherman at those clinics, the first time, will understand what occurs. Facing the onslaught of kata technique application after kata technique application in time the mind numbs.

 

Application followed application throughout the morning. Then we had a break for noon and then the applications continued. Then suddenly Sherman was working with a partner who began a left knee strike and Sherman just responded using Nihanchi (Naifanchi et al spellings) and wow I was blown away.

 

 

I knew I saw something unique, but I did not really know what I saw.

 

Sherman just continued on and on. The more I thought about it, the more convinced what I saw was something unique. But I was not sure what it was. Fortunately someone else asked the question. “What was that we saw?”

 

And Sherman repeated the sequence. I burned what I watched into my memory.

 

 I am quite sure his own students saw it a lot.

 

But never again since that day have I seen anyone else do it. I have seen innumerable Nihanchi (Naifanchi, Naihanchi) applications videos, but never seen anyone else address using the footwork from the kata the way he did it that day.

 Of course I shared it with my students. Alltogether a very nice footwork drill.

 

*****  ******

The exact drill is not recorded here, but some thought about kicking as I have shared it with my students follows below:

https://isshin-concentration.blogspot.com/2017/05/the-guide-to-bushi-no-te-kicking.html