There is a story in how I came to understand what Bunkai meant and then I went beyond the accepted definition.

 

 

Bunkai

“Bunkai (分解), literally meaning "analysis"[1] or "disassembly",[2] is a term used in Japanese martial arts referring to process of analysing kata and extracting fighting techniques from the movements of a "form" (kata). The extracted fighting techniques are called Oyo.
Bunkai is usually performed with a partner or a group of partners which execute predefined attacks, and the student performing the kata responds with defenses, counterattacks, or other actions, based on a part of the kata. This allows the student in the middle to understand what the movements in kata are meant to accomplish. It also illustrates how to improve the technique by adjusting distances (Maai), timing, rhythm (Ritsudo) and fluidity (Nagare) in combat properly, in order to adapt and adjust any technique depending on the size of an opponent.
Some kata have another layer of application that is taught using an Oyo Bunkai, an "application of the kata in ways other than the standard bunkai."[3] Different practitioners will learn or discover alternative applications, but the bunkai, like the kata, varies based on the style and the teacher.”

 

Back in the mid 1970's when I was a student bunkai was never mentioned.  Except for occasional basic explanations of kata moves, the application of kata was not part of my studies.  Then when I made black belt and was on my own, even training many places in many systems mention of bunkai was not mentioned, nor at the many tournaments I attended. Likely the first reference to form movement explanations was from Ernest Rothrock in than the many forms I studied had but one application for the movements.  Of course those systems had many times many forms, so they had a great deal of applications to learn. My studies were not in applications.

 

When I met Tristan Sutrisno as a competitor and became friends over a year competing together, only when I started visiting and training with him did I hear him about bunkai. Most often remarking he did not believe the masters he met did not know what bunkai was as he studied it.

 

To be completely honest, it could be that those I visited just never showed those studies when I was there, as I was a  guest. I have no idea, just that I never heard the term uttered. But I had noticed all the magazine articles on Okinawan instructors always had them demonstrating uses of kata technique. That did get me wondering. There was no definition of bunkai in those articles.

 

After a while training with Tristan I learned how bunkai was defined for his system. I have gone on about that before on this blog, suffice it to say it was a unique paradigm, explosive and effective, and was dan study. Kyu did not study bunkai having many more important stills to acquire.  The simplest explanation of that paradigm was no one observing a kata performance could ever intuit what the bunkai was. And at each of his family’s system there was an entirely different bunkai for each movement point in their kata.

 

I was shown some, but nothing like the full thing. Just enough to make me aware of what was there.

 

Time reference, it was about that time Seryu Oyata became known with is arts, and shortly George Dillman began his own path. Just about that time all the magazines had articles defining bunkai (similar to the above description) and showing examples from Japan.

 

Bunkai was becoming the buzz word for Katate. I remember articles about Americans hearing of Bunkai from the Japanese systems, began to return to Okinawa and ask their original instructors about why they were not shown bunkai.  The article said at first the instructors didn’t recognize the use of the word, but quickly began to show bunkai. A I have read more out of politeness, they began to use that term.

 

Historical note – When Mabuni Kenwa  began to write in Japan about karate, he first explained uses of the movements from Seiunchin kata as bunkai.  I have translated that book from the French edition.  It is plausible that his descriptions later influenced other Japanese systems to use that term.

 

Now back to me. So I was being instructed in ‘bunkai Sutrisno, which had little relationship to what others were calling bunkai.  As Tris defined the word first to me, his definition was the only ‘bunkai’ definition for me.

 

But I also realized while he shared much with me, I was really not a student of his way. Especially after I moved to NH I began to have a different thought. I realized how incredible what he had was, but I also had great faith in my own Isshinryu. So slowly I began to take all the skills in many systems I had acquired and work on what the applications for Isshinryu could be. I started easy, then deeper and deeper study on just one movement, the opening of Seisan kata, and before long I had over 100 ways to use it to disrupt any attack.

 

So  step by step I took my understanding that was growing of what kata technique application could be and worked and worked. About 5 or so years later one who would become a friend that I had met at a local tournament came to visit my school. He participated in our adult training and observed that what I was doing was much like his current instructor Sherman Harrill was doing. He then demonstrated several examples and later invited me to attend a clinic that he was having with Sherman on Isshinryu kata applications that he was having.

 

The first thing I discovered was my instructor Tom Lewis had been friends with Sherman back in Agena when they trained with Shimabuku Tatsuo.  Then I was blown away by the clinic Sherman held, countless kata application studies. Really amazing, it did resemble what I was doing but 40 years advanced from where I was. After that Garry and I co hosted a series of annual seminars with Sherman for many years, and I attended whatever clinics with him across New England that I could travel to.

 

My students and I became friends with Sherman. For the next few years I probably spent 50 or 60 hours at his clinics learning whatever I could from him. I was permitted to film the clinics at mu school I hosted, and made copious notes from the others. He definitely influenced what I saw kata applications could become.

 

Over the next 9 years I attended and helped hold as many clinics with him as possible. Always realizing as he told me they were not the same as being trained by him. I learned so much, and it definitely influenced my own studies, which had never ceased. But even great clinics come with a price. There was so much shared but I very strongly believed in my adult program and much that I saw never had the time to enter my program.

 

Then the unfortunate reality struck and Sherman died. I was filled with grief and as a result spent 3 months collecting and typing up my notes and viewing every scrap of video I had of Sherman and transcribing those tapes by kata. I ended up with a literal encyclopedia of Sherman clinics. Discussions, over 800 different kata applications, principles Sherman used to find those techniques, and much more. While I had never met his senior student, John Kerker, I sent him a copy of what I had written. His reply was thank you and that was most likely correct, but not containing maybe 500 additional techniques from his classes.

 

It was so much yet only a small part of what Sherman meant to me.

 

So I continued on my own. I participated in various internet discussions which often got around to bunkai. I came to feel what I had seen to date was nothing like the use of the term bunkai that people were discussing.

 

5 years later I finally met John Kerker at a clinic in Chicopee, Mass. What I saw was so different from Sherman at his clinics. The uke John was using was struck repeatedly harder than anyone I had ever seen anyone strike another and each time his uke rose to attack and be struck again. I really saw what it was to be a true student of Sherman.

 

As the years passed I attended annual clinics John held in Chicopee. And learn so much Sherman hinted at about the training of his students. John filled in so many gaps. And I continued to learn so much more. That first clinic I attended later that night I wrote up my notes and sent them to John.

 

In many ways my understanding changed. I began not to use the term Bunkai as I was not doing the Sutrisno version I had first been shown. And I was not really doing what others were doing. So I derived my own description of what I was doing.

 

I considered the first step to understanding kata application potential to look at every possible use a techniques could be used for. But this was just the first step.

 

The next step was working  towards kata application realization. The more difficult study to actually apply that to any attack and conclude that attack.

In a very real sense that kata application became almost an infinite study..

 

Starting at Sho Dan the student would focus on say 50 applications for the first movement of Seisan kata and of course developing skill to use all of them. After that there was no set order, it just moved forward, focusing on the underlying principles behind the applications.

 

Movement after movement, kata after kata. A very long range study.

 

Not to know a thousand applications, but to gain experience so that the first movement could be used to stop any attack, then more and more an open ended study.

 

The goal was to be eventually able to take any movement at all to conclude any attack. Which was of course also maximum unpredictibality.

 

Did I succeed?

 

The goal was never to finish rather to keep moving forward and learning, never stopping.

 

 

Memories of Pain

The common denominator I have found training with different instructors, who also were extremely effective using the techniques of their arts (some did represent a variety of different arts). There was a common factor. The way they used pain with their senior students instruction.

No they did not damage those individuals, it was not that kind of pain. But they used students who elected to train to severe levers attacking their instructor, and receiving much of the power of the defense being shown, unto pain itself.

 

What I discovered (often with pain myself) was those students in turn each became great instructors, because they ‘knew’ where to adjust your own efforts till they could feel that correct pain. And of course they also learned well how to do the same they were feeling. True skill.

Now I was never that skilled, Not that things were not openly shared with me, but those instructors knew my limitations, not being deeply trained in their arts, and chose not to often share that pain with me. So I did not get ‘it’ the same way.

And much being a youth instructor, I did not go to that level with the kids. Though there were times, that the movements we were studying did have an effect on the adults.

An interesting thing about Pain. Our body does not remember Pain, we remember we were I pain, but not the pain itself. Once experienced it goes away (in its own time)

Aikido for one was explained to me this way. You don’t move the person, (an art of locks and projections for the most part, which of course is an over-simplification) Rather it is pain that moves the uke into desired consequences. Intense pain feeling invoking reaction, or the feeling of anticipated pain causing the desired reaction.

Another way of looking at applications.

Isshin - Now a book

 

Over 600,000 have visited my blog, which was always intended to be read by my students of what there was never enough time to get into during class. Than anyone else finds my thoughts interesting is your own choice. My blog is really intended for my students on many things training even over decades never left enough time to share with them. However I do believe information should be shared.

 

Jim Keenan, a friend, took it upon himself to select 1/5 of what I wrote and then publish that in a book sold on Amazon. I just found out about this and was touched as well as astounded at the effort he went  to, to accomplish this. From his efforts he has published a book on Amazon containing a selection of my writings about my journey. It is not just an Isshinryu journal, but an open ended into everything I thought of.  The structure of the writings is like thought. Random by design.

 

The book is  “Isshin  -  writings on martial arts and life.” If you have any interest it can be found at https://www.amazon.com/dp/1886274010/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=isshin%20victor%20smith&qid=1579026172&sr=8-1&fbclid=IwAR2gyX__62cEdDwwwbYyHCttvY1y653oogve03pcG9af_byfBf-oo3YMFgQ

 

Thanks to Jim you have a selection of my thoughts from my experiences I saved. I should add there were never any spelling errors like Jim suggested. Each one was a test of your awareness.

 

From “Doka: Poems of Usheiba Morihei

 

From   “Doka: Poems of Usheiba Morihei

 

There are several Aikido techniques that move directly into the attack, avoiding collision, and emerging behind the attacker. There is a similar teaching in the Shinkage-ryu sword school. The poem reads:

 

Furikaburu tachi-no shita-koso jigoku-nare

Mi-o-sutetekoso ukabu se-mo-are

 

Beneath the raised sword/ is like hell,

Throw yourself away/ there may be a way out

 

“It is like Hell standing beneath a raised sword, be willing to sacrifice yourself, there may be a way out.”

 

One can imagine the poet watching a leaf flow downstream only to be pulled into the rapids and then appearing later below the falls. Could this be “irimi-ho,” the entering method?

 

A poem that reflects the fundamental element of martial art is probably the following by O’Sensei Morihei Ueshiba:

 

 

January 21, 2019 - A Random Act of Kindness

 

When something Rotten this was comes – A random act of kindness

Today was unusual. A very stiff wind was coming in. It wsn’t too cold, but the wind made it feel cooler.

The reality of my disabilities is that I use a walker on my walks. Not that I need it but to try and be safer. Careful planning each and every time.

Today I was walking by the golf course when I saw some Canadian Geese on the course. I stopped to take a photo. But a stiff gust of wind caught my walker (a much lighter model than what I use today) and it began traveling away. I turned and tried to stop it, actually got my hand on it, then my feet got entangled with each other and I began to go down.

I didn’t try to stick anything and catch myself. I more of rolled down on my side. When I hit the ground my right leg received a large scrape on my shin through my sweatpants. My side taking the impact felt some pain (about a 3 on the 10 scale), and I received a few scrapes on my right little fingers. All in all not too bad.

But I could not get up, I was on my back and do not have the ability to get up.

However a passing motorist saw what happened, He stopped and helped me to my feet, then picked up my walker. After thanking him he left.

I then continued on my way. Feeling my injuries but not hampered.

So another morning walk.

The wind continued to blow as I traveled. I thought about being the recipient of a random act of kindness.

There are times when we need it.

And when I said the winds were blowing, my wife when taking the dog down to the dog park this afternoon, saw the tumbleweeds blowing across the road. She managed to take one photo.

An Arizona Coyote and an Arizona Road Runner

 Seen during my morning walks in 2018

 

Thoughts on Karate Uniforms Changes

I am not suggesting anyone change whatever tradition they are following. I am just exploring what happened when an Okinawan tradition 100 years ago with several hundred practitioners (discounting the school children who were studing versions of those arts) to today with 95,000,000 million students and adepts around the world practicing karate. Things change.

 

Thinking on when it was Toudi (Te) before karate, no one can really say what the students wore for training, except perhaps their street clothes (or less in very hot weather). Nor do we have an answer what the adepts who moved forward into their clan roles wore, Perhaps special uniforms of their role, perhaps not. In any case none of us would ever be a clan member entitled to dress as they dressed, we are never clan members.

 

So as time passed, and perhaps as karate was exported to Japan a sign of adaption began with the adoption of Japanese traditions as to what uniforms would become. Then again slowly those new traditions began to move back into Okinawa. The result became the dogi worn for karate. Certainly not one idea, but somewhat unique for each school.

 

Even in 1950’s Okinawa the dogi began to change, in size appropriate ones for the foreign students of the day.

 

Then when the export began (as there were literally no rules) change began into every level of the uniform. I am sure the original changes were to honor the past of their arts. However quickly the uniform began to change. Partially to reflect the new groups wanting something distinctive. Partially it began with karate competitors to look good and appeal to audiences.

 

Of course change kept occurring on Okinawa too, more so as they began to notice what was happening around the world.

 

With so many countries, ego’s needing gratification and other reasons, the standard of what was traditional kept moving too.

 

I am reminded of a saying from long ago, Q  “What is traditional karate?” A “Whatever your instructor told you traditional karate is.”

 

I would suggest that also applies to what uniforms is traditional.

 

Really one does not need a uniform to practice karate. In reality one does not normally want to advertise one is an adept either. So bare foot or shod foot, in Okinawan uniforms or in comfortable training clothes or in restrictive clothes one wears for work, all can serve as training clothing for karate. Just different needs.

A Tale of Turkey's - A memory I want to retain from Derry

A Tale of Turkey’s

We have had a flock of wild turkeys walk through the neighborhood and my yard for years.
In the spring it is a hen and her chicks. Then the flock grows throughout the year.

 This time of year they are quite large birds.

The other day Scout was sleeping at the front window, her jaw on the sil like normal. When she awoke the flock was in her front yard. She started barking loud and almost went through the window to get them. They began to fly in a start. Very impressive watching the large turkeys take flight.

Several days later it was time for Scout to go outside on her line. When she went out there was the flock grazing across my side yard. Well Scout charged at them barking their head off. She has a bark of a much larger dog. They took flight and one of them treed high in our Weeping Willow tree, I got my camera and got this shot.

 

What older karate literture presents as a challenge

As you have probably guess by now I have been and am passionate to look at Okinawan martial history. This was not done to change my art (though over decades change does occur). I wanted to understand all the roots possible about the arts of Okinawa. I did not succeed as there is so much to keep learning.

 

What I found is it has been much work and not what was expected.  Wise friends suggestions as to what to read, personal discoveries, all of them added to what I understand. I was challenged to translate a number of French works by Japanese authors. I learned how to use Bing Translate to be able to get some idea what Japanese internet sites were saying. I obtained books in Japanese I cannot read only look at the drawings and photos. I had more than a few friends who have translated books from the early years. I have look everyplace I could and of course it was never enough.

 

What I discovered it often takes years, unto decades, to realize what I had. Then just as learning from skilled instructors at clinics, it often took more years to realize where to fit any of it in my students program (when possible) as I had nothing I wanted to set aside.  Great books were the same.

 

Owning, possessing a book on the shelf, is just that, the inspiration to figure out what is adds to my understanding is a much larger task. It really is hard work and likely it will only make a difference in my own understanding.

 

As I taught Isshinryu karate, not a book discussion group, I could share little of this with my students. They had far more important journeys for their own training.

 

That is why I started my blog for them. Not to have them read books (for that is not what they were studying for) but to preserve some valued section of my own study. For their own use, or perhaps for future students own studies. That ws never for me to work out, just a suggestion or two for their own journey. And as time passed I found more and more to post for them to remember their training or to glimpse a bit at what I have look at.

 

The journey is not simple. I don’t believe everything I have posted,  one must make up their own mind. But it might add texture to their journey.

 

I have not hidden what I did post, for I believe too much is not being looked at. Should you take the effort and make any of it work for you, then you have made another step forward. Not for what you were taught and practice, a personal Journey into your own Understanding.

Polymath in the Martial Arts

Leonardo da Vinci,

a polymath of the Renaissance

 

Today I have been thinking of an old term I haven’t heard of in a long time. That is of the Polymath, which I could be believed to be applied to some exceptional martial artists.

My point is not to suggest that such an individual is better than a non-Polymath martial arts, for I most sincerely do not believe that is true, It is just that some martial journeys are very different from those others take, and insight me be gained by recognizing these different journeys.

First to clarify what I am describing some definition might be relevant.

A polymath (Greek: πολυμαθής, polymathēs, "having learned much"; Latin: homo universalis, "universal man")^[1] is an individual whose knowledge spans a significant number of subjects, known to draw on complex bodies of knowledge to solve specific problems.

Polymaths include the great thinkers of the Renaissance and the Enlightenment, who excelled at several fields in science, technology, engineering, mathematics, and the arts. In the Italian Renaissance, the idea of the polymath was expressed by Leon Battista Alberti (1404–1472) in the statement that "a man can do all things if he will".^[8]

In my personal journey I have associated and trained with several individuals who which I believe this term would be an accurate description. Perhaps a brief description of their journeys. They are not the same but I honestly believe they could be of that description. This is not a complete list by any means but just several examples to be illustrative. I do not know their complete journeys.

1, My one friend has vastly studied in multiple arts, most of them Chinese. He began in karate, then began to study a Chinese system following what his instructor then moved to. Along the way he studied Yang Tai Chi Chaun. Then when studying a Chinese system, he met and began training with a group of multi system instructors in the Washington DC area. In large part they shared forms and along his journey he accumulated and practiced hundreds of forms. He used that journey to explore systems/instructors until he made a final choice.  Getting approval from that instructor, an extremely complex system, he studied and trained for 35 years before he was able to test and pass certification as an instructor. At the same time he was teaching a group of schools his original Chinese system, continually working to make it better for his students. Only after certification as an instructor did he openly begin teaching that system to his own students. On that path he also studied Wu Tai Chi Chaun.He has decades of training students in his arts he first studied. To train with him is a multidimensional experience in those arts.

 

2. Another friend began in Isshinryu long ago. On his way he studied other Okinawan systems. But his career was to study and then translate Japanese and Chinese. He was able to train in a variety of Chinese arts, such as PaQua, Tai Chi Chaun and others. His work required much world wide travel. He trained in Isshinryu again on Okinawa. When in Israel he opened an Isshinryu dojo there. Studied Krav Maga with the founder and became an instructor. Years later we became friends but distance made our training together impossible. He took the time to visit my Tai Chi group and observe when he learned I taught outside all year long on Sundays. He did the same conducting his own student classes outside. After observing my group he began to explain many things all the while writing Japanese or Chinese on the ground to demonstrate the relationship of what was occurring  via ideotgram of each language. While we had many meetings they were private discussions on many martial matters. One time he was visiting and I was showing him a Kung Fu movie (to make some point). He had me stop the movie  which was in Cantonese I  believe and then began to show the dialogue showing at the bottom of the screen was saying something different from what was being spoken, And also the English translation was saying something else altogether. Many years later as my disability was coming on, one day he showed my  how a piece of the Isshinryu Bo form Tokomeni No Kon (which I could no longer do) could be done  with PaQua movements retaining the essence of the bo form as an empty hand movement. It was just the first beginning of that form, but it was a way to retain something for myself.

 

Their arts are not similar, but the depth of what they could go into came from their own vast studies and not always in the martial arts.

 

As I said this is not a complete list, and this does not mean they are superior. But in our friendship and training I have gained ever so much.

 

Perhaps you have your own experiences with a Polymath in the Martial Arts. They got there because of incredible journeys they made, often at great sacrifice in their lives. It was not an easy path for them, but it was most definitely interesting.

 

Strange, that as an old man I can still suggest something new.

Karate as opposed to dance

“You may train for a long time, but if you merely move your hands and feet and jump up and down like a puppet, learning karate is not very different from learning a dance. You will never have reached the heart of the matter; you will have failed to grasp the quintessence of karate-do.”

— Gichin Funakoshi

Snow reason not to train

This photo from Europe reminds me of the Days when I taught my tai chi group (dennis, Andrew, Tommy, Doc) on my driveway Sunday mornings on my driveway all winter long.

When Doc joined the class, a very cold Sunday morning, as he got out of his car, with a worried tone he told me he was a surgeon and he had to protect our hands (I think he thought is was a karate class). I told he we had an answer for that, it was called gloves.
Skiers ski in all weather. Properly dressed tai chi is no different, just not what was expected.

Then one Sunday morning it was -20f outside, I began the class using some bagua circle walking to let everyone warm up. So a very frosty morning, as we were going a Derry Police car drove slowly by. A little later he drove back again, very slowly observing us. He drove by once again, watching us. Then stopped his car to walk back and observe. I imagine he called it in, and when it got to Chief Garone, knowing who I was…well. We just continued working out.

Several years later one Saturday night we had a heavy snow. Class was at 8am, so at 6am I went outside to shovel. And for two hours that is what I did. Yes, it was extremely frigid, but I was working up a real sweat. When I finished just before class was to begin I went inside to change my wet clothes. Taking off my soaked jacket and my wet shirt, I was inside and bare chested when I saw the group begin to arrive. Then it stuck me as I was so hot, myself from all that shoveling, I would play a prank on all of them.

I strode into the frigid air, bare chested, into the shoveled but still snow covered driveway. I thing Doc almost had a heart attack, and everyone swarmed me and forced me inside. I did not suffer that exposure, being so hot. I just continued to dress. As I explained to them what happened, then laughing resumed class.

I did that because in Bejing they study group tai chi outside all year long. Colder winters, warmer summers from what I understood. I just saw no reason to let the temperature stop me.

Of course rain was another story. I did not teach tai chi in rain.
But from -20f to +115f I was always game to teach my tai chi.