Hamahiga nu
tuifa Performed by Arcenio Advincula
No
question Advincula has done a polished performance of that kata.
When
Tom Lewis trained on Okinawa the form was not done then, neither did Sherman
learn it then. Sherman later was shown the form by Advincula. When he saw my
version he just showed me his version and did not say anything else. On the day
of my black belt examination Charles had me perform it during a break in the
Mitchum Sensei clinic. Mitchum Sensei also said it was not done when he trained
on Okinawa.
It
was about 1960 when Master Shimabuku studied with Taira Shinken and he was
shown the form them, somewhat later he began teaching it.
Charles
handed me the 1966 Shimabuku kata movie he had borrowed from Sensei along with
a movie edition allowing me to view it frame by frame. And he told me to teach
it to myself and then I would teach it to him. While Charles had borrowed the
form to study the bo kata, he gave me a different challenge.
As
Lewis Sensei had not studied it in 1959 and Charles did not study iy at Agena
when he trained there as a black belt in 1972 during his Air Force tour on
Okinawa. It was not in the IKC tradition.
I
remember going crazy viewing it over and over again. Full speed or frame by
frame, I am not sure if I really got it, but I got what I got. And found it
almost impossible to view the form again.
MCC
- 178 Shimabuku (Tonfa)
Chie
Fa Shimabuku Tatsuo
I
did teach what I was doing to Charles. About a year later I also shared what I knew with Reese Rigby.
As
I worked on it I became dissatisfied with the tonfa use In the form for
practical self defense. So I worked something else out for that. http://isshin-concentration.blogspot.com/2020/04/the-story-of-wansu-no-tonfa-not-kata.html
Now
roll forward maybe 25 years when I showed what I did to Sherman, at that time I
did not know there was any controversy about the form. And Sherman never
discussed that either. He did mention he had not studied it on Okinawa and that
it was shown to him here.
Then
in 1990 now on the internet I joined many discussion groups, one of them on
Isshinryu.
When
I talked about my Chia fa tonfa, I faces some derision about how everyone knew
Shimabuku Sensei was incorrect about the tonfa he showed. Honestly I had seem some versions at
tournaments, all were slightly different from what I practiced. That gave no
reason to change what I was doing.
Logically
I did not know what occurred. Did he have a senior moment, had he consciously
changed the form. I had no authority to make a decision. And as time went on I
saw many variations, again with no knowledge about the right answer.
I
had a video which Angi Uzeu made showing the form The form was very akin to the
Shimabuku video, but he called it Hamahiga No Tonfa.
Hamahiga
Tonfa kata - 1 of 2 -Angi Uezu -Isshinryu
Then
I found a Taira Shinken YouTube video doing what seems to be the same form.
Taira
Shinken Kobudo – tonfa Done at a
training pace
My
own analysis was that all the versions shown are very much basically doing the
same thing. In essence the difference did not seem to mean much difference
between them to me.
And
as long before I had worked out my own tonfa training drill, the difference
meant very little to me. I was not looking for anyone in Isshinryu’s approval
in any case, I just retained it because the unique handling skill developed
useful fractals for our karate kata application use.
I
also kept the name I originally saw on that Shimabuku video. It may or may not
have been correct, but it was what I tried to learn after all.
I
never filmed our best performances of our Chia Fa, but I recently discovered
our group did it for Ernie as a break for him at a clinic. Not our best
perhaps, but it shows a bit of what we did.
Our
performance of Chia Fa follows@2:22
I
remain convinced the real value to the study is the grip handling skills which
can add texture to our kata application studies. Bu-Sai-Tonfa each adding
separate elements to add to our karate.
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