Monday, May 31, 2021
Sunday, May 30, 2021
The Tribute for Shimabuku Tatsuo in 1976
In 1976 that spring I went to NYC with a group of the club to attend the tournament at the Sunnyside Gardens to raise money for a memorial for Shimabuku Sensei. It was a gigantic Isshinryu affair.
There’s quite a backstory about the event, but that’s not my tale to tell.
Sunnyside Gardens was a hall Professional Wrestling events were held in. The day of the tournament when you stepped out of the locker room and took two steps your white gi turned black. It was the dirtiest tournament floor I’ve ever seen. The tournament officials were moving around the floor with hammers driving nails down so we didn’t step on them.
I gather most of the seniors in the Isshinryu system were there, and Shimabuku Kichero flew in from Okinawa for the event too.
My yellow belt kumite division was run by Don Nagle. I met Steve Armstrong and discussed with him for a few minutes, a recent article he had in Black Belt magazine. We had dinner with Harold Long between the tournament and the evening show.
All participants received a very nice certificate to remember the event.
A friend of Mr. Lewis’ Karl Hovey who was originally from Okinawa gathered up all of our certificates and went to ask Shimabuku Kichero to sign them for us, but that didn’t work out and they weren’t signed.
The most memorable things I remember are the huge gathering of Isshinryu seniors present.
A brown belt from NYC with the nickname Quick Draw McGraw wining his fights by throwing a flurry of knife hand strikes.
I remember Mr. Lewis taking 2nd place in Men’s Black Belt Kata, and at the evening show watching Shimabuku Kichero going through Chantan Yara No Sai.
A night at a hotel while the Black Belts attended the Black Belt evening festivities, and of course a long ride home to Salisbury the next day.
Saturday, May 29, 2021
Friday, May 28, 2021
Fame can turn into Boo's in an instant.
I never attended a lot of baseball games but one from the mid 1960s sticks in my memory.
My uncle owned each McDonalds franchise on the Baltimore Beltway, and he had a box at the Orioles field. One night he invited our family to attend a game with him.
What I remember is that the first time Brooks Robinson came up to bat he hit a home run. Frank Robinson was next and he too hit a home run. Then Boog Powell followed with another home run.
The next time they came up to bat, Brooks, Frank and Boog hit home runs again.
They came up a third time. Brooks Robinson hit a home run. The crowd went wild. Frank Robinson hit another home run and again the crowd roared. Finally Boog Powell came up but he only hit a triple. The fact a triple is more difficult to hit meant little. The crowd expecting another home run, just booed Boog.
I have kept that memory for a very long time, and it gave me a large lesson. Don’t do things for the crowd. Do them for yourself. Celebrate what you can do.
Wednesday, May 26, 2021
I suppose again that this need to be perfectly clear.
My
black belts stayed with me an average of 18+ years, with my Senior students
staying over 35 years of continuous training. But even with those years of
training there was never enough time to share much of what I learned, saw or
researched. There was always too much more important things to cover in
training. Their needs always came first.
So
I have saved some of what we studied together with my blog to enable them to
remember that material, There is also a great deal of material I chose not to
place on my blog, material I sent to them directly.
Then
I have saved material of my own studies and research to allow them to have it
available for them if they so choose to use it. I have no illusions they will
use all of it, It is just available for them or perhaps a future student of
theirs to use.
However,
I have always allowed others access to what I have written.
I
was not seeking new students. My time as an instructor has passed. And if
anyone makes any of this work for them, they have earned the right to that
material.
Face
it while I am an Isshinryu instructor, I am far from the most knowledgeable or
the best technician. While I have studied with many, everyone who shared with
me was far above my abilities or knowledge. I have just done my best to save
what I was shown to my best ability.
The
past few years I have made a conscious effort to share this material on-line
with various discussion groups. I have done so because I have rarely seen
others discuss this material. I always found discussion allowed me to learn
more and that is what interests me most these days.
We
each follow different steps on our journey. I just want to share some of what I
see.
And
I am not done, for I still find new things to add to my blog.
I
am now enduring multiple disabilities. They do not allow me to much do what I
enjoy most, working on my studies. No one really seeks me out, nor with my
speech affected with my disability, do I receive many phone calls.
But
my life remains following my art.
Monday, May 24, 2021
Further thoughts on Chinkuchi
A discussion I saved from my old Pleasant
Isshinryu discussion group
2-15-2005
Further thoughts on Chinkuchi
Hello
Mr. Perkins, Mr Smith,
(3) Chinkuchi correct tension and relaxation of the muscles; and (4) Fesa..................NOTE: Joe Swift Left out a small part of translation.
|
Len,
>I got lots of questions because you're the only one who has
ever bothered to elaborate on any of this. I'm especially glad you
mentioned this last >part. My question has always been, "How exactly
do you do this?" You >speak about a "squeeze." What are you
squeezing? This is the part that no >one ever seems to want to answer.>>
Hi
Len.....you squeeze or tense the particular muscles that operate that particular
weapon. For instance, if you want to put Chinkuchi in to you fist, squeeze the
fist on impact. The fist then become the head of the hammer. With an elbow, I
use my hand again (effects the muscles of the forearm) and my lat partially.
Try it with a punch and squeeze the fist on impact. You'll see what I
mean. Even (very gently though) hit someones arm with a limp back fist then just
squeeze the fist on impact. Let them tell you the difference :-)
<Where
is this reserve chinkuchi stored
>that
you are eventually gonna put where you need it?>
This
reserve is the way your body works with the technique. Chinkuchi is not something
that is depleted and restored. Part of it is the tensing and the relaxing of the
particular muscles that help the weapon of use.
>Most importantly, what are the body mechanics involved, ie,
which muscle groups (no need for specific muscle names, lay terms are
perfectly sufficient) are used to get it where you want it to be if
you don't use your "hips?" I ask this because in your
follow-up post you mention, "It comes down to power sources and your reason for training........" Basically, if not the "hips" (substitute
"center" if you want) then what is your power source?
>
>Thanx,
>Len
Your power comes from centering, speed, breathing correctly, the proper tension and relaxation of the particular muscles, balance, the conditioning of tendons and ligaments, etc........this is what the proper practice of kata and basics does.
Hope
this helps. Chinkuchi is something that is easy to show but very hard to explain.
Ask me about it the next time I see you & I'll show you my little demo.
Jeff Perkins
Referencing older posts on Chinkuchi
Rememberences
of Okinawan Chinkuchi 1-6-2012
https://isshin-concentration.blogspot.com/2012/01/normal-0-false-false-false-en-us-x-none.html
Chinkuchi
– the word wrap 1.13.2020
https://isshin-concentration.blogspot.com/2020/07/chinkuchi-word-wrap.html
Training
with Shinso (Ciso) and the Nukite Strike revised 1-25-2018
https://isshin-concentration.blogspot.com/2019/01/training-with-shinso-ciso-and-nukite.html
Chinkuchi
and Naraasun 7-20-2018
https://isshin-concentration.blogspot.com/2015/07/chinkuchi-and-naraasun.html
https://isshin-concentration.blogspot.com/2021/03/the-seven-major-elements-of-karate-that.html
Borrowed
from 2004 – On Power 5-25-2017
https://isshin-concentration.blogspot.com/2015/07/chinkuchi-and-naraasun.html
Chi
and Me (ChiKi – pronounced Cheeky 3-31-2021
https://isshin-concentration.blogspot.com/2021/03/chi-and-me-chiki-pronounced-cheeky.htm
Sunday, May 23, 2021
Do Not Ask For Whom the Bell Tolls…
12-17-2005
Tonight I’m formally stepping down as a Tai Chi instructor.
This has nothing to do with teaching Isshinryu, and it has everything to do with teaching Isshinryu, the choices I’ve made about my program to try and capture pre 1900 karate training, and what the past may have been like.
No longer being an instructor is a necessity in many ways. My students no longer can attend class and I’ve been alone most of this year. But that’s not the real reason, it’s the ghosts!
I never started out studying Tai Chi to be an instructor, nor to do Tai Chi as a martial art. No reason except to do it.
Long before I began my study of karate I had an interest in various Chinese studies, Tai Chi Chaun being one. When the opportunity presented myself, as a new Isshinryu sho-dan to study with Ernest Rothrock I took advantage. It unlocked more than Tai Chi Chaun.
I found great friendship with Ernest. I
found kung fu and uncountable other things. I discovered as a new black belt,
my knowledge meant nothing and had to fully experience being a beginner anew.
No time to let being a black belt go to my head. As I had just begun teaching
youth, it helped me immeasurably to learn what they were experiencing too, how
to learn.
I took my weekly half hour class and trained a great deal on the side. Then I had become a karate bum, teaching two days a week, studying tai chi, and training in a number of different arts to have somebody to train with.
Funny thing very shortly after I began I experienced something
I still can’t explain. Calling it Chi is too simple a way out, perhaps it was
feeling my body trying to work together.
I had been training only a few months when Charlie returned from his
base in
That year on New Years day I attended a private practice with Ernest and two others in his Wilkes Barre school. When we did our tai chi on the floor it was awesome feeling waves of energy bouncing off the wall.
Look I don’t care whether any who read this believe it or
not. It’s just what I experienced. Then I
kept working on it. Ernest moved to
But I kept practicing.
Then I moved to
I never included Tai Chi in my karate program. They’re different beasts. But my adult group saw me do a half hour of Tai Chi before class on Saturday mornings and a handful of them found it interesting and approached me about teaching them.
From that came my Sunday morning Tai Chi Chaun class on my driveway for the
past 17 or 18 years, hot (115) or cold (-20), sunny or blizzards and sub zero
temperatures. Only for rain is class cancelled.
Jim Keenan’s been on my driveway, so has Joe Swift watching my Tai Chi.
But now I’m mostly alone. John Dinger left us last year. Doc’s personal life and medical practice have left him no time for Tai Chi and little for karate. Dennis has disappeared for months now and we suspect he may have shipped out to sea again.
The ghosts bothering me are the remembrances of those times. The years they swore it was impossible for them to learn the 108. The conquest when they did so. The day their tai chi movement actually was touching the flow of tai chi and not karate. The sharing as we blasted each other softly.
By sharing with them I learned so much more about my studies. How effective applied tai chi was for defense for example, after caving their chests in with the smallest movements, by accident, because I truly didn’t understand the forces I was using.
The incredible day after 15 years when Ernest had a moment to share with me another level, showing me 1. I knew nothing 2. what was actually there, and the implications to or karate studies of vast wealth.
Now if I had been training with Ernest perhaps I would have experienced it sooner, or perhaps he would have kept to the 15 year point before he shared it. It just works, how effective body alignment increases power, and layers more from that simple way. Which is of course the reason he’d tear my practice apart in infinite detail, trying to get me to understand it at every level.
Well my commitment to my tai chi became deeper. And my studies in karate moved more deeply too. [This was a number of years before I met Harrill Sensei.]
Those ghosts I recall remember the looks in Advanced Karate Class when they’d experience the subtle intersection of our karate application studies to a movement section of our Tai Chi we had recently been studying. And one reinforced the other, but if you hadn’t walked the walk it means little.
The Ghosts of the eternal discussion about our technique.
I think part of the leveler was John Dinger’s unexpected illness and death. Perhaps it made everyone aware how short time is and how many roses one must take the time to gather while there is time.
But the ghosts are interfering with my practice, whether running TCC Sword, Yang or Wu forms, and I have to help them pass.
Now this sounds like a personal lament, and of course it is. But it also ties
into my original reason for teaching karate. What were things like pre 1900
when classes were small, and what was and what wasn’t passed along? What
happened when an instructor died without leaving a heir?
I believe I can answer much of that these days.
By keeping classes small you can probe infinite detail with a student, that cannot be addressed with a class. You focus more on the small things, the ones that when changed lead to greater things in the long run. You keep the students as personal as possible. You don’t just teach, you share, you cajole, you argue, you succeed, you fail.
If you work at your craft you never stop learning, the new, or even how to
teach more fully. For example I don’t prepare for any class, I immerse myself
into it and each class becomes a unique event never to be repeated. Don’t need
lesson plans, I just share the art, the rest flows from there.
At any level, some get it, some don’t, some will work, some will coast. Even
more so at advanced levels. You don’t make anyone anything. You just share a
shape, help mold a pattern and they’ll decide whether to believe it or not, not
you.
The arts experienced this way are alive. They flow and move. I don’t try and change forms, but living them you begin to understand why change actually was the norm.
Charlie telling me as a brown belt, the first 20 years your art is the product
of your instructor, after 20 years your art is your own.. The other day Dan Smith of the Seibukan, who
regularly travels to
Now though I’ve learned many forms, and many variations, I don’t intentionally teach that way. My Yang Tai Chi Chaun is hopefully very close to the way I remember being shown it originally. Of course my instructor’s Yang Tai Chi Chaun, which still is better than mine because I haven’t had the hip replacement he did 10 years ago that would have made me a bionic man too, has moved on and is different than mine.
His is more powerful and his ongoing studies kept his form fluid.
But I feel in tai chi the shape is less important than you enter the flow and
you exit the flow, and hopefully in between there is tai chi chaun.
No student can learn what his instructor knows, the catch up will not exceed the teacher. But a good teacher will give the student what they need to exceed the instructor in their own path.
So arts in one sense die. Forms are lost, ideas remain unexpressed.
Gosh the several hundred kata I’ve studied will not be passed but for a fraction of it.
So I’m no longer a Tai Chi Chaun instructor. That is of course unless the necessity of a students need forces me back into that role.
Instead, standing bare naked before you is but Victor Smith, minor tai chi chaun adept, standing on his driveway in New Hampshire each Sunday morning, trying to not creak too loud as I once again enter the flow.
Analysis of Kata Starting and Ending Points
I found this diagram on the internet, it is not intended to be exactly what I taught.
All the recent discussion on the potential of kata starting and stopping on the same spot gives me pause to consider how and why I teach.
In all of my studies none of my instructors ever really discussed that as an important focus of training. I have read about such in some systems, but until I found similar claims made about the Isshinryu kata several years ago I never took the time to consider it an aspect of kata training.
[ Disclaimer 1 - As an aside, I have no problem with anyone maintaining their instructors traditions about this, either way. But as the Isshinryu black belt manual I received when I received my sho-dan has absolutely no rules about how to conduct myself over the decades, I’m choosing to consider what I feel is the best practice for my students and the instructors I train. And of course the same hand book has no rules about anything, or even any pages. In that I guess I’m firmly rooted in the older Okinawan traditions, even though I’ve only practiced in the States.] Just a joke of course for I never received such a manual.
My look at Isshinryu’s kata, except for our Naihanchi
(Nihanchi/Naifhanchi), all of the rest conclude rather close to the starting
point. One could categorize it as being the same point. Of course there are those kata which don’t
stop there. Foremost in my mind is the Tomari Rohai Kata, shared by a friend
quite a while ago, as the kata continually moves forward, there is no
opportunity to end up in the same place. And with all of the discussion about
the ending of Goju kata, not being a Goju expert by far, I just finished
watching some Goju championship kata from the 2003 championships in
I think the larger issue isn’t whether an instructor taught one to stop at a certain point or not. Lets make the issue neutral, instead of stopping at the same point, let’s just say the issue is whether one should teach kata to stop at a specified point, exactly, in order to determine the quality of the performance. Thus whichever means one performs a kata isn’t bound by one rule, rather just define your system’s specific stopping point in relation to the starting point.
So is this a good standard to teach to?
Should the student feel the reward for stopping on the correct spot? Does making a final adjustment step to end there count, or does only perfect performance of every movement be the goal? Does missing that point mean the practice is useless, or lessened from one hitting that point?
Those are good questions to consider.
I believe my instructors never discussed the stopping point because almost all of the training was individual, or in very small groups. They worked on awareness of each individual technique, and if each technique was right, you’ll get to the correct ending, so why worry about the spot.
In fact that is my own approach. I’m most interested in correcting a mistake or error immediately (regardless of the student’s length of training), not waiting till they’ve finished and then working backwards to discover why. The goal is to develop their continual awareness of their performance, so they are in command throughout kata performance. If they keep their awareness alive, and their technique execution in total control, their ending will be correct.
[ Disclaimer 2 – Of course correct kata practice is only one aspect of long term training in my book. At some point one would begin changing the length of various movements, learning how that effects performance, and working on the application potential such changes represent. Working on fitting these techniques (large scale and micro) into various attacking patterns suggests these alternate performances. Then working on meta study, how to set an attacker up so their attack is ready for the kata application, is yet another layer of study, and so on.]
On the other hand, as karate became a large group activity, I can see how use of a closing point could make it easier on the instructor to see if the group gets there or not.
I have problems with large group study, however. It is too easy for members to look like they’re working within the group, and coast instead of explode. Often too easy to make a mistake and see where the group is and then correct to get back into line. It may serve group order, but I don’t believe that serves the students development.
There are times and places for group practice, but I believe it should be very controlled when it is used. But as karate moved from its small group origins, other tools were developed.
So perhaps the point of where to close a kata may have been highlighted, for convenience.
In my book precise kata performance is an extremely useful energy development tool at all stages of karate study. That the tool has other potentials does not diminish ones need to work on perfect practice either. It just suggests how much depth there may be in our training.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Personal note - I once worked out that as I practiced and taught my kata in Isshinryu for the most part the kata started and stopped in the same place. But I never taught that.
One time I noticed my senior students were stopping Wansu at a place well before they began. First they were doing very good kata performances, their techniques would work... but it still was not how I taught them I should explain that at the decreases progress with them I more just did the kata with them, not so much giving corrections.
So I wanted to point out what I was seeing.
1. First I did the kata in front of them, on a wrestling mat in the club (from the wrestling use) and I did the kata starting in the spot marked with two lines on the floor. I believe the kata in question was Wansu. And as I performed Wansu I started and stopped on the same spot. Then I challenged them to do the same.
2. As it turned out, while performing very good kata, their execution ended up well in front of where they started.
Then I explained the difference.
When I did my kicks I chambered my leg (knee up first ) then delivered my kick returning to the kick chamber position. Finally I put my foot down exactly one step before my original position each time I kicked.
Ont the other hand when they kicked they just dropped their kick to the floor, several steps before when they began. While a very effective kick it was not what they were originally taught. So a different result.
Of course the fault of the kata creep was I, for I had not paid attention to their changes.
But it makes a point how even slight changes changes kata performance, and offers different use of the technique.
Wednesday, May 12, 2021
Hidden Techniques
Interesting topic: hidden techniques. Of course it depends on what you mean by hidden techniques. What are hidden for some are openly taught by other system, provided of course you were taught them.
1.
I am sure there are explanations which were not shared at times. That doesn’t
mean they weren’t there, just not shared.
2.
Or there were systems where techniques were shared at various levels of
training. Until you reached those levels those techniques were not shared. Such
as at 20 years of training. The need for those techniques may well have not
been needed, except in the past, so no reason to study them. Want is not
necessity, one can teach as one choses.
3.
Another tradition was planned extra movements between the kata sections. This
was shown by the writings of Shiroma Shimpan and Mutsu.
4.
Other traditions did not share but the most basic applications, and you were
encouraged to discover your own, but under the eyes of the instructor to guide
them.
5.
Itoman shared many applications from Toude, which fit many of today’s karate
traditions.
6.
There are family traditions which teach applications only after Black Belt.And
those applications have nothing to do with the kata. Those are training tools,
and the movement points are mnemonic devices to remember the actual techniques.
7.
Or you can define a technique as you will from a kata, and seek the skill to
find each possible application there and develop the skill to make them work.
One of my Isshinryu instructors spent 40 years working makiwara, so that each
strike could drop anyone no matter where he struck, and along the way shared
800 applications for the 8 kata of Isshinryu, and I only had a piece of his
studies and work.
Whether
there are instructor favorite applications, of course theoretically all you
need in one movement, and the time to deliver it with skill to enter the attack
and make it work. Of course that is the true secret of any technique.
Or
perhaps you have two techniques, and then no one knows which you are to use.
I
have a simple answer, any techniques which works is real. If it drops an
opponent it qualifies.
I
have experienced several of these answers. Enough to know that each of them can
work.
A
system or practitioner may or may not share as they choose. They are under no
obligation to provide you with answers.
For
myself the past several months I have been working on the use of a kamae found
in the Isshinryu SunNuSu (Sunsu) kata. Having realized ago that kamae tend to
be most viscious when fit into an attack.
Are
there Hidden Techniques”? Depends on what you define hidden to mean. Be sure
you don’t confuse the question with understand the meaning of a movement, with
the different task developing the skill to effectively use that meaning.
The
Ryukyu combat art of of seizing and controlling by means of pressure, is an
often overlooked aspect of Karate. While flow drills, locking, chokes,
submissions of all types, "muchimi"or sticking and trapping, and
sophisticated methods of percussion are now widely known... 挾術 Kyojutsu, remains a mystery.
Refer to this previous post -
Sunday, May 9, 2021
From the Time Charles made in Hachi Dan
We would like to
congratulate Charles
H. Murray ,
Student of
Master Tom Lewis on his promotion to Hachi Dan!
We were honored
to be with them Saturday evening in Wyoming
when Sensei
Lewis awarded this promotion.
Wednesday, May 5, 2021
Tonfa - Chia Fa - Hama Higa No Tuifa
When I learned the Isshinryu Tonfa kata was when Charles Murray handed
me the copy of the 1966 Shimabuku movie
he had borrowed from Tom Lewis and also lent me his movie editor. I watched
that ‘Chia fa’ kata over and over, move my move and followed his instructions to
learn it. I watched it so many times to this day it remains very hard for me to
watch it.
I called the form Chiafa as that was what the movie called it.
I demonstrated it before my black belt examination. Harold Mitchum was
present and explained when he trained on Okinawa it was not taught. It was not
a form that any others were performing in the IKC at that time, including Lewis
Sensei, for just like Mitchum Sensei he was not taught it on Okinawa when he
trained there too.
I obtained a video of Angi Uzeu doing the tonfa form, As I recall the
name of the form was not mentioned.
And for the next 20 years that was what I called the form.
One time before a clinic with Sherman Harrill he asked to see my tonfa
kata. I demonstrated it for him. Then he demonstrated his version for me. He
was not teaching tonfa. He
explained he had learn it from AJ Advincula Sensei. His was a little different
from what I did. We never discussed it then or later further.
Then I joined the internet age.
On an Isshinryu discussion group it was brought up that I was 1) wrong
calling the kata Chia fa. 2) The 1966 tape was incorrect. They said Tatsuo made
errors at several points in the kata.
Now after all those years I never competed with the form. I had taught
it to my senior students ( the way I did it.)
I worked fine for me. I was never seeking other Isshinryu authority than
my instructors. The result I would keep to the name Chiafa.
I let you view the following and make your own decision.
14 Chiefa
MCC - 178
Shimabuku (Tonfa)
MCC - 179
Shimabuku (Bo/Tonfa Demo)
Hamahiga Tonfa kata - 1 of 2 -Angi Uezu -Isshinryu
Hamahiga Tonfa kata - 2 of 2 -Angi Uezu -Isshinryu
IHOF 2013 Tonfa 1st Place
Tonfa Basics
Tuifa Kata
Our Chia Fa
tonfa 2
This was a walk
through for visiting instructor, Ernest Rothrock.