Off in the woods the other day, admiring the mushrooms and toadstools that seemed to have sprung up overnight, and generally marveling at the magical quality of the woods after a rainstorm, I found myself thinking about a news story I had heard on the radio a few days earlier. The story summarized an article published in Nature about the supernova known as iPTF14hls. (Now there's a catchy name!) It's 500 million light-years away--astounding to me but that's not what the astronomers found so interesting. What was unusual, apparently, was that they expected it to act like any other supernova and gradually dim until it would fade from view--something that takes around 100 days for your average supernova. This one has exploded multiple times since 1954 and this current "explosion," if I understand it correctly, has lasted three years. What I thought was interesting, however, was that the scientists said that it defied their understanding of how stars die--that current theories couldn't fully explain what was happening. In other words, they'd have to go back to the drawing board. And that's why they sounded so excited!
Gedan
finishing technique for |
I
wonder how many people get that excited when they get it wrong? And why? Does
it take a certain thirst for discovery or is it a simpler pleasure, a sort of
pleasure in the realization that one doesn't have all the answers, that there
are new frontiers, new things to learn? Or perhaps it's the moment we realize that
the structure or the rules or what have you are more complex and intriguing
than we first imagined.
I was thinking about all of this while I was practicing Seiunchin. I like the
movements of Seiunchin, but I thought that at least this kata was one that I
felt fairly secure about, that I knew the bunkai. There are, after
all, only five sequences in the kata (not counting repetitions). And it's
fairly clear, I think, that the counterattacks (or receiving techniques, if you
will) are all against either cross-hand grabs or two-handed pushes. Of course,
if you don't see the sequences, then even this part won't make sense. But
that's a whole other issue.
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The beginning of the
second |
But what I noticed was that the sequences on the angles--since this part of the kata is constructed in an "X" pattern, the angle sequences move to the northeast, the northwest, the southwest, and the southeast, in that order--all end with a downward forearm strike to the back of the opponent's neck. (This is the technique that is sometimes referred to as a gedan barai or gedan uke.) There are four of these angles but only two different sequences since each is repeated on both the right and left sides. What is of interest here is that the downward forearm strike to the back of the neck is a finishing technique, just as it is in Seipai kata.
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The
beginning of the third |
The second of the north-south sequences is the high-low technique done in shiko dachi and shown on both the right and left sides. The second of these, with the right arm up and the left arm down, shows a right hand grab of the opponent's right arm and a left, low nukite attack to the opponent's ribs. This technique seems to finish with a right forearm attack and downward elbow (and one should emphasize seems).
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The
technique that ends the |
The
third and last of these north-south sequences is often described as two elbow
attacks. (I've tried to explain this misunderstanding in my new book, The
Kata and Bunkai of Goju-Ryu, due out in February 2018.) The finishing
technique for this sequence is the knee attack to the head, the last technique
of the kata, often described as a yama uke in cat stance (neko
ashi dachi).
But structure is everything. The structure or pattern of a kata is often the
key to understanding the techniques--in this case, the sequences of the kata. I
had always felt that the "finishing" techniques in the first two
north-south sequences, while good, seemed less conclusive, less lethal, than
many of the finishing techniques in the other classical kata or even in the
third of these sequences, and this was what I was thinking a few weeks ago
while I practiced Seiunchin. And then I realized that the two patterns of the
kata--the "X" pattern of the angle sequences and the north-south line
of the other three sequences--might show two different finishing techniques,
but only two. The first one is the use of the downward forearm
strike. The second is the knee kick to the head in cat stance. The supposition
is that the "yama uke" and knee kick in cat stance--the last
technique of the kata--is the finishing technique for all three
of the north-south sequences, only it's just shown once, tacked onto the third
sequence. This structure--of showing the finishing technique tacked onto the
final repetition--is typical of the classical kata. It also makes the end of
each sequence more lethal, finishing the sequence with a more decisive blow, if
you will. And it fits. That is, it's easy to move into this final technique
from the end of either of the first two north-south sequences.
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The
technique that may, in fact, |
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