Once again my mind wakens

 

Once again my mind wakens

I remain of the opinion Kata (any of them) really become an infinite study of different ways on how any of the movements (or their fractals thereof) can be inserted into an attack to conclude that attack.

 

The purpose of that study is not to learn more and more applications but to more firmly belive in the underlying principles of those applications to get to the time when you can apply any movement into any attack and make it work. That requires never ending study of the application potential and of course the greater study of the application realization.

 

I have found too often the brain becomes lazy. When you were originally told the application was XYZ the brain stalls there and decades later you find the application potential is also ABC. However it was easier to stop at XYZ  and you accept that is the answer. Suddenly you find from a new source a whole range of superior applications, really really good ones, and your brain stops there. And whole ranges of other answers are never considered.

 

Today I ran 3 kata, or at least what I  call 3 kata today, Seiunchin, Nihanchi and Seisan. They are not much to look at but even with my more limited potential by running them I recall with clarity what they ought be. That is important to me, for what you don’t do, you lose unto becoming vaporwear. Something to easy to descend to these days.

 

But performing my Seisan kata, an entirely new range of applications for the 2^nd row came to me. What I already had were sufficient, including a range of superior ones from Sherman Harrill or his students Garry Gerossie or John Kerker.

 

Of course once I understood them my mind shut down. Today I realized an entire range of new possibilities.

 

I am just going to focus on the opening of the potential. After using it you can see the entire range of possible answers that become available. Everything in you training provides many possibilities.

 

Now in the kata you have just turned and executed two open hand shuto down blocks.

 

The next movement you cross your hands, then cutting down with one descending shuto, as the other hand moves up. That movement where you cross your hands is where I see a new possibility.

 

The way I learnt this section as the side where the foot steps forward, both hands rise as the front  foot outside hand performs a bent wrist side block. As that  begins to form the other hand rises to cross wrists and then begin a descending shuto strike. That momentary section where the hands intersect is where I see an option to exploit in a different way. (Unfortunately all of my films show this being done from the rear.)

 

Against a right grab or strike:

 

1.     Block inward with your left forearm (using the ‘<” created by the formation of the cross block). This begins the potential I never explored.

2.     Complete the cross block ‘X’ by flowing your left hand over their arm and your blocking right inside forearm.

3.     Then your right hand flows down with the descending shuto strike (or a parrying block) moving their attacking arm down and away.

4.     This is where you choose the options for you right palm strike to conclude the movement.

 

Whether the attacking arm is the left of the right arm of the attacker it works the same way, just your follow up options depend on what you wish to accomplish.

 

Work to always look for more possibilities.