There were so many items I learned only through my own research. It never was the intent from my instructors to ever teach them during class time, nor did any of the other instructors I trained with throughout the Northeast USA ever mention them either.
Such as I knew there were other styles, but no idea what they were like. Only saw them at many tournaments and then only a small slice about what their training was like. Nor was I aware how different Okinawan karate was compared to Japanese karate. Even to the extent each developed a very different vocabulary to teach their systems.
Then it is no different for me for I only ever had time to work on my own students Isshinryu even when working them for decades.
When I began my Isshinryu studies in the mid 1970s I never heard of bunkai (meaning the application of kata technique). In fact it was in 1983 once during a visit with Tristan Sustrisno in his dojo he had just explained what his family art of Shotokan called bunkai. Explaining those studies began at ShoDan and continued for life thereafter. He began to demonstrate what some of them were. (Of course, what I later discovered his family BUNKAI was extremely different from how anyone else in the world would explain the term. And his definition is how I would ever after be the one that I choose to accept.)
The next weekend he and I were at a Dillman tournament in Redding PA. George rushed over seeing Tristan to invite him to attend a clinic he was presenting for Oyata Sensei where bunkai was to be shown. Dillman was at that time doing some training with Oyata. Tristan declined turning towards me with a smirk as he had just been sharing what bunkai was to me. Those were the first two times I had ever heard of the word.
From that time the use of the word 'Bunkai' exploded, many began using the word, as the magazines started pushing it.
When we entered the internet age, it promoted many times many discussions. One of them was on the Cyber Dojo on Yahoo Groups. It was about some of the ways bunkai was being presented and how some never heard of the term during their own training on Okinawa. That was the point where Dan Smith, of the Seibukan, entered the discussion. Here were his comments which I saved.
LETTER 1. - Kata & bunkai
In response to some of the post on bogus bunkai and some Okinawan instructors and dojo not having bunkai that seem to be anything but block/punch.
I would agree that there are dojo on Okinawa that fall into the above category. Please remember that we are discussing human beings, and the frailties and shortcomings are the same whether you live in Okinawa, Japan or the USA. I believe that Goshiki (sp) is right in relating other's observations to him that their is a lack of bunkai understanding in Okinawa. But there is some very good reasons behind the lack of the focus on bunkai training.
I believe the most important factor was the dissemination of karate to Japan. The entire method of training was changed to cater to the teaching karate as physical exercise in the public schools. The next factor was the rapid development of karate styles in Japan. It is hard to imagine that from 1922 to 1937 there was no less than a dozen different styles developed by Japanese on the mainland. So, in 15 years you had this many people move up to the position of leading their own school.
Why there are countless of us in the USA and Okinawa that have been with the same teachers for thirty years and if we started our own group we would be soundly criticized. How did this effect the bunkai of the kata? They did not stay with the Okinawans long enough to learn and the karate that was taught in the beginning was kihon only.
The Japanese had a strong desire to use what they were learning, and they developed the jiyu kumite as a supplement for not knowing the bunkai. The sparring matches became their method of measuring their karate skills whereas the Okinawans had only used the measurement of being able to defend themselves and live long lives.
The Okinawans became victim to this same thought process after the war. Why? Because only a handful of the older teachers were left and many of the teachers who began teaching after the war were trained in school karate where the emphasis was on body and spirit development. The method of training on Okinawa followed the Japanese for many years with the emphasis on bogu jiyu kumite. The training methods were changed or adapted in many dojo to improve the ability to free spar vs. actual combat.
I am not saying that all Okinawan schools followed this way but many of them did. I believe most of all the senior teachers had the knowledge of what karate had been but due to the changing times they designed their instruction to meet the perceived needs of the day.
I have observed over the last nine years in Okinawa a resurgence of traditional Okinawan karate. A symposium was held in August of 1990 after the Uchinanchu demonstrations to establish the direction of Okinawan karate. I was fortunate to attend this symposium and witnessed the senior teachers calling for a return to traditional Okinawan karate and kobudo. Since that time much effort and expense has been expended to but the emphasis on re-establishing Okinawan karate as it should be. I have been to Okinawa 14 times in the last nine years and have seen a dramatic change on the emphasis being placed on training methods.
In the late 60's when I lived on Okinawa more emphasis was put on kihon, kata and jiyu kumite. One of the reasons was that is what Americans liked and enjoyed. Many of the Okinawan teachers made their livings teaching servicemen. Most of these men were only on Okinawa for 18 months so the training was geared to having them experience the Okinawan karate and enjoy their time on Okinawa.
Yes, I know that most of the servicemen who were there on Okinawa during this time will say that they learned more than just kihon, kata and jiyu kumite and perhaps some did but those that will be honest with themselves should answer just as the Japanese should have from what they learned from the Okinawans and that is they did not even hear the word bunkai from the Okinawans. The word bunkai is not even Unchinanguchi. The Okinawans that I trained with used the term ti chi ki, which I was told meant showing what the hand is doing.
I have rambled on enough about all of this so please forgive me. The point is that the Okinawans knew and still know the bunkai of the kata. They were just emphasizing something different.
I have an acquaintance that I have known for about thirty years. He is an 8th dan now and several years ago I had the opportunity to train in his dojo frequently over a period of a year while on business trips. He would ask me questions concerning bunkai of kata and I would give him answers thinking all along that he was just pulling my leg when he would say he had never seen the explanations of the kata like that. He asked me how I got this information. I told him that my teacher's father would show me during our morning classes. After a couple of months had gone by, he said he thought that I must be making these applications up. He said they made sense, but he knew that if his sensei (different than mine and very highly thought of on Okinawa) knew these applications he would have taught him.
Sometime after this he and I went to Okinawa together and he asked his teacher in front of me some kata bunkai questions. His teacher readily gave him similar answers that I had provided even though we are from a different school. He said why haven't you taught me this before? The reply was that you never asked me, and I thought you were satisfied with what you were getting.
I believe the point to this story is that the Okinawans were giving the Japanese and Americans what they thought they wanted. Surely this must have been easy to think because neither the Japanese or Americans ever went back to Okinawa for much training after their initial introduction to Okinawan karate. How many Japanese that created these various schools ever went to Okinawa and trained for any length of time?
What do most of the students who come into your dojo want? What are you giving them? How many times as we as teacher wanted our students to want more and we were willing to give it to them, but they demonstrated by their actions that they were satisfied with kick/punch.
I will close for now and hope that I have not dragged this out to much. One thing I did not discuss was the thought put forth by some that there are no blocks in karate bunkai. I would like to discuss this at a later date if anyone has an interest.
Thanks for reading all of this if you did and I apologize if I took too much bandwidth.
Oh, a question for the members who attended the Okinawan Rengokai seminars. Did you see any bunkai applications of the kata?
Gumbatte
LETTER 2. - Kata & bunkai
I certainly did not mean in my post to give the indication that all Okinawan schools did not continue to practice bunkai as an integral part of their training. I wrote that there are schools in Okinawa just as any other place in the world that do not have the full curriculum that other schools have. I certainly would not mention those that I think do or don't. I know Iha sensei's background as well as his teachers are and were well grounded on bunkai of the kata.
My comment was one of a general nature only depicting that there are bogus people all over the world. No one country or race has a monopoly on ignorance or charlatanism. It just appears that the USA has more than our fair share.
Concerning the Japanese not understanding the bunkai from the Okinawans. I think I can fairly state that bunkai from the Okinawans perception was not part of their curriculum. They took the parts of the Okinawan karate that they wanted for their purposes and developed that part to a high degree. You cannot deny that the gymnastic, athletic movements of the Japanese styles is not better developed than the Okinawans.
Someone mentioned in a post yesterday that the way the Japanese had changed karate or taken the Okinawans "school" karate and spread it worldwide and would we rather have karate spread out for everyone to enjoy or have kept it like the Okinawans developed it. My response is that I would rather have the "school" karate spread throughout the world if that is what it takes to build the karate-do spirit and body for so many people to have gotten benefit from.
Perhaps Itosu sensei knew that the real Okinawan karate was just for the few and school karate was for the populace.
I am teaching school karate to all of the young people that come into my schools with hopes that they will develop the body they need to grow to an adult and then began learning karate. I hopefully will retire from my business career in a couple of more years and then I would like to teach in the middle and high schools along with the colleges in my area. I have been thinking for some time what I would teach given the opportunity to teach hundreds of people in that environment. I keep coming up with the same concept that Itosu used.
Modern karate as developed by the Japanese with a kick start from Itosu and Funakoshi is for the masses and there has been and continues to be a great benefit from this training. The traditional Okinawan karate is not for the masses, and it was never intended to be that way.
I had the opportunity when I lived on Okinawa to train in both methods at the same time and in the same school. I trained in the morning with Zenryo Shimabukuro sensei and at night with Zenpo Shimabukuro sensei. The morning class was dramatically different. Zenryo sensei never had us line up to begin a class. The people who attended this morning class came at various times. Began training on their own in whatever part of the dojo they could find to practice by themselves.
Zenryo sensei would observe us practicing kata, give corrections, instructions on how to perform the movements and demonstrate to us individually what the kata movements where. The nighttime training was heavily geared toward kihon practice, kata and sparring. We did weight training and ippon kumites, which were extracted bunkai movements from the kata, and we ran. The training was geared to developing the body and the tools of karate. After training at night many seniors would stay late and practice the kata bunkai that Zenryo sensei was teaching in the morning.
I share the above with you about my own training to show you how someone could have come only to the night training and developed only the kihon because they were training in large group classes. They did not make themselves available for the in-depth training. This happens in our classes today all over the world. Just as I mentioned yesterday the people get what they want from the training. The teacher may have much more to give but the student is satisfied with less. Sometimes because that is all they want or do not realize there is more.
I hope that this clarifies that on Okinawa there is much to learn and you have to put the time in to enable the learning process. Many Japanese and Americans stopped short due to time constraints and being satisfied with what they had so they did not learn the in-depth meanings of the kata.
Gumbatte
Dan Smith
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