It’s fall in New England, the milkweed dry out and their seeds hit the air and travel wherever the wind blows. I’m in the process of backing up dozens of hours of VHS tapes to DVD’s, ones taken by clinics given by my instructors and friends to my students.Watching them, however, is bittersweet, the presentations are incredible but there are too many students, friends and instructors no longer present.
Some have died, many moved away or moved on in life and stopped training.As my adult students average over 15 years training with me, each of those who’ve moved in is felt more poignant when I see them working so hard in those clinics. Now only echo’s in my life.
Those of us, the possessed who never cease our practice, have to learn to deal with those flying away.
Of course they never lose what they crafted. I’ve had students return after 16year breaks and within a week or two they’re training as if they had never left and remembering most of what they had previously studied. The proof the practice of karate is something most special and ingrains itself into our being.
But most now are flying as the wind blows, just like those milkweed.
Definitely in my Autumn too, it’s surprising how past memories push to the front.
Way back in 1969 when I was a student at Temple University in Philadelphia I would dabble in poetry.Here is one I wrote back then still appropriate, just the template has changed.
Rittenhouse Square on an Autumn Afternoon
Flower Children have no flowers Leaves have turned from green to brown Cold and Darkness they are coming The summer has been run aground
The first leaf decides to take the chance Jumps into the great unknown Floating, turning, always downward Not to remain alone.
Flower Children have no flowers Leaves have fallen, gone aground Bare Trees Brown Grass Flower Children Gone
I remember that summer in Philadelphia, the heat and the gathering of the young in Rittenhouse Square, songs like ‘Hot Town Summer in the City’ on the radio and listening to Joni Mitchell at the Second Fret, live. I was young then too, but was unaware of it myself. Later in the fall this came to me passing through the square.
As a recent discussion about how close contemporary karate instruction was to old style karate. I’ve tried to pull together a listing of those pervious practices.Trying to understand the past method of karate study can be difficult. I think it's safe to make some assumptions about the 1850-1900 time frame.
1. Karate was a public presentation at many festivals. On the other hand there were no tournaments, sporting aspects to the training.
2. If accepted for training you live in a walking distance from your instructor.
3. The instructor knew who you were in great detail as a member of your community. Your instructor may have had 40+ years into their own study when you began. The instructor was not recruiting students just living a private tradition.
4. You had a cultural obligation to follow your instructor's teachings, especially if you chose to train.
5. You were either a legacy student (through familiar connections) or were someone who passed the vetting process.
6. The training was private taught hands on, with no technical vocabulary attached. No terms for punch, block, front kick, bunkai were used.
7. You had no uniform.
8. You did not receive rank.
9. You had no specified syllabus of study, what you learnt, what standards were associated with the study was entirely at the hands of the instructor.
10. You study had no style name, no school name, it's tradition was passed only in oral history.
11. Your training may have moved to other instructors. Most of the instructors out of this era had multiple instructors. Due to your attachment to your instructor, they may have been the initiator of additional training.
12. The Makiwara and Kata were the primary components of training. Other components to training were not documented.
13. There is a very strong chance that the Bubishi was not available to Okinawan seniors at this time and may have entered Okinawa post 1900. If that is the case it may have had no influence on the movement of te towards karate.
14. There is no documentation how anyone truly trained. Length of instruction or depth of instruction. The best indication is the art of the students of that era who became instructors.
15. One of the differences between large group instruction and small group/individual instruction the instructor can more directly interact with the student.
16. Then there is the Time. Japan took control of Okinawa in 1871. The King was banished to Japan. The institutions such as the schools came fully into Japanese Control. The government stipends to the noble class abruptly ended, many of whom were reduced to poverty and a drop to the bottom of the social structure having to scramble to find work.
Older customs were ended by the Japanese government, this included wearing the traditional topknot. This even extended to some of the kata movements designed to grab that topknot, why practice something that no longer existed. All of this would work to make the training more private.
One example of this came from Hohen Soken describing how the opening of Kusanku kata would be used to pull blades (in the topknot comb) from the hair to use with Kusanku technique.
17. Many of the Okinawan people began leaving, there was a shortage of land, there weren't many jobs to support them. This helped the movement of karate outside of Okinawa to the Okinawan communities forming in many lands.
We have direct comments on training in the 1850-1900 time frame. Funakoshi Ginchin "Karate-do My Way of Life" describes his earliest training with Itosu Anko on the Naifanchi kata years before Itosu Sensei created the Pinan kata. Eric Estrada's interview with Hohen Soken also describes his training in that time.
Additionally, interviews with and writings by Kyan, Motobu and Miyagi likely bridge back to those earlier days of training. Here are some links you may find helpful.
As you can see, it is impossible to duplicate those conditions today. Some can be replicated many cannot. But there is an underlying principle that karate moves with the times. It did then and does so today.
Sherman Harrill maintained that the most important part of the study of Karate kata application potential was learning the underlying principles that could in turn be applied to any technique. I’d like to take the same approach to look at the art of countering locks and projections (techniques as used in the study of aikido and similar grappling arts), by sharing an underlying principle I’ve developed to train students.
The odds are sometime an instructor used you to demonstrate a lock, you grab or strike and they lock up your limb creating great pain that can be used to direct you as they wish. At that point you might well wish you knew how to stop them. Of course they didn’t teach you that.
To explain this I’m going to begin with a very small example. There of course is not one answer how to counter a lock or a projection. Factors like size, speed, power, intensity, the force multipliers in play all combine to make many varied attack possibilities to counter. I’m going to ask you to do the following with a partner, at slow speed. This allows you to see the controlling factors and understand how the lock disruption forms.
You take your right hand and grab your partner’s right wrist (a cross hand grab).
They take their left hand and press down on their right hand fingers and then grab them and your wrist.
As they do that your right hand fingers roll clockwise up alongside their wrist (palm away from their wrist.
Rotate your hand clockwise and then reach down to grab their wrist. This action bends their wrist forming a wrist lock.. They do this they pull away from you, straightening your arm and creating the lock.
That is the basic lock for this test. It can be formed with different openings, such as double wrist grabs to one arm, double wrist grabs to two arms and from strikes, but they require different dynamics to form the lock.
What happened when they formed the lock, they drew your arm away from their body alignment centerline and the lock formation allowed them to shift their centerline alignment towards the locked area. This puts their centerline alignment in control, and when the pain begins their force is magnified because of the force multiplier effect involved.
I’ve described the lock exactly to the mid point of it’s formation. This is the point a counter must take place, else the formed lock and the various force multipliers in play (movement, knee release, etc.) magnify the effect to increase the pain and the control.
A lock (or a projection) is most vulnerable for counter at the mid-point of their formation.
It is at the mid point of the lock formation that the counter must begin.
In turn there are two basic answers.
● First answer you can neutralize their control to stop their ability to form the lock.
● Second answer you can counter their lock with your own lock at that point, reversing their intended result back on themselves.
Lock Neutralization
Let’s start by neutralizing their control of the lock formation. Have them begin the same lock to your grabbing hand a second time. The simplest answer is as they begin to form the lock shift your arm/wrist 1” to the right. Where the first time you moved directly into the lock, now they can’t form it and they are stymied.
What happened is your slight arm shift moved their lock attempt away from they’re centerline alignment. At the same time you did that, unknowingly, you shifted your own centerline on you wrist. That alignment shift placed you in control and their lack of alignment no longer makes the lock work.
If you think that sounds to simple, you’re both wrong and right.
You should think of yourself as being in the middle of a sphere that forms exactly at your range of touch. Your opponent is likewise in the middle of their own sphere. A technique works if you and your attacker are correctly aligned. A strike, a lock, a projection all work the same. Practice of a skill is actually learning how to find the right alignment between you and your opponent’s sphere to make things work. A strike to their midsection has far less effect if they step or spin away at the time it is delivered because both your sphere’s of influence are no longer aligned correctly.
In your 2nd test if your partner is mobile when you shift they might slide along till they get their lock alignment right and then reapply it for effect. So simply moving the arm isn’t the total answer, though the principle of the shift to disrupt their alignment is correct.
Now you can use your own force multipliers to stop their reacquisition of that lock. Simply have your left fingers lightly touch your arm (not grab your arm or even touch your arm with power). If you do that even their shifting no longer works. What that touch did was engage the left side of your body, cementing your own body centerline alignment on the locked wrist making it immobile. And you can have some fun, just touch with your left hand little finger and they still can’t make the lock, or you can cross your left arm, over and above the right arm (and never touch) and it still works, for the body centerline alignment is still present.
Remember this is a simple answer. Vastly stronger power or quicker speed are force multipliers that might overcome your own efforts, still you might use your knee release and drop your center creating another force multiplier increasing your power.
Lock Reversals
When the forming lock reaches the mid-point of it’s formation, there is another possibility, that of reversing the lock.
At the lock midpoint (previously described) on your right arm, take your left hand and grab their right hand (your palm down) and start turning it counter-clockwise. Pull your own right hand back across their finger tops and then press your right palm down atop their back knuckles for a force multiplier for an outer wrist turn projection.
This is just one example of a reversal. Note that counter grabbing, shifting and turning as well as the knee release doing so provide other force multipliers, but the key player is using both your hands keeps your centerline alignment directly on the new lock, controlling the opponents center by the pain involved.
Lock reversal is a practiced skill and while we’re just using one simplified example, takes work and practice to work a wide variety of locks. You should practice a wider range of locks for reversal than you realistically expect to face, just for a logical response incase something unexpected arises.
As I started this is but a simple exercise in lock neutralization and/or reversal.
You cannot expect that your counter will go unopposed. If you neutralize that original wrist lock and if they keep trying to make it work, you can use that left hand to respond with a strike to their head while they’re focused on the busted lock.
A skilled opponent may well have a very different counter-counter and if you’ve only trained for the initial neutralization that can be used against you as well.
A Historical Lesson
I’m not an Aikido stylist, but most of the books I’ve seen on Aikido go into the many variations of locks and projections studied and often how they can be applied to a wide range of attacks. It is very, very rare to find them showing counters to their techniques.
I’m aware that Yoshikan and Tomiki aikido both have countering studies, but I’m of the impression that is rare in most aikido. This was bolstered by an article I read decades ago that explained that the last thing Usheiba Moriro (Aikido’s founder) would teach instructors, he was sending out world wide to teach aikido, were how to counter those lock and projections, so their new students could no use the same techniques on themselves. Unfortunately I no longer have that article, but it may be telling.
We should take that a step further why the study of counters may not have been central to Aikido, that being the pre-WWII aikido was accompanied with Atemi (vital point striking). I’m sure that’s a unique thought for karate, striking someone hard. The use of Atemi made a less skilled Aikido stylist able to perform the locks and projections with less chance of counter attack from their opponent. Of course that possibility still exists today, and the precursor to lock countering might be blocking or striking first.
Genesis of this article
Actually watching Patrick McCarthy share his arts with a local school several weeks ago got me thinking on these skills and concepts I’ve acquired over the years. His technique studies follow the 2 person set standard, start an attack, neutralize it at the mid point and reverse it with another, which is neutralized and reversed and so forth.
Among those numerous techniques was one extremely painful lock I’d learned but never thought about neutralizing. Patrick’s answer was new for me, but when I tried it with my son the next week found his answer was in a form I’ve practiced for 30 years, and taught the initial movements to most of the young people I’ve ever taught, but had never thought it applied to this painful lock. So a new instant answer borrowed from another’s powerful teachings, using a movement potential I had down cold.
Thoughtful suggestion
Start such studies slow.
Learn how to make them work.
Practice to avoid excessive pain on your partner, unless you expect them to impart the same level of pain on you in turn.
I have a very private hobby. In 1972 I started reading the Destroyer Series by Warren Murphy and Richard Sapir and along the way have read (and own) the complete series.Way back when I started writing my own stories in the Destroyer Universe and unintentionally after the arrival of the internet have probably written more than several books worth of my stories.
The series is about the Reigning Master if Sinanju, Chiun, and his pupil Remo Williams training to become the premier assassin on the planet, something the North Korean village of Sinanju has been turning out for 5,000 years. Remo is in service to a secret United States organization called CURE.
My works are fan fiction, not authorized by the authors (each of whom I hold in very high regard) and on the whole are written in the fringes of the 5,000+ years of Sinanju history. The effort has taught me a great deal about writing as a craft, what effort goes into creating a work and given me true esteem to those who do so professionally.
Copies of my completed works can be found on the following links. They are presented in the order I wrote them.
Last weekend I met Patrick McCarty at a seminar he was presenting for his hosts Ken and Mindy Akiyama at the Londonderry NH House of Samurai dojo.
McCarthy Sensei and I first met on the internet 8 or 9 years ago and I assisted his research with several translation projects, but this was the first time we were face to face. We had some personal time to chat about common friends and experiences and were pleasantly surprised how much we did have in common compared with the vast differences between our lives.
Attending his clinics allowed me to experience a small part of what Koryu Uchinadi represents. Especially valuable were other KU students in attendance. The East Coast KU representative Darren Johnson and that of Nicholas De Paolo and his students from Florida.
This gave the opportunity to learn the techniques being shared and experienced much more advanced practitioners.
As an instructor McCarthy Sensei’s vast experience shows! He runs his clinics at a casual pace that enhances the students efforts to learn, but shifts to jokes, historical lessons as well as effortlessly handling all questions no matter how diverse and never losing track of how to return to the topic of study. This approach to instruction engages the student at many levels and allows the student to participate at the method of learning which is natural for them.
Most impressive is his mastery of the knowledge he’s sharing. Watching his advanced students rolling around the ground with the locks, counters, counters to counters and his suddenly stopping their action to change the placement of a foot in one encounter because the correct lock would not follow shows impressive intensity in following a complex drill.
I only experienced a small slice of McCarthy Sensei’s KU but see it is a unique way to use the common techniques within karate in a extremely dynamic manner. He presented number of two person sets and they move in many dimensions including standing and ground fighting studies that can be done with no resistance up to very hard resistance.
At one level they are akin to other two person studies, such as in the Chinese arts. First they are non-resisting drills for basic study, yet there are other levels where the technique complexity in the same drill is ramped up. At another level they are much more than I have seen elsewhere, especially in the intensity of workout they work towards.
I found the time to participate in this clinic very worthwhile. It won’t change my own art, but does give me a lot to think about, especially from the notes I took (part of my own method of learning). I can see the appeal world wide to those who wish to push their use of their karate beyond their current approach of study.
Without doubt I have gained from meeting with Patrick. I think both of us now have a clearer picture of the other’s drives and goals and that can only enhance our future discussion.
Of course to complete my thoughts I should include my lesson learned.I have to work harder to bring forth the beginner mind.As McCarthy Sensei said there’s nothing he was using seniors haven’t seen, but I keep relating the drills back to my previous training and that blocks understanding what is happening. Lesson to Ponder.
