A Memory on How Things Connect

So when I woke up this morning some discussion got around to what was necessary to warm up the body before training.

 

That was all it took to remind me of something I picked up along the way, which also fit my tai chi training.

 

It was a very simple drill.

 You just sway from side to side,

With your feet in an open stance.

 

And as you sway from side to side,

Your ankles, and knees turn towards the other side

And your hip turns that way too.

 

So one way you rotate yourself towards the other side

And as you sway you are moving forward towards that side.

Then when you reach it, you rotate your ankles,

knees and your hips Toward the other side,

Then more forward to that side,

Repeating as many times as you wish.

 

The reverse motion also works.

That is where you turn away from the side you want to move towards,

Then move backwards to the other side.

Then you reverse yourself and move backwards to the other side.

Again repeating as many times as you wish.

 

A no impact method to warm up.

 

And you can do it anytime,

Even a simple sway and back when apparently standing still,

You find yourself instantly loose, ready to react.

 

The link to tai chi is that similar motion is being used.

 

Let me show my instructor doing the Yang Press motion.

 

 

 

 

Then a decade later,

where I was living in NH and no longer able to train with him for years.

Ernie and I gave a demonstration of the Yang form together.

This is how we did that movement.

 

 

Notice he moves away and then returns with the Press.

 

And to be fair, this resembles what I do today with my disabilities.

 

My balance issues no longer permit the stepping in my tai chi,

But the sway of the motion is still present.

When I originally studied as a Sho-Dan I was not interested in this moves

Application potential.

And Ernie was so involved in his Eagle Claw studies,

 so we did not work on tai chi application.

 

Eventually I began training a small group of my students in Tai Chi.

That group continued for 17 years,

And I began to see the tai chi applications.

 

So one day I asked one of them, Dennis Driscoll, to strike towards me.

And I used that motion for defense.

 

I brushed the strike down,

And then just performed that Press motion, softly,

just as in the form I studied.

 That motion almost caved in his chest and he went flying back.

So I tried again, promising to go more softly  to his attack.

Same result.

 

That evening I called Ernie to ask him about it.

He replied, “Victor, didn’t I warn you never to do that to a student?”

And there was laughing.

 

What happened as I studies on it,

What happened was,

the rotation of my hips, away and back worked with the Press,

 

Becoming a major force enhancer,

That makes the press very powerful.

 

I had discovered,

 I had been working a long time on what was a major weapon.

 

So a simple drill,

A major player.

 

Another possible Chinto Kata opening application

 

My last night in the Salisbury dojo, Mr. Lewis awarded me my green belt.

I remember that night because months earlier Sensei told us there was no reason a green belt could not reach black belt. Of course such things were not on my mind, it was my last night there because I had to move to take a new job.

 

Also, that night Mr. Lewis started teaching me the first section of Kata Chinto. It would have been my farewell moment.

 

When I moved to Scranton, Pa. I discovered there was no Isshinryu nearby, and the only choice I had was to enter training in Tang Soo Do Moo Duk Kwan. But I continued to train everywhere on my Isshinryu kata that I had, Chinto’s opening section the last I had gotten.

 

That next summer I had a  vacation due me, and wife and I went to Salisbury, to a camping park, threw up a tent, and returned to the dojo. My goal was to finish Chinto kata.

 

First in Salisbury, Mr. Lewis was happy for my visit, and he did share a little more of Chinto kata that first night. The next 2 nights I attended classes with Wayne in the Princess Ann dojo and then Reese Rigby in the Dover dojo, and while each of their versions was slightly different, they continued sharing the kata with me. Finally Thursday night I returned to the Salisbury dojo and completed receiving Chinto from Mr. Lewis.

 

Mission accomplished.

 

Of course exactly which version I got I was not sure, but I had it,

Then returning to Scranton I practiced,

 

The next summer I returned to Salisbury on vacation, and trained.

 

Labor Day I got a call from Charlie Murray, telling me he had taken a chunch in the area, and would I like to train sometime. I was over at his house before my phone hit the cradle. “Would I like to train, I never stopped. I want you to continue to teach me Isshinryu.”

 

And we did.

 

Among the first things we did, was he reviewed my kata. Again, what I had learned was slightly different from what he learned. That was standard for Salisbury.

 

He told me to keep doing the kata through Chinto as I had learned them, and the kata I leared there on, his versions, should be the way he did them.

 

And that is how it went.

 

So this is what I taught for the Chinto Kata opening

We did not study the application potential for those movements,  in those days.

 

In time I started working on my own interpretations, receiving a giant boost

From Sherman Harrill. Literally dozens of potential applications.

Which in turn started me down the path to think of others too.

 

Over my first 30 years kata application study took a different place

In the black belt studies I offered.

 

But I never stop looking, and often find inspiration in the most diverse places.

 

I was checking out a Baguazhang video, found it interesting and then broke what was happening down taking screen shots of the movement.

 

Taking that closer look what I saw is very close for a different way to use my Chinto opening.

 

 

And another possibility

 

 

 

 

 

There are others, but this is sufficient for now.

Isshinryu Sai Throw

 

In Kusanku Sai kata, which I learned from Charles Murray, there is a movement where a single sai is thrown into the floor, and then a third sai is pulled from your obi on your back, to continue on with the kata.

 

Kusanku Sai kata, was created by Shimabuku Tatsuo, his using Kusanku kata as the basic template for the kata, and then he incorporated  a section from an earlier kata he had created, Kyan No Sai, to complete the form.

After the throw a 3^rd sai , which was already held in the obi on the back, is extracted and the form continues. Often today the kata is done with two sai and the throw is only simulated, then the form continues.

 

What Sherman told me during a clinic he was conducting in Chicopee, Mass. Was that when he originally learned the form, the sai thrown was not into the floor, rather it was to be thrown into the torso of the opponent, a change that is quite different.

 

Then as the dojo got more crowded, the intent of the throw was changed, then a throw into the ground, for safety reasons. It would not be prudent to have anyone throw the sai into another students body.

 

At that point the intent of the throw was changed.

 

Now realistically there is plenty of reason not to attempt to change this throw purpose back to the original. For one reason rationally we are not going to be throwing sai into anyone anytime soon. The nature of society has changed.

 

But….

 

Also when Charles was in Okinawa, he visited a Goju dojo where the students were throwing their sai into a tree before class. There are many types of different sai on Okinawa, some quite light and dagger like. Here is a photo of Matayoshi Sensei doing the same tree throw.

 

This was the video which I used to make the screen shots.

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uYZUT0cqvR4