When you finally look !

 

When I was living in Derry, New Hampshire. after  years, I was still surprised at the bounty on my property. After living there 20 years I made a new discovery.

 

My property was 3 acres and a lot of the summer was spent mowing grass and tending to 100 blueberry bushes on the back acre. So when the grass stopped growing I wasn't walking around looking a the trees. Instead I was trying to rest before fall raking began.

 

Then after my cancer surgery I discovered I had 4 English Walnut trees growing outside. We just discovered walnuts on the ground and many more in the tree. After all these years something new.

 

The walnut crop varied from year to year, at times most bountiful at times very small. Previously the squirrely got them each year which I probably why I didn't notice them.

 

Then one year I attempted to gather them, about 2 bushels, to husk them, but not having the right knowledge I was not successful at that.

 

Still I finally discovered what had be hidden from me.

 

There is a lesson there, what you don't look at you won't see, only when you really look can you see what is there. Funny how that applies to karate kata application potential too.

The proper use of karate?

 

From the time when I began I have learned a great deal about what it was like on Okinawa, over the years.

 

Back when I began perhaps I thought armed Samarui were patrolling Okinawa and it worked out to me the best use for karate was to appear you did not know anything, then attack from behind when that Samurai was not expecting it.

 

Of course now I recognize that was nothing but a fantasy I created, but fantasy or not, there was a kernel of truth.

 

If having identified a foe where use of karate is required, the safest angle of defense is to attack them from behind.

 

Of course that is not always possible, then other considerations have to come into play.

 

But if you can appear to move below their event horizon of awareness, such as appearing harmless, or you have acquired skills of movement to allow you to move past them permitting entry from behind, then you have more options.

 

Many attacks occur when the attacker is on automatic, believing they know where you are and focus the attack on where they ‘know’ you are, but their awareness is focused on their  attack and not where you actually are.

 

Something as simple as shifting back from your original position, or shifting off on interior or exterior angles from that attack remove you from where they are intending to focus their attack. It is also possible to employ various methods of stepping past and around the attack to place yourself other where from the intented focus of the attack, either away from the attacker, or better still directly behind the attacker. This is when their focus toward where they ‘know’ you are, causes you not to be there, disappearing from their focus.

 

Here training kicks in to be able to read the intent of your attacker, to look at if they are truly looking at you or assuming you are where you are. Then more training to learn how to move into the appropriate respone.

 

There is on one size fits all situations. Your training needs to be in depth on the subtle avalialbe answers you can choose. But what you don’t training means many options you have not prepared for are not going to be available.

Atemi the Art of Striking

It might be interesting to see what was discussed about

Atemi the Art of Striking from awhile ago.

This article from Black Belt was likely from the 1980's as best I can reconstruct,

I saved the article in my files.

 

 

 

 

I've added a diagram from my Bubishi files.

Is it live or is it videotape (there was training and study before YouTube

Is it live or is it videotape (there was training and study before YouTube

 

GOJU-RYU SUPARINPEI KATA by MORIO HIGAONNA

 

 

When I started studying Isshinryu, what as available is what your instructor trained you in And it was the mid 1970s, not so long ago.

 

As fate had it after my first two years of Isshinryu, having to move meant I had to begin again in a very different art, Tang Soo Do and I studied to first red (brown) in that art learning all the required forms. But one of my seniors moved into that area and I was able to continue in Isshinru.

 

By the time I made shodan in Isshinryu I had studied all the forms of the Isshinryu system (14) a Bando staff form and those forms I learned in TSD (8). About a year later I took advantage of the proximity of a T’ai Chi instructor and spent 2 years studying the T’ai Chi 108 and T’ai Chi Sword form of the Yang system.

 

After a year I asked and was granted the chance to study some Chinese forms to become more knowledgeble about Chinese Systems. That meant a year learning on N. Shaolin form, a Year learning a Northern Eagle Claw form, and study of several Pai Lum forms. Some Chin Wu forms, a N. Mantis set and some others.

 

Just a note some of my Chinese studies were incredibly dense technique forms. Truly necessitating a long time to learn. Some of them were not as long but also challenging for an Okinawan stylist.

 

At the same time I visited with many other friends from tournaments and they allowed me to join in their classes. In the process I acquired several Shorin Ryu forms along with a smattering of other forms from other styles. As well as Goju studies, Kempo Goju studies and others.

 

Part of this was possible because my Isshinryu instructor drove me at a frantic pace and I learned how to learn. Then as a black belt I honed that every time I saw something else, committing myself not to forget what I saw. While it may seem like a lot what I acquired was kindergarten compared to some of instructors I was training with. Among the skills I acquired was a method to work on everything, and it worked.

 

But I did not stop there, one weekend I attended a Bando Summer camp and was taught their short staff form over 2 hours, that was it. Then I went crazy on the drive home working on the form in my head. Then I worked the form for the next 35 years or so.

 

Suffice it to say I sort of picked up a lot.

 

All of this was before VHS tapes began to be sold with forms from different systems. When the did become available I did buy some. Of course not to learn new forms But either by seeing some forms at tournaments or reading about them I was curious to see what they were.

 

One of the forms I was very curious about was the Goju Suparinpei had never seen it at any of the tournaments I had seen, had read about it constantly in the magazines wondering what it was?

 

So when Panther started selling the Hiagonna kata videos, I bought the Suparinpei one. I remember it contained two different versions of the form, but I could never distinguish the difference. Of course not being Goju perhaps I did not know what to look for.

 

Perhaps after all the Chinese forms I had studied, I thought it would be something else. At that time I was a little disappointed, But then agan I just wanted to see the actual form.

 

Then I read in a British martial arts magazine that Chinen Sensei suggested the logic that it could be the 2^nd form studied in the system.

 

I really did not think on it further. Oh I acquired most of the Hiagonna books and further video tapes over time, but that was more information gathering.

 

Perhaps a decade later when I was most into the logic of applying movements from Isshinryu kata, one  Sunday I woke up desiring to see Suparinpei again.

 

At that time my kata studies were of more use as a source of technique to work against, learning the possibilities of going through them with my Isshinryu.

 

But there were several techniques in Suparinpei that I saw different potential to work against. Of course I could just work against them, but also became curious about what the entire exercise offered.

 

So I spent 2 hour that morning, before the Sunday morning t’ai chi class I was teaching, learning the movement of Suparinpei.  I was well aware that doing so would not make me Goju. That was never my intent.

 

Then I went outside before my class, and used the time to practice what I acquired. My students were also some of my karate dans, one of them had prior Goju experience.

 

He sort of flipped out when he saw me practicing Suparinpei.  I simply replied I just taught myself the form over 2 hours that morning.

 

After what I had learnt, it was not so much after all. Of course I really didn’t have the form. And though I worked on it for several years, eventually I set it aside having gained what I was interested in from the study.

I never taught it to my students; they had more than enough to do in their own studies.

 

Around 5 years later I got involved with a group of very knowledgeable Goju instructors and learned a great deal more about the form. Soon after that YouTube began and information exploded.  Where it is possible to see everything possible,  and it is left to you to determine value.

 

As for Suparinpei I think it is a dandy form, I truly mean that, I gained so much for the effort.  Truly I did not train myself in the form, it was a study, abet in learning,   for the most part.

 

 

A Tjimande Takedown

Back in 1987 Tristan Sutrisno held a workout out in my backyard for us. There he shared a tjimande takedown.

I filmed that portion of the workout and it is here. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2PAAMDaSdik

These are screen shots of the takedown.

 

 

 

And a Japanese version of the same move.

 

The early Ti or Toudi Instructor

During the time when the art was Toudi of Ti, the role of the instructor was a very different thing than what instructor has become. Certainly the instructor passed along the art to be taught, but there probably little relationship to what the instructor has become.

 

First the instructor most likely had to have been a member  of the families that their art, Toudi or Ti, was developed for. They were trained themselves, and did not shop around for an instructor, as they were directed towards the instructor of their family. When they learnt their art, they would have proceeded to begin to function in their family role where the art was but a fraction of their adult role. They would have served along side their fathers, cousins, etc. all with their Toudi or Ti at their beck and call. As functioning members of their family as they progressed they also would have married, started families of their own and in turn directed their eldest son toward the same training.

 

Likely they would have retired after service, and having been successful their other family members would eventually selected them to become an instructor. Knowing their art, and knowing that they knew exactly what new students needed to be trained for.

 

The young students would have had no say in the selection of an instructor. That they would suffer the trials of a new student, waiting, service and/on intense training, their own fathers and other family members would be counseling them to stick it out. Then the training would not be random, but each task along the way was to prepare them to be successful. And eventually they would be prepared to the extent they were ready to move into whatever their family role was. Likely that was the end of the training period. I find it inconceivable that their family would not have been involved, even if indirectly. They would have had access to their friend the instructor and would follow their progress.

 

Most likely at that point they would enter the training other members of their family underwent to keep themselves in shape as required, any other skills probably was a result of being surrounded by others, older and more experienced, as their role evolved in life.

 

The instructors most likely would get together to discuss what they had seen and where they saw their art developing over time.

 

All in all quite different from the role of instructor this day.\

Another mornings thoughts August 2019

 

When you think about the origins of Karate you begin to realize that was a very different world where Karate was created than  the world you live in today. It developed for a private need for families to use in the service of their country. And the instructor only taught students who lived in a walking distance from him.

Which meant everyone in the area knew what they were doing, what their character was, that and their training was something their family sought for them, preparing them for their greater family role. The instructor came from those same families and the training he offered was just as focused to give them what they would need in their larger family roles.

That led to a tighter relationship between family, student and instructor than any of us experience this day. And I am sure your students do not as a group live within a walking distance of where you teach.

You had fulfilled the needs of your students when they were trained so they could take on the roles of their positions in their families. They were not to be students for life, or to be trained to become instructors. There was a definite endpoint to their studies.

Then when things opened up and karate was taught to students in the schools and to others outside of the original families, there were still so many links to the older personal traditions too.

What we do is built on those foundations, but in very different ways. I often think on this as I deal with ageing and disability that I possess.

The hardest thing is not the restrictions that have been placed on my Karate and t’ai chi. The hardest thing is I don’t get to work with others and continue to develop my understanding of the arts I love.

So I still practice abet very slowly. Think about my karate constantly. Realize I know so little and then still work to understand a bit more. Every thing I’ve learned was a struggle, nothing was ‘given’ to me and many, many of the lessons I’ve lived the hard way.

My senior students have been thoroughly trained over their decades with me. They do not need anything else, but there was so much more that I saw I took a friends advice and saved as much for them as possible on my blog.  For what is  not written down can become vapor-ware. And perhaps on some future day it may be useful for them or a student of theirs to have access to what I have seen.

But now living far away I share some of the entries many places. I find there are too many things never discussed and I hope something might spark discussion where I can learn more. There are rare occasions that happens. But for the most part I never hear a response. Nothing new about that for decades before FaceBook I did the same on the Discussion Groups and found pretty much the same thing.

But it seems somebody pays attention. I have never felt anything need be hidden and want everyone to access these things. Now I seems that I have had some response for over 550,000 views have been made on my blog.  Of course there are things I do not post there, instead send privately to my students, I am quite sure they feel too frequently. 

 

I am just trying to ensure that I have left nothing unsaid.