Three Secrets of Sankonryu

So I began reading Joe Swift’s translation of “Ryuku Oke Hiden Bujutsr: Karate, Bukijutsu” (Secret Royal Martial Arts of Ryukyu: Karate and Weaponry) by Matsuo Kaneori. I admit I only read it when it was published in 2005 and then put it away in my library.

Matsuo Kanenori sakon,a former student of Uehara,who now teaches his own version of the sysytem in Kobe.while keeping the essential of his teacher intact, Matsuo has also added elements of modern Karatedo and Japanese swordmanship to the art he teaches, and refers to it as a Rykyu Oke Hiden Bujutsu Sakonryu.

Therein I find several most intriguing rules that his organization follows, briefly put they are:

1. Do Not Harbor Sinister Intensions.
2. Do Not Neglect Training in the Way.
3. Know That Which Is Unseeable.

In part “ in practice, one should strive to polish the techniques of accurately reading the opponents posture and movements….Do not allow your mind to stop at the movement of the opponent or oneself, but react in accordance to the opponent’s intentions.”

Some intriguing words.


 Know That Which Is Unseeable.



Memories come flooding back as I think of those words.


When I was training with Charles Murray we spent a lot of time with hard body sparring, Every class, almost any time of day. Of course from my perspective that meant I was his striking bag. For he would pummel me over and over. I don’t mean he injured me, much. Rather I experienced what it felt like, over and over, to face someone way above my abilities. (And at that time he was way above most other abilities too.)



So much so, I remember I was never able to strike him once when we sparred. Yes, it was humbling. (Then on a later date I did strike him once, the stuff of legend, and he promised I would never have the chance to do so again, And he kept his word. LOL)


Finally he explained what he was doing, “Vic,” he said, “ just imagine you are in the middle of an imaginary circle, with a 3 foot line around you. When someone touches that line you decide 1) to explode over them, or 2) to move back keeping your distance. The point is you are in charge of your actions, you decide when you will attack, or you decide when you will move away keeping your distance. The key, You decide, nor your opponent!)


Of course far easier to say than do, but it provides a template for controlling yourself in confrontation.,


Then at one of our earlier meetings John Kerker shared one of the last studies Sherman Harrill was working on with him. A brilliant answer on how to attack something coming in your direction. When I apply what Charles told me, with that, well I suggest that is when things start to get interesting.


Of course that is not my story to explain, consider taking the time to attend one of John’s clinics, and perhaps he will cover that.



My point being able to know what is unseeable and then learning how to use that knowledge.

Priceless.


A challenge for a lifetime!

Thoughts on the Makiwara and related training

 

There is no doubt the origins of karate included training on the makiwara, and I am sure it was intended for life. There are other sorts of impact training, for the foot, spear hand, etc. that also included their versions of the makiwara. The goal to strengthen the hand/spear hand/foot to deliver harder impact. Similarily training like knuckle pushups can provide similar training.

 

But except for the two years I trained in Tang Soo Do, where there were several great makiwara which I used every day of training for up to ½  hour after class, life has not permitted me to have same.  As a result of that training where my knuckled flattened a bit, I developed callouses on the pads of my hand learning how to tighten the fist to a greater extent.That training made a result with my fist for decades.

 

There certainly are programs which continue that hard focus in their program.

 

Among those I discovered Bando training included training with sticks being smashed into large branches to condition the hand to deliver greater impact with the stick. That same training also conditioned the fist to clench more tightly. At a Bando summer camp one of the Bando seniors explained that Dr. Gyi would take the seniors into the woods for private training. There they would cut/strike with their gukri into various rocks, also to condition the fist to make greater impact.

 

I taught youth through the Boys and Girls Clubs and impact  training for the young is not a good idea. My surgeon in my program heartily agreed with me on this. Then many of my students were senior adults who such training was similarly not a good idea, nor did such potential fit with their life.

 

I also discovered incredible karate programs which do not train impact. Instead they take different approaches to make their techniques work against an opponent.

 

Having trained with Sherman Harrill and John Kerker, both of Isshinryu, I am a huge believer in what decades of impact training can accomplish.

 

But with the explosion of karate world wide, I am sure there are many who do not use the makiwara too. It is a big world after all.

My Art Bushi No Te Isshinryu

At essence my art is what my instructor’s taught me. I was not taught that I should search of a better way, in the states or on Okinawa. And what I was originally shown is what I based my art on.

 

Along the way I trained with many extremely skilled instructors, all of who worked with my students on aspects of their arts. I never adopted their arts, but I paid attention and learned many drills and kata that later became subsidiary drills and kata  for my advancing students, well into dan training.

 

Never replacing the Isshinryu. But reinforcing other dimensions to the arts, providing skills that would also prove useful for my students. I never taught them anything  that I, myself, had not spent 5 or more years working on so I knew the material intimately.

 

I studied as much about Okinawa and Okinawan Isshinryu as I could, but it was for personal knowledge not to teach that to my students. In reality there was too much to work on and developing Isshinryu skills always came first.

 

 

Often even when learning something good it would take me over 5 years to know when and how to introduce it to appropriate student (lifetime) training. After all the training they already had was also successful. And many times I received excellent material there was never time to introduce.

My Name is Victor

 

When I began as a student I had no idea of what traditions we were following. I just followed instructions. After a while I observed what others were doing and followed the same way.

 

Sensei was my instructor, Tom Lewis, it was his program. I later noticed some instructions on a bulletinboard on the school wall alongside the doorway. One of them said as I recall “All black belts are to be referred to as Mr, Mrs, Miss or sensei.”  We never spent much time on lectures, there was too much karate to do. This was never discussed and Sensei was always Sensei.

 

When we went to tournaments this was never discussed either, I just called anybody the title others were using out of politeness.

 

Then when I moved away and my only option was another art, Tang Soo Do, I just followed their school tradition.

 

Later when I was able to return to Isshinryu training with Charles Murray this was one of the first things he cleared up, when I questioned if I should refer to him as Sensei. “Vic,” he said. “Tom Lewis was my first instructor, and he was your instructor. That is the only Sensei we will ever need. To you I am just Charlie.”

 

And that was that.

 

Then I was alone. At tournaments and when visiting friends schools I was always polite and called them whatever they wanted.

 

But when I began teaching the youth of the Scranton Boys Club, I did not want to give any impression to anyone I was teaching anything but karate. I requested the kids to call me Mr. Smith. They did and that was that.

 

Years later again moving to Derry NH, again teaching youth through the Boys and Girls Club of Derry, I followed the same and simply asked to be referred to as Mr. Smith.

 

About a year later I began my adult program, all of them mature, accomplished adults. I simply requested them to refer to me as Victor. Perhaps at one time someone in class referred to me as Sensei, I can’t recall if it was done, but it never stuck.

 

I am after all just me.

 

Then in time a martial arts camps people began to refer to me as Sensei Smith, and Master Smith. Every time I took me work to explain I appreciated the salutation,  but as they weren’t my student I preferred to just be called Victor.

 

Another thing I never discussed my rank, because that was irrelevant to the training, added nothing. They were there because I knew things they did not, and I was sharing, step by step, how to obtain them. I had students who trained with me for a decade and my rank was never a discussion. I always had too much karate to teach.

 

Privately my instructors have always supported my work, and through them I was granted more rank than I ever needed. Always coming with a greater burden to do more.

 

I structured my program to address the needs I saw. I prepared my students to meet those needs. It never close ended and I tried to develop my students to ride into that undiscovered country. All built on the core of Issyhinryu my perfect answer.

 

 

I remain Victor

When you really learn

 

At the time I began to go out an train when possible with many other martial instructors, nobody expected that I would gain anything from it. For myself I just wanted to work with adults (none available for me at that time and I knew I needed adults to have some work with) and none of those instructors were but being nice allowing me to train with them. They never attempted me to learn their systems.

 

But learn I did, for I had been taught by Charles Murray’s instruction to learn and then work to retain what I was shown even once. And in some part I did.

 

I saw many things which were not shown in the Isshinryu I studied. Found them interesting, and then worked to understand how they worked on my own to make them my own. No doubt not always the same as the original, but if I could make them work that was more than enough for me.

 

Let me give an example during the time I was studying t’ai chi and some Chinese forms with Ernest Rothrock, one Saturday afternoon I was at his school working on my forms. While there I saw him working with one of his students for a demo they were to do. Now applications of those forms were not what I was studying and found his demo interesting.

 

I vividly remember one attack where he just walked into the attack, spun taking his attacker down and ‘completing’ his defense on the floor ending the attacker. I had never seen anything like that before. I had no idea what happened and right before my eyes. But I did know it occurred.

 

I did not immediately work on it. Years later I retained the memory of it happening. Then I went to  work as to how he could have done that. We were close friends by that time, I could have asked, but I wanted more than works, I wanted to know it, own it, and be able to perform it. In time I worked out an answer for myself.

And at that time that was all it was.

Several years later he was in Derry along with a group of martial artists who then worked out together and shared. That afternoon I saw him perform that defense again, and what I worked out was pretty much the same thing. It was part of my personal understanding of how things worked.

 

I have so many examples of my working out things I did not understand from him, Tristan Sutrisno and many other people. What things, my own memories after all. Some shared with my students when it made sense, some never shared because the right time never came up. But that is just what happened.

 

The real lesson is that I saw, I thought and then went to work 

to make what I saw possible for me.

 

What you gain by working it out for yourself, is more valuable than just hearing the answer. You took the effort to make it yours.

Dr, Yang Jwing-Ming a memory of the man

 

 

I was not a student of Dr. Yang Jwing-Mang. But I observed his influence on many martial matters over the years, and thought a reminiscence of what I saw might be useful.

 

First off Dr. Yang came to America to study engineering and became a Doctor of Engineering I believe at  Perdue. He had served in the Taiwan armed forces and had been a student of several martial arts there. I believe on viewing the American martial arts seen he likely felt he could offer information that many would find valuable. He taught Yang Tai Chi and other Chinese arts.

 

He worked to contribute new martial information than many might find useful. So he began publishing books on what he knew. And as time went on more and more of them. When I saw his Advanced Tai Chi 1 @ 2, what attracted me was not the historical tai chi knowledbe, rather his description of the martial use of t’ai chi and the manner in which he presented that information.

 

IMO he set the template many could use for their own martial investigations. Every movement was shown from 3 different uses contained there in:

 

1.       How that movement could be used to down an enemy.

2.       How that movement could be used to strike in a cavity (I understood that as a vital point)

3.       How that movement contained chin na control over an opponent’s attack.

 

It made a great deal of sense to me.

 

My own studies in the Chinese Arts was more a study of forms, including my T’ai Chi studies. Never deep enough to study such matters. O’ I was shown how to apply some movement at times but that was not the focus of my own studies in the early 1980’s.

 

His books and then video’s on Chin Na became more involved. I think he rethought how to present Chin Na knowledge. He logically restructured what he was presenting in a manner in which an engineer might think.

 

 

Chin Na for the fingers, for the wrist, for the forearm, for the elbow and so forth. Grouping those studies by area to be affected. Extremely logical and not necessarily in the same order the original art(s) presented that material.

 

Then the books got more involved, and video tapes to become dvd’s followed. A very impressive body of knowledge.

 

I had noted how there was a similarity to the aikido I studied (aikido studied to prepare for advanced karate application studies. Then as I lived somewhat in the neighborhood of his school outside of Boston, I was able to see him perform a few times. From my wife’s studies with him, I got to feel his Chin Na on the receiving end.

 

Several years later I was able to attend a 2 day weekend seminar with Dr. Yang in his school. It was on Tai Chi Sword and Chi Kung. The sword he presented was not what I had studied and I am sorry to say that did not stick with me. But he also talked about what he as doing with his books. Many of them on various Chinese aspects of the arts. What he did whenever he returned to Taiwan, was to buy as many Chinese original books as he could afford, those books became the source of much of his translations on many topics.

 

I got a bit more out of the Chi Kung presentation. For I recognized several of the drills, except what Ernie taught them to me, they were linked together. Then it was a drill his eagle claw instructor, Sheum Leung, used to being and end every class. I just did not know that drill was Chi Kung [Side note  I still practice that drill to this day, in fact several times a day as it is incredible to loosen my shoulders.]

 

That was the extent of my meetings with Dr. Yang.

 

But there is an alwful lot that pertains and appends to our study of karate, should you use it.

 

Without question it is difficult to obtain information from books. I never truly understood many of them. For example it is said a great book on T'ai Chi can contain 50 years of information, but it can take 50 years to understand what is in that book.

 

But I suggest that Dr. Yang has tried his best to make so much available to use, even if we can't be his students.

 

I have written about Dr. Yang several times before on my blog.

https://isshin-concentration.blogspot.com/2018/01/dr-yang-jwing-ming.html

https://isshin-concentration.blogspot.com/2019/10/an-adjunct-study-to-increase-your.html

https://isshin-concentration.blogspot.com/2014/11/further-clinic-memories.html

https://isshin-concentration.blogspot.com/2016/09/the-practice-and-study-of-small-joint.html

https://isshin-concentration.blogspot.com/2015/04/two-works-by-dr-yang-jwing-ming.html

https://isshin-concentration.blogspot.com/2010/11/source-material-to-undestand-movement.html

 

 

 

An adjunct study to increase your martial effectiveness

 

 

 First make it clear I am not a Chin Na expert by any means.

 

For about 5 years after Shodan I trained with as many people to learn a bit about their arts.

 

Among my studied I trained with Ernest Rothrock first to learn the Yang Long Fist T’ai Chi Chaun form, and then to study a variety of mostly Northern Chinese forms to better understand what their forms were doing. Studying those systems applications was not my focus with him. I did learn a few things but that about sums it up.

 

I also trained with Tristan Sutrisno in his family Shotokan, his use of aikido principles to prepare for his Shotokan bunkai and a few other things. This presentation of aikido for karate did give be a basic understanding what aikido could do.

 

At that same time I became aware of the writings on the Chinese arts by Dr. Yang Jwing-Ming .  His texts on T’ai Chin Na were so well done  that it is likely he set the template for many to follow in their own application work (a different use of bunkai than I had been taught from the Sutrisno tradition. Even more impressive were his works on Chin Na, where he incorporated the Chin Na of several different systems and then presented the material in a very progressive manner.

 

So many books he wrote, so many video tapes then dvd’s on so many things. He recognized karate could use what he was presenting.

 

 

Most if not all, Chinese systems have their own chin na aspects. Some more and some less. But they are all ways to work an opponent’s openings against the opponent.

 

After I moved to NH and had reestablished my program, a friend invited me to a 3 style clinic where Dr. Yang was one of the presenters. I recognized what he was showing because of my earlier aikido studies. ( That is not to suggest aikido is chin na, rather they share some similarities.)

 

My wife, Maureen, was partnered with my friend. He was having difficulty understanding how to perform the tecunique. Dr. Yang was wandering around assisting various peoples when he saw his difficulty. He came to attempt to show the lock more detailed to assist, and he asked my wife to try and apply in on him, so he could explain what was happening. My wife had been trained in the Sutrisno Aikido version of the technique. Dr. Yang had huge, quite red, forearms and wrists from decades of work at his own chin na. My wife applied the lock and Dr. Yang immediately dropped to his knees.

 

Now long story short, my friend, contracted to have Dr. Yang teach two courses (each one a 9 month course once a week in Yang Tai Chi and Chin Na. My wife signed up for both of them. Because of work I could not be home in time for the classes. The first class was Chin Na, and when Dr. Yang saw my wife come in, he laughingly backed away from her.

 

She enjoyed those classes immensely. And as I was home when she came from class, I was nominated as her practice dummy. (Not that I had any choice.) she learned to apply those moves with extreme pain, mine. But I came to really appreciate what Chin Na study was about. Especially learning not to ever grab my wife.

 

But I also found that from his books and videos, the techniques were so clearly shown, I could immediately apply them.

 

I always had so much to teach there was no time in include formal chin na study.

 

 

But once a year, in my adult class, with long term students, I would take the Comprehensive Applications of Shoalin Chin Na to class. Then randomly select a page, and we would work whatever techniques were on that page. To let everyone see and feel they could also use that for a reference for other study. My idea was not to have them self study Chin Na, rather to intimately understand what else there was, to feel how much was in common with our training. And an idea where self-growth could come from.

 

Let me give one example, now you may already have this in your studies, but this can be seen as an adjunct study to your karate.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JA_rFAs_Q-E&list=PL6A5147A54B8802E3

 

There are so many books by Dr. Yang and so many YouTube videos to choose from. Some videos are long, some are quite short.

 

More possibilities to consider.

 

 These are but two youtube videos I might suggest.

 

Shaolin Chin Na  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PXWIBlXuOec&t=582s

Tai Chi Chin Na  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lf94qpZFOuQ