The Way of Least Resistance

Some arguments in favour of an angled nukite in seiyuchin I have received many responses to my article " Details, details ". Some of these have offered arguments for why the ura zuki (inverted knife hand strike) should be 45 degrees relative to the front rather than point straight forward. Essentially these arguments attempt to prove that the nukite should follow the angle of the shiko (ie. the red arrow in the adjacent picture) rather than follow the angle of your front knee (which points straight forward - ie. the green arrow). The first reason given is that the nukite could be used to a vulnerable region on the face once the head is pulled down; the region might only be accessible by a “sideways” angle. This can work, but as with the gojukensha saifa, I think this is creating a different beast - or perhaps just making the best of a poor body structure! Furthermore, in my opinion the primary application does not involve a head grab; the "sukui uke" (scooping de...

I have a mate named Harry who will dismiss a (sometimes obviously) valid point or argument with the retort: "Details, details...". Of course he always says it with a little smile. It's a long-standing joke we have. The reason it has particular ironic resonance with us is that we are both, in our own ways, rather fond of details - particularly in debate. Some might even describe us as pedantic (although I think this description is as dismissive of the importance of "details" as Harry's joke). Details are important, particularly in the martial arts. Consider the following example: The late, great, Chinese martial arts teacher Chen Pan-Ling was given the task by the then Chinese government of collating knowledge of martial systems before their likely extinction in the face of the advance of the Japanese and later the Communists. Being one of the most respected scientists of his era (he was the leading hydraulics engineer in pre-war China) and having an ...

Further to my article " Muidokan embu: 2 person forms for karate ": By design, any drill that is continous (ie. that "loops") must comprise entirely moves that permit continuation. This can be criticised as not allowing the practise of "finishing moves". Indeed this is a valid criticism. However it does not dissuade me from regarding continous 2 person "looping" drills as highly useful training. Rather, it merely suggests to me that they are only part of a well-rounded martial arts regimen. You shouldn't imagine that "looping" drills can replace kata and kata bunkai practise. Instead they add to them. How? Our most basic embu based on Fukyugata ichi - demonstrated by me as a single person sequence, then by Sam and Clement as a 2 person sequence. In the latter both sides are doing the same sequence as demonstrated by me. The answer to the above question lies in the closer consideration of "finishing moves": What ha...

Like most other karateka, practitioners of goju ryu faithfully practise the standard age uke (rising block) during basics training. They will apply it in ippon kumite (one-step sparring), "find" it in kata bunkai (application analysis) and desperately try to apply it in sparring. But is it really a goju technique? What karateka call "age uke" is really a basic shorin technique. The only kata in which it is found are the 2 gekisai forms, developed and introduced by Miyagi in the early 1940s as basic kata for school children. Prior to that one wonders whether it was even practised in goju dojos... This question has lately led me on a journey to discover whether goju ryu has its "own" rising block. What did goju/naha te practitioners use for defences to head height attacks before age uke was incorporated into the syllabus? As summarised in the video below, I feel that the answer is to be found in goju's famous "mawashi uke" or roundhouse bl...

Continued from Part 1 , Part 2 and Part 3 of this article. In his book “Okinawa kempo” Choki Motobu mentions the kata seisan, seiunchin and naihanchi as kata that were in existence in Okinawa long before Kanryo Higaonna’s trip to China. He writes 1 : “Among those styles or katas which have been used in Ryu Kyu from ancient days are: Sanchin, Jo-Ju-Shi-Ho, Seisan, Seiunchin, Ippakku-Re-Hachi, Naihanchi (Ichidan, Nidan, Sandan), Passai, Chinto, Chinte, (bamboo-yari spear style), Wanshu, Rohai and Kusanku. And especially the three styles Nai-Hanchi, Passai (great and small), and Kusanku which are very widely known to many islanders. As I have mentioned, Ryu Kyu Kempo-Karate originally came from China. Sanchin, Jo-Ju-Shi-Ho, Seisan and Seiunchin have been used there for many centuries.” Is Miyagi’s seiyuchin the same as the original shorin form? We’ll never know for sure. Today’s seiyunchin appears to contain enough Naha te elements to suggest some modification by Miyagi. Certainly i...

Seiyunchin is a kata that contains many locks and holds within its bunkai.  This is hardly surprising when one considers the meaning of its kanji: to control and pull in battle. For me the "king" of all qin-na wristlocks is the one I know as "shao tran" (or more accurately, "xiao chan" meaning "small wrap") - also known as the "z-bar" and (in aikido) as "nikkyo/nikyo" (although I avoid using the latter since the wristlock is only a small part of the particular series of techniques described by that name and which translates as "second lesson"). Seiyunchin covers many variations of shao tran in its applications.  I was recently asked to describe these, so I prepared the following short video in response: When practising shao tran you should take care not to use brute force: shao tran is a technique that requires very little pressure. The late ju-jutsu master Jan de Jong used to tell me that the weight of one finger wa...