Wastelander

Welcome to the forum!

Everything in the video was intentional, from the location of the poke, to the use of a fan to make the hakama flutter, to the black dragon totem at the end . Thanks!

Welcome to the forum!

For those who don't know, my Sensei and I have been putting up a "Waza Wednesday" video every week, to show some of what we do at our dojo. This week, we have a very special "secret techniques" episode to share with you, that shows some ki-jutsu (energy skill) techniques. We hope you enjoy it, and train wisely!

If it makes you feel any better, my shodan test cost $140. Our organization requires $100 per dan rank you are testing for, if you want to be recognized by the organization. I think this is to make up for the fact that they don't charge any membership dues, and dojo dues are very cheap. Getting a nice certificate written up by the head of our style is $40, but your rank would be recognized without it, so it isn't a necessary thing. My Sensei ate the cost of the embroidered Shureido belt he got for me.

I think those are lovely symbolic interpretations, but I stopped valuing such interpretations about 7 years ago. Usually, the people who told me those kinds of interpretations seemed to use them for movements they couldn't explain from a practical standpoint. I have since learned practical combative applications for them, so I feel no desire to fill in gaps with pretty imagery. All that said, I do think that, sometimes, the initial and final hand position in kata can be symbolic. Usually, your hands are in some form of "hands-ready position" (http://cryptome.org/info/usss-hands/usss-hands.htm) at the beginning and end of kata. This provides you a useful, practical starting point. Some people have been known to use Buddhist hand positions for this, as well. This also fits with Chibana Chosin's teachings; "There is no kamae in a karate kata, except for the beginning and end of the kata. Everything else is transition and application.

For what it's worth, most versions of Kusanku that I have seen which feature leg techniques in that sequence of the kata use the nami-gaeshi movements found in Naihanchi Shodan. This is the only one I've seen where the heels come up behind like that. Just some food for thought--I find that looking at other versions of a kata can help improve my understanding of the possible applications of the kata.

That's an interesting point that many people have brought up about Kusanku over time, and they think it means it is meant to teach fighting at night. If I remember correctly, Shimabukuro Eizo Sensei (the brother of the founder of Isshin-ryu) used to say that, too, but there was a bit of miscommunication that he had to clear up. I think it was Bill Hayes Sensei who said that Shimabukuro had to clarify it to him by saying, "No, no! Not FOR fighting at night. LIKE fighting at night!"

For Shorin-Ryu, we have a "holy trinity" of kata, so to speak--Naihanchi, Passai, and Kusanku. The Naihanchi kata provide the foundation of our style, Passai builds upon that, and Kusanku builds upon that. Here is the founder of our style performing Kusanku Dai, as it was passed down to him from Chibana Chosin: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C2InmORSoo0 Personally, I don't enjoy performing Kusanku (Sho or Dai). It doesn't feel right for me, the way Naihanchi and Passai do. Even so, it's an important part of the system I practice. From an application perspective, I like to keep in mind that the Kusanku kata is a codified system of fighting that represents the methods of Kusanku, the man. According to the Oshima Note, he specialized in grappling techniques.

Well, the national "wushu" movement in China almost certainly had an impact. There are still many people teaching old-school Chinese martial arts, completely with practical applications, but they don't usually pressure test them. This means that even though they are teaching good material, they often teach it in a manner that has become too formalized and unrealistic. I've seen some Chen Taiji Chuan people pressure test what they do in competitions and challenge matches. There have also been a few Wing Chun people who did it, albeit without much success. Other than that, the pressure testing Chinese arts are combat sports like Shuaijiao (a grappling are) and Sanshou (a kickboxing art).

I've heard of an awful lot of kata, but neuro and mioyo are ones I have never heard of. It might help if you told us the style you are practicing.

Congratulations!

This has been my favorite gi-choke ever since I first learned it! I have to say, though, we never played with using our own gi to choke people

For whatever reason, my washing machine eats dogi on any cycle. It's very strange. One thing I can recommend is to keep bleach away from your gi! I had always used hydrogen peroxide to treat blood stains, but one time I was out and tried using bleach. Bleach weakens natural fibers, so that was the next spot my washing machine decided to destroy. Now I have a hole in my gi.

Congratulations!

In addition to Jesse Enkamp's list, shared by RAM18, I like Ryan Parker's list: http://ryukyuma.blogspot.com/2012/01/old-style-karate-top-12-ways-it-differs.html These are all general differences between Okinawan karate and Japanese karate. To get more specific to Okinawan Goju vs. Japanese Goju, you would really have to ask a Goju-Ryu person, so I'm not much help, there.

Welcome back!

Since Patrick is out at SXSW right now, I wanted to wish you a happy birthday in his absence, and thank you for everything you do here at KF!

I've read bits and pieces of it, but I'm more of a karate guy than a kobudo guy, so it's not really my thing. We do have a very extensive list of recommended literature, including books on Okinawan arts, here: http://www.karateforums.com/martial-arts-research-library-vt8082.html

I can't really speak to how well it fits the intentions of the kata, since that isn't a kata that is part of my system. The whole "jumping to get back to where you started" could legitimately be why those jumps are in that kata, but there are other ways they could have adjusted the kata to make that happen without adding the jumps. Iain's application certainly seems reasonable, to me. I have also heard of it being applied as a jumping neck-crank from behind your attacker, which also seems reasonable. Someone I know who studies Onaga Sensei's Shinjinbukan system insists that it is a form of evasion, which I suppose it is, but it doesn't really make sense to me to use it in such a way.

I have, in the past, run through my empty hand kata with weapons. It's an interesting exercise, and can be fun to do. Personally, I think tonfa, sai, tekko, and hanbo work best from an application standpoint, because you can pretty much just use all of your empty hand techniques with them and they enhance the techniques. Kama can work, too, but their angled blade kind of change things. Nunchaku can also work, but your strikes change drastically. I have found that longer, two-handed weapons, like bo, jo, eku, and nunti, don't really fit the empty hand kata as well. All that said, the same concepts can be used.

I'm not really a kobudo guy but, as I understand it, your weapons should not clink together for no reason. With the sai, for example, there are trapping techniques where you interlock the sai. In that instance, they would clink together.

Yes, he seems to have cut out a few techniques and, at least for the video, only did the first half, since the second half is just the same thing done on the opposite side, anyway. Still, it's certainly recognizable as being Naihanchi Shodan! We also use a haito-uchi hand position for that part, but you have to pass through the haishu-uchi position to get there, so I don't consider that to be a major difference.

It could just be the local branch of the WKF--I have heard several local officials, on numerous occasions, refer to it as "Olympic-style" in a variety of ways. As for the people asking, it has been martial artists from other schools around the US. Within our dojo, everybody pretty much knows what is going on. We do know the ruleset, but knowing it and following it are different things . Our dojo only has one class per week to focus on tournament material, compared to our competition who all do nothing but tournament-focused training. The rest of our classes focus on more old-school karate for the teens and adults, and more traditional karate for the kids. Even so, our competitors do pretty well! Sometimes we get a lot of penalties for hitting too hard or using illegal techniques (like knee strikes, leg kicks, and uppercuts), but we're getting better about that. Thank you! I'm afraid this tournament circuit doesn't do scores--they set up a bracket system where you run kata head-to-head with your opponent, and the judges simply hold out a blue or red flag to indicate who won that round. I believe he won this round.

I only added the "Olympic" part because that's what they're calling them, since they started their whole "The K is on the Way" thing to try to get karate into the Olympics. I only pointed out the belt color thing because I've gotten a surprising amount of people asking why he is wearing blue or red belts in photos and videos . We are new to the WKF ruleset, having only started competing in this circuit last year when the regional "Open Karate" competition circuit shutdown. It has never had much of a presence in our area until that happened.