Wastelander

I appreciate the response and comments. Your hypothesis rings true to me. I would ask you to extrapolate that a little further if you don't mind...Let's assume for a moment that the above is correct. Do you think that this Kiko is or was, within any stylistic or regional art, taught as a complete art or do you think it was only "bits and pieces"....those elements that, for whatever reason, fit into what they were developing back in Okinawa (or was the limit of what they had been taught in China and absorbed)? While I have had an interest in this regard for quite some time, I became much more interested in it due to my studies in Taoism. In this school and in the martial arts the emanated from it, there are complete systems of qigong that cover meditation work, breath work, energy work, etc. But, since most of these systems and schools come from the north of China, our Okinawan forefathers would have had virtually no exposure to them. My thanks again for your time and thoughts on this. It's certainly possible that it was, at least at some point, a complete art. The Okinawans do value healthy living, after all, and I could certainly see the potential of those who went to China specifically seeking out such practices, and bringing them back, as well as the potential of Chinese emissaries or craftspeople, such as those who settled in Kumemura, teaching such things to people on Okinawa. Given the fact that there are still some people out there who teach Kiko, it stands to reason that (if my assumption was correct) someone in their martial, medicinal, or familial lineage would have known most if not all of a complete system. The fact that the Bubishi contains not just martial arts information, but medicinal and esoteric information related to health, certainly suggests that there is a likelihood of such a system being taught in conjunction with martial arts, as well.

Ah! You sir are a gentleman and a scholar! Thank you very much for the assistance. The general description that Ryan provides is right in line with what the teachings are from, primarily, the Daoist based arts (martial and qigong). It actually goes a little further than that as it as a work towards opening all of the joints. And then there are more advanced practices that take things a bit further, but would not necessarily be pertinent to the subject at hand. Interesting that one source has some basic information on it and another has literally no information. It again points out to me the oddity that there is such a lack of codified kiko practices in Okinawa, even though there is a heavy influence from Southern China...where practices such as these surely would have been taught. Would you happen to have any thoughts on this? Thank you again for your help and assistance with this. I wouldn't claim to say this authoritatively, but from what I have observed, it seems that Okinawan Kiko practices are more often perpetuated on an individual basis, rather than during group instruction. Additionally, it seems more common in Naha-Te-based systems (likely due to the emphasis on body development) than in Shuri/Tomari-Te-based systems (although it does show up there, on occasion). My suspicion is that Kiko was largely considered to be okuden, and simply not taught to the vast majority of students, and after several generations of that, things tend to die out. As to how that compares with Chinese arts, I'm reminded of the story of a member of the Kojo family going to mainland Japan for university, where he discovered that the school's jujutsu/Judo (I don't recall which) club taught a technique to white belts that was considered "secret" in Kojo-Ryu. The Okinawans developed their martial arts over a long period of time, as a blend of many things, but for a good portion of that time, anything (not just martial arts) of Chinese origin was considered to be superior, and perhaps even divinely inspired, so I could see the potential of them picking up something like qigong alongside the fighting aspects of Chinese martial arts (which the previously-mentioned Kojo family would likely have done, as they ran a dojo in the Ryukyu village in China), and deciding to keep that for only the most worthy students. After all, fighting is pretty much fighting, with varying preferences and approaches to doing the same sorts of things. Aside from a few special kata or applications, it's entirely possible that a lot of the Chinese material blended well enough with the Okinawan material that there was little need to make the distinction, but qigong may have been considered something entirely new and special.

Yes, I am familiar with Ryan's stuff. I actually use to communicate with him "back in the day" on the interwebs...not that he would remember me or know me from the proverbial "Adam". I tried reaching out to him via email using the last one I had, but never got a response. I don't think it bounced come to think of it. I had heard that he had some sort of health issues in the past (not sure if that is true or not). That might have something to do with it. I was off the interwebs for quite some time, so I lost contact with alot of people. Thanks though! Ryan is actually one of the people I reached out to about this. His explanation was, essentially, that it is a practice of reaching and stretching out your techniques as much as possible without ruining your form. He believes it is related to the "joint opening" practices of Chinese arts, but he also wasn't really familiar with those practices. My other contact spent 21 years living in Japan, and goes to Okinawa for several months every year, training in old Shuri-Te, and he hadn't even heard the term, so I'm going to say it's not all that common of a practice. Sorry I couldn't be more help.

I haven't trained in McCarthy's KU system, myself, but I've interacted with a number of its practitioners and former practitioners online, and I've seen a good number of videos. It seems to be a well-rounded program--as tatsujin mentioned, with it being a sogo bujutsu approach. A blend of striking, grappling, and weapons, with drills that incorporate everything from muchimidi to tuidi to newaza, is a good way to get a full martial arts experience in your training. I will say that some of the drills seem excessively long and complex, to me, though. Flow drills are great at what they do, but there is a point of diminishing returns, where you have to focus too much on remembering the drill, itself, and aren't able to focus as well on what it is actually supposed to be teaching. You would be better served with short drills, and then developing the ability to flow between them unscripted, IMO. That is a completely outside perspective, though. My experience with and understanding of McCarthy, as a person, is significantly less positive than his system, I'm afraid. As you've mentioned, he certainly comes off as a rather arrogant person who enjoys hearing himself talk, and he also likes to use large, unnecessarily complex vocabulary in his lectures, which really seems like it would just alienate and confuse people while making him sound smart. He has certainly contributed significantly to research into Okinawan karate, so it does make sense that he would be confident in what he presents, and I'm sure he has a reason for presenting in the manner he does, but it rubs me the wrong way, personally. Beyond that, he is very quick to publicly denounce and discredit people any time there appears to be some threat to his public image--in fact, if he or one of his students sees this post, I will likely be thrown under the bus a second time (the first time was because someone posted on my social media about him being a fraud, and I responded in a comment asking for proof). It's been happening a lot, lately, as well, due to the fact that a bunch of his former students are coming out publicly about him being manipulative, emotional abusive, and generally mean and disrespectful to people under him, among other claims. Obviously, your mileage may vary, on both the system and the person. Everyone learns a little differently, and enjoys different approaches to training. Every interpersonal interaction is different, and nuanced--like tatsujin's experience with him being generally positive. These are just my opinions, for whatever they are worth, and I would not, personally, want to be part of the KU system because of the person it is attached to. I appreciate being put into the same category as McCarthy and Iain, but I would never claim to have the same level of experience, and I certainly wouldn't consider myself an equal. I do my best with what I've been taught, what I've researched, and what I've figured out, but I'm sure by the time I have as much experience as they do, I'll be much further along than I am, now.

I believe it is part of Okinawan Kiko practice, but that was actually never part of my karate experience. I understand that it is supposed to be "joint stretching" concept, but I'm afraid I don't know how closely that relates to the Chinese methods you're referring to. I'll put some feelers out to my contacts and see what I can find.

This is, essentially, how I approach these terms, as well. As you mentioned, I'm not one of those who feels it necessary to use the word "bunseki," as "bunkai" works perfectly well. It's incredibly rare that I find the need to differentiate between analysis and detailed analysis, lol.

Welcome back to the forum!

I do not have an internal voice, which seems to shock people. Instead, I "feel" the words that I'm reading, as if I were physically speaking them. No sound in my brain, though. I can't say I've specifically considered this in my teaching, but I definitely try to figure out how different students learn best, and I generally end up with a mixture of verbal explanation and physical demonstration directly with the students. I have had a deaf student, before, and I can tell you that learning a bit of ASL is going to make your life much easier, but also be very helpful to the student and, more importantly (IMO), it will make the student feel accepted and respected. Deaf people have a very strong culture, and while your student may be able to read lips, it is a struggle, and spoken English is considered a different language by deaf people--they have to translate every word they lip-read. If you expect them to do that, it's only right to meet them halfway and learn to say some things in their language.

Welcome to the forum!

Why don't you teach the Pinans to adults unless asked?As tatsujin mentions, part of it is that they were designed primarily for children--which doesn't make them bad, or mean that they don't contain useful material. To me, they are simply unnecessary for adults, who can take the time to simply learn Passai, Kusanku, and Chinto, from which most of the Pinan material is derived. Yes, it takes longer to learn Kusanku than Pinan Yondan, but I would say that it doesn't really take that much longer to learn the three koryu kata than it takes to learn the 5 Pinan kata, and I would rather take some extra time to get people up to speed on them than spend all that time on the Pinan series, only to spend the same amount of time on the koryu kata, later, which largely contain the same or very similar material. As for what I start my adult students with, they begin with Chibana Chosin's three kihongata, then go into Naihanchi. Would you mind sharing with me what you start your adults with (kata)? Actually, I would be interested in what you kata list (in order) would be for adults. Thank you. As mentioned, above, I start them with Chibana's kihongata, and then the three Naihanchi kata. After that, it's Tawada Passai, then Kusanku Dai, then Shuri Sanchin. At that point, they also get to choose either Chinto, Gojushiho, or Seiyunchin, and they are expected to seek a kata/form from another system, as well. If they want to become an instructor, they'll obviously have to learn all of the kata, including the Pinans. I only have 5 belt colors for adults, and a completely separate color scheme for children. I also did away with the multiple levels of black belt because, in my experience, they lead to nothing but political nonsense, so I just have a black belt, and then an instructor certificate that can be sought and tested for by those who want to teach.

Well, given that I practice an Okinawan system, I learned the Pinan kata, not their Japanese counterparts. At this point, though, I only teach them to children, unless I'm asked to teach a seminar on them. I have also learned Gekisai, although they aren't part of the Shorin-Ryu curriculum I learned, but I don't teach it unless someone specifically wants me to. They all have good material in them, but I would say I would choose Pinan over Gekisai, as there is just more material, and that material largely ties directly to older kata.

If you were in the US, I would say that it's not feasible for a lot of people to get a doctor's note just to say that they are cleared to participate again, because most people can barely afford to go to a doctor when they actually have a problem, much less once the problem has gone away. Given that you're in the UK, though, I suppose that's less of an issue? I would second Bob's suggestion of checking with an attorney, just because there are some legal considerations when you get into medical documentation and private health information. In the end, though, it's up to you on whether you feel safe taking her back on as a student without the doctor's note. Normally, concussions can be recovered from in a matter of a few weeks, but if I recall the studies I saw several years ago correctly, that can be drawn out to many, many months if the concussed person isn't able to fully rest their brain, and I would guess that a 16 year old has probably been focusing quite a bit on school.

Different martial arts will place varying degrees of emphasis on both the "martial" and "art" portions of the term. Some tai chi is actually very hands-on and combative, although the majority may not be. If the origin of it is martial in nature, and it can still be trained in that manner, then the art is still a martial art, even if most people aren't training in it that way. At a certain point, though, I would say things become "martial-themed arts," such as XMA/tricking.

My favorite instance of alternative naming for techniques is chudan-soto-uke/chudan-uchi-uke. These are always two different techniques, but which name is applied to which technique changes from school to school and style to style, because there are two approaches to naming them: 1. Name the movement based on the direction it travels 2. Name the movement based on the part of the arm that is leading the movement I end up always having to clarify this when I'm teaching seminars, because I call the middle level receiver that moves to the outside "chudan-soto-uke" (middle level outside receiver), but many schools would call that "chudan-uchi-uke" (middle level inside receiver) because they are used to using the inside edge of the forearm to "block" things.

Thank you all, for the votes, and congratulations to all of the winners!

Welcome to the forum!

Welcome to the forum!

Congratulations, Bob, and thank you for all of your contributions to the community!

Sounds like good material to share, to me. I would certainly be interested in following along with it.

Welcome to the forum!

"Complete" is a bad word to use in terms of martial arts, because in order for a martial art to be "complete," literally, it would have to contain every possible fighting technique in existence, which is patently ridiculous. No martial art is, or can ever be, "complete." The only real way to use "complete" in relation to martial arts in a manner that makes any sense is with regard to direct transfer of a system from one person to another; was the "complete" curriculum of the system taught to the student, or not. Even then, though, we have to understand that people are flawed creatures, and also agents of change. I don't teach the exact same thing this year that I did three years ago, or three years before that. I am certain I have also forgotten things, while I've learned other things. Martial arts shouldn't be stagnant, unchanging, etched-in-stone curricula of combat, and I don't believe they ever were in the past, so we can't expect anyone to have learned the "complete" art from their teacher, because it was constantly evolving. The whole point was for the student to keep that evolution going. Now, a martial art can be "well-rounded," in the sense that it covers a wide range of combative ranges and contexts. In that sense, I would say that karate was, and for some people still is "well-rounded." Okinawa already had native fighting arts, and then it started blending with arts from China, Malaysia, Thailand, Korea, and Japan. Some people learned entire systems, as their instructor taught them at the time, and some didn't, but they all changed what they learned as they went, as well.

My late Sensei bought his on Okinawa, and it cost him around $200, IIRC. I can't say I've seen them for sale for less than that, here in the US, unless they are rather small. If a small one would work for you, I think I've seen a couple on Amazon. You could always build your own, as well?

As soon as you mentioned Matsumura Seito I had a pretty good idea. Not alot of the Okinawan based guys are doing kiko...and Ryan makes a heck of an impression with his iron body skill demonstrations! I have "known" Ryan for a long time. He and I both go back to the early days of the interwebs when websites were new and we were all on email mailing lists. I don't know if he would know me from "Adam" nowadays...it has been a while. The thing that struck me with what Ryan was (is) doing...at least that I am aware of, I can't claim to know all of his training and information...is that it seems to all be "hard" kiko. Meaning iron body and/or Golden Bell types of training. That is certainly a part of the qigong of [southern] China, but the softer portions seem to be "missing". Anyway, good to know that we both "know" some of the same people...or at least Ryan! LOL! It's a small world! I've only gotten to train with him for a weekend, when I hosted a training event, but we've had online discussions for years and years. He's somewhat more withdrawn from the internet in the past few, though. As I recall, he does incorporate internal kiko methods, but he ALSO practices Tibetan hatha yoga, and some related methods, so how much of a blend he does is hard for me to say. It'd be best to ask him directly.

His name would not be Ryan would it? It would, indeed! I actually suspected you may already be familiar with him--if you're not him, yourself, with the wonders of anonymity on the internet . In all fairness, I haven't had a conversation on kiko with him for many years, so my memory on it is a bit hazy.

My thought would be that every instructor emphasized different aspects of the arts they taught, and not everyone who trains karate is interested in kiko, today, so it stands to reason that not everyone would have been interested in it in the past. I have a friend who learned kiko from one of his Okinawan instructors (can't remember if it was Matsumura Seito or Ryukyu Kempo), and what he's explained to me seems pretty well systematized, so some lineages certainly have it. That said, I haven't seen many other people from his lineages doing it, so it would seem that only the people with an interest really took it on.