Shorin Ryuu

From what is the best source on these sort of matters in my opinion (John Sells' book Unante: The Secrets Of Karate) the Passai Dai and Sho of Kobayashi Shorin Ryu and related styles (of Chibana Chosin lineage, who was a student of Itosu) are Tawada-Passai and Itosu Passai Dai. Itosu being Matsumura's student and teacher to many. Tawada was also a direct student of Matsumura and Chibana always taught that Tawada Passai was an authentic Matsumura kata. Shotokan's Bassai Dai and Sho are Itosu Passai Dai and Itosu Passai Sho. One of Funakoshi's teachers was Itosu, so this makes lots of sense. Thus, Bassai Dai and Kobayashi Shorin Ryu's Passai Sho should technically be the same, but I have seen them done quite differently. I've also had a chance to learn and forget Matsumura Shorin Ryu's Passai dai and sho. Their Sho (which backs up John Sells) was pretty similar to Kobayashi's Passai Dai. Edit: Sells states that Itosu's Passai Sho is his own innovation, thus making Bassai Sho an Itosu kata. He says the pattern and order of techniques are very similar to Matsumura Seito Passai Sho, but the intent of them looks markedly different.

That's fine. I was talking about any sort of kick. I just wouldn't recommend it. In fact, I would especially recommend against a front kick to the face. No offense, I just see it as very foolish.

You are much less likely to hyperextend your elbow and far more likely to have a more structurally sound punch if your elbow is still pointing downwards when you are at the point of greatest extension. Of course, I don't even do a full-turn punch, preferring to do a three-quarters or vertical punch instead. http://www.karateforums.com/viewtopic.php?t=14623 The concept of having the elbow relaxed and almost always pointing down as much as possible (at least not out, anyway) is extremely important in my opinion. It helps to structurally strengthen so many of your techniques, especially those involving grappling.

I can only answer your very last question. I've seen Japanese version of the Passai Kata (Bassai) and I didn't like them very much. I can't help you too much on your other questions, as I've noticed some versions are markedly different from the Okinawan ones. On the other hand, the Okinawan Passai kata are among my favorites. It is full of great fighting principles and techniques that I enjoy doing.

harleyt26, I'm going to throw my two cents in here. Personally, I'm not for all the showy movie sai replica or any of that. I find movies where the fighting and weapons usage is "fake" to be lamentable. However, if they really, really want to spend money and get themselves a pair of those kind of sai, I see no problem with it. If they wanted to use those sai in combat, then I would be concerned. It's obvious they just want them because they feel it looks nice. Again, I don't see anything wrong with that. I don't agree, but I don't think it's "bad". It's the same thing with people training in nunchaku just to do tricks, for example. I tell those people that there is a difference between what they do and practicality, but if they want to keep doing it, then who am I to care? I am happier if they understand the difference between that and the "real deal", but once again, unless they are doing all of that with the intent of saving their life one day, I don't let it get to me. It's also the same as when I see someone practicing a martial art I view as ineffective. I can talk to them, give them some advice, maybe even train with them to show them what I perceive to be the error in their ways. However, it's their life and their choice, and in a most John Stuart Mill sense, I've no right to infringe on that. In the end, let me say I agree with you one hundred percent. I think it is a waste to spend money on those sai and because of their likely crappy balance, a waste of time to train with them. But if they really want to, I guess there's not much to be done but shake our heads and smile.

Thanks. Very informative.

I will admit, I've seen many karateka, even within my style who are guilty of this separation in movement and the lack of double or triple simultaneous techniques. Most of these are lower ranking though. Once again, to toot the horn of more traditional Okinawan styles, there are also many that have more of the "Chinese" bent to them where things are blocked, broken and struck all at the same time. As I heard a Shotokan instructor say once "In Japanese karate we block, in Okinawan karate they break." I've also had numerous instructors say "There are no blocks in karate." This is all meaning that all the blocks are in fact strikes. I think part of the reason some of this was lost was when Okinawan karate began to be mass-produced in terms of teaching, they simplified many of its outward appearances because it was being taught in large numbers to schoolchildren or people they didn't necessarily have a deeper trust in. Taking this a step further, and perhaps more towards where you were addressing, the use of two handed techniques (where one hand blocks/strikes/parries/controls and the other hand strikes) is also found in the more traditional styles. The same goes for the two handed techniques in conjunction with leg techniques, all at the same time. I feel the more a style of karate is closer to its Okinawan and Chinese roots (with heavy grappling and close in-fighting), the more it will have these characteristics. But yes, I will concede the point that there are many karateka who do not do this, and this holds truer for lower ranking members than higher. But, if they want to do good karate, they should. I certainly want to. As far as striking at close distances, I am a bit surprised to hear that your karate acquaintances are poor at this. What style do they take (you can just pm me if you don't want to offend people)? Good karateka I've met in more Okinawan systems (okay, you can groan again) and even some Japanese systems have all been able to do this. I was trying to think of a modest way to say this, but I gave up. I certainly don't have a problem at hitting in close distances. A lot of what this boils down to is that there are a lot of poor quality karateka out there. I'm sad to say, I do not have the highest opinion of quite a few karate systems as a WHOLE (individual dojo quality can affect this). I don't want criticism to rain down on me, so they will go unnamed. There are a lot of good quality as well, but I think there are so many poor ones that it is not surprising to run into poor quality. I do it quite often, in fact. I'm certainly not the best, nor close to it at all, but I can recognize quality if I see it. Anyway, this large post can be boiled down to a single sentence: I feel most (not all) of the significant differences mentioned above between Chinese martial arts and karate are usually due to the observed karateka for whatever reason not "staying true" to what is truly meant by traditional Okinawan karate, which has had a heavy Chinese influence.

I think you underestimate the ability of a person to have critical thinking skills in approaching their art. One thing I like about my organization is that it has various camps throughout the year where people from all over the country and sometimes Okinawa go to train. Some of these camp have hundreds of yudansha ranks from just our system, let alone all the colored belts and guests. The instructors in the seminars are high ranking people in our system. Some camps also have guest instructors from other systems as well. It really is a way to "check out" other masters and methods within and without our system. It also opens up people's eyes who fall victim into the trap you mentioned where everything their sensei says is The Truth. It has been my experience that good teachers won't act like this, anyway. Like I mentioned in my other post above, there is no need to blindly accept everything your teacher says, nor is there any need to never accept training from other instructors or be exposed to other styles. But you have to have some sort of foundation before you branch outwards or experiment. Good, solid systems incorporate a wide, wide spectrum of concepts and principles, reducing the need to be a "style-hopper". For instance, I took a jujitsu class for a while. It was interesting to see things from a different perspective, but I found many of the principles were the same, negating the need to train in too many different places at once. Since we're talking about styles, let me mention that in terms of Okinawan karate, this notion of styles is a relatively new concept. For the most part, this was introduced by the Japanese in the early 1900s as it became popularized. Before then, people just said they learned Motobu's te or Itosu's karate or something along those lines. Masters trained with other masters. If someone was good at kicking, people would go to him and train for kicking, and another for punching. Not necessarily like this all the time, but there was a lot more sharing of information between "styles". Nowadays it is different, but I mentioned why I still see them as a good thing in my other post. Again, things like organizational camps where even outside instructors are welcome provide an opportunity to mimic the old sharing of information. I've never had a problem meeting with other people of other styles and discussing martial arts and training with them. It's fairly common practice. It's one of the reasons why I have a broad knowledge of many styles other than my own, simply because I have trained not just with one person from style A and style B, but because I've trained with many people from styles, A, B, C, D, etc... However, I still keep my foundation in the style I've been training in the longest. I've found many traditional karate teachers will often have friendships and share information with other teachers in and out of karate. Yes, styles are here. But they aren't as monolithic and rigid as most people perceive them to be. Good discussion though.

No problem. I'd recommend getting the book as well though.

Judging from your stream-of-consciousness post, it looks like you were hit pretty hard. But, in all seriousness, it is always better to be safe then sorry. The doctors told you to come back in if the pain gets worse, and you said the pain is getting worse. Therefore, I think you should go in. My thinking is skewed by the fact that I have all my health costs covered, but regardless, what's the worst that could happen if you went in? Edit: Despite my penchant for the use of commas and long sentences, I still think the use of punctuation is good every now and then.

I may have to check out that book you mentioned, P.A.L., as I haven't read that one yet. It does sound interesting. I would say that it would take a long time to master these techniques, like anything, but I don't believe it necessarily takes a long time to do these well. Certainly the pressure points would take a little while to be able to hit consistently, but a lot of the other manipulations are not as complicated in terms of theory. Resources that I have on more of the grappling aspect that I have found useful are The Bubishi (I have the George Alexander version, as far as I can tell, the McCarthy version is good too), several books by George Dillman (There is controversy surrounding how he got this knowledge, and I think some of the stuff he proclaims nowadays is a bit over the edge. However, he has done a lot of good scientific research on the subject.), some videos by George Dillman, and Comprehensive Applications of Shaolin Chin Na by Dr. Yang. There is also a video of Oyata (Ryukyu Kenpo) doing kata and demonstrating grappling applications of almost every single sequence. He is quite impressive. I'm not sure if it's in stores anymore though. The ones I use the most often are this video and the Bubishi. However, most of my practice has been in class or training with students outside of class. You can learn good academic knowledge elsewhere, but you really have to work with people to get this stuff down.

I don't believe there is one best style. However, I honestly can't believe "all styles are created equal". I think the most important function of an organization if there is going to be one is to provide "quality control" and to facilitate the learning process. Styles aren't perfect, and I know in the case of karate, they are a relatively new thing. However, you can not underestimate the individuality of the dojo per se and the benefit that experienced teachers can bring. I don't believe you have to rigidly train only one way and feel it is beneficial to train or at least be exposed to other methods (which really is what style means). However, styles as an organization provide a much-needed depth that many "style-hoppers" lack, in my opinion. You are right, in the end, it boils down to the individual practitioner in terms of who is better than the other. However, I see the division of schools as something healthy, provided it isn't taken to the utmost extremes.

As I mentioned in a few other posts (have the recent movies really made sai this popular all of a sudden?), the ones made by Peter Carbone are simply excellent. I think they are better balanced than Shureido sai (although the balance on Shureido sai is nice too). What's more, they actually look very, very beautiful as well. They cost about three hundred dollars though. I'd hold off on these until you are sure you really want to continue training in the sai. For anyone else who wants to buy them, leave him a phone message and an email for best results. http://www.weaponsconnection.com/

I've never bought the whole "sai were used to plant seeds" theory, because metal was very expensive back in those days, especially on a place like Okinawa. To think of it as a very common farming implement keeping in mind the relatively large amount of metal it required (most other farming implements used very little metal if they used it at all) always seemed a bit strange to me.

This question gets posted a lot, so it's a fairly common question people have and understandable you asked. I always tell them the same thing. If you want to use them, fine. But only use it for low stress activities such as walking. Using it while running is dangerous to the joints. Using it while kicking is extremely dangerous to the joints. You can perform the movements of kicking using ankle weights only if you do them slowly. I can not emphasize this enough. It's simply not worth the knee damage. In my case, back in my crazier days, I wore ankle weights all day long for about 9 months or so. I took them off during running and other activities that would stress the joints. I had five pounds on each leg and walked around all day with them. While I've always been more towards the lean muscle build of the spectrum, my ankles literally doubled in girth after that period, thanks to the continual low stress it produced. It really strengthened the connective tissue, making me to this day (years later) less vulnerable to things like ankle sprains.

No problem. Recently, I've been rather direct in my posts which has led to some people thinking I get upset or angry, when nothing is farther from the truth.

As in all my posts, this is indicative of systems, not individual dojo. Hmm, it would be quite extensive to list all the specific techniques we learn. I really hope this doesn't sound like a cop-out answer. But our training really does focus more upon the principles as opposed to comprehensive lists of specific techniques. Suffice it to say that most techniques end up in a throw/takedown while maintaining a lock of sorts or otherwise controlling the opponent. This includes lots of joint and muscle manipulation as well as pressure point manipulation. Thus wrist, elbow and shoulder manipulation are prevalent, as arms are a good target. Controlling the neck is also a big theme in many of the techniques. The kicking and leg techniques are lower in order to disrupt the balance of the opponent's foundation. Okinawans trained heavily in gripping exercises, as many techniques are supplemented in their effectiveness by literally grabbing the opponents flesh (muscle, skin, connective tissue, etc.) and incorporating that into various holds, locks and throws. Again, most throws would be performed after the opponent is incapacitated (unconscious, dead, etc.) Otherwise, the techniques can be more considered takedowns as Okinawans like to maintain continual contact with their opponent. I hope this mention of gripping and otherwise tearing or hurting the opponent in this manner will not lead you to believe it is all "hard" per se. In fact, much of Okinawan karate is very soft, even in techniques where these things occur. There is less of a tendency to go down with the opponent, as fighting on the ground was viewed as dangerous (especially with multiple opponents who may or may not have had weapons). All the same, as the emphasis is on principles rather than specific techniques, they can be easily adapted to ground fighting. I've never had a problem doing that (against wrestlers, judoka, etc.). In fact, the current head of my style for North America used to be on the Marine Corps judo team (he would often get disqualified for cheating...but he never lost). All the same, the grappling emphasis isn't due to him, but the centuries old tradition of grappling in Okinawan karate. In fact, I believe traditional Okinawan karate to be centered heavily around the takedown. The strikes are good, and if you can end a fight with just those, it is all well and good (and many of the old masters did). However, a critical analysis of the kata will demonstrate the proliferation of grappling techniques. If anything, Okinawan karate really is a mixture of striking and grappling. This wide spectrum is one of the main reasons why I am a great advocate of it. The sad fact of it is, however, that there are many karate dojo out there which I have felt have lost a good deal of their original heritage of grappling. While many of these tend to be the more Japanese styles, there are Okinawan styles that are guilty of this as well. Anyway, if you wish me to be more specific, please ask.

STR33T GUY offers some good advice. In fact, it sounds awfully similar to a move from some kata (Passai Dai or Kusanku Dai) in my system. I've used that bunkai (application) numerous times before against rather large people with pleasing results.

Yikes. I wouldn't recommend kicking someone in the face who is charging towards you. Kicking his waist or lower isn't necessarily a bad thing though. As mentioned before by others, getting out of the way is your best bet. I only went on about that double punch because I wanted to discuss some structural details I felt were a bit off.

Perhaps I was a bit off topic. I was just responding to a post I felt was addressing one of the things I feel strongly about (gross generalizations and misconceptions about karate). In fact, we are both quite in agreement. (Wallace did train a bit in Shorin Ryu, afterall ) I agree that he was a great kickboxer. I think my message was a bit misunderstood, then. I wasn't really talking about style vs. style at all (karate vs. boxer/kickboxer). I was trying to address the fallacy in logic I perceived in this: I then offered an alternative response in the event I misunderstood what he was trying to say. Again, at issue wasn't whether a karateka could beat a boxer or not (although it was implied they could not), but that karateka who remain true to their roots do have a good deal of close quarter grappling training. That's all.

Upset? Not hardly. I was just trying to figure out what was going on (I realized what I was saying was markedly different from everyone else, and thus was probably using different terminology). The only reason I kept on posting was simply because I was saying it wasn't a version of the crescent kick, either. I also wanted to justify what I mentioned earlier, because it clearly was a different kick (and thus my comments would've sounded quite odd without any justification). When I said I wasn't really going to get hung up over the name, I really did mean it.

Tatoos just aren't for me. Not that I'm against them or anything, it's just not my thing. I've seen multiple people in my style have a tattoo with just the name of my style in kanji. I figure my well-forged body and dashing good looks will be enough to distinguish me. Well, in my dreams anyway.

That's strange. I was always under the impression that many karate schools and Chinese schools pride themselves on their grappling. Perhaps more modern emphasized karate does not, but Okinawan karate schools that remain to true to their roots do. You say that no other school ... etc. can compare to a boxer in his element...the ring. In that case, if a wrestler (or judoka or something...I still hold by my assertion that traditional karate is saturated with grappling) fought a boxer in the ring using boxing rules, I can't imagine he would fare that much better (if not much, much worse). On the other hand, if you were simply stating that a grappler is the only person who could stand up against a boxer/kickboxer in a fight without rules, then your original framework (the boxer in the ring) does not apply. In this case, I would say those that train without rules (karate grapplers for example) would fare better. As a note, I did box in college. Why did I quit eventually? Apart from the health effects of cutting weight, it wasn't a complete enough combative discipline for me. Sure, it was fun, demanding and rewarding. Sure, there were those that could more than well defeat me in the ring. Outside of the ring is an entirely different matter.

Forgive me, I don't quite understand that part. At any rate, it seems you and quite a few other people (from just a google image search) refer to what you are saying as an uramawashigeri. I still learned it by a different name, but that's fine by me. I'm not going to hang up over the name. In that case, just disregard what I was saying about it being a uramawashigeri and just pretend I was talking about a different (and far more effective in my opinion) kind of kick... Edit:Meaning it's not a uramawashigeri and most certainly not an uramikazukigeri

Please do. I am so glad I have myself a pair. Edit: As a piece of advice, it is best to call Mr. Carbone up and leave a message on his answering machine as well as email him. He travels quite frequently.