Zaine

It's definitely a journey. I started this journey before I got on medication for ADHD, Depression, and Anxiety. It was a lot harder to do without medication, but I did see improvement in my life. I don't think that Zen asks that we get rid of things like anger and anxiety. As negative as these are, they have some use. More than that, the idea that we could strip ourselves of these things is silly. What I think that Zen does is that it gives us the tools to recognize these emotions or instances of anxiety and make better decisions during your experience with these emotions. It's not about letting go. It's about having better tools. I would stick with it! I think that you will benefit from doing so.

Certainly not. Not every practitioner and sensei can be good, the numbers just don't account for it. This is normal. There has always been, and always will be, schools that don't uphold a certain standard of excellence that others might. Is it unfortunate? Absolutely. In a perfect world, this wouldn't be the case. I would love to see every school doing its absolute best to make sure that the students got a quality, practical education. I wouldn't take your experience as the norm. There will always be schools and students who don't give their all. This just makes those that do give their all shine all the brighter.

Nice! I'm happy to hear that you found something that works for you, even if it might need some modifications.

Yes, karate uses fa jin. The idea, for those not in the know, is that the practitioner is relaxed and then suddenly throws a technique with explosive power. Think of the one-inch punch as an example of this. You suddenly focus all the kinetic energy you can create from the ground up to, and out of, the fist. I would say that a lot of two person work deals with fa jin. In my experience, the receiver of the attack remains relaxed and ready. Once the attacker throws the technique, the receiver then moves with explosive power to parry, block, or dodge that technique and issue a counter. We teach students to be relaxed because it allows them to move faster and maintains their endurance. Even in sparring, the idea is that the combatants should remain relaxed until they attack or receive. This also helps the student spar for longer periods of time, while alleviating chance of injuries.

I think that I would add the Pinans and Empi Take/Iwa to your list. The Pinan series introduce a lot of concepts important for later kata. The Empi series uses elbows and teaches you to become comfortable with doing so in self-defense situations.

Congrats! Well deserved!

I would say that it is more like a natural step forward, if a little smaller.

I agree here, and I love the insight into Uechi, which focuses Sanchin throughout its curriculum. If I'm understanding you correctly, I think that approach of Uechi-Ryu is similar to how I see it. It is less a kata that requires a breakdown of bunkai, and more one that supports and informs the breadth of what it is that karate is for you. It takes the forefront of practice. I know that Uechi has a saying that everything is Sanchin (or comes back to Sanchin). In this, it makes sense that the practice of Sanchin is separate. It requires a different kind of study that other kata do not. Do I have this right? Or am I misinterpreting something here?

You make great points here, aurik. The legacy of hojo undo and the strengthening of the body outside of martial practice goes very deep. In part, the introduction puts me off in no small way because it starts off with so much misinformation. It frustrates me as a writer, as well. I write fiction, and even then I do so much research to make sure that what I am making up is faithful to the history of the genre or world. It really seems like this guy just came in with a bunch of preconceived notions and a lot of audacity and went ham.

I'm not a huge meditation person either, but doing a meditation through movement really connects with me. Maybe it's the ADHD, but I just can't stay still for long enough to meditate in what we think of as the traditional way. However, applying focus and centering myself through movements practiced 1000+ times is really helpful, especially when I am having bad days. I was recently at a dojo that largely practices Korean karate (the base of their system is Korean, but they also mix in Japanese influences and kata) and they had the same issue as you are having with the steps. I come from an Okinawan system, where the steps are shallower, so it was a little easier for me to get in line with the steps. That said, Sanchin Dachi is even a little shallower than what I was used to so it took some time to get into that rhythm.

Thanks for the review!

Chapter 2: Learning by Emulation and Repetition My feelings on this chapter was that it could have been one page. In the margins of this chapter, I wrote "We don't have to explore every metaphor." This is, as previously mentioned, a critique that I have about this book overall, but this chapter really falls into the trap of over-explanation. As something of a petty aside, his note on Pax Romana is incredibly simple. On page 5, Wilder states: This is apropos of nothing, in the realm of karate or Sanchin, but the Pax Romana was a much more complicated machine than just military practice. The economic boom of the Pax Romana played a really big part in it. It wasn't just the threat of military action, it was also that the vassal states had little reason to rebel against such riches as the Romans were offering, which they could get themselves. Petty tangent over. The message of this chapter is that repetition and emulation are key to learning. He'll get no argument for me here. Latin has a saying: Repititio mater memoriae. Repetition is the mother of memory. People have often remarked that I learn kata really quickly. A part of that is because I know so many kata already, and the more kata you know, the easier it is to learn new kata. That's why learning kata is scaffolded like it is, with most of the beginning kata being shorter than the ones we learn later. The other reason is that I practice it over an over again. I emulate what I have seen to make sure that my technique is good. It's solid advice. However, Wilder writes something that I am struggling with, a little. On page 5 and 6, he writes: I have 2 issues here. The first is that I don't believe that Sanchin is a kata that is good for self defense. I think that it is a kata that is good for meditation. I also think that it is a kata that enhances the understanding of your other kata. My kata practice exploded when I learned Sanchin because it fundamentally changed the way that I approached kata itself. Perhaps I am misunderstanding Wilder's point here, and we agree with one another. I would certainly have liked him to elaborate on this point, over others. The second is that, philosophically speaking, I'm not sure that I'm on board with the idea that Sanchin moves slowly for the purposes of education. It definitely helps for the educational purposes of learning Sanchin. It makes it hard to make mistakes. However, I think the dynamic tension of Sanchin teaches its own lesson. It requires you to be in the moment. It requires that you focus only on what you are doing now. In that, it also teaches you to do the same with other kata. Too often, I find myself not being in the moment with other kata, and instead thinking towards what's next. One of the reasons that I train kata so repeatedly, especially now, is to achieve that state of Mushin during the performance. It's so that I can just be in the kata as it happens instead of thinking ahead. That, in my view, is the educational purpose of Sanchin. It's about achieving Mushin/Zen and working more in the moment.

One can still be in pursuit of something without there being a grade attached to it. The seeking of knowledge is the thing. The dan grades, at best, represent where you are on that path and, at worst, exist as a political tool within the confines of a dojo or organization. Why wait to learn a kata until you can test if you're already ready to learn that kata? The barriers between the dan ranks are arbitrary and too often exist only to line the pockets of an instructor.

Bodhidharma is an interesting figure, for sure. The source for his transmission of the exercises is apocryphal and doesn't show up until the 17th century in Yijin Jing. In fact, as far as I can tell, most scholars are at best doubtful as to whether Bodhidharma taught the Shaolin Monks these movements at all. It's certainly referred to as myth and legend enough times for me to give pause to the claim. At the very least, I don't personally believe that Bodhidharma taught the Shaolin martial exercises. My guess, assuming that he taught them anything of physical exercise, is that he taught them something more akin to Qigong or Yoga, and then the Shaolin developed their techniques from there. I think it's probably more likely that the Shaolin developed it independently.

I disagree. I think the abolition of higher dan ranks doesn't mean that black belt isn't the beginning. Just because there are no more trail markers doesn't mean that there isn't a trail to walk.

Interestingly, I find this sentiment to be prevalent in karate circles. I remember my first sensei telling me something similar, and then hearing it from others around me. The reasoning was varied, from "it makes you slow" to "it makes you more sensitive to attacks." It always struck me as odd, as well. Why wouldn't you want to do bodybuilding? Why wouldn't strengthening your muscles be anything but a boon to anyone doing martial arts? If throwing a punch takes good rooting and uses the back muscles more than the arm, then common sense says to make sure to strengthen your legs and back. If I have trouble keeping my balance when kicking, then common sense says that I need to strengthen my core. I came to your same conclusion, no strength training advice from Martial Artists. None whatsoever. I think that Wilder is just grouping a possibility, as you say. Even within that realm of possibility, however, the chances seem slim. We don't really know what, exactly, Bodhidharma taught the Shaolin, just that he seems to have taught them an exercise regimen that evolved into kung fu and karate. I'm of the opinion that anyone claiming to know something that came directly from Bodhidharma was either lied to, or is actively lying about the origins of their techniques. Is Wilder lying? I don't think so. I think that he's regurgitating legends that he has heard many times over. A big problem with documenting the history of martial arts in general is that so much is myth and legend, and I don't think Wilder is to blame for believing this particular story. That said, I would have liked him to be more critical. Some kata we know the origins of. Pinan/Heian was created by Anko Itosu, Kusanku seems to have been created by Matsumura Soken, etc. However, there are a plethora of kata that we don't know the origin to, Sanchin being one of them. Wilder alludes to this in this chapter, but doesn't do the critical scholarship necessary to, at the very least, give us the other stories. I understand that this is the story that Wilder believes or wants to believe, but a book like this should offer up all sides of the story so that the reader can make their own critical assessments.

Chapter 1: The History of the Sanchin Kata Something notable here, before I get into the bulk of the chapter itself, is that Wilder has a penchant for analogies. I think that this hurts him in a lot of places throughout the books, where it seems that he often becomes too focused on this-or-that comparison and his point gets away from him. A great example of this is on the first page of the chapter, where he makes an analogy about the Civil War. The paragraph adds nothing, and it comes off as an attempt from the author to seem intelligent but falls flat. If he makes later additions, I would hope his editor advises that he omits many of these comparisons. Another pre-analysis gripe that I have is that he really needs to cite his sources when talking about history. He goes, briefly, over the history of Bodhidharma and, as a scholar myself, there needs to be something of a paper trail. It's fine if these are just things he knows, but he needs to back it up with the scholarship. He opens himself up to legal issues if his words are too close to someone else's without proper credit given. It also gives the reader a place to go for further research. He gives some citations, but they are insufficient and often incomplete. I should be seeing specific books or papers cited when it comes to historical references. For example, he writes "During Bodhidharma's time, people often would come to the temple for may reasons . . . Many were turned away" (Wilder 2). Where is he getting this information? Where can I research this claim? It's not that I disbelieve him, it's that there is probably a source for his information. He should be giving that source. I think that the history Wilder gives here is good. It seems to line up, more or less, with other claims that I have seen made, namely that Sanchin can be traced back to Bodhidharma's journey and the lessons he gave to the Shaolin Monks. Others, such as Jesse Enkamp, make similar claims. He also mentions that forms within Kung Fu that seem to be the progenitors of the kata. In my research, I have found similar claims (albeit backed by sources). Wilder makes a case for the necessity of change on page 3, saying "[T]he key concept of change is context. If change is a result of suiting the needs of the practitioner enacting the change, it may well be credible. However, change can result from mistranslation of a movement, or a misunderstanding of the intent behind a form or an element. While some changes are credible . . . others are accidental." I found this refreshing, as a number of books and articles I have read recently seem to abhor change within a martial art. I know those in this forum tend to gravitate towards the opinion that change is good, but running into traditionalists (I call them this for lack of a better term) can be a little tiring. In this need for change, Wilder also mentions the existence of two branches of Sanchin. One which turns, and one that does not. I practice the one that does not, but have seen the other performed many times. I would have like a deeper dive into these two branches of Sanchin. What are Wilder's thoughts on the history here? Wilder's own version, found in Chapter 26, is one that turns. Are there certain styles that prefer the turning and others that don't? What does that lineage look like? These are the unanswered questions that I was left with and, as I recall, later chapters fail to pick this point back up. In the end, if we're going to have a chapter about the history of Sanchin, I want it to be meatier. This seemed to be a summary. I understand that there is a desire to move the narrative and not wanting to belabor a point, but I feel that this is a subject that the author could have spent more time on. Finally, he defines the benchmarks for success in doing the Sanchin kata. I might have ordered them differently, but if we're going to benchmark any kata, I think that these are a good baseline. Even then, I think that my ordering would be a personal reflection of my journey. I would put Mushin higher, for example.

Yeah, I can post my in depth of chapter 1 a little later, after work. The stance and spine posture do take a little getting used to, in my experience. I still struggle with it. Everything in my training wants me to be upright, and hunching makes it seem like I'm doing something wrong. I'm still trying to wrap my head around the function of the posture.

I had never heard of it before. My guess is that it has to do with the fact that Bujin TV has a price tag, and YouTube does not. Martial Artists are generally untrusting of any information that one can get online through video. We tend to believe that the only quality training is done in person. While this is not entirely true, it does carry with it a lot of wisdom. It is helpful for new students to have someone there to train out bad habits. Experienced students have an easier time with online learning because they've already had that instructor relationship and have developed good habits. I am an example of this. I no longer have an instructor to teach me new things. I learn new kata and techniques from videos and apply them to my training as I see fit. I just learned Hamahiga no Tonfa in this way. The thing about that is that I learned it for free via YouTube. Would Bujin TV have been a better place to learn that? Maybe. Am I comfortable paying $12.99 to find out? Not really.

Broadly, I would have liked to see some citations. Wilder makes a lot of claims here and does nothing to back them up. For example, in the preface he mentions that old karate masters "learned sanchin kata and maybe one or two other forms." I'm not sure where he gets this information, or the data for other claims made later, and knowing why he says that would be nice. The book is a proponent of a lot of karate myth and legend that Wilder seems to have taken as truth. I don't mind him being a proponent of these things, or sharing these legends in general. I would, however, appreciate a nod to these being myth and legend. Passing them off as fact degrades the confidence that the informed reader has in the information, whether or not that information is sound. He further shows that he has done poor research when he mentions Descartes in the Introduction. It does not seem that he is familiar enough with Descartes to talk about the impact of his philosophy and is only using a small portion of it to make a point that I don't think Descartes would have agreed with. He spends some time on the mind-body-spirit connection (in relation to Descartes), which is, in my opinion, at the crux of what Sanchin is about. Sanchin, in its dynamic tension and inherent "slowness" of movement, forces us to abandon all thoughts of past and future and exist in the moment. It is a very Zen driven kata, in this, because it requires concentration. When I do Sanchin, I am existing not as someone who is worried about the future, or overly-concerned with the past, but as someone who is doing Sanchin. This is why I do Sanchin when I am feeling stressed. It's a great way to align the mind, body, and spirit into a single moment to allow for better perspective. I don't feel that Wilder spends enough time talking about this aspect of Sanchin. Instead, he talks about the mechanical peculiarities of the body. Unfortunately, it is clear that he does not have a very firm grasp on biomechanics. He writes about things like the Fibonacci Ratio and tries to jam that into the understanding of this kata but those attempts ultimately fall flat. Furthermore, in times that he does make good points about karate and Sanchin in general in this first section, he does so in a way that is convoluted. It feels like a Freshman college student trying to make a specific word count. His information on the actual performance of Sanchin is solid. It gets lost in all the other stuff. His chapter on breathing, for example, was informative and useful. I just don't understand why I had to read so much about concepts that he failed to effectively link to the kata to get to that chapter. His chapter on the mind could have been more philosophically driven, yet he spends the chapter discussing brain waves. While this may be interesting, I don't feel that having knowledge about Alpha, Beta, Delta, and Theta brainwaves enhances my understanding of Sanchin. Overall, this book was a miss for me. I would have loved a shorter book with tightly packed information about the philosophy and performance of and behind Sanchin. Instead, I got Wilder's poor explanations of how the body works and how he tried to shoehorn that into an understanding of the kata.

That's fine with me.

That's awesome, Brian. I took a lot of notes on the book, so if you are inspired to create a thread about it, then I definitely have a lot to say. I wasn't overall impressed with the information given in the first half of the book. I think it contained a lot of inaccuracies and pseudo-science. However, I found the latter half to have a lot of solid discussion on the mechanics of the kata itself.

I think it's pertinent to mention that adults like shiny things as much as kids do. The thing that adults have that kids don't is the ability to temper expectations and be swayed by cooler heads. I think the question, in this case, should be "What kind of attitude do we want adult black belts to engender?" I have spent the last 14 years as a Shodan and have been happy with that. It wasn't until I opened my own school that I began to desire a higher rank, for the sake of my students. I've spent that 14 years, off and on, enriching my own journey as a martial artist. Branching out and learning different philosophies and techniques has been a joy, and I don't feel weird telling people that I am still a Shodan after all this time. Rank doesn't matter to me, my experience does. I feel like it's a place that a lot of people reach at one point or another. Rank is not who we are, experience is. Rank, in a perfect world, exists only as a visual marker of that experience. However, as you pointed out, it often exists as a political tool. It serves only to show a hierarchy of power in too many organizations. Do they have the right experiences? Do they have the right temperament? These questions are thrown to the wayside when rank is a purely political thing. I agree with, all things said. The abolition of yudansha would be what is best for karate, I think, in general.

I agree with your indignation, here. For me, I always learned that kata without bunkai, the practical applications of these movements that we spend so much time learning, is just dancing. Karate is about self-defense, and saving those applications seems like a situation in which students are being held back from the core idea of karate. I can see how this is frustrating, as well. It would frustrate me greatly. That exploration of concept should be baked within the core of the testing structure. It helps students understand what is going on, and gives them a better grounding on what it is that they are doing. The benefit of that is not only a deeper interest in the techniques that one is doing, but it also does the job of test preparation for you, without worrying about having classes gear specifically toward that. It's a problem that my last dojo had, as well, where most classes were geared towards what someone needed to test next. My favorite classes there were those that taught me the techniques and concepts of the things that I was already learning. Students will be ready when they are ready, and classes geared towards a testing cycle are only going to give students shallow knowledge of the source material.

I feel the same about kata. I often will do kata when I am frustrated with a problem as a way to clear my mind and gain better focus. I think that it largely depends on the type of emotional attachment when culling things from our lives. Does that attachment create positivity, or does it cause us to dwell negatively on the past? For some things, the stress of losing that thing can create negative experiences (i.e. a toy from childhood) while others can remind one of good times while helping them to align themselves in the moment or point them towards a desired future. For example, I have my degree hung in my office and they help me maintain focus on my goals for the future.