Zaine

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.

Congrats! Well deserved!

I have signed up!

Congrats! I'm so happy that you feel pleased with the test and the result!

Good luck today! You're going to rock it!

Either is fine with me, though the use of an app would mean that I am more likely to keep up with the season. If both have an app, then dealer's choice.

Welcome to KF! It's great to have you!

Rotisserie sounds great to me if that's what you think is the best.

Welcome to KF! It's great to have you!

I have also been focusing on zen recently. Hyams' book Zen and Martial Arts is a great read, if you haven't already. I agree that happiness lies within us. However, given what you described I don't know that I would be happy. I already practice karate every day for at least an hour. I take great joy in it. Outside of this, I read a lot of literature based on martial arts. If karate was all I had to occupy my time with, however, I think that I would grow quite bored of it, regardless of my deep passion. I would need books, personally, as well as other means of exercise and occupying my time. I already don't really watch TV, but I do structure my life around my phone. It has my calendars, notes, and daily reminders that help me be more in the moment. That is the crux, I think. For me, my phone helps me exist more in the moment. It helps me be better at practicing zen because it allows me to put the task of remembering the daily minutiae to something else. The thing about things, in general, is that they don't create happiness. I cannot be happy with everything in the world if I am not fulfilled. However, if I am fulfilled and content with my life, these things do enhance that happiness. They create moments between the vast nothingness that would otherwise be there. Do I need to have book to survive? No. But books help make surviving worth the struggle. Having been in a mode in which I was only surviving with no leisure time, I can say quite confidently that our activities in our leisure time is what makes the 9-5 (or whatever the schedule) worth suffering. All of this to say, I think that the desire for no desire, or the idea that zen is achieved with minimalist behaviors, is something of a misnomer. I certainly think that cutting things from your life that you no longer need is a step along the path of self-actualization, but to say that it is the end-all is a step too far. Your hobbies and the things that you do in between work and sleep can relate heavily to this journey of zen. It can teach you to be in the moment. To enjoy things as they are, and not as you wish them to be. I practice zen when I run, but it also exists in the back of my mind when I am doing something like playing a video game. Allowing myself to abandon outer thoughts for an hour is great and that is assisted by my electronics and phones keeping track of my time for me. It allows me to be more focused, and to give into the moment at hand. This, in turn, allows me to feel fulfilled with what I have done, and grant more attention to the next task.

I am awful at keeping up with Fantasy sports, but if you need a player, then I am in!

Welcome to KF! It's great to have you! I look forward to your contributions.

Congrats!

Very much so. It's also worth noting that you can do the plays in reverse. Performing a stretto play into a largho one is a great way of covering yourself while gaining distance. I am 6' 1, and so I'm more comfortable with a larger range due to my long limbs. Using plays to create distance so that I may attack is a great tool in my box that I used frequently.

When I am learning new things, I often try to relate them to other things that I have learned. In the case of HEMA, that relation is to my extensive background in Eastern Martial Arts. This has advantages and disadvantages. On the one hand, there are a lot of similarities of movements between Fiore's plays and the drills and kata that I have learned. The body can only move in so many different ways. On the other, sometimes I miss the little idiosyncrasies of a specific style due to my familiarity with the bio-mechanics of the movement. However, in this case, it was exactly my past experiences that made Fiore's swordplay click for me. The name of the game is flexibility. Fiore gives 3 ways of slicing in Il Flor di Battaglia. The Colpi Fendenti, Colpi Sottani, and Colpi Mezani. However, the ways of getting to these blows is varied. He gives you 20 guards from which you may begin and separates those in 2 categories, stable and instable. The stable ones are ones in which your arms are close to your body, or that could take a blow and you could parry with a strong rebuke. The instable ones are ones in which you are extended and, in my experience, tend to be positions that come at the end of a clash. For example, posta longa is a guard in which you would naturally end a thrust of the sword in. Fiore then further separates the guards into those that are powerful, i.e. you can make a powerful strike from them; fluid, i.e. mobile and dexterous; and fixed, i.e. somewhere in between, where you can't as easily move it around, and it isn't as powerful. After this breakdown, we have the zogho largo and stretto plays, long and short range respectfully. These are numerous, taking up the largest section of the manuscript. Why does it take up the largest? Well, aside from it being largely what Fiore was concerned with in the first place, and the most common knightly weapon at the time, there is just so much that you can do with a sword. Hence, my earlier observation about flexibility. Fiore gives such a large number of plays because the idea here is flexibility of movement and options. A big toolbox is a boon to any martial artist. I may, in my sparring, default to only a number of moves as a baseline, but having a large toolbox is beneficial because it gives me options over the choices of my opponents. Pulling some obscure move out of the toolbox in an important moment is the difference between victory and defeat, and when the stakes are life and death, as was the case in some duels with the sword, then one must be ready for anything. In this, it struck me as important to practice ad nauseam every play, so that during sparring practice (if I ever become so lucky again) I may have the advantage over my opponent.

Congrats!