Sanchin

[Zaine]

I would definitely recommend learning it. In terms of movements, it's a short kata, I learned it in less than 30 minutes. In terms of growth, however, I feel that the return was far greater than the investment.

Well, I guess it'll be time to break that book out again, and do so.

A question for everyone here with Sanchin experience: if I were to look up some videos on YouTube, which would be good ones to reference?

I can't find the video I used to learn the kata, but here is a video I referenced when I started understanding it a bit better:

Since you are the type of person that likes to get into the information of a thing, here is Jesse Enkamp's first video about the history of the kata:

[sensei8]

Hey Brian,

Both personally and professionally, I've always encouraged those practitioners to search out any training videos by Morio Higaonna regarding to Sanchin because I don't think anyone can go wrong with any of his training videos.

Imho.

[bushido_man96]

Thanks to the both of you! I'll be looking into it, for sure.

[bushido_man96]

Update here, I'm beginning my journey in learning Sanchin. I'm starting by re-reading Kris Wilder's book, The Way of Sanchin Kata. There are lots of interesting discussion points and tidbits in this book, so many that I think this book could get it's own forum dissertation like the one started for Tao of Jeet Kune Do, especially after working on Sanchin itself. I'll be looking into some of the video references made earlier, too, after I finish reading the book.

[Zaine]

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.

[bushido_man96]

I think we could discuss the book in this thread here. I saw some things as i read along that jumped out at me a well. I'm still working through it, but we could get started.

[Zaine]

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.

[bushido_man96]

Wow, that's quite a lot to take in. Thanks for sharing it. Reading the book as an uninformed practitioner, I'm not sure on how to separate the wheat from the chaff. I agree with you on the Fibonacci Ratio explanation; it reminded me of General Choi's explanation on sine wave.

When it comes to the section on the mechanics of the movements for Sanchin, I've been trying to understand those. For instance, when he talks about getting the spine in the proper position for the kata. That doesn't appear very natural to me, so I'm trying to think about getting into that position and making sure I'm doing it right.

I think we could get into the weeds on the discussion of this book, and I'd like to do that. If you like, we could take it chapter by chapter, and see what we come up with. And any take you have on the performance of Sanchin along the way, I'd take to heart.

[Zaine]

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.

[bushido_man96]

I appreciate that response. I'll be sure to keep it in mind, and understand that I may struggle with it initially.

I look forward to your response to chapter 1. I think we'll generate some great discussion going forward!