End of summer training.....

We’re getting towards the end of summer training now – just one more week to go…

Summer training was a concept my instructor introduced to our club a few years ago to help deal with the drop in student numbers over the summer holiday period.  Basically, the junior and senior classes are merged into one all summer. For the senior students this means starting classes an hour earlier than usual and for junior students its means they get 1.5 hour classes instead of just 1 hour.

There are obviously pros and cons to merging the classes this way. Sensei has to design lessons that suit the entire spectrum of students from white to black belts and from 6 year olds to middle-aged people. This is almost an impossible task and there are generally winners and losers. The main winners are probably the mid-graders, particularly the older children and adults as the classes are pitched much more to their level. The main losers are probably those at the extremes of the class – the youngest lower grades and the older senior grades.

It has been a challenge for sensei to get the right balance for these classes to ensure everyone gets something out of them. In previous years (in my opinion) the balance has been too much in favour of the children with lots of drills, sparring and games to keep the kids interested. However, this year sensei managed to pick a formula that has worked better for adults too.

We have spent the entire summer focussing on basic kihon and its relationship to the pinan katas, including bunkai. All of us benefit from really drilling the kihon and I mean really drilling the kihon – until you’re dripping with sweat and your legs feel like lead! Our younger or more junior members are particularly benefiting from this as there is plenty of scope for improvement in their basics but we  more senior students are also getting some insights into how to improve our body alignment and correct some simple mistakes or bad habits in our execution of kihon.  I particularly appreciate the opportunity to do this as I was pulled up on some fundamental errors in my basic kihon at my pre-dan course a couple of months ago. I’ve particularly been working on my spinal alignment and hip positioning over the summer and it’s all starting to feel much more natural now to tuck my pelvis under more during stance transitions.

We have also spent every lesson going through all the pinan kata in detail to improve both our performance of the kata but also the understanding of the applications of the kata in the form of ‘pinan drills’. This has been particularly suitable for the more senior students who value the opportunity to work on applications and benefit the most from doing so.

The classes have been very physically demanding all summer.  The warm-ups have been more like demanding work-outs and some of us oldies could have done with a warm-up before the warm-up! We have then gone straight into a demanding kihon session for about 20 minutes before being allowed a drink – and it’s been unusually hot weather here for a change. Then we’ve done all the kata several times each which, as you know, can be a workout in itself. This high-paced, physically demanding karate has suited the teenagers and older children best, though having said that the only students who have had to sit down because they felt ill have been teenage boys. We oldies stoically endure the discomfort so as not to be upstaged by some young pretenders (but we’ve been quietly feeling like death inside).

As Abraham Lincoln said: “You can please some of the people some of the time all of the people some of the time some of the people all of the time but you can never please all of the people all of the time.”  This has been true of these summer classes. On a personal level I am fairly easy to please most of the time so although these summer classes have been a bit of a beasting, on the whole I have enjoyed them and have got a lot out of them. Other students have found them less enjoyable and some students have avoided them altogether. I have missed not being able to work on the stuff that is more relevant to my forthcoming dan grading so I have had to work on that on my own at home but the classes are not all about me and I know that I will be getting plenty of attention as the grading draws closer.

We have one more week of the summer classes and then we will be back to our usual schedule and hopefully back to more application based karate and less fitness based karate.  The kids and junior grades will have gained a lot from working with the seniors and will have gleamed some insight into what to expect as they move up the ranks but will ultimately be better off returning to their normal classes where the pace is a little easier for little ones. Likewise the seniors should all be a lot fitter and sharper with their basics and understanding of the pinan katas but will be grateful to return to their usual training patterns.  

Does the style of your training change over the summer months? What do you think about it?

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Some eclectic karate musings....

Sorry I haven’t blogged in a while, it’s just been a busy time with holidays (had a week in Malta – very nice, and a weekend visiting a vineyard – yes we can make wine here); decorating (new bathroom and decorating my son’s bedroom); gardening to catch up on now that summer has finally arrived (and is about to disappear again); weekend visitors and various other things.

In karate terms: my husband passed his 2^nd dan for which I partnered him; I’ve just finished teaching my after-school karate classes for the summer and I’ve been covering some club classes while my instructor has been on holiday.

So, this post is an eclectic mix of thoughts that I have mulled over in my mind over the last couple of months…..

1.       I’ve had a hard time shaking off the disappointment I felt at not dan grading with my husband in June. It’s silly, I know, but I’ve experienced a whole roller coaster of emotions about it over the last few weeks from disappointment to anger to resignation back to anger. It’s ridiculous I should have felt like this. My head told me to wait until November but my heart wanted to do it in June. Attending the grading with my husband was a really hard day emotionally, particularly at the beginning when everyone started warming up and again at the end when certificates were presented. A lesson in humility I suppose. During the actual grading I was okay and I just got on with supporting my husband who did a really good grading. I’m on a more even keel again now and looking towards my own 2^nd dan grading in November.

2.       Why do students find it so hard to learn stances? I’ve been doing a lot of teaching recently and I’m always constantly amazed at how sloppy many students are with stances. You can tell them until you are blue in the face to ‘bend the front knee (in zenkutsu dachi)’, or ‘bend the back leg’ (in neko ashi dachi) and they still don’t do it – even at brown belt! When you watch them do kata above the waist they are looking pretty good but watch their legs and there is hardly any attempt to use the proper stances at all. I’ve tried getting them to do a basic kata such as pinan nidan with their arms behind their backs so that they just have to concentrate on their legs but they still just walk through the pattern with hardly any discernible stances! Do you have any effective ways to teach stances?

3.       I think I have found the source of my leaning problem in karate. This problem raised its ugly head again during my pre-dan (it has plagued me for years!). However, my husband seems to have pinpointed the subtle thing that I am doing wrong and I am practising hard now to correct it. It appears that when I am transitioning between stances during kihon combinations or kata I am slightly hyper-extending my back and pushing my hips forward. You would think that this would make me lean backwards but it actually results in me leaning forward slightly when I change stance. I also think it makes my stance transitions slower because my weight is not correctly balanced between my feet and there is a slight pause before I can move. My husband said that I need to tuck my pelvis under more to straighten my spine (like you do in sanchin dachi). When I try doing this in zenkutsu dachi I can get my hip back more and step forward more quickly because my weight is more evenly balanced. I also don’t lean as I step forward. I am now practising to make this feel a more natural movement and hopefully some of my other problems may disappear at the same time i.e. leading slightly with the hand rather than the foot and occasionally losing balance.

As you can see my karate seems like a series of highs and lows at the moment, but that’s par for the course isn’t it.?We’re on a long journey, not in a race. It’s normal to have training plateaus, move forward, slide back again, have Eureka moments or discover small flaws in technique that are holding you back. Keeping going is the most important thing and not letting disappointments blow you of course.

So I am keeping going – I have started training daily, i.e. a little and often strategy. I find training about 7.15 in the morning the best time for me. If I’m not in the gym by 8.00am then in my heart of hearts I know it will not happen! The day will take over and I won’t get around to it, so I’m trying to be very disciplined with myself. I’m determined to crack the problems that plague my karate and stopped me from grading last month.

The biggest battle we all face really is the one inside ourselves isn’t it?

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Karate punching is like swimming...

Image from:
https://www.boundless.com/
physics/the-laws-of-motion/
newton-s-laws/
the-third-law-symmetry-in-forces/

How many times has your sensei told you that the power of your punch should originate from the ground? That you draw power from the ground and then transmit it up your legs, through the hips and torso and down your arm. You believe him/her because you respect them, they have years more experience than you and they can punch harder than you (and you should believe them because it’s basically true) but you can’t quite get your head around why it should be true.

Drawing power from the ground gives karate a mystical, magical quality as if Mother Nature herself is giving you some ‘power assist’. If, like me, you tend to prefer more rational explanations then it’s easy to think that drawing energy from the ground sounds like twaddle.  But it isn't twaddle; it can be explained by the laws of physics.

I have recently been privileged to have a sneak preview of John Cole’s excellent book chapter on forces called ‘Push and pull explains all techniques’. I don’t want to pre-empt anything John has to say on this topic before his book is published but suffice to say he mentions Newton’s third law of motion which states: Every action has an equal and opposite reaction.  If we apply this law to people then basically, when you apply a force to an object it responds by applying and equal amount of force back to you. You transmit some of your energy into the object (e.g. by pushing it), the object transmits an equal amount of energy back into you.  What happens to that energy once it comes back to you depends on several factors: if you happen to be the smaller, lighter object then you will probably move; if you are not able to move freely, you’re restrained in some way, or the returned energy is being transmitted to a small surface area (e.g. you pricked your finger on a needle) then the energy may cause injury to you instead or alternatively you may be able to utilise the returned energy in some other way.

In my title I said that karate punching is like swimming. More specifically ‘drawing energy from the ground’ is analogous to pushing yourself away from the side of the swimming pool to gain momentum. If you can swim then you will know from experience that it is quicker to get some speed up if you push yourself away from the side of the pool with your feet than to just start swimming from a standing start. Why is this? Newton’s third law of motion explains it…..you push against the wall of the pool, transmitting energy into it and the pool wall ‘pushes’ an equal amount of energy back to you in the opposite direction. Since you are in a horizontal position in the pool (and you are weightless in water) the effect of receiving the energy back is to propel you in a forward direction.

A karate punch works on the same principle. If you take a firm stance and push down into the ground with your feet, transmitting energy into it, the ground responds by pushing an equal amount of energy back into you. Since you are in a vertical position the energy is transmitted upwards (opposite to the direction you pushed in). Though you are lighter than the ground below you the effects of gravity pressing down on you make it unlikely that you will respond by launching upwards (unless the ground below you was a trampoline!) The received energy doesn't normally injure you either because it is spread over the relatively large surface area of your feet (It might hurt more if you just pushed the ground with the top of your big toe) Instead, you are in a position to utilise that returning energy to enhance your punch.  How you achieve that is worthy of a blog or two of its own; suffice to say that with the correct sequence of muscular contraction and relaxation, starting with the lower legs, upper legs, hips, torso, shoulders and finally the arm and fist the energy can be transferred from muscle group to muscle group until it finally leaves your fist!

This won’t happen by chance though – only through training and practice can you learn to utilise the energy that you received via Newton’s third law of motion by pushing into the ground first. Without training this energy will just dissipate from your feet or half way up your legs and be wasted.  The harder you push into the ground the more energy you’ll get back (the harder you throw a ball at a wall the further and faster it comes back to you; the harder you push off the pool side the further and faster you’ll glide through the water).  Punching is only different because we are complex beings and we have to train to learn how to utilise that energy effectively.

The point of this blog post was not to explain the whole physics of punching but to give the scientific explanation (in layman’s terms) of why sensei is right when he says you must draw your punching power from the ground.  Do I make sense?

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Some thoughts on stances...

Neko Ashi Dachi
(Cat stance)

I’ve been thinking a lot about stances recently. I like to see good stances: correct feet positioning, strong bend of the correct knee (or knees), correct weight distribution, good back posture, head held up looking forward etc. Good stances look strong and stable.

Beginners find stances difficult to master; they generally lean too much with their upper torso, don’t bend their knees enough, have their feet in a line, have incorrect weight distribution or look down at the floor. I’ve been there; it’s hard to get it right or for it to feel natural. It takes a long time and a lot of practice to get stances right and even longer to get the transitions from stance to stance smooth and quick.

A lot of people would argue that stances are for beginners or that they slow you down or are just too unnatural to be useful in real self-defence situations. I would beg to differ.

Stances are an essential part of achieving economy of movement when doing self-defence. Economy of movement is essential if you are to move swiftly around your opponent, getting yourself into advantageous positions to apply a technique, unbalance them or evade a strike. Good footwork is essential to achieving this; if you teeter around your opponent with lots of small steps, getting your legs crossed and generally wrong footing yourself you are likely to come a cropper.

Good use of stances helps you to:

…Shift your weight smoothly and quickly from one leg to the other as required.

…Maintain your own balance and stability by keeping your centre of gravity low but your posture upright.

…Unbalance your opponent either by directly using the stance to destabilise a balance point e.g. placing your knee directly behind theirs using a zenkutsu dachi (forward stance) or shiko dachi (sumo or horse stance) or more indirectly by using weight transference e.g. grabbing them and stepping back into a kokutsu dachi (back stance) or neko ashi dachi (cat stance).

…Quickly put yourself in the most advantageous and stable position to execute a restraint, takedown or throw.

…Move out of the way quickly and effortlessly if required.

Zenkutsu Dachi
(Forward stance)

Karate pays a lot of attention to stances. Most karateka will have spent many hours of their training going up and down the dojo in shiko dachi or neko ashi dashi with sensei picking up on the smallest postural transgression –“bend your knee more”, “stick your bottom in”, “turn your back foot in more”, “turn your back foot out more”, “put your weight back more”, “put your weight forward more”…….

It can all seem so picky sometimes and people will question the wisdom of needing to be so precise with your footwork and postures. After all, if you are attacked would it matter if you weren’t in the perfect cat stance?

Well, yes it would matter if cat stance was integral to the technique you were trying to execute on your assailant. If your technique depended on you suddenly shifting your weight backwards, pulling your opponent off balance whilst allowing your front foot to follow through quickly with a swift snap kick and then be able to spring forward off the back leg to land a punch; then being able to instantly get into a perfect cat stance may be crucial. Failure to achieve it may leave you unable to pull your opponent off balance and with too much weight on your front leg you won’t be able to kick effectively either and if your back leg is too straight you may not be able to spring forward for that punch – that could all lead to disaster!  

Stances are more than just good footwork, they involve the whole body. Good upright posture is crucial to a good stance. Without good posture you cannot engage the core muscles properly and without the core muscles engaged you cannot get any power in your strikes. Also, with poor, bent over posture you are liable to lose your own balance and be easily pulled over by your opponent.

Stances aren’t always an integral part of a technique; sometimes the situation may require you to be lighter and quicker on your feet. Evasion may be more important than getting a technique on your opponent. The art of tai sabaki (body movement) is an exercise in good stance work, except this time the stances are higher and lighter allowing quicker movements. Tai sabaki still involves attention to posture, feet positioning, weight transference and good transitioning so it is still stance work even if you don’t choose to call it that.

Shiko Dachi
(Horse or sumo stance)

I really feel that we neglect stance training at our peril. Without good stances our techniques will be weak and our movements clumsy. When you watch a senior black belt in action the thing that really stands out more than anything else is the way they move – it is precise and effortless. This is because of their use of stances; they always put their feet in exactly the right place with their weight distributed correctly and their posture upright and it all flows so smoothly and naturally.

So if your own or your student’s stances are poor and their movements clumsy get back to some formal stance training – up and down the dojo until their thighs ache; you’re actually doing them a big favour….

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The art and science of unbalancing.

I have become quite fascinated recently about the use of unbalancing principles in karate. It seems to me that it is an art form in itself; something that can and must be studied in isolation as well as in combination with various techniques.

Unbalancing is about disruption and control: Disrupting your opponent’s attack and seizing control of them. There is both art and science in understanding balance and unbalancing methods. It requires a scientific understanding of how the brain and body work together to enable balance combined with a sense of creativity in assessing the many ways in which your opponents balance can be disrupted.

To understand how to unbalance an opponent you first need to understand how we are able to balance in the first place. I wrote a previous post about balance called ‘martial arts – a balancing act’  where I described the three main tenets of good balance as being having a wide base of support, having a low centre of gravity and maintaining the head and spine in a vertical position.  In this article I also discussed the importance of the ears, eyes and proprioception in the maintenance of good balance. 

To unbalance an opponent then you have to disrupt at least one on the main tenets of balance: pull them out of their base of support (or reduce their base of support), raise their centre of gravity or disrupt their vertical alignment. Of course you must do all this whilst maintaining your own balance.

So how do you do it?  

Ways of disrupting the base of support:

Pushing or pulling: pushing or pulling will move someone out of their base of support but you need to know which way to push or pull. This requires some knowledge of the “eight points of off balance” which relates to stances. Look at this diagram:

diagram from  http://www.jujitsustudies.com/happo_no_kuzushi.htm 

As a point of principle your off-balance point is generally perpendicular to the plane of your stance. So if your feet are positioned on points 8 and 4 on the diagram (this could be a left foot zenkutsu dachi (weight forward) or kokutsu dachi (weight back) and facing point 1 or even a shiko dachi if you were facing towards point 2 or 6) then you will be off-balance if pushed or pulled in the direction of 2 -6 or 6-2

So for example, if you are grabbed by the wrist by someone standing in front of you in a natural stance i.e with feet positioned on 3 and 7 then you only need to trap their hand and step backward to position 5 to unbalance them.  In order that you don’t unbalance yourself you need to use fairly strong, deep stances to ensure your centre of gravity remains low, your base of support is wide and your spine remains vertical. I never understand why people argue that stances in karate are no good and only useful for building leg strength – good strong stances are great for pulling people off balance. Of course taking just one step back many not be sufficient and you may need to take two or three long low steps backwards to pull your opponent over.

Reducing the opponent’s base of support: you can reduce the opponent’s base of support by taking one (or both) leg away e.g. with an ashi barai (foot sweep) technique or just a plain and simple ‘trip’. You may want to follow this up with a push, pull or even a throw.

Raising the opponent’s centre of gravity:

If a low centre of gravity assists with balance then a high centre of gravity will help reduce it. Getting your opponent up on their toes will make them seem lighter and easier to displace. Getting a good arm/elbow lock on can often get them on their toes. They won’t drop their weight back down to compensate because that will tighten the lock and cause more pain. You will now have them controlled and not fully balanced making it easier for you to apply your next technique – this may be a sweep or throw or just maintaining the restraint to march them off (always walk backwards with your restrained ‘prisoner’, I am told on good authority, it is harder for them to resist).

Disrupt your opponent’s vertical alignment:

Getting your opponent’s head and spine out of a vertical alignment will disrupt balance because it stops them from pushing their centre of gravity in a downwards direction. It is also very disorientating because it upsets the ‘balance sensors’ i.e. the eyes can no longer maintain a horizontal plane, the cochlear fluid in the ears may start to swirl and cause dizziness and the proprioceptors may have a hard time working out the body’s position in relation to the ground.

Techniques to disrupt vertical alignment include pushing the forehead backwards. This is especially effective if the other hand is placed at the lower end of the spine to create a push/pull effect. Alternatively you can twist the opponent pushing on one shoulder whilst pulling on their opposite hip.

These are just a few techniques you can use to disrupt balance, I’m sure that with a bit of creativity you can think of more!

Of course your opponent will instinctively try to correct their balance once they feel it starting to go. They will do this in predictable ways – the same ways you will try to do it. If you are pulled forward you will put a foot out to steady yourself. You will put your foot out in the direction you perceive yourself to be falling. If you are falling backwards you will try to step backwards. To stop your opponent from trying to correct their balance you need to stop them from putting their foot in that optimal position for regaining balance – you do this by making sure your foot is there first, forcing them to put their foot in a sub-optimal position and thus still being off-balance. 

To conclude: Unbalancing your opponent is a good tactical self-defence principle. It enables you to disrupt your opponent’s attack and gives you an opportunity to gain control of the situation. Good unbalancing is both a science and an art form. It requires some serious study into the physiological principles of balance and an exploration of ways of disrupting those principles. In any martial arts class it is worth spending time with a partner just manipulating and observing the effects of balance point disruption. Experiment with this in isolation as well as incorporating these unbalancing principles into various strategies and techniques and notice how much more quickly you are able to disrupt and control your opponent.

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Joint locking – how useful is it really?

Learning how to lock up joints seems to be an integral part of many martial arts, both for self-defence training and in grappling sports. In my kobudo class we learn how to apply joint locks with weapons. I can apply wrist, arm, shoulder and ankle locks with a pair of nunchuku or lock you up with a pair of tonfa. It’s quite fun, though not so fun when I’m the one being locked up with a jo or tanbo – ouch!

In karate we also train with locking techniques, in fact we have a couple of lock flow drills that we learn. These are quite useful in helping us to remember how to apply a range of different locks. We start with thumb and finger locks, then wrist locks, arm locks, shoulder locks and eventually moving onto the floor with cross body arm locks and head locks.

After a bit of practice and an understanding of the mechanics of how locks work they are relatively easy to apply to a compliant partner (except for the few people for whom locks don’t seem to work on at all). However, if your partner is determined to resist being locked up then it is almost impossible to apply. Of course, neither total compliance nor total resistance is a very realistic scenario. In a real situation there will be neither compliance nor total resistance from an attacker. Instead there will be striking, constant movement, grappling, shouting, spitting…….how do you apply a lock to someone who’s playing out their own game plan and not complying with yours?

What’s the purpose of applying locks anyway? I can think of three reasons why people say locks are useful:

*To restrain and control

*To control and reposition the opponent to a more advantageous position to strike/ throw them

*To disable the opponent by injuring/breaking a joint

Restraint and control – I see restraint and control as the domain of specific groups e.g. the police, prison officers, mental health nurses, security guards, bouncers etc. I’m aware that there are techniques called ‘painless restraint’ techniques that can be used to control someone and prevent them from hurting themselves or others. However, I don’t see that this is of any value to me – why would I want to restrain an attacker? Even if I achieved it, which I doubt, what would I do with him then? Surely my aim should be to escape….

Control and reposition – This is based on the assumption of ‘pain compliance’; that the opponent, once locked, will be in so much pain that he will become putty in your hands and allow you to pull him into a position that is advantageous to you so that you can strike or throw him to end the confrontation and make good your escape. Though I can see some merit in trying to do this, I think the problems in actually doing it are twofold:  1. In the melee of a fight it may be extremely difficult to get the lock on in the first place and 2. Even if you are successful in applying the lock it may not cause pain in your adrenaline fuelled attacker.

Disable/injure/break joint – In principle this may be a good strategy in a self-defence situation but again it depends on the possibility of getting the lock on in the first place.

Theoretically, using joint locks as part of your self-defence arsenal seems a good idea. From a mechanical point of view they undoubtedly work. However, in practice, in the frenzy of a fight, I have my doubts as to their usefulness.  You could argue that you need to strike the opponent first to weaken them and then apply the lock – that may work if your aim is to restrain, but if I’m able to strike hard enough to weaken my attacker to the point that I could apply a lock unopposed then surely my work is done and all I need to do is escape?

It seems likely that bigger people can more easily apply locks to smaller, weaker people. This is clearly a big disadvantage to women as their attacker is most likely to be a bigger, stronger man. It seems more likely to me that my attacker will be the one applying locks on me to control and restrain me while he drags me off to some secluded place to continue the attack.

Wouldn’t it be more useful to learn how to counter a lock rather than apply it? At least for women.  Are there such techniques? If so, perhaps they should be taught in tandem with how to apply the lock…..

What do you think? Am I missing the point somewhere along the line? How useful do you think locks are for self-defence?

Now see 'Joint locking - a follow up'

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Kenwa Mabuni books - now translated into English...

Just when I thought it was impossible to get hold of any books written by Kenwa Mabuni, founder of shito ryu, that were translated into English I came across Lulu.com - a self-publishing website. Here I discovered two books written by Mabuni and translated into English by karate sensei - Mario McKenna.

The first is Karate Kempo: The art of self-defense. Mabuni wrote this in 1934. Interestingly this book is about the art of 'goju-ryu kenpo'. It is one of Mabuni's early written works (he was a very prolific writer, writing several books and articles during the 1930s and 1940s, but none were ever translated into English). It is a work about the then fledgling art of karate-do and was intended as a general introduction to the art.

As McKenna says in the blurb: Karate Kenpo provides a rare glimpse of Mabuni's ideas about the history and development of karate-do on Okinawa. It also introduces the fundamentals of his art including warm-up, basic techniques, stances, training equipment and the fundamental kata san chin and the advanced kata seiunchin.

In the book Mabuni outlines the steps for sanchin kata and seiunchin using line drawings. He also covers bunkai for seiunchin. I'm always amazed at how well conserved many kata are. I could only identify one small difference between Mabuni's description of seiunchin and the way I have been taught it today - remarkable!

The second Mabuni book that was available was: The study of Seipai: the secrets of self-defence karate kenpo. In this book Mabuni chose to use photos (mainly of himself) to illustrate the steps of the kata seipai rather than line drawings. Again the bunkai is described and illustrated clearly.

The second half of this book reveals the (then) secret text and diagrams called the Bubishi. Kenwa Mabuni was the first person to publish this text which is now known as the 'karate bible'. In McKenna's translation of Mabuni's book he has left the Bubishi untranslated stating that there are now many English translations of this book available.

Mabuni writes this foreword to the Bubishi section of his book:

"On the recommendation of my friend, I made a copy of a Chinese book on kenpo called Bubishi that my venerated teacher, Anko Itosu, had duplocated himself. I have used the Bubishi in my research and have secretly treasured it, however in this current age of growth and popularity of karate kenpo, I am hesitant to keep this book to myself for even one more day. If this benefits even a little those researchers' passionate about karate, then I will be very pleased. Kenwa Mabuni"


What I particularly like about owning these books is that not only is it like hearing it straight from the horses mouth but I feel like I own a little bit of karate history myself. The book is obviously written in the present tense but it is about the practice of karate in the 1930's in Okinawa and Japan. Thus you get statements like:

"...The founder of our style, Goju-Ryu kenpo, Kanryo higaonna Sensei travelled to China to study Kenpo (mastering Chinese Fujian style Kenpo). Furthermore, my senior Chojun Miyagi travelled to China to conduct study into Kenpo and is presently still there."


and: "Presently on Okinawa young people freely practice in various systems such as Higaonna-ha, Itosu-ha, Maezato-ha, Shimabuku-ha, Ishimine-ha, Azato-ha etc."


Reading books like these very much makes karate history come alive to me, so thank you Sensei McKenna for bringing these translations to us.

I also have to praise the Lulu.com service: all their books are printed and bound after you order them and then shipped out. Both these books could only be shipped to the UK from the US but from initial order to receiving the books took less than a week, so well done Lulu!

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Pre-dan grading course - a dose of reality!

Movement from Bassai Dai

On Saturday I attended a pre-dan grading course. This was an opportunity to go through the syllabus with the dan grading officers and iron out any remaining problem areas before the real grading on June 12th.

There were around 30 people present on the course, mainly 1st kyu grades but also a couple of 1st dans ready to grade to 2nd dan. I hadn’t expected so many people because I know at the last dan grading there were only five candidates and at the one before about nine. I had a nasty feeling that a huge cull might happen following the session!

Applying a leg lock

After the warm up we were given some guidance about how the grading day would be structured and what the required etiquette would be. The marking scheme was also explained in quite a lot of detail and we were each issued with a sheet of paper containing the syllabus and a marking grid. We were told that we would be given a score for each section of the syllabus as they came around and observed us. We were also given feedback and guidance about our performance. The idea of this was that we should end up with a realistic picture of our strengths and weaknesses and have a plan of the things we needed to work on.

We started off with all the kihon sections followed by kata and bunkai and received scores and feedback. The starting point for awarding a mark is the basic pass mark of 6/10. A six represents the performance of a good average student. If you show exceptional ability in a particular section you may get a 6.5 or even a seven (8, 9 or 10 are for the truly gifted!). However, if you make mistakes or don’t perform the technique to the required standard then marks are docked, which puts you below the pass mark for that section. You then need to make up marks in other sections to keep yourself at or above the overall pass mark.

This gives you the feeling that you are standing on the edge of a cliff – gaining marks pulls you back from the edge but losing them can topple you over. After the first 6 sections I was clinging to the edge of the cliff by my finger tips having scored five 5.5s and one 6! I was starting to feel my stress levels rise as my heart sank into my stomach. Was I ready for this? Was I going to be ‘culled’?



How to throw your husband!

 We then moved onto the sections that require partners – ippon kumite, goshin waza and a floor drill. These are generally my stronger sections so I was hoping to make up marks here. Unfortunately most people did not have their grading partners with them so paired up with each other. My grading partner (my husband) was there so we could still work together. However, due to the large number of people to observe and the fact most people were working with unfamiliar partners, the grading officers gave some feedback but no marks for these sections.

Now this shouldn’t have mattered to me because I know these are my stronger sections but as I was already in a downward spiral emotionally I finished the day feeling that everything was negative and nothing was positive. In fact I was feeling pretty despondent and worried about my ability to pass.

I found it really hard to shake off this negativity all weekend and initially I wanted to blame the scoring system for my failures. It seemed so easy to lose marks for relatively minor transgressions but very difficult to gain marks. My dream of getting a black belt was starting to seem a lot less attainable.

However, since then I have had time to do some serious introspection! The fault is not with the system it is with me – I need to work with the system, not rail against it. I need to worry less about my scores and concentrate more on just doing my karate to the best of my ability on the day.

How to throw your wife!

The technical feedback I was given was relatively minor – my right kamae position isn’t quite correct; I need to extend and lower my arm more. I need to grip the floor more with my feet; my shiko dachi stance is a bit too wide; I need to show a bit more aggression and I need to make sure I don’t twist my hand to early when punching. Not a lot to get het up about really is it?

I realise now that the main thrust of my preparations now need to be mental. I need to get my head in the right place and control my emotions more so that I go into the grading with the right spirit and don’t let early negative experiences affect my performance of later sections.

I learnt a few unexpected things about myself on Saturday – some uncomfortable truths about my character. I have too much ego – I had wanted and expected higher marks (just sixes or six point five) so I was disappointed not to achieve that, but hey, I’m no spring chicken so why should I expect that? I don’t look like a teenager so why should I expect to move like one! I suppose that is another thing I’ve had to come to terms with – getting older. I’m usually in denial about middle-age but I have to face facts, my body can’t perform like that of a young athlete - I need to lower my sights a little. Let’s face it, not many women take up a demanding martial art in their mid-forties and stick with it all the way to black belt (and beyond), perhaps I’m not doing so bad after all. There you go, some positive self talk for a change!

Okay, so I’m getting over myself a bit now. I am regaining my perspective and feeling more positive again. I have had personal feedback from my instructor as well as the senior dan grading officer and both are happy that I am ready for this grading. I have been told to relax more and be more natural in my movements but no one seems to have any real worries about me – just me (we really are our own worst enemy sometimes!)

And that cull I mentioned? 30 down to 18!

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Ippon kumite and kata applications

A bit of a brain teaser this one but if you can make sense of what I’m trying to say then I would welcome your feedback……..

This may seem like a strange question to ask for someone who is very close to grading for shodan in karate! My question is: What is the difference between ippon kumite and bunkai?


I thought I knew the answer to this until last Saturday when I went on a black belt/brown belt course with my organisation. We didn’t focus at all on kata or bunkai but spent a lot of the time practising ippon kumite. It was made clear to us that what was being looked for in our demonstration was a clear understanding of the application of basic kihon moves to a one step attack showing particular heed to distance and timing.

Well, that explanation tightened up my understanding of ippon kumite a bit but didn’t offer any new major revelations – I already knew what ippon kumite was about.

Here’s a definition of ippon kumite: Ippon kumite is the practice of not allowing your opponent more than one attack. In other words, due to the evasive and blocking actions of the defender the opponent is prevented from continuing his attack. A counter attack may or may not be necessary. It's all about shutting down your opponent's attack quickly. Ippon kumite techniques are generally learned against a range of pre-defined attacks.

Here’s a definition of bunkai: The analysis of moves extracted from a kata. In other words, a study of the applications of movements taken directly from a kata or an analysis of the meaning of the kata.

These two definitions don’t sound too similar until you delve a bit deeper.

Old karate master, Chotoku Kyan said, “First learn the movements of karate, learn how to strike, block and immobilize, learn the kata and you will then be ready for kumite.” The implication here is that kumite is the application of kata movements. Dan Smith Kyoshi of Shorin Ryu Seibukan adds, “…the kata is designed to always provide an ‘ippon’.”

So if ippon kumite techniques are built from basic kihon techniques; kata are the assembly of kihon techniques into set sequences and combinations, and kata provide us with sets of ‘ippons’ then isn’t the analysis of kata (bunkai) just the analysis of ippon kumite techniques within the kata? Are bunkai and ippon kumite essentially the same thing?

All the bunkai I have learned are effective against a single step attack (bar one*) and are therefore essentially ippon kumite techniques. However, many of the ‘ippons’ I have learnt have not necessarily come directly from a kata. So does that mean that all bunkai are ippons but not all ippons are bunkai?

Not many people will talk about ippon kumite and bunkai in the same breath (or even write about it in the same book) suggesting that they are different things. In fact, some people who consider themselves bunkai experts may even be very dismissive of ippon kumite considering it to be too stylised and people who are proponents of ippon kumite may not even refer to specific kata in their teachings of it.

So, what is the difference between ippon kumite and bunkai? Perhaps they are just different sides of the same coin or perhaps bunkai is a process and ippon kumite a practice? Perhaps bunkai just assumes more realistic attacks and ippons use more stylised 'karate' attacks? I’m just thinking aloud here.

What do you think about this condundrum? Ippons and bunkai – same or different?


* I have learnt a kata application from Bassai Dai which requires the attacker to throw two punches. In Iain Abernethy's Bunkai Jutsu book he suggests that one should not assume that the attacker will act in a pre-determined way and throw a second (known) attack in response to a block. If your bunkai application requires a second predicted attack then perhaps the interpretation should be looked at again.

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Thoughts and discoveries about karate training part 2 – learning the basics

This is part 2 of my review of posts I have written over the last year or two. In this post I look at how I am learning to understand my own body and my attempt to master control over it through training the basics of my art…

Every martial artist comes to appreciate the importance of training in the basic or fundamental ways of moving for their art. In karate the basics are generally thought of as the range of different punching, kicking and blocking techniques along with the various stances that can be used. We generally refer to this as kihon training. Most kihon training is done as whole class teaching with the students standing in rows, punching and kicking the air, moving up and down the dojo in various stances or working in pairs punching and kicking against a pad.

However, during the last couple of years training and through researching and writing for this blog, I have come to the realisation that basics are even more fundamental than kihon training. It’s about how we actually move our bodies at all, how we balance, how we align our muscles, bones and tendons, how we coordinate and time our movements and how we internalise and remember our techniques. In short, it’s about understanding and mastering our own bodies and minds.

My general approach to my own personal training and development in martial arts is to identify my weaknesses (or have them pointed out to me, which is what generally happens) and then follow through with that at home to discover why it is I am making a specific mistake and what I can do to correct it. For example, some of my most fundamental problems have revolved around leaning and having a fairly shaky dynamic balance.

I explored my leaning problem in If I had a pound…. and concluded that the leaning was related to my balance problem. This lead me to research into what balance actually is, how our bodies control balance and how we can utilise that knowledge in martial arts. This led to one of my most popular posts so far – Martial arts – a balancing act.

However, there is no point in researching or writing about it unless I’m going to practice what I preach, so I do actively try to think about the principles of balance when I’m training in order to stop my leaning and wobbling. I think I’m making some progress in this respect and my instructor has not told me I’m leaning for several months now. I still occasionally wobble when turning but I realise immediately why this is so and take steps to correct it – I’m finally starting to understand my body!

Still on the topic of body movement and alignment I became fascinated by the principle of nanba aruki after reading something about it in a book (Empty hand, by Kenei Mabuni). Initially I found it hard to believe that a couple of hundred years ago Japanese people used to walk with the same arm and leg moving backwards and forwards together (nanba aruki walking). It seemed so counter intuitive.

I set out to research the subject and discovered that the principle of moving the same arm and leg together so as to pivot around your centre line was inherent in all martial arts systems and led to greater efficiency of movement. The maxim, ‘Don’t force, don’t twist and don’t disconnect’ comes from the application of the nanba aruki principle. I now see nanba aruki in action in pretty well all my karate techniques and use it as a bench mark to decide whether I’m executing techniques correctly or not.

Of course there always has to be an exception to the rule and in karate this is the gyaku zuki punch (reverse punch) which definitely does not utilise the nanba aruki principle. I wrote about this in Gyaku zuki – odd punch out? I’d read somewhere (possibly in Kenei Mabuni’s book) that this punch was a modern 20th century addition to karate, introduced when karate became a sport. However my own research suggests that the reverse punch has very much been a part of karate for a long time as it is present in several old kata. Odd punch out or not, the gyaku zuki remains an important weapon in the karateka’s arsenal and is practiced extensively during kihon training.

Another fundamental principle of movement that we need to master and is notoriously difficult to do is the principle of hard/soft. By that I mean tensing muscles when you need to and relaxing them when you don’t. We gradually come to appreciate as we train that punches are harder and faster when muscles are not all tensed up.

I wrote about this problem in karate – hard not tense and suggested that one way of learning to relax during the execution of techniques was to participate in a softer style of martial arts and that for me this is sword training. To get clean, fast sword strikes you have to relax and let the sword do the work. I am trying to adopt the same thinking in karate i.e. let the fist do the punching (not the bicep) but it remains a work in progress!

And finally, how do our bodies remember how to do all these basic, fundamental techniques and ways of moving? I tackled this subject in the post, Muscle memory – it’s all in the mind! I described how the learning and remembering of new skills was a staged process in which, through repetitive practice, led to the development of new neural pathways and the laying down of ‘memory maps’ in the brain – a process that can take months or years to complete depending on the complexity of the skill. These memory maps can then be executed quickly and subconsciously whenever we meet a stimulus giving us the impression that it is our muscles that have remembered what to do when in fact it is our brains.

I feel I have come a long way in understanding how my body moves and how I can align my limbs and torso to maximise efficiency yet generate maximum power in technique. However, I’m also aware that I still have a long way to go – like I said, those memory maps take a long time to lay down and become stable! When I watch my instructor moving with such speed, grace and fluidity I feel like a dancing elephant in comparison but I can also see that I have made progress and there is no reason to why more progress can’t be made if I continue to train – in the basics.

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Gyaku Zuki - odd punch out?

I have been working on individual kihon techniques quite a lot recently as part of my shodan preparations and have come to the conclusion that gyaku zuki (reverse punch) is the odd man out. Gyaku zuki is often considered to be the definitive punch in karate with lots written about it's bio mechanics and its ability to deliver a hard, powerful punch.

If you think about it though the principle of the reverse punch is contra to just about every other technique in karate. Let me explain.....

A while back I wrote an article about nanba aruki which is a principle of moving in which the same arm and leg are moved together so that movement pivots around the centre line of the body. The Japanese people used to walk like this all the time prior to the Meiji Restoration in the 19th century after which they started to adopt all things Western, including walking with opposing arms and legs. However the principle of nanba aruki in inherent in most classical martial arts.

Lets think of a few techniques and examine whether they use nanba aruki principles:
oi zuki (lunge punch) - yes (punching over the leading leg)
sekyaku zuki (half step punch) - yes (punch with same leg that you step with)
maeken zuki (leading hand punch) - yes ( leading hand pulls back and then punches out over leading leg)
empi (elbow) strikes - yes (if you step back into cat stance to strike behind you its same side arm as leg. If you step forward to strike it's also the same side.)

Common combinations of stances and blocks:
Niko ashi dachi (cat stance) with shuto uchi uke (knife hand strike)- yes
Kokutsu dachi (back stance) with gedan barai (downward sweeping block) - yes

Sanchin dachi (hour glass stance) with tsukami uke (2 handed grasping block) - yes

All tai sabaki movements utilise nanba aruki as well - it's quicker and more efficient to move this way.

Then there's gyaku zuki! This punch is generally performed in zenkutsu dachi (forward stance) though it can be performed in cat stance. Whatever the stance, by definition the gyaku zuki contradicts the principle of nanba aruki and is therefore definitely the odd man out!

So where has it come from? I'm not doubting for one moment the effectiveness of this punch, merely the origin. If you examine the kata you find that the gyaku zuki does not appear very often. I could only examine the kata that I know but I have found that the older the kata the less likely you are to see gyaku zuki. In the kyu grade kata of our system the gyaku zuki appears in only 5 out of 13 kata: Pinan shodan, Pinan godan, Annanku, Neiseishi and Matsukazi (Wankan). The Pinans and Annanku are relatively modern kata (late 19th, early 20th Century), Neiseishi has many versions, some of them fairly modern i.e early 20th Century. However all these kata were developed post Meiji restoration and are all Shuri te or Tomari te kata. The exception to the rule is Matsukazi kata which is very ancient (its origin may be 400 years old), its roots are in the Hakkyoku ken system from Northern China.

I initially thought that the gyaku zuki was a modern addition to karate (20th century) but the fact that it is in Matsukazi kata suggests that it has been around a while. However I would suspect that it has been popularised by the rise in sports karate during the mid-late 20th century and by the fact that the Japanese adopted Western principles of movement in sport.

What do you think about gyaku zuki? Old or modern? Odd man out? Do you know any other karate techniques that are contra to the nanba aruki principle?

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