Japanese 'Way' with words.

I don't speak Japanese, except for the words and phrases that I have learnt as part of my martial arts training. However, I am struck by the richness of some of these words. It seems that in Japanese, a single word or phrase can encapsulate a profound meaning that is conceptual, abstract, metaphorical, descriptive and emotional all at the same time. It's as if a single Japanese word can speak a thousand English ones.

Many of these conceptual words are used in the martial arts. Words like mushin, zanshin, kime and ma-ai. Often we add simple descriptive labels to these words such as mushin = empty mind, zanshin = awareness, kime = focus and ma-ai = space and distance. These simple descriptors do not do justice to the real meanings of these words. These words are concepts that need to be felt and experienced first hand to be truly understood.

I once tried to write a post about kime. I researched the word on the Internet quite extensively but it became clear that most people who had written about it did not understand it either. Peoples understanding of the word focus varied enormously! For some people focus was about mental concentration, for others it was about focusing power on an imaginary target. I never did write the post because I couldn't be sure in my own mind exactly what was meant by 'focus' let alone 'kime'! I think this is because I haven't truly experienced kime yet. I'm hoping that when I do, I'll recognize and understand it, but I expect by then it will have become tacit knowledge - something you intuitively know but can't explain to others. So I still won't be able to write the post!

However, despite my lack of direct experience with some of these Japanese concepts, I seem to instinctively know that they are important to the martial artist. They are not just important for the development of technical proficiency but for the development of the mind and mind-set. They are part of the Way.

To clearly understand these concepts one needs to think about them, particularly whilst training, but outside of training too. To think about them you need the vocabulary to do so (we can't think without words!) So, at least knowing of the existence of these Japanese words and their simple English descriptors is something to work with. Hopefully, through training, reading, thinking and self-exploration these terms will become clearer and their deeper meanings revealed. Maybe then, they will inform my practice of marital arts more profoundly.

It is indeed a long and difficult journey that we have embarked on.......

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Bassai Dai: to extract and block

Since becoming a 1st kyu student I have started to learn the first of the black belt katas – Bassai Dai. This is an important kata for many systems and is often chosen as the kata to test students for their black belt. It therefore resembles a ‘rite of passage’ for many karate students and so becomes a much coveted kata.

There are many variations of the Bassai kata (Passai in Okinawa) and it is found in Okinawan, Japanese and Korean styles of karate. It is likely that its origins are Chinese as it is thought to resemble Chinese Leopard and Lion boxing forms.

The origins of the kata are thought to be about 400 years old. The evidence for this is the existence of a carbon tested silk drawing of the form. It is said that the form was created as a left-handed one and if you bear that in mind when performing it then several hidden techniques are revealed!

However, this early history of the kata is a little vague and confused. What is clearer is that there were two versions of the kata practiced on Okinawa. First, there is the Matsumura version, which he allegedly brought to Okinawa following a stay in China. Matsumura learned Chinese boxing when he visited Fuchou and the Matsumura version is said to have a ‘Chinese flavour’ to it. Matsumura’s style of Passai was light and flowing with fast attacks and counters, but little power. It was circular and light.

The second version is accredited to the karate master kokan Oyadomari who lived in the Tomari district and practiced the Tomari-te style of karate. It is said that he was taught the kata from a visiting Chinese man. This version was more ‘Okinawanised’, showing a more linear style and a greater emphasis on muscle power over light speed and more direct force over whipping techniques.

Itosu was a student of Matsumura and a contemporary of Oyadomari (they all worked as bodyguards at the Shuri castle) and would probably have learnt both versions. However, instead of working with the Matsumura version as one would expect, he developed the Oyadomari version, making it even more linear and passing it onto his students, including Funakoshi who then took it to Japan.

There is much confusion over the meaning of the name Bassai. It is commonly thought to mean, ‘The storming of a fortress’, but this is more likely to be a misinterpretation and is certainly not a direct translation of the kanji characters for Bassai. A more literal translation of Bassai is, ‘To extract or remove (an obstruction) and to block (a corridor or passageway)’. It was Funakoshi who changed the name from Passai to Bassai when he took the kata to Japan.

The Bassai kata is characterised by the idea of changing a disadvantage into an advantage by the switching of strikes to blocks and blocks to strikes. It uses a lot of hip rotation to generate power and its execution requires a lot of spirit, with fast moves and proper attention given to an appropriate balance between speed and power.

The version of Bassai Dai that I am learning is the Itosu version as practiced by Shito Ryu stylists. Here is a video of it:

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Some awfully nice gals show us how it's done!

I know some of these videos have done the rounds before but I just love them!

Some awfully nice gals show us how it's done.......

Not sure about the outfit this girl's wearing, no wonder she falls so elegantly.......





Such spiffing villains.....

Hope you enjoyed!

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1st Kyu Sue!

Before I tell you how my grading went on Saturday, I just want to make clear that I was grading for 1st kyu NOT 1st dan! My black belt grading is another 9 months away yet. 1st kyu is the highest kyu grade and in our system this means my brown belt now has 3 white tabs on it (we have 3 separate brown belt gradings spread over about 18 months - with each one you get an extra tab).

 

With that cleared up I'll tell you how it went!

 

The grading was well organised and started on time at 3.30pm. There were nine of us to grade, 4 people grading for 3rd kyu, one grading for 2nd kyu and 4 of us grading for 1st kyu. As is usual in our grading model we alternated sections between the different kyu grades, standing at the back when it wasn't our turn. This worked very efficiently as we only waited at the back for a few minutes at the time. The 1st kyu syllabus was by far longer than the other grades so unfortunately they did wait around a little longer than us.

 

After a brief warm up, we started off with punching and kicking combinations (6 of each) which we repeated several times each - we were definitely warmed up after that! These seemed to go okay, well I remembered them all anyway! This was followed by demonstrations of our 2 kata and a bunkai application for each. We performed the kata individually.

 

Kata is my weak point! Though I performed all the steps correctly, tried hard to get the timing right and remembered to look and prep my arms/feet before turning, I am still not sharp enough, repeatedly forget to snap back my kicks properly and I'm still a little wobbly sometimes. Though I have not had the full feed back or the individual marks for each section from my instructor, he did tell me that my kata performances let me down and is the area that needs most work.

 

The standard is set very high for kata performance in our organisation. It is an organisation that has produced or is preparing people for World and European level competition. Though we are not all expected to reach this high competition standard, by setting the bar high, we more average karateka will at least be pushed to reach the highest standard possible for us as individuals - and I still have 9 months to get this right!

 

We then moved onto pad work and demonstrated 3 different punches and 3 different kicks against the pad. This went well, I'm fairly strong on pad work, I like beating the living daylights out of a pad, so I'm hopeful of a reasonable mark on this section.

 

Next we moved onto the partner work - the ippon kumite, goshin waza and ne waza techniques. I was able to partner my husband for this and I think we both gave a pretty strong performance in these sections, particularly my husband. My son was also very strong in the partner work. He's only 16 and very slim and light but he has lightening speed and whipped his partner around like a rag doll! Glad I wasn't on the receiving end of that!

 

The final section was the sparring - we each did 2 rounds of shiai kumite (competition sparring). I did my first round with a young lad of about 12 who was grading for 3rd kyu. Though he wasn't much smaller than me, he was still a lad (and not very confident with himself) so I didn't feel I could go too heavily with him. Having said that, he did show a reasonable range of techniques - just not assertively enough to score. My second round was with my son, and he showed his mum no mercy! In fact, our instructor had to remind us it was light sparring only. I think we scored 1 point each, and gained a few bruises!

 

Then it was time to line up to receive our marks. Usually we get the breakdown of each section as well as the overall mark but there was only time to get the overall mark ( the grading had taken 2 hours). Prior to giving the marks he warned us that the 1st kyu's had been graded to black belt standard (which is tough) and to expect that our marks would be lower than we are accustomed to. I scored 60/100, my husband 63 and my son 62. We generally score in the region of 68 - 75 so I'm glad Sensei warned us!

 

I averaged 6 marks per section. If I do this in the black belt grading I would score 90 marks (there are 15 sections). The pass mark at black belt is 90! I would scrape a pass. Obviously I don't want to scrape a pass, I want to pass well so I will need to use these next 9 months to train really hard and make sure I improve my standard.

 

I think the 3rd kyu's were slightly in awe watching us 1st kyus perform some of our ippon kumite and goshin waza techniques. The differential in standard between 1st kyu and 3rd kyu is quite high, in the same way that the differential in standard between 1st kyu and 1st dan is quite high. I think we all finished the grading satisfied that we'd given it our best on the day, but with no doubts that improvements are needed for our black belt grading next May!

 

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Preparing for grading.....

I'm grading for 1st kyu tomorrow, along with my husband, son and another guy. On Wednesday our instructor lets us work on our syllabus at the back of the class. We didn't even bother with the individual kihon stuff because there is so much partner work to get through.

 

We have to demonstrate 9 different ippon kumite techniques (to 3 different attacks), 3 escapes to grabs from behind, 2 separate bunkai applications (one for each kata we have to perform) and escapes from mount and guard positions on the ground. We've each had to work out our own techniques (with some help from Sensei), so we are all doing different things. It took over half the lesson just for us to train these partner techniques.

 

We then got the chance to do each of our katas once each and then did a bit of kumite practice with the rest of the class. I know the kihon will take about 1/2 hour for us all to compete so I'm reckoning that the whole grading experience is going to last 2 hours at least - just for us. Taking into account that some 4th and 3rd kyus are grading in the same session, then I think we will be there at least 3 hours......

 

Another marathon grading session coming up! At least the hot weather has abated at the moment. I'll let you know how it goes.....

 

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