Uechi-Ryu.com

My good friend Laird, from Canada, is a formidable Uechi-ka and we have seen his work in clips that Josann posted.

He wrote me the following:

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Van

As a follow up to Laird's points, one could say that the kind of 'platform testing' is all about removing doubt about your physical attributes and your mental resolve.

For example, when free fighting in tournaments against a top fighter, he will seek out every chink in your presupposed armor to fill you with hesitation, distraction and doubt about skills you may have taken for granted.

You will also discover how much fatigue and discomfort you can handle in a 'mere' sporting event …before you hit the 'wall'_

And you will also know that in a real fight, after the initial adrenaline dump wanes rather quickly, leaden arms and legs, and the 'wall' will 'embrace' you with a vengeance.

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Van

As to free fighting/sparring/tournament competition...Gushi sensei, on his tapes series _ stated that they did lots of free fighting in his youth, full contact until some one could not continue. This is how they trained and tested.

Then again...Why is it that every master in almost every style introduced some form of competitive venue if sport is of no value? Are we saying the masters didn’t know what they were doing?

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Van

Here's something from Suarez Intl...deadly force on force instruction, that is well applicable to martial arts self defense training:

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Van

Well to quote Tony Blauer
" it's all fake , we do the best fake stuff"............same with sport martial arts, it's got to be the best fake stuff....Judo doesn't work too well on concrete..........look at kyokushinkai,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,no head shots ........like nobody would ever dream of hitting you in the head in a real fight

Not necessarily so. The KK system allows kicks to the face, and someone who has conditioned to take such hits...i.e., kicks to the head _won't much care of the punch to the head in a real fight.

But the attributes any fighter needs to develop have much to do with learning movement/avoidance...of the punch to the face.

This is what, among other things, tournament fighting, or hard dojo fighting, tends to develop well.

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Van

Lairds so on the money , I think he cuts through all the bs , and through the this style vs this style bs , do you see the lines?

Youve got to look at what the objective is , each game or test is designed to build a set of skills , and all will have a flaw , a safety valve.

the attributes competitive martial arts are designed for are great , but they are just a set of attributes , dont confuse the game for the goal (unless being a champion at the game is your goal)

its pretty much possible to find flaw in anything , but its understanding the purpose the positives and putting it in context .



Did Kanbun introduce aport fighting Van ? , I think they all had a purpose , i think however sometimes people have the worng idea of what that purpose was .

I love sport fighting and spent a large part of my life pursuing it , but is it a one size fits all ? , if an small elderly women signs up for your karate class because you advertise self defence , and you give them some sort of points karate as the answer .... are you being honest?

Now give a young guy with some natural atheleticisim and aggression ... can they make it work ?

all tools in the tool box , and any pressure testing is better than imagination .

you cant argue against the mental toughness the no head punching in Kyokushin creates , sure there are flaws but theres also a reason ....

and Judos deadly on the concrete , just dont be the one getting thrown , but I guess they dont punch too .... oh wait theres a reason for that flaw too

Micro moment skillsets , meant to be blended with other skillsets to flesh out the package , while maintaining degrees of safety and specialisation to build particular skills .

lot of thought in that .

Great post here. Agree that some test/pressure is better than nothing.

Also agree with what has been posted about Laird's interpretations of practical uechi. Some of the best stuff I've seen.

Not sure what you meant by that Blauer quote Ray. I'm a big fan of Blauer's stuff as I think it fits in well with the sanchin stance and his stuff on the flinch response is perfect for what uechi teaches.

There is an evolutionary process in all that we do, and karate training methods are no exception…with time comes new knowledge much as many karate practitioners love to argue about it.

Testing platforms vary, and over time there have been many variations of them.

Uechi Ryu is of Chinese origin and Old China has a history of competitive 'testing platforms'…take San Shou, for example

Kanbun Uechi was exposed to this training method, but he was wise enough to realize that if you allow students to practice or compete in unsafe, relatively speaking, methodology, the student will get badly hurt and he will not continue with his training. So as a teacher, you have accomplished nothing.

But he did teach jiyu kobo… a free attack/defense platform. To wit … Basically, Jiyu Kobo consists of a well-timed, explosive attack without
warning. Any type of attack was appropriate - fist, foot, and swinging
strikes, combination attacks, anything. The defense must react in a relaxed
and flowing motion, diffusing the attack and countering. When contact is
made, the attack/defense sequence is over.

Contact is allowed only with the use of sundome. As opposed to todome_Injuries were rare at this
level of skill and control. Intent to contact was required, but intent to
injure was strictly forbidden.

An aspect of Jiyu Kobo that makes it more difficult is that each attack and
defense must be made with perfect form within the system. The power,
precision, and balance generated in kata must be shown in the attacks and
defense.

Also Kyokushin competes with bare knuckles…so to allow face punches is frowned upon, as the dangers for both fighters in the ring are obvious…including broken hands, blood flowing from cuts, and sepsis infection from cut knuckles that can lead to death. KK students still practice face punching in a safe manner when training to learn how to deal with them, but the rules of competition are there for a reason.

Stryke has got this right

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Van

Quote
"Not sure what you meant by that Blauer quote Ray. I'm a big fan of Blauer's stuff as I think it fits in well with the sanchin stance and his stuff on the flinch response is perfect for what uechi teaches."

Well we have to accept that sport fighting/sparring is fake, it's not real, therefore we have to make it as real as we can. If you move the sport too much from the reality of a streetfight then you end up practising something that is worse than useless, because it will instill in you bad habits, and when you get in a situation where you may need your training that is what will come out, even if you train them seperately you will still think " I am in a fight,no head shots, I'll have to use kicks and I can fall over when I do them A La Kyokoshinkai" it also breeds a false sense of toughness IMO.....much better to train for what you will get.....except in the rarefied climes of martial arts clubs, most folks will try to punch you in the face....you can ignore that at your peril

Stay tuned John, Laird is about to rejoin my forum.

As you know, not only he is great at real life interpretations of Uechi concepts...he is also not afraid to show his ideas on video clips.

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Van

True. But most all styles, including Uechi in the present day, train to punch to the face and to deal with such incoming punches.

To keep in mind is the fact that we cannot allow naked fist strikes to the face during training or tournament fighting for the obvious reasons outlined above. Not even boxers train to hit with naked fists while preparing for a match, and do wear gloves when they fight.

So the question revolves on training safely or you will never train again, leaving one defensless in the end.

Now...due to the availability of safety equipment, Uechi Ryu and other styles, do allow punches to the face. For our Dan test, IUKF requires three 2 minutes rounds with padding allowing face punches.

However, you can't spar full contact or even medium contact without safety equipment and train for very long due to injury when hand/elbow techniques and kicks to the face and head are allowed.

Here you see the All Okinawa championships, where Uechi
is usually the winner style.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cKQG_305n_4

Count the head punches.

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Van

More of Okinawa championships...these are Uechi fighters...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IZ_P2OZLoL4

Count the head punches, and notice their fighting attributes.

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Van

Wasn't talking about
Uechi, was talking about kyokoshinkai

Ray,
If am not mistaken, your position is that free fighting/tournament fighting is useless for developing street fighting attributes...isn't that what you wrote on another thread?

And here you wrote Here you indicate martial art arts clubs in general …not KK specifically, and Stryke and I are discussing the value of sport fighting on this page as well.

KK has its reasons to not allow face punches, one of them being they compete with the naked fist, no padding. But they do practice punching to the face during training.

Uechi does allow head shots in fighting because of the hand padding, and its type of competition develops pretty good street fighters, always has. It is like Stryke says, it's all in the way you train.

Let's keep this conversation on track.

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Van