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So during a recent effort in making a video about initiating a change at a school we asked the principal to tell us what he does when someone doesn't want to get on board.

He said that he asks the teacher "You tell me what part of what I'm asking you to you isn't valid and then we'll talk about not doing it."

So that got me thinking that we could take the same litmus test to the the uechi kata.

Sanchin
Seisan
Sanseiryu

hmmm.....

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I'll start off with one. And then try to dodge the lightning bolts.

So in sanseiryu you slide forward, do some kind of a movement with your left hand, and throw a shoken with your right hand - the following movement is that you slide backwards, make the double shoken fists, and then turn with your hands still in the double shoken fists.

The turn with your hands in double shoken fists is completely avoided in the OKK sanseiryu bunkai.

Now I've been taught by a few different folks that this movement should be seen as one where the hands have seized pieces/parts of uke and the sliding back and turning is the throw.

Facing foward with both hands in shoken fists makes good sense to me as a model. You've got the high low/over under/ seizing striking thing going on.

Turning with both hands in shokens makes less sense to me unless...Well no, I'll wait on that idea for a second.

So is turning with both hands in shoken fists pressing together a valid concept?

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It's very similar to the opening sequence in chinto/gankaku kata, the hand movement is a catch into a trap except we do the movement with knife hands rather than shokens. The trapping works when there is enough surface sandwiching the other guys hand. Try the trapping move three ways, first hands in knife hands, then in shokens and then in a regular fist. You'll notice that the when the hands are in knife hands or shokens that the backs of the hands fit tightly together, but when in a regular fist they just lay against each other.

In training I've used the trap and then the turn as an arm break or lock.

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I use the shoken turn in seisan into the neck from a shoot , it works .


I`d have to hold the jumpback and sword jump stuff up for scrutiny , but I dont do it that way .

Hey Stryke,

I think we're talking about different postures there. The one in seisan where the shokens are separate but facing into each other is one that also works well for me.

As for swords...technically there is no sword in the kata. Though I do wonder sometimes if the demos from back in the day used the harder "jo" or not, why whatever stick they were using was in the dojo, and what else they did with it.

However, the shoken posture in sanseiryu is one that I think has some curious elements to it.

Mike's description of using the posture as a wedging trap is one that I'm familiar with.

I have been able to make it work pretty well when I've used the posture to wedge and slide off the line and inside to the point that I can seize onto something of their and then step back and use the turn to yank them off their center. However, used in such a way it isn't a "fight ender" unless a wall or some other nice hard object is nearby.

I've also seen using the same wedge posture with a smaller jerk (little swallow/spit fajingy type stuff) to bounce around what I just wedged as a means of stopping whatever they're trying to do next and opening up some soft targets.

On the trapping part...uechi usually goes to shokens that point in wacky directions when seizing is an option. I know of one very senior Uechi-ka who doesn't really think shokens were ever really meant for strong linear strikes...that shokens are mostly for raking, pressing, or as representing seizing.

The bunkai shown for the posture in kanshiwa kata is a curious mix of the two. You barrel in and slam the guard out of the way and follow with a shoken. The other person fires back a linear strike that you then wedge/trap off the line.

I know of several folks who, at this point, give a little tug on the arm they just trapped using only the pressure of the wedge between the two shokens. I'm curious how that little tug got into that bunkai because I've seen it in lots and lots of places...

But in that bunkai there is no turning.

So what is valid to me is turning tight and hard when you've got a couple fistfuls of the other person seems to have a pretty hight probablility for sucess, relying on the pressure of a wedge alone during the turning seems to have lower probability to me...

So Mike - when you've used the open-handed versions to lock - did it seem contrived to you or really as one of those moves that made you think "huh - well that's a totally easy and natural way to break that guy's *joint*"?

I actually like the move quite a bit - but I really see it as a very close in move (my hands on their body) rather than one done further out (my hands on their hands/wrists)

My judo brain likes the idea of an agressive move forward where the lower hand grabs shirt or arm, and the upper hand shoots past the head to grab the collar/hair. Then you're sinking/seizing/turning all at once to yank them out of their shoes...that's not something I could ever pull off against someone much taller...but could see doing pretty well on someone of my size.

Grabbing what you can and yanking with your whole body weight is usually a pretty good way to get someone to stop thinking about hitting you and start worrying about how they're going to stop falling.

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On it's own I'd say it was contrived, but put together in the opening sequence of Chinto it made sense. The sequence has a shifting of the weight onto the back leg and a bit of blading that creates a void while we're executing the trap. So we're yanking them off their center by guiding their committed attack further along their original direction. This is followed up by a strike or two setting up a possible throw. So in this case the kata looks to have a somewhat obvious complete sequence.
A side note: I remember at my ill-fated attempts at Kanshiwa bunkai that I would naturally go for the elbow bump on the last move.


I'm not a Uechi guy and I hope nobody takes this wrong but I've always felt that Kanshiwa was a bit contrived. It's got some good Uechi techniques and starts a person moving but the sequences are incomplete so I've never taken it seriously for applications. It is a good beginner kata. With that said a bunkai for that last sequence I'd say the shoken is a lapel grab and the wedge/trap is jerking the person forward.



I'd go along with that. The hand form looks like a good grab and unless your opponent is somewhat immobile or is a real tomato can trying to get a pinpoint strike from long distance is pretty tough. At least that's my experience. In CDT we used shokens often to trigger nerves, and in Hangetsu there are is a move that's twin shokens (but with the middle fingers) to two points on the chest. Works great as part of a defense against a front choke where the opponent is essentially immobilizing themselves for you.

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Id have to say there both , there very functional in a striking sense when targeting . How hard can you shoken yourself in the neck ? how much force does it take to illicit the response you need . And comparitively historically they seem to be a striking tool IMHO , just a developed one

But I think your right in the sense there often seizing , pressing etc , Lairds use of them in cavity pressing is horrifying to experience , forming the shoken into/around the muscle/bone .



thats interesting Mike , I was taught with the regular Uechi Shoken position , cool stuff (love variance) , Ive seen pictures of Shotokan guys using both the first two fingers in a shoken position (well maybe it`d be a niken ) I beleive it was actually the fist position on one of funakoshi`s early books in japanese , but my memory lets me down again .

I remembered the name Rentan Goshin karate jutsu from 1925[/quote]

Ha! I miss training with you mate! No one will let me show them that more than once.



Last Christmas rocked, but we should have played longer under this tree! Don’t think that kick and clap dude had a head butt in him.

Still want a dojo under a tree somewhere.

Interesting thread and comments.

Laird

Hey Laird arent you banned

maybe not everyone finds pain fun and informative

cant beleive it was only a year ago mate , look forward to training again soon .

yeah I`m all for the dojo under the forest , hey you`ve seen my sometimes weekend dojo

Dana,
Just to show you the hand position I'm talking about here's a diagram of Gangaku. The position is in the opening sequence.

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mmmm...very interesting. I espcially like the little cartoon kiai 1/2 down the form.

Acutally at one point I was shown a variation where when you do the shoken with one hand, the other hand in a shoken travels back toward the elbow of the shoken-ing hand. Which makes a posture very similar to the one in the kata.

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One thing I'll toss out about valid and invalid techniques is asking ourselves who are we using them on.

For example Kanshu: I love Kanshu, it contains techniques that I learned way before I ever heard of Uechi ryu. If I has to pick one kata for a self defense class this is the one. (Of course there will be at least one "BUT" and here it is.) But when I would try to use those techniques against my friend I'd end up getting hit. Hmmmmm, were they invalid? Maybe.

Recently we added a new guy to our tiny training group and he has no previous martial experience or training. While doing some free form scenario sparring (I was the BG) I noticed many of my techniques were my old favorites from Kanshu and they were working just fine.

It dawned on my that the K group of techniques might not be applicable against a well trained fighter like my friend, but are just fine against someone who makes the normal mistakes of the common street fighter.

So while exploring if something is valid we also have to look at the context before we make final judgment.

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I was dreaming of the past...

Very valid point Mike

application IMHO should be aimed to work against someone bigger , meaner and more desperate than you .

Is it possible to strike technical stalemate sometimes with a good training partner (of course) , but should the techniques still work against them (of course)


it then becomes a case of being able to control the entry and apply the technique . Dominating positon and force reception .

just my ramblings mate