Shikodachi/Kibadahi/Who's yer dachi?

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Bill Glasheen
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Post by Bill Glasheen »

Dana

Marcus touched on a few things I'll comment on.

As I see it, there are stance pairs (shown somewhat above) which are complimentary. These would be the following

Sanchin dachi vs. Renoji dachi

Heiko dachi vs. Hachiji dachi

Kiba dachi vs. Shiko dachi

Look on your charts above. What you will notice is the difference between the stance on the left vs. the one on the right is a 30-degree rotation of the femur in the hip socket. That's all.

In my view, it's all about cocking a torsion spring in the hips. I've learned to use that spring (along with compression and flexion springs) to store and release energy for kicks and thrusts. In particular, I find that Sanchin allows one to throw a powerful whipping kick off the front leg by storing energy in the leg torsion springs. You can't do that from the relaxed renoji dachi.

Kiba dachi creates firmness of stance which I find useful for doing hip throws, or skating confidently across a slippery floor. Shiko dachi tends to be something I go to when exploding forward.

In my view, Uechi's horse stance can be variations of the kiba dachi, shiko dachi, and something more Chinese. I see George doing this more frontal Chinese deep stance in his forms. I also saw Simon doing that in the Fuzhou Suparinpei after coming back from China. In the classic kiba or shiko dachi, the navel would be slightly off to the side. In the frontal horse stance, the navel would face the target (along with the pelvis) and the back knee is a little more facing forwards than out.

In the following Sanseiryu sequence...
  • Double boshiken
  • Gedan barai
  • Shoken sukuiage uke
  • Double shoken toss
... I now shift from one variation of deep stance to another. I've got a kiba dachi, a zenkutsu dachi, and a more frontal Chinese horse stance. I'm actually very comfortable shifting amongst these different deep stance versions because I learned how to in the Yang style Tai Chi short form.

I hope all that makes sense. Basically what I'm saying is my classic line - it's all good. Not only is it all good, but I think the real secret to hip-driven power is in the transitions between the variations.

- Bill
Stryke

Post by Stryke »

I think the real secret to hip-driven power is in the transitions between the variations.
8) , the real secret to balance , power and structure is not the snap shots but the constant shifting of harmonious alignment .

its all in the transitons , it is a transition .

good post Bill
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Joseverson
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Post by Joseverson »

Dana Sheets wrote:In my brief time training judo, I never ran into the Sanchin stance being identified.
How is sanchin used in the judo you train?
In fact, those drawings are under KARATE entry in my blog. :) (Just for researches. My old Karate students asked me to put them there, so I did it.)

Jūdō is much more simple, just only two stances... Jigo-hontai and Shizen-hontai!
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Joseverson
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Uechi-Ryû Kata Meishô meanings.

Post by Joseverson »

By the way, I included an entry about "Karate-Dō no Kata" where I translate the names of Uechi-Ryū Kata.
This entry is called "KARATE NO KATA - SONO ICHI"

http://judoforum.com/blog/joseverson/index.php

Any comment and help are welcome! :D

Joe
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Bill Glasheen
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Post by Bill Glasheen »

06. KANCHIN
"The Final Battle"
"A Batalha Final"
I'm not so sure this was meant to be translated that way.

As I understand it, you have "Kan" from Kanbun and "chin" from Sanchin. It's sort of like Kanshiwa which is an amalgam of Kanbun and Shushiwa, or Kanshu which is an amalgam of Kanbun and Shushiwa. It's just the characters thrown together, without necessarily meaning anything.

The closest thing you could come to a meaning of Kanchin would be Kanbun's battle. Maybe...

By the way, that's an impressive piece of work you have there.

- Bill
Jim Robinson
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Post by Jim Robinson »

Dana
For years my horsestance and elbow strike in Kanshiwa kata lacked speed and power. Some time back without realizing it right off I began to cock my right hip and shoulder(Which is what most of us do I would imagine) a few inches to the rear of the left side and just before contact I would find myself slightly airbourne (Half inch or so) before contact. I've named it my "Flying hip" strike.
Not sure if I'm the only Uechi ka doing it that way but I can tell you it has increased my speed to power ratio tremendously.
Jim Robinson
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Dana Sheets
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Post by Dana Sheets »

Hi Jim,
Yes - how to accelerate into the horse stance is an interesting question. Some people simply don't. Their power is smoother, more graceful than more explosive. Others come forward like a wrecking ball.

I think I see what you're talking about. One of the big barriers to my developing explosiveness was not understanding how to include the dropping of my weight into the forward motion. For a long time I fell like I was "pushing" myself forward against some kind of internal resistance instead of setting up a dynamic where I felt I could drive forward slowly or quickly with good balance and power without feeling like I was overcoming some kind of weird internal inertia.

We do quite a bit of long stance explosive training at our dojo, courtesy of Mr. Nakamatsu. The driving along the floor in long stances over and over again eventually wears out the little muscles and forces you to use the big ones if you're going to get anywhere.

For me, right about the time when I would tear the callouses off the balls of my feet and the tips of my big toes is when my body finally relaxed enough that I got out of my own way. The funny thing about it is if I let up on the deep stance training for too long - I lose it, and I'm back to pushing.

So when you're twisting your shoulder back - I'm guessing that you're getting a little bit of tension in your waist/hips that's helping the explosion of the strike at the end...though that's just a guess based on what you typed.

I'll see about taping and putting up few variations of entries for couple of different elbow strikes and folks can dissect them.

-------------------------------------------------------

Bill - in terms of the various stances you're talking about - for that series of three techniques in sanseiryu there are definitely two schools - those that use one stance and those that use more than one.

For those that use one stance it is held, rock solid, throughout the combination and I can see reasons for that.

I've noticed of late that shifting low stances at full speed is a great way to bust my own balance and root - and that the only way to make sure that those shifts are effective (i.e. they always feel better in the kata than how it plays out against uke's body weight) is that I need to slow them way the heck down so that I'm not over-reaching my center.

Of late I've had my students come push and pull on me in the longer/lowing stances. This was done extensively by Mr. Minoru Miyagi during my visit to Okinawa. We spend a good 5 minutes in that three move combo doing one move - having him push on arms, legs, calves, stomachs, shoulders, heads...doing the next moving and having the pushing start all over again...and doing the third move and having the pushing/pulling/pressing start all over again.

He was very clear that stability came first (what he called "strong") and then speed.
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Joseverson
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Post by Joseverson »

By the way, that's an impressive piece of work you have there.
- Bill
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Joe
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Bill Glasheen
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Post by Bill Glasheen »

Joseverson wrote:
By the way, that's an impressive piece of work you have there.
- Bill
Image

Joe
Do ita shimashite!

Here's another piece which reinforces my thoughts on this matter.

The Uechi family has elected to name a number of their males with "Kan" as the first of two characters in the name.
  • Kanbun was the fellow who studied under Shushiwa in China
  • Kanei was Kanbun's son who made Uechi Ryu famous
  • Kansei was also a Uechi style practitioner, and brother of Kanei
  • Kanmei is the son of Kanei, and head of the SOKE branch of Kanbun's style
  • Kanji is the son of Kanmei. He is the likely "hier apparent" after Kanmei (to the extent that this tradition will hold).
You get the idea. It's sort of like the "LBJ" initials in Lyndon Johnson's family.

- Bill
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Dana Sheets
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Post by Dana Sheets »

FWIW - when I was on Okinawa I learned that the characters that make up the "kan" are pronounced two ways. Kan is one, hiro is another. Kan is the more southerly pronunciation and hiro is more northern.

So Uechi Kansei was also known as Uechi Hirosei.

-d
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Joseverson
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Post by Joseverson »

Dana Sheets wrote:FWIW - when I was on Okinawa I learned that the characters that make up the "kan" are pronounced two ways. Kan is one, hiro is another. Kan is the more southerly pronunciation and hiro is more northern.

So Uechi Kansei was also known as Uechi Hirosei.

-d
Hummmm... Allow me to add 2 notes:
1. どう致しまして。"Dō itashimashite." ("you are welcome") Itashimashite is a single word.

2. In fact japanese ideograms (Kanji) generally have 2 reading forms: KUN'YOMI and ON'YOMI.
KUN'YOMI is the japanese pronunciation to the ideogram and ON'YOMI is the japanese interpretation of chinese phonems (sounds).

Researching "KAN" in UECHI KANBUN's name I found out that for "japanese given name" this ideogram may be: Ikui, Ikuya, Kan, Kanji, Sada, Tamotsu, Hiroshi (Hiro?), Masashi, Matashi, Mamoru, Yasushi, Yutaka...

But, once it (KAN) has no Kun'yomi, I'd dare to say that because of complementary kanji (BUN) the only way to read it is KANBUN, and, in the same line, KANSEI. Hirosei does not sound "natural" reading for that name.
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Bill Glasheen
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Post by Bill Glasheen »

Joseverson wrote:
1. どう致しまして。"Dō itashimashite." ("you are welcome") Itashimashite is a single word.
Interesting... I learned that expression so long ago (in my 日本語 class) that I don't recall having ever written it down. I've never seen the kanji anyway. Just どういたしまして and that's it.

I did just look it up in a book I have on useful Japanese phrases. It has do itashi mashite. Go figure! :lol:

Another useful thing to consider here...

In addition to the kun (Japanese origin) and on (Chinese origin) pronunciations of Kanji, we also have to consider that they sprinkle a bit of Hogen (Okinawan dialect) in here and there. As a matter of fact, Okinawans ethnically aren't really Japanese. They're a bit closer to Chinese. Seeing as how fishing, farming, and trade were the three big activities on the Ryuyu Islands, you get quite the mix of this and that.

Nestor Folta, a student of Kanmei, married Okinawan and fills me in now and then to some of the differences in language and expressions with this part of the world. Over time both China and Okinawa are losing their dialects, and becoming more homogenized (with Mandarin/Cantonese and Japanese respectively). But the vestiges of Hogen exist throughout martial arts.

- Bill
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Joseverson
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Post by Joseverson »

Interesting... I learned that expression so long ago (in my 日本語 class) that I don't recall having ever written it down. I've never seen the kanji anyway. Just どういたしまして and that's it.
I did just look it up in a book I have on useful Japanese phrases. It has do itashi mashite. Go figure! :lol:
- Bill
Hi Bill!
Making it very short, let's say that "Itashimashite" comes from the verb ITASU (致す)"to do" - that is formed by ITA (致) (verb radical) + (す)SU (conjugated as SHIMASHITE) that becomes ITASHIMASHITE (致しまして)to express a meaning of something like "do not mention it".
:)
David Hayward
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Post by David Hayward »

Adding weight to Dana's argument is that Kanei's second son was named Hiromasu.

If I can share the following, when I studied at the Futenma dojo in 1980 Master Kanei specifically demonstrated Kiba dachi when performing the elbow strike in Kanshewa by taking a chair, placing it at a 45 degree angle from the front and sitting on it, his feet were parallel. He then raised his buttocks slightly and pushed the chair backwards from under him and twisted his torso to the front.
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Dana Sheets
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Post by Dana Sheets »

Yes - Hiromasu - that was it. I knew it wasn't exactly the same. Thanks!

And I think Uechi Kanji is known as Uechi Hiroshi but I might have that wrong as well.

David - when you say his feet were parallel - were they parallel to the 45 degree angle or parallel to the front?
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