8 directions in 2 spheres

Dana Sheets · Post by **Dana Sheets** » Fri Dec 03, 2004 3:34 pm

Van,

Your point about Kanbun is well taken - that doesn't mean the developed kumites aren't useful - as you stated.

What seems to be less useful is perfecting the kumites to the point where they are trained without variation. I would submit that after the kumite sequence is learned with good proficiency - the kumite should then become a flow drill. For example - we both agree to start with #4 (whatever #4 is) and then we'll see what happens from there. Or as Bill says - you might say you're starting with number for but you do in a variety of ways mixing up the timing, etc.

This would be the bridge between the pre-arranged and free training.

And note: When I mean free training I'm not always talking about sparring - it can mean the NLD drills, sticky hands, anything where there isn't something planned ahead of time.

Mike - in terms of bunkai - I haven't grappled with that yet. I'm really focused on this point in my training on getting a good handle on seeing lines of force and angles of advantage. What I'll do with them will come next.

Dana

maxwell ainley · Post by **maxwell ainley** » Fri Dec 03, 2004 8:02 pm

When I came to uechi I wanted nothing to do with pre-arranged kumite as long as I lived ,I wanted a method that cut to the chase ,after four years of uechi- ryu I was fighting straight out of the kata ,at the liverpool dojo ,plus around that time I had a couple of real street encounters ,my moves were the kata ,this was a short term goal realised .
This is not a stab at pre-arranged ,I happen to believe same as Van they are good ,yet one must move on ?Bill I think you are quite right its how you utilise ,Dana I like what you do .

I don't intro any kumite for about four years ,kanbun like .yet I love to hear just what others do .

From a combat viewpoint ,I focus totally on the two kata in a all out effort to make the moves combat worthy , for me I Consider it to be a rapid way of kata to kumite ,but able to look like the kata at that level ,I demand this .
max.

Bill Glasheen · Post by **Bill Glasheen** » Fri Dec 03, 2004 8:28 pm

maxwell ainley wrote:When I came to uechi I wanted nothing to do with pre-arranged kumite as long as I lived ,I wanted a method that cut to the chase

Conversation after watching Heihachi Hayashida chopping wood for some extra yen

Gorobei Katayama: You're Good.
Heihachi Hayashida: Yeah, yeah. But I'm better at killing enemies.
Gorobei Katayama: Killed many?
Heihachi Hayashida: Well - It's impossible to kill 'em all, so I ususally run away.
Gorobei Katayama: A splendid principle!
Heihachi Hayashida: Thank you.

Katayama seeks to find out whom Hayashida's teacher is.

Heihachi Hayashida: I'm Heinachi Hayashida, a fencer of the Wood Cut School

- Seven Samurai

And you are Maxwell Ainley, a Uechika of the Brick Mason School.

These are your prearranged sets, sir. Like the Okinawan farmers and fishermen before you, your everyday tasks have honed your skills. This is not true of the average bloke that comes into the dojo.

It reminds me of being in high school physics. The guys (and some gals) who had spent their childhood crashing toy cars and blowing things up seemed to bring an innate understanding of Newtonian physics to the table. For everyone else, they had to learn it from scratch in the laboratory exercises.

Things are obvious to you, Max, that are not to others. Imagine the average guy doing a day's worth of your work. Forgetaboutit.

I always loved it when I could get my hands on someone who brought such understanding of body mechanics to the dojo. They made me look good.

- Bill

Dana Sheets · Post by **Dana Sheets** » Fri Dec 03, 2004 10:22 pm

after four years of uechi- ryu I was fighting straight out of the kata

I'd say your a gifted man with a gift for vision. I'm much more of a slow learner. And need some helpful strategies along the way.

Max, are there other methods beside the kata you used to teach students how to see and apply Uechi principles?

Dana

Van Canna · Post by **Van Canna** » Sat Dec 04, 2004 12:26 am

Good discussion.

Still, ask yourselves this question:

With all this superior learning today [ meaning prearranged kumites etc.] Does it make us equal or superior to Kanbun or his students, and his group who tackled and defeated the Wabodan?

A very good teacher who used to post on this forum, once wrote that “less is more” when it comes to Uechi training.

Kanbun was no fool, and he must have been exposed to prearranged work in China. Yet he saw no reason to develop any and relied exclusively on kata, bunkai, conditioning and Jiuy kobo…[Jiuy[free]_Ko[attack]_ bo[defense]_ why?

WHY? What did he see in Jiuy kobo he did not see in prearranged kumites?

Let’s see

I have found a lot of martial artists are practicing punch defenses from an unrealistic distance, 4ft to 5ft away is not a realistic distance. A person will need to be at least 3ft or nearer to effectively throw a good punch and note so will you.

If you had 5ft distance, why be waiting to block counter you could use a stop hit as JKD people refer to, in this case a crushing low line kick to shin, knee or thigh, why root yourself to the spot and block.

Most classical blocking methods fall short when applied against a street puncher or boxer.

Inner, outer and rising blocks become redundant, X blocks suicidal. Committed punches with body weight behind them and the opponent not holding back ;will crash through these blocks, taking into account if you even get time to attempt to use one.

Live fighting is not rigid 1 2 3 motions, it is fast, furious and continual motion.
Even high level exponents of the hard Shotokan Karate style when competing in point karate tournaments are hardly ever seen using the classical blocks. This should tell you something,.

In real punching range all you will have is instinctive reaction blocks or better termed as cover ups. The moves are reminiscent of how a boxer may cover up against blows, but just slightly modified.

[Bob Trias]

Do you think..do you think..Kanbun might have known this and he wasn’t interested in placing his students in harm’s way?

What brought the introduction of Prearranged kumites in Uechi? I mean what was the motivation behind them? Historically what brought them about?

Stryke · Post by **Stryke** » Sat Dec 04, 2004 12:44 am

Live fighting is not rigid 1 2 3 motions, it is fast, furious and continual motion.
Even high level exponents of the hard Shotokan Karate style when competing in point karate tournaments are hardly ever seen using the classical blocks. This should tell you something,.

In real punching range all you will have is instinctive reaction blocks or better termed as cover ups. The moves are reminiscent of how a boxer may cover up against blows, but just slightly modified.

The blocks are handy for beginners , as I wrote in the thread on Ricks forum they are fmailiar to flinches , In reality though they become attacks in the contact range , All the good Shotokan Ive seen progresses from the 1 step blocking drills to a process of any block(guard cover etc) any counter .

maxwell ainley · Post by **maxwell ainley** » Sat Dec 04, 2004 1:25 am

Dana ,just lost my post on subject matters ,its late so try tomorrow sometime .

max.

MikeK · Post by **MikeK** » Sat Dec 04, 2004 3:50 am

Stryke, A Shotokan guy gave a seminar at a karate school I went to and asked why they don't use their blocks. One black belt piped up that they don't work. The guy then gave some painful demonstrations on how to use "blocks" properly. Each one was a strike to a vital point on the arm or leg leaving the limb unusable for a few seconds. Amazing stuff.

Van Canna · Post by **Van Canna** » Sat Dec 04, 2004 4:15 am

MikeK wrote:Stryke, A Shotokan guy gave a seminar at a karate school I went to and asked why they don't use their blocks. One black belt piped up that they don't work. The guy then gave some painful demonstrations on how to use "blocks" properly. Each one was a strike to a vital point on the arm or leg leaving the limb unusable for a few seconds. Amazing stuff.

That was good, sound, traditional advice.

Dana, you wrote

So a good kumite isn't really about programming a sequence of responses - it's about showing students the principles they can use against different kinds of force in a structured environment where it's safe to make mistakes.

And it makes manifest the principles in kata that aren't evident to folks like me who don't have a perfect imagination of just what the heck those little models mean.

Yes and no, Dana.

Yes because it will help show those principles, and NO, because it will program the wrong response action, if you keep doing them over and over the same way, without graduating to a Jiuy Kobo model.

The objective of a serious student is to drift to A _ Jiuy Kobo model as soon as possible.

The fantastic drills of David Moy were a good bridge example, between arranged kumite and Jiuy Kobo..

Stryke · Post by **Stryke** » Sat Dec 04, 2004 4:20 am

Stryke, A Shotokan guy gave a seminar at a karate school I went to and asked why they don't use their blocks. One black belt piped up that they don't work. The guy then gave some painful demonstrations on how to use "blocks" properly. Each one was a strike to a vital point on the arm or leg leaving the limb unusable for a few seconds. Amazing stuff.

they are great as attacks , Ive posted how unhappy i am with the closed fist and am practicing with palms and the Uechi weapons , but the forearm to me is probably the handiest yet , smashing through guards , Limbs , necks etc ... good stuff , need to create Shotokan distance

, try a forearm through the guys throat etc .

i could say the same of the Wauke , i`d be surprised to find a whole lot that could Wauke a incoming side kick when they dont know it`s coming , Or a concentrated barrage of punches ,but maybe thats not what there for .

2Green · Post by **2Green** » Sat Dec 04, 2004 4:24 am

Hey, MikeK: You're right about that!! Let's get rid of that "B"-word!

I wanted to slide this in:
The kumites (for our readers they are called 3,2,1, Kyu and Dan) have been good practice for me and I feel they serve their purpose as I understand their purpose to be.
They increase familiarity with contact as time goes on and get the student to inject some life into their techniques.

However, early on I recognized something about them which bothered me:
They demonstrate/illustrate UECHI defenses against UECHI techniques.

I've often wished for a kumite which showed Uechi defenses against common non-Karate attacks...in other words real-life attacks.
For example it's getting common nowadays for attackers in a bar fight to swing DOWN from above: a sort of vertical downward roundhouse.
Or the classic jab/cross which most boxing fans can do pretty well, especially after having a few cold ones.
When drilling techniques I try to use the bouncing, bobbing, faking, suckering-type punches I see thrown in real life.(I spend most of my weekends playing in bars).
I wish the kumites had more of this.

NM

Dana Sheets · Post by **Dana Sheets** » Sat Dec 04, 2004 4:28 am

But sadly, Kanbun isn't teaching me.

Doing any exercise including jiyu kubo, kata, or just sitting in seisa isn't going to do me any good if I don't know what direction I'm going.

You see, there's nothing in this world I can do empty handed to stop the full force attack of a big strong guy. Stopping is stupid. Uechi doesn't teach stopping or I wouldn't be studying it.

I need to better understand lines of force and I'm haven't learned it yet by standing 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, or 10 feet away from my partners. Many of you know my teacher and know that he is very good. All the regular readers here know that I've reached out and cross-trained in a number of different ways. And eight years into this system I'm finally starting to see the lines of power I could see four years into judo.

Why? My original judo teachers didn't really speak English, I trained with a bunch of other folks who were also just beginners. But judo "clicked" for me. I'll never know why.

The basics of Uechi clicked...but using Uechi while moving against an opponent who also has skill using Uechi (or anything else besides judo) while moving hasn't clicked.

So I need to find other ways. And I can't be alone.

So while Kanbun may not have had time for 2-man sets, he's also long dead and unless some miracle occurs he's not coming back.

I'll never learn Uechi the way Bobby Kaiser learned Uechi. We're different people with different skill sets.

I need to see this stuff broken into little pieces so I can digest it, play with it, and then internalize it.

Just because Kanei Uechi's kumite's were developed during the era of free sparring doesn't mean they don't contain important principles of the Uechi system. Yes they're shown in a longer form, yes they start from further away, but the principles of movement are the same. As is so often said in different ways - they are the keys on the piano - they are not music.

So now tie your belt to your partner's and do your kumite. You can do it, but now you must do it short form - body shifting instead of steps, body shifting & deflections & strikes must happen all at once. But you can still use the pattern to build your abilities. To give you a starting point.

Many other southern chinese systems including white eyebrow, white crane, and mantis use two man sets. They are another method. Some people will find them the most useful, others will find kata the most useful, others are natural fighters and don't need a single minute of training to know how to kill everyone in the room.

So just because Kanbun didn't do two man sets isn't a good enough reason for me to not look at them as a method of training. Seems like Kanbun and Max are the same type of guy - they can fight right out of the form.

Well I can't. But I'm not going to whine about it and walk away. I'm going to keep plugging away until I figure it out, and figure out how to present this stuff to those who come after me...no matter how they learn.

2Green · Post by **2Green** » Sat Dec 04, 2004 4:35 am

Hi Stryke!
Yes there is a different technique for dealing with a SIDE kick! It's not a Wauke block. Well, not EXACTLY...
OK, I'm in a right Sanchin.
You throw a right side kick at me.
My right hand goes down and to centre.
My left hand goes "punch-guide" to centre.
What happens? My elbows meet at the centre...trapping your foot in an absorptive grip which still allows me to use that lower right hand to perform a Wauke circle, throwing your leg off to my right side.

That's in Kyu Kumite.

Flurry of punches?
That's a different one.
There are some "clearing" techniques in Uechi that can deal with this but we don't practice them very often...I think I might bring this up next class...and thanks for the suggestion!

NM

Van Canna · Post by **Van Canna** » Sat Dec 04, 2004 4:37 am

On target my friend.

Understand that kumites were not designed against street attacks..

We should be training, as you put it, against habitual acts of street violence, and kumite moves don't fit, because they were never meant to..

But for some reason, I still cannot fathom, they have been latched on to as the holy Grail of street defensive combat.

Mind boggling. Kanbun had no use for prearranged work, but we seem to find them so indispensable...

Think of them as "training wheels" for your bike when you were a child..then what did you do with those wheels once able to stay balanced?

Question: why did Kanbun not develop any? What did he know that we don't?

Do them, then move on, before they deep six your response action in a real fight.

Stryke · Post by **Stryke** » Sat Dec 04, 2004 4:48 am

Hey Neil , hope you dont think i`m knocking Uechi blocks just some thoughts , covering and parrying vs blocking ...

and block is a terrible term , Uke is more correctly traslated to receive

so its a tool against receiving force , makes more sense huh .

As for the kumites I`m not joining in on that one , I would be interested in the principles they teach , I just found some clips to download of them .