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I disagree that things that take a long time to learn how to use should be discarded from training. For the simple fact that this is something we are doing long-term and this is something we are doing to gain advantage.

Now if I were asked to teach a three week class to get people to ready to be in a tough, gang-ridden inner city environment where they were likely to have little time to practice what they learned then I would probably teach them 5-8 gross motor movements and ask them to learn them well. I'd also suggest they talk to someone else who is familiar with defense against gun and knife violence as well as modern gang attacks (machete anyone?) because I'm not.

Making Uechi easier to digest is not what this is about at all. The easy road is easily travelled and followed. This is about what you can do to have a little advantage over those who are predators. These particular predators we're talking about are (for the most part) empty handed, right handed, and are throwing everything at you including the kitchen sink when you least expect it.

If you know how to use a sokusen, if you know how to use a shoken, if you know how to use balance displacement, body movement, footwork, timing, vital point striking and all that. If you really really know how to use and not just know of these things...perhaps you have an advantage. No absolutes in fighting - just possibility.

I am 100% confident that I can hit full power into someone's neck or a similar soft target with my boshiken - then we'll see how things go from there. Actually when I get startled these my days hands fly up and out in the startle position - with the bushiken locked in tight and ready to fire off my left hand..

I don't expect anyone to drop dead after I hit them - but I'm pretty sure they'll want to do something to try and stop me from continuing. On my shokens and my toes and my hiraken I'm at about 10% confidence at full power. However with my shokens and my hirakens I'm at 100% confidence raking across the face or other area with lots of nerves and then pushing in where I finish my rake.

The reason this thread was bumped up is that I'm starting (again) to work on my toes. One great benefit of training the "toe fist" as I like to call it is that you really work the other muslces in your feet. So the sokusen helps your blade edge, it helps your heel kick and it helps with the ball of the foot kick - because your entire foot gets stronger as you train sokusen.

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Aside from tool practicality...

Just to clarify:

A palm, for example, may be thought of as a simple 'overnight' tool, not much special conditioning really needed for that right? Yet there is no simple tool in the big picture of combat..nothing that is learned overnight. The study of how to use this simple tool can go on for many years of refinement in WCK. A young student will focus on his/her study of the palm for months refining his/her sensitivity, use of energy, timing, angling, releasing power, conversion, etc., against a resisting partner.

The focus is not on simply 'doing a palm' or doing a particular strike, or lock, but rather it is the endless study of how to apply these tools against live resistance, and later how all these fit together into a natural flow of continuous attack that is adaptive.

What happens when that "Name your pointy thingy" meets up, not with a neck, etc, but rather with a barrage of resistant force from the opponent's attacks? Will that be familiar territory? Again it's not so much the what, it's the how and when.

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Shaolin
M Y V T K F
"Receive what comes, stay with what goes, upon loss of contact attack the line" – The Kuen Kuit

No offense to those who train those techniques. I guess my point is, in the traditional workouts i've done, there is too much babbling about thumbs in, and the famous Sanchin Booty-Smack, things that have nothing to do with training to bash someones skull in. I would get so pissed when I would just start to break a sweat and then it would dry up because some sensei wanted to measure the angle of my toe or something retarded like that. I mean, REALLY!!!! C'MON! When is the work gonna get done if your farting around in class talking about pointy toes and the great master who killed a dragon with it?????

And people would wonder why I was such a fat ass! It's because my training time was being bogged down with stupid stuff that doesn't work!

The very first woman I trained up to shodan could do and walk on her sokusens the day she walked into the dojo. You want things that women can do? In my years of teaching, more women could do sokusens - right from day one - than men. Why? It's probably from ballet; that's just a guess.

In any case, tell Kathleen Wilson, my first female black belt, that sokusens don't work. Tell Amir Abu Jaber, my first child black belt, that sokusens don't work. Both of them could do serious damage with them on day one. They could run around the room on the tips of their toes. (I sent a film of Amir doing that to George as part of his junior black belt test)

The fact that someone else has problems with them is another issue. I've always taught a very broad menu of things from my Uechi toolbox. I find somebody in the class can do each and every thing I teach. Everyone has strengths and weaknesses. Everyone can improve.

I taught kicks over the years. Bruce Hirabayashi learned to do a full lateral splits, and developed to the point where he could squat more than 400 pounds. Guess what he got good at? (BTW, he could also use his toes...)

To each his/her own. It's up to the master to keep the toolkit full, and teach everyone how to use everything in it. We each find our favorite tools over time.

If you want to sweat and lose weight, Tony, join an aerobics class. Lift weights. Burn more calories than you eat. Take a taequondo class.

Uechi Ryu is about efficiency. Yes, over the years I had students who wanted me to make them sweat. I could always make them sweat.

Then we would practice fighting.

The better I get at my Uechi, the harder I have to work in the weight room and on the eliptical trainers to burn more calories than I eat.

- Bill

Tony if you want to break a good sweat , try smacking some booty at the boxing Gym. I suspect you will get an workout and some

Interesting thread thanks Dana.

Mike wanted me to find pictures of Patrick McCarthy using a shoken on his neck. I couldn't find that particular picture. Was this from the January or July seminar, Mike?

In any case, Patrick McCarthy is not a Uechi practitioner. However... Check out three pictures I got from his seminar a few weekends ago. Tell me you don't see the Uechi Ryu. Tell me you don't see self defense applications of Uechi pointy things, and Uechi circular movements.

Patrick's approach is to teach these responses to HAPV, and then have the students see the moves in their own kata. If you can't see these moves in your Uechi kata...

Nice application of a boshiken.

Picture removed until permission obtained to post

Here Mike gets the crane beak in the suprasternal notch. Say cheese, Mike!

Picture removed until permission obtained to post

Hawk chases sparrow exposes a pressure point in the neck. I saw Rory Miller doing this move at camp. It starts with a simple Uechi circle...

Picture removed until permission obtained to post

Look, ma, no fists!

- Bill

There are guys in new england that actually do KARATE with their Uechi Ryu. Gary Khoury for one. Then there is that group that trained with the Shotokan tournament guy. Those guys train hard, and yet... they are Uechi Ryu. I doubt they spend too much time sharpening their toe nails in class!

Really? Then how come most Uechi people i've seen turn blue in the face and can't hardly survive a single 3-minute round of sparring, and LIGHT sparring at that???? So much for efficiency.

Also, i've taken some shokens before, just for kicks, to debunk the myth if you will. As you can see, i'm not dead. Along the lines of what Jim was saying... Sure, you can hit me with a shoken in the eye, but good luck, because if we're not doing kumite #1 in a vaccum/time warp, then i'm coming down on you like a wrecking ball!

Tony

Hey Bobby, Bill got your good side in that Boshiken.

Nice shot!

Vicki

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"Cry in the dojo, laugh in the battlefield"

(Bill PM for you)
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Now if only Mom had forced me into ballet....

This thread is not going to convert non-pointy people into pointy people or vice versa. Bonus points all around for passion.

This thread has highlighted a number of good questions on where is training time best spent?

on cardio
on flow
on theory/principle
on exploring what is possible
on personal development
on body/weapon conditioning
on correcting postures
on actually just fighting

This thread has highlighted a number of possible negative returns in sokusen training

myth of deadly magical abilities
arthritis
time that could be spent training something else
we wear shoes anyway
toes are small and fragile and even well conditioned toes could break
you may be able to kick with more power another way
by trying to kick with a smaller weapon you might miss
people will think you odd for spending so much time thinking about your toes

This thread has highlighted a number of possible positive returns in sokusen training

stronger feet
protects the toes even inside the shoes (especially shoes that don't let you kick otherwise)
amazing your friends at parties with your intelligent digits
personal development in having the discipline to undertake and stick with austere training
help with overall balance awareness/development
greater penetration into the target
reduced striking surface area = greater PSI on contact
improved skill in ballet

One place where nice penetration is nice is the back of the knee.

I agree with Bill that the general goal is effiency.

So in my opinion, if I can throw a penetrating snap kick and do damage and get my foot back on the floor more quickly that is more appealing to me than throwing a big power kick that might do more damage but will take more time to get my foot back on the floor. Also in my experience if a snap kick misses you're back into a protected posture (either your shin in front or your foot back on the ground) more quickly that with a thrusting kick. That could easily be because I spend more time training snapping kicks than thrusting kicks.

PS -
Love the list feature and just figured out how to use it!

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Been there.

Done that.

Did you know that Khoury Sensei studied with Nakahodo Sensei?

Did you know that the "Shotokan tournament guy" trains his students for sport competition? Great stuff, BTW. I know good sport karate when I steal it.

What's your point, Tony? Why do you get upset when someone else finds merit in a certain practice? I happen to appreciate all that Khoury Sensei and Perry Sensei do. I do the same plyometric exercises they train. George brought me over to Gary's dojo where we sweated back and forth across the floor doing leaps and bounds and lunges.

I also happen to appreciate the art of self defense that Khoury Sensei's instructor, Nakahodo Sensei, does so well.

As Gary himself says, "It's all good."

Great segue, Tony. The check's in the mail.

Come to camp this weekend, and take part in the first FireDragon fitness challenge.

* Max push-ups in a minute
* Max chin-ups in a minute
* Max sit-ups in a minute
* Max standing broad jump
* Max squats in a minute, followed by...
* A one-mile run.

Show Tony what you're REALLY made of - or not.

- Bill

I said:
Bill said:


Bill - it may have been a root reflex a one point but if left unused for 5-30 years (depending on when someone starts training) the pruning of the brain might have eliminated the effiency of this response. Just like Uechi the brain seeks to be efficient. So it can definitely be relearned but I stand by my statement that it is not something that is easy to relearn because it requires three elements:
1) being able to make the toe fist
2) strengthening the toes and the foot and improving stretch
3) having the body experience enough successful kicks that it is willing to hardwire the attack.

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I'm not getting upset... just stirring up schit!

Dana deserves a forum full of crap once in a while too right???

Snap Kicks: I like snap kicks, they are like jabs. Not much power to them but if you time them right, you can compound the forward momentum of your adversary with your snap kick and stop them dead in their tracks. Timing is key to the snap kick, timing and of course, impact training on a kicking shield or something.

who me? I could pull this off with a few months of training. I'm not that bad outa shape. I'm already doing a few of those exercises. If I come to camp in the future, I PROMISE i'll do it.

Tony

Dana

Good thoughts.

The fact that the grasping reflex returns in the foot when pathology happens shows that it's still there all along. You just lost access to it.
The fact that a common man gave another fellow the IQ of a 12-year-old by kicking his head around like a soccer ball (with shoes on) shows that toe kicks under ordinary conditions (with shoes on) can be done even by the common thug. (See the case law I cited above)

In the dojo, we work on the Platonic ideal. But on the street if you can trip the bastard and swing the tip of your dress shoes up between his pant legs with the simplest of motions, well then you're ready to put that toe to work sooner than you think. That's my point - bad pun and all.

Everything else is just style points. And there's nothing wrong with working on style points.

- Bill