hoshin wrote: for simplicity lets stick with Kanshiwa. Because that is what I was mostly thinking of anyway. There are three turns in the beginning each with a wa- uke and punch. From my previous perspective reading your posts I would have to assume you teach white belts to ..
turn to their left ,starting with their head to see the attack, then block ,step and punch all at one time? so they all land together?
let me know if this is how you do it or if different, how you do it because i would like to finish my thought once i can understand better where yo uare coming from.
steve
I'll let Rick speak for himself. But I'll also answer your question from the Banff perspective I believe it is similar to Both Ricks and Marcus’s point of View. Marcus doesn’t bother with this kata, but he’s familiar with it and the concepts contained within.
I don't teach this kata at the moment either but have in the past.
1. Block it is not a word I use, as soon as a movement is labeled as block all other applications tend to fall by the wayside.
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2. The answer to your question is “D” all of the above. It all depends what principles and what techniques one is exploring as they perform the kata.
3. Yes I train white belts to land on the weapon. I focus on the harmonies to generate power via movement. The hands and feet move as one. The knees and elbows move as one. The qua opens and closes together (the shoulder and hips move as one, open and close together)
What does this mean? It means we try to utilize the strength generated by the transitions between the karate posses. We try to connect the momentum of mass to our technique.
Lots of people focus on the techniques the end result...what the strike is. But the karate occurs in between all those end results and this is an area I pay a great deal of attention to in my kata training. This is the area that holds the principles that makes stuff work.
So case in point:
A)
We have a turn of the head, a sliding turn with a circular motion of the major hand of the wauke and a straight delivery of the shoken fist with the rear hand.
I think the traditional performance of this movement is well demonstrated in the traditional Bunkai. This is turning the head, step, block strike. The application is to look, step into range, deflect a straight attack and counter with your own. I believe the traditional format focuses the individuality of each movement in the sequence in order to teach the rooting of the stance and the pulling in of the attacker to the strike.
Nothing wrong with this, it’s valid. Good solid white belt karate in most of the Uechi world.
But is it likely to happen? An attacker stepping in with a punch… a defender turning and entering clearing the punch and throwing their on own but hardly reaching the target. Could it be they are too far away? Look closely, no need to deflect the punch it will never arrive. Not a diss just something to keep an eye out for in the Bunkai
Example
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZKiUrnGc3Zw
So in the Traditional look at this white belt kata we have turn block pull punch.
I believe that in a real committed attack the defender would get eaten alive as it’s too slow and there is no body mass mechanics behind the block or the punch…it’s not effective.
Keep in mind this is not a diss it’s my opinion.
B) Let’s try training this sequence differently…turn the head attack!
In this case we would train the beginning student to finish the wauke circle with the step in order to put some power in it. For the wauke to be a preemptive strike it needs some mass behind it, in this case we connect with the throat, jaw with our forearm. We get in before the opponent’s punch. We do not need a clearing movement so the clearing movement grab becomes a solid strike not delivered with rotor cuff muscles, delivered with the power in the step.
C) Okay this time we are not going to be faster than our opponent, we are going to start before them. When we turn to look we read bad intent and just go. This time we will time everything to end at the same time. So because we enter first we get deeper with the wauke and it becomes a strike to the side of the head back of the head, the returning of the elbow to proper Sanchin position pulls the aggressor into the forward void creating some balance issues. The shoken strike shears the rib cage belly or hip creating a spiral throw.
So same sequence of movement but the power focus and timing changes depending on what you wish to utilize the kata platform to train. It’s not religion its martial shadow boxing it’s meant to be tinkered with.
Yeah Steve the written word is a tough way to discuss this stuff. I’ll try and shoot a few minutes of film next class and send you a clip.