Bruce Lee and Jim Maloney

[Bill Glasheen]

Nice kakushiken demo!

After having seen several board breaking demos with the kakushiken, I just don't feel all that warm and fuzzy about it as a "from afar" striking tool.

Evan Pantazi has a really nice application of the end-of-Sanseiryu kakushiken. It is soooo sneaky, and you don't need either precision striking or fingers of steel to do it. Ever since I saw that demo (he accidentally knocked the guy out for a very long time), I'm high on that particular application.

Many of these pointy techniques work best in bad-breath range, and more as pokes (nuki) than thrusts (tzuki) or strikes (uchi). If you get into grappling and start wandering outside the rules of MMA, you will find a lot of very cool Uechi applications.

- Bill

[AE Moores]

Wow what great posts. I take a week off the forums and I miss all the fun.

Van sensei-that picture of the round house kick landing right on the button a few pages ago is one of my favorite karate pictures.... head kicks are difficult.... excuse me... good head kicks that penetrate are difficult.

[Van Canna]

Sure enough Andrew. Head kicks are very difficult...one has to have some genetic ability for those kicks as well...

Great timing...lots of speed...follow through and retraction at the same time...

Jim Witherell [Bill Wallace graduate] has some of the best ever seen...all his kicks are rifle shots...

And your very own kicks, Andrew, are most excellent

Then we have the people who will claim rd/house kicks are useless for self defense, the front kick reigning supreme because it is a Uechi technique.


Well, maybe I think it has to do with who's the kicker

Bill,

I recall Pantazi's application...excellent...is there a video clip of it anywhere we can post?

[Bill Glasheen]

Bill,

I recall Pantazi's application...excellent...is there a video clip of it anywhere we can post?

I don't know, Van. But Evan shows up now and then, and tends to save lots of video of his work. Maybe we can stir him up.

For those who haven't seen it...

There is a nerve bundle that goes from the spine (C5, C6, C7, C8, T1) down the shoulder and behind the collar bone to the brachial plexus. From there it emerges again as a 5 nerve bundle that goes under the armpit to the upper arm, forearm, and hand nerves (musculocutaneous, axillary, radial, medial, ulnar).





The "mistake" (more like missed opportunity) most people make when applying the kakushiken is to dig in behind the collarbone (takes practice...) to the plexus and nerve bundle on the mirror image side. OK, so that's really annoying and hurts. So what! Unless you have a blade or similar weapon, you aren't going to do much more than make the person drop down a bit and say "Ow!!"

But...

Watch what happens when you dig in there. The natural reaction isn't just dropping down for pain avoidance. Most people will do two things:

• Bend the head and chin towards that side.
• Often they'll reach and grab the wrist of the hand that's digging in.

The hand digging in isn't the real technique; it is the setup.

If instead you take your right hand and dig in across their center to their right side, you get them turning their chin down and towards your right arm. And oops... there it is! With an arm extension just so, you snap the tip of your ulnar bone right into the side of their jaw. Evan sees a classic pressure point; I just see an opportunity to hit the chin just so and spin the head around. No matter how you view it, it's a great lateral blow to the chin.

IF they are still holding on to your arm after that is done, the final Sanseiryu move is designed to peel that grabbing arm off of your kakushiken arm. The leg movement is then either a take-down (if they are still standing) or a finishing technique (if they aren't).

- Bill

[Van Canna]

That sounds interesting, Thanks. I pity my students in the next class.

But don't tell Maloney

[Van Canna]

If instead you take your right hand and dig in across their center to their right side

Can you explain the dig a bit more and the right side drag?

Gordi Breyette told me ones that there are two way of performing that strike...one being the 'Cobra' application that is very effective.

[Bill Glasheen]

Can you explain the dig a bit more and the right side drag?

This takes some practice, Van. And yes, I pity your students.

Take a close look at the first picture above. The nerve bundle goes in behind the clavicle (collar bone). You don't really need to "strike" with it. Just take the finger tips of your right hand, find their right collar bone, and then dig in behind it. If your fingers are REALLY strong, you can actually get behind the nerve bundle and squeeze (pinch) it against the back end of the collar bone. Either that or you push down so hard that you squeeze (pinch) one or more of the nerve trunks against the back/top of the first rib. You'll know when you get it, because you'll see a pained look on their face, dropping for pain avoidance, and - this is key - the chin coming down and in towards your arm. That final move is the completion of your setup. They are actually bracing their head in the direction of where you will snap the outer tip of your wrist into the side of their jaw. They actually help hold their own head in position for the blow.

Gordi Breyette told me ones that there are two way of performing that strike...one being the 'Cobra' application that is very effective.

When it comes to a cobra-like move, I prefer the hiraken hand of Seisan kata. I can punch holes in things - including the side of the skull around the temple - with that technique.

But to each his/her own.

- Bill

[Van Canna]

Good stuff, thanks.

[MikeK]

Here's a video of it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bAfkv2OT1Us

[Van Canna]

Thanks..it looks effective. Now you will hear arguments that if your sanchin is well 'developed' in the area...that technique will not affect the practitioner.

Wil it work on master Shinio?

[Bill Glasheen]

Here's a video of it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bAfkv2OT1Us

Yes that's it, Mike.

First... This "stomach 12" business is TCM horsehockey. That nerve bundle has nothing (zero, zilch, nada) to do with the stomach. But whataryagonna do, eh? The kyusho people use their TCM terminology to communicate their art. What-ever... Just look at the anatomical pictures that I provided.

Second... Note how everything he says jives with what I say.

• You don't strike it; it's a grappling technique. Uechi Ryu board breaking demos with the kakushiken are IMO a waste of time. Frankly the one online (Discovery Channel) of Kiyohide doing this hurts me to watch. To start with, you can see where he's already broken a finger from the past (it's very crooked). Then he takes several blows before he breaks the board. That's gotta hurt. And IMO all you're doing is lowering the age where you're going to get osteoarthritis in those distal finger joints.
• Notice how he talks about curling around and pressing the nerve against the collar bone. And then note how the kakushiken hand looks. There it is!

Now this guy's partner has been poked there way too many times, so he's dropping like a fly. The first few times, someone may not go down that quickly. And I found a particularly muscular person in Germany who I couldn't get to budge at all because he was just flexing and preventing penetration in that area. It wasn't muscles over the vulnerable area, but rather his whole skin area being stretched tightly from a regional muscular flexing.

Furthermore...

Watch how the response isn't just to drop (the "patsy" response) but to turn the chin in towards the technique. Therein likes the completion of the setup. You don't need to damage the nerve or get a big response. You just need them to turn the head just so.

It's a little difficult to describe the whole-body snap you do to drive your ulnar bone into the side of the leaning chin. But that's the final blow.

- Bill

[Van Canna]

But then one wonders why the founding fathers show the move more as a strike than a grab.


What is the intended target and why, as shown in the execution of it by Master Uechi?

Did he ever talk about it?

[Bill Glasheen]

But then one wonders why the founding fathers show the move more as a strike than a grab.

One wonders a lot of things, Van, like the Seisan bunkai "groin strikes" technique. Bullhockey! The groin strike isn't the technique, and the circle isn't a block. The groin strike is a setup, and the circle is a KO.

There are lots of places where I think either the teachers in Okinawa just don't understand the technique (possible) or maybe they're hiding "the good stuff" from the gaijin (also possible).

We've been at this as long as most of the practitioners on Okinawa, Van, and have access to many resources. It's our job to figure it our ourselves - just like many of the Okinawans have done. It's great when they have a good idea to pass along, but we don't need constantly to be spoonfed by them. The material is there for us to do what we want with it.

- Bill

[Van Canna]

There are lots of places where I think either the teachers in Okinawa just don't understand the technique (possible) or maybe they're hiding "the good stuff" from the gaijin (also possible).

I doubt it..though some of us " my Uechi dick is bigger than yours' club goers"

would love to believe this and claim 'exemption'

What was that about certain techniques being learned in a 'special chamber' ?

this remains my preferred chamber above all_

[Bill Glasheen]

I made a slight error above in my description of the "final move" after you get the person to tilt the chin. And in thinking about it, I believe I can explain it in "Uechi language."

Once you dig in with the kakushiken and get the person to tilt the head, transition the technique to a koi no shippo yoko uchi. Only you're going to do it one-inch-strike style, and aimed for the side of the jaw. What you contact with is the same surface you do with all your upper and outer wrist strikes. It's not the tip of the ulna or the outer wrist bone (my bad...); it's the tip of the radius or the inner wrist bone.

So yin (grappling dig) converts to yang (outer wrist strike) in a setup/takeout sequence using the same hand.

Make sense?

- Bill