Uechi-Ryu.com

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Victor Smith
bushi no te isshinryu

Thanks for posting this, Victor!

It appears Van has posted this clip from the tournament on his forum, and one on the men's kumite as well. There appears to be a lot of interest.

I've had a chance to view these two performers, and the men's division performers as well. Each of the five performers has a positive attribute that distinguishes them. However the first place winner of the women's division exhibits something in her kata that distinguishes her from all the others. Can anyone see what that is? If you can... you'll know something about my own "secret sauce."

Some might call it ki!

- Bill

The thing I like most about Masako Arashio's performance can be seen by looking at her waist and hips. The source of the power is where it should be - the core. It radiates out to the periphery like a wave.

Here is the same kind of hip movement on steroids. Again... don't look at the arms; look at the hips.

Tsuchiya Kata Demonstration: Sochin

There are only a handful of Uechika teaching core mechanics like this.

- Bill

Most people wouldn't see it Bill... Good eye!!! Shinjo Sensei taught us by having us over emphasis at first, then slowly make it smaller and smaller.. Sort of like spinning a hula hoop into smaller and smaller circles until the movement is hardly noticable.

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SILENCE!!! I Kill You!!!!

Kiyohide San is his father's son. Shinjo Seiyu was a great karateka, and a well-read man. Marty Dow told me that when he was studying at Kedena, he often saw Shinjo Seiyu with his nose in a martial arts book. He was always trying to learn. It seems his son is the same way. He went from sport champion to well-informed traditionalist in just over a decade. He has a marvelous ability to reinvent himself.

The method you speak of - starting with overemphasis and making it smaller with time - is the same method employed by Nakamatsu Sensei. He's the man I picked it up from - indirectly through Frank Gorman and finally through Dana Sheets. This teaching of core mechanics helped get me back in touch with the baseball mechanics of my youth. The well-informed Uechika uses very similar mechanics, only they do it as small as possible.


We have hula hoops in the closet of the gym where I teach in Richmond. I'm constantly pulling one out of the closet and showing the principle to make the point. The kids immediately get it.

- Bill

I know what you mean about the Hula Hoop.. I don't teach kids, but can't keep my wife away from it.. Check out what Arashiro San does with her Shomen Geri as well.. You'll see it.. Not the coil back, but the thrust. None of the others have gotten to that point yet (Males included)..Thinking she cross trains in Kobudo because she has very good control of her hips..

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SILENCE!!! I Kill You!!!!

Bingo!!! I think that's it.

George Schriefer has excellent mechanics with his shoken sukuiage uke. Several years back after doing kata right by me in Maryland, I got him to slow down and show me what he was doing with his hips. He attributed his mechanics to his extensive kobudo training.

George also told me that he and Narahiro san were conversing about the topic. He said the two of them had independently "discovered" their mechanics via the same mechanism.

- Bill

Back in the day when I was copying many seniors doing their Robot Ryu Uechi, I used to think this film of Kanei revealed bad mechanics in his shomen geri. See 0:29-0:31.

Uechi Kanei Seisan

Now I both get it and teach it. Go figure...

I have a few tricks I use to help people discover the core in their kicks. Teaching this in the Uechi Ryu shomen geri is IMO very important. NOBODY in the tournament is using Kanei's whole-body, undulating dragon mechanics in their front kick. Strange... because it's not that hard to teach and to do.

Kanei would probably not do well in that tournament because of his nuances. But sometimes we throw the baby out with the bath water. When your fundamentals are sound, the idiosyncrasies really don't matter so much.

- Bill

Absolutely! Here is Nakahodo Sensei doing the same thing... I'm sure he learned this "trick" from Seiyu as I learned it from Kiyohide.. Watch closely what he does with his left toe.. He's dragging it back on the floor to 1. load his sokusen 2. draw his hips back in to explode.. 3. to create an optical illusion from the opponents point of view... So easy. But no one teaches it anymore. The best thing about it is that you bare able to harden the weapon in your foot without slowing your kick.. Who thinks of stuff like that anymore?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dmN_v2hvys8

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SILENCE!!! I Kill You!!!!

Forget the left foot/toe. Look how he scooches his right foot forward before the kick, on a whole-body pulling motion at the end of his wauke. It inches his center forward to extend his reach. THAT is done w/o the opponent being able to see it. It's almost as if he takes an extra step.

And yes... after extending the reach of his leg, then he layers on Uechi Kanei's undulating core movement which drives the whip in his kick. Oh... and nice flexibility! Can you see how high he kicks? He is not a young man in that video.

I worked out with Nakahodo Sensei for about a week circa 1983 on Thompson Island. He was so exacting in his movement that I told my girlfriend at the time I met Marcel Marceau in a gi. What was even more comical was the way he could imitate the mistake of a person whose kata he was critiquing, and then do it the way he preferred. When it was a bad mistake, he could make it look just as bad. He never spoke a word of English, but he had a captive audience with his ability to speak with his body.

The reason why I'm saying this is because I know Nakahodo Sensei has no sense of ambivalence about what he does. If you see a movement done without a Uechi Sanchin straightjacket, well... he meant it to be done that way.

- Bill

Yes Sir!!Mark Brelsford Sensei told me not to watch the actual moves.. But what he does in between is what separates them...He said that when Kanei Sensei would check him in Sanchin, that he would usually just push and touch him... But if he did hit him occasionally that it felt as if he was punching right through him..These guys amaze me still 25 years later!!!

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SILENCE!!! I Kill You!!!!

I think the problem faced is in how to break down the kick in pieces in order to teach it.
To develop power a building sequential series of movement is needed before the release.
This is what "mochi-tengua" meant to mean when Kiyohide sat down with us in Conneticut in 2003.
We worked on this hip power development in Vans weekly class known as the "torture chamber." Thee are some excellent past links on Vans forum that can be checked for this. I have also worked with a shohei teacher on it where they approach the hip development in a similiar fashion. I have also seen people try to develop the hip and send the power rearward while striking forward and stripping power from the attempt.
The problem lies in telling a new student to lift up their knee, kick out and extend the foot, retract the foot and keep the knee up, then put the foot down.
If you put a soccer ball in front of most of my young students they would naturally use the hip and kick with great power.
The way the kick is taught for form takes away this natural sequential movement and replaces it with unsequential mechanics that must be closely followed.
My way of dealing with this is to have them spend a lot of time kicking the heavy bag where the proof is in the pudding. But if a lot of seniors saw them kick in their kata they may take issue with their kicking more naturally.
I think a good front kick can not only injure an opponent but can be used to crush through their defenses and enter the striking zone.

I have students bring their friends from other styles sometimes and I see quite often when you put a bag in from of them they barely ripple the vinyl.
The feedback from the bag is the best sensei.
This is why the machine that measured striking power was so popular last year at sensei Mattson's camp.

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Sans Peur Ne Obliviscaris
www.hinghamkarate.com

Hello, Fred! Good to have you stopping by.


Bingo! This is a point I make about kids (myself included) who grow up on baseball. The reason for this is because of the automatic feedback. When you kick a soccer ball or throw a baseball with good mechanics, it goes far and/or fast, depending on what matters. If you don't, it won't. The ball will not lie to you the way we can deceive ourselves when crushing air molecules in our kata or technique drills.

Then when you actually analyze movement of professionals in these sports, you see them naturally displaying all the principles we try to teach in martial arts, such as sequential summation of movement. It's all the same, only we try to make it smaller/faster in martial arts.


I would preface that by saying that the USUAL way the kick is taught. Not everyone teaches this way, Fred. I certainly don't. But you are correct in that the "vanilla" kicking template for most dojos results in a kick without caffeine. If the core mechanics aren't there, the power will be insignificant.


You're inserting a feedback loop. And that's a good thing.


I'm not sure any teacher would be so stupid as to correct someone for "kicking more naturally." That may be the net of the "over-teaching" that happens in many dojos, but it certainly isn't their mindset.

It DOES help to critique. Just because you can kick a bag hard/far doesn't mean you have a kick which can be used. There's also the issue of the technique getting on a real human target. In that case factors like being able to hide your intent (so your leg won't get grabbed), not losing your balance (so you can continue), and having a fast start-to-completion time come into play.


The Uechi shomen geri and Muay Thai roundhouse are classic examples of this. Both stylists are well conditioned. Both aren't afraid to have shin bone hit forearm bone. (I accidentally broke someone's arm one day who did a gedan barai against my shomen geri. It wasn't intentional and I felt badly about it. But it was eye-opening.)


This is a very useful teacher - up to a point. That device measured total power, but didn't measure pressure. Pressure is force per unit area. Remember that one thing which makes our style unique is being able to concentrate energy on a point. It's why we have techniques like the toe kick, one knucle punch, etc.

But point well taken (no pun intended...).

- Bill

Yes I've been working on my masters and doing some writing so I've been off the forums for a while.
Absence they say makes the heart grow fonder.....

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Sans Peur Ne Obliviscaris
www.hinghamkarate.com

Part of it is the angle and release of the hips nto align the Sokosen correctly for optimem strength of the weapon.. Now I have punched the "Makiwara" Kiyohide is kicking here..NOT MUCH GIVE!! It's basically a piece of 1/4 inch ruber.. 2 inch hard boards and a couple of old flack jackets on top..It will hurtr a fist if not hit correctly.. Let alone a toe..

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rCyC3aOS ... re=related

Hope it helps..

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SILENCE!!! I Kill You!!!!