The Sacred and the Soiled Part II

....I would have liked to say profane, but as we had to wash Son Sempai's blood out of my doji yesterday, soiled would be a better word.I haven't been able to train as much as I would have liked regularly so last night (Thursday) was refreshing to say the least.

Actually it was a pattern-breaking day beginning with Kata and ending in ji-yu kumite- hence the sacred and profane.If you are KWF, you will know that we have three theories of generating power: koshi no kaiten, kusshin and the combination of the two. As Kata, Kumite and Kihon are just different expressions of the same fundamentals, sometimes YS does things backwards.As opposed to me, who often gets things backwards.

Heian-1-2-3

Recently I have been asked if I know anyone who knows the Kata Hushu (Kaze no te or Wind Hand) which is an Asai-Ryu Kata (i.e. developed by Tetsuhiko Asai Shihan).

I always say, "I don't know any Kata at all. The most important Kata for 6th dan in KWF is Heian Shodan- or at least it is checked minutely by YS and IS for that grade. Last night was a special treat: focusing on koshi-kiru and tameru in Heian Shodan while adding in blocks and punches, then a clinic on some points on H-2 and H-3.

Heian Shodan

We only did it five times but each time YS asked us to completely focus on a specfic technical point and, as it turned out, the last time, synthesise them.

#1: Relaxed and perfection: focus on extreme hanmi and then gyakuhanmi. Pull out student for good example, correct student with bad example. Correct bad example.

#2: Relaxed and then apply power using koshi no tameru and hold, hold hold the hanmi to the last instant to generate power on the gyakuzuki Pull out student for good example, correct student with bad example.

#3: Repeat with more speed and power: however focus on Kusshin and koshi no tameruPull out student for good example, correct student with bad example.

#4: Repeat and now focus on all these points plus age-uke to gyaku-zuki (x2)Pull out student for good example, correct student with bad example

#5: Put them all together!

H-2 & 3 Clinic:

The biggest points with Heian Nidan today were driving off the hips for the initial blocks and making the shuto long and attacking.

With H-3 it was driving forward with the three fumikomi. The point is that if you are like me, and like stomping, move beyond that- you should be driving forward into your attacker (remember the hip thrusts in Enpi!) and belting out the urkan; the two must be dynamically linked- it's not THUMP (stomp) (fraction of nothing) WHACK (urakan), its driiiiiiiiiiiiiveSTOMPaTHUMP.

Sorry, that's the best I can do for now!

Kumite

We did 4 or 5 sets of Gohon Kumite and it was me with Son Sempai, who is old school, so I got hit on the jaw three times and kicked in the, well, yes, twice and then jiyu kumite with him, which involved, how might we put it, a fair and frank exchange of opinions, and me feeling the less than gentle administrations of the guy who regarded himself as the toughest non-sensei fighter in the old Ebisu dojo until a certain young guy called Yahara give him a whipping...and another one, and another one ;-)

Yoroshiku,

Paul.

Vanity and the Psychology of Attainment - Cod Psychology Time

In the weeks before my shodan grading, YS had worn me down to a nub. Of course, I knew what was happening; I've been taught by the best before.

In Columbia J-School, certain "old school" professors are famous for their breaking of the toughest students, and we won't go into that, but it is a rite of passage in that school in Columbia anyway. I do remember a hot tear finally breaking out about 11 weeks in and four nights of no sleep, having my ?th rewrite scrunched up and thrown at me with the comment "this is shit, do it again..!"

And you know when you are being toyed with when you are built up and knocked down (both psychologically and physically) and just when you think you are through, being pushed to a state of being a humiliated blob.

First it was oi-zuki, then it was Bassai-Dai, then it was mae-geri, then it was shuto, then it was mawashi-geri, then it was every single bit of Bassai dai (writing up YS teaching me of points to improve on Bassai Dai, one night I counted 43 points, which is how many more than there are actual moves in the kata), then it was parts within each move...as I would learn one thing, another would drop out.


Gradually, week after week I would be out there in front of the black belts, feeling like a useless lump of putty, the spotlight on me, having each part spotlighted and told to do it again, and again.


About a month before my grading, the nightmares started....just before dawn a huge gray death mask YS face would appear in the ShotoKan dojo staring at me out of the black, and a huge booming voice would start the mantra....DAME! MO IKKAI....DAME!!! MO IKKAI.....DAME!!! MO IKKAI


.....DOSHTAN-NO OMAE!


DAME! MO IKKAI!!!


MO IKKAI....MO IKKAI...! DAME!!

I would dream that I would be dripping with sweat and hoping it was just a nightmare, and wake up bolt upright in the futon covered in a sheen of sweat realizing that the nightmare in the dojo was haunting me at home....

As the weeks drew nearer I started to secretly hope that I would get knocked off my bike and miss the grading, or get struck down with some serious but not too painful disease that would mean I'd miss the grading...


....I'd turn up in the dojo and just after kihon finished, those words I had been praying would never come came, as they always did...."Paul san, to the front...."....


....and 20 minutes later...."What are you doing?" or some other put down.


I think it was one day practicing a part of Bassai Dai for something like the 15th or 20th time in the 15th or 20th time I'd had to do the kata in front of everyone, something snapped. Or rather, it sagged. I just remember wilting to the floor, melting into my own puddle of sweat. And that was it...I won't forget the comment..."Ah Paul san, you know what...your karate, it make me laugh...." as he lightly stepped over me and got on with teaching the others.

A few minutes later I was sitting there in seiza at the end of the line thinking, "that's it...I've had enough...I'll never make it...."

Already in my own mind I was beginning the rationalization of giving up. I'd been knocked out twice, had my nose broken twice, and my ribs cracked and bandaged what, three times over the last year....the physical pain I could take, but the mental pain of all this? Time to go. Knock it on the head. Put it down to experience. I guess getting black belt was just going to be too hard.

But there was no escape; after the bow, YS told everyone not to move and asked me, "Paul san, how do you feel?"

I couldn't help it, of course...I said: "I feel totally humiliated and useless. I am sorry."

At this point YS looked at everyone carefully and said, "Paul does not understand. He feels like this because of his vanity and his pride. He cares about what other people think about his Karate, and this is a burden on his learning."

And then he looked at me and said, "Paul, you must understand that your thinking is wrong. You only feel embarrassed because you care too much about your image. This is wrong. You should not feel embarrassed at all. You have made great progress and you should be very proud that as a man you try your best and that you improve. These are the most important elements."

The next day he ordered me early to the dojo...it was my special responsibility to go hard on Oshima, the Japanese industrialist who donated the KWF Shotokan for us. I tell you that if you are an ordinary guy like me, there is something of a treat involved by asked to mark up one of Japan's most powerful men, and that's a different story in itself!

Anyway, after all that YS was his usual polite and charming self and bought me a huge lunch.

We were there in the Deux Magot in Bunkamura with Ohtsuka Sensei, and he said..."Paul san, tomorrow is your grading. You'd better relax." So he turned round to the waiter and said with a huge grin, "Three beers for him, just line them up!"

Next day, I was "officially" a black belt.


Yoroshiku,
Paul.

Miguel Harker's Kinwashi Karate-do

While we're talking links with folks down south (well, Andre is in Kyushu, which counts as south, unless you are in Ishigaki-Jima, for example) here's something hot from Miguel Harker in South Africa: the Kinwashi Karate-do.

Although he doesn't have the kanji up, I'll take a good bet that Kinwashi means Golden Eagle, based on the fact that kin is the kanji for gold (or money, as in Kana, as in Kanazawa Kancho) and Washi means eagle. Either that, or paper. But I'm putting my money on eagle.

This is strange, because the guy in the blog is a dead ringer for Michael Schumacher. Is there something that we should be told?

Or is it that Miguel Sensei's circuit training is conducted at break neck speed, an incredible rate of knots, or am I driving you round the bend with this?

In the spirit of things, I think I should come up with a suitable Japanese appellation. And after 30 seconds discussion with Yuko, "Well, Isaka Sensei always calls you an elephant and you are just about the clumsiest person I've ever met...." the name is: 鈍象：DonZo!

So there you have it: Hunter S. Thompson and the Gonzo Diaries and Paul Kallender-Umezu and the DonZo dairies.

Saying that the point is that Harker Sensei is a good friend of the KWF and totally committed to Karate in a way that part-timers like me can only dream of. His commitment to Karate, in fact, reminds me of Marius Sensei's love of animals. Well, eating them anyway.

That is to say, "I eat meat, meat, meat, meat and more meat. And when I fancy vegetables, I eat chicken."

That said, Harker Sensei has his own view and take on Karate and life in South Africa, which Yuko and I have fallen in love with.

Yoroshiku,

Paul.

MA 間

If any of you who are reading this blog don't look at the links on the right menu here, I strongly urge you to track Andre Bertel's Karate-do.

It irks me no end to see how sports karate asks people who have spent years and who know how many thousands of times practicing Kata and absorbing the concept of Ma through understand the Kankyu- the beautiful and natural spaces and compressions, tension and relaxing, swift and slow movements, and then ruin it all by transforming into fast-forwarding robots with serious software issues in sports Karate tournaments.

It's just so wrong, I don't know where to begin. Fortunately, Andre Bertel does! I would just like to point out Andre Bertel's treatise on Ma over his blog, which is a truly awe-inspiring summary of a huge point. In a sense it covers what I was trying to say about beauty in Budo Karate from a "different angle" but definitely from the same aesthetic sensibility.

Andre- Yoroshiku! ;-)

Purgatory in Motion: More DOWN!

As I mentioned in a previous mail, a few Saturday's ago we had an especially intense Saturday training; it was actually a bit of a breakthrough for me personally. It was Isaka Sensei (IS) at his best.

One of the first things that people unfamiliar with IS training who don't know the basics -or rather sometimes are not aware of what they have been taught, or haven't been taught at all- is asking "what the hell has this got to do with Karate?"

It also struck me last night watching the slow motion portion of Osaka Sensei's old JKA-era video of Shochin just how low standards must be getting if people can't figure out what's going on in Isaka Sensei's lessons. It's a sad, sad sad to see people shuffle around the dojo unable to do the basics- basics that should have been drummed into them from day one. And here I am talking and I have only been doing Karate 9 years- a newbie.

Anyway, going back to Osaka Sensei's video, those of you familiar with it will remember the long slow motion section in the old Ebisu dojo. Watching Osaka Sensei's Sochin, well, it's enough to make you fall in love with Karate again just watching it, isn't it? What YS has in sheer power and vibrancy and artistry, Osaka Sensei has in technical perfection, balance, focus. Of course, I am totally biased, I love this stuff and have no interest in the stupid, shallow and gaudy corruption of Kata that you need to accumulate gongs in sports Karate.

(The point is here that YS can still do a great Unsu. How many 61 year olds can do it at all? Sure he has to warm up, and you know, he growls a bit. He' s still the fastest, most dynamic person in the dojo- you feel a sort of whipping vortex force from him when he moves. Watching the man's Karate, it's so good, you are just left with a cheese eating grin: no wonder he makes people so jealous.)

Going back to the point: if you have the video or can access the slow motion part, put a piece of tape on the telly screen along the line of his hips. Of course, you don't have to. I guarantee you won't see a more than a fraction of a movement up or down no matter what the stance or the twist of the turn. OK, don't trust me? Watch the video. And then watch YS on Unsu. Have a party!

Back to Osaka Sensei's Sochin. Now imagine doing all those moves but lowering your hips 20 centimeters- no go for the whole foot down. Maximum compression. And keeping your center of balance perfect over your legs. And never raising your hips. This is Isaka Sensei's poetry in motion.

For Poetry in Motion read Purgatory in Motion

Basically, there is no mystery what is going on. IS movement training is designed to lock you into maximum compression and balance through every millimeter of your Karate training. If you have ever been told that Karate is different from boxing because you use your whole body, because the power in the taco on your knuckle comes off driving from ball of your foot through each joint all the way up and through your body then you'd better practice it. This is the core of IS training.

Sweat (occasional) Blood (and don't mention the) Tears

If you are not sweating within a minute or two of an IS lesson, you are cheating yourself. Go home.

I had a talk with this about Isaka Sensei the day after. Yuko and I couldn't make it that week because of business commitments and I was dying to get to the dojo so we asked if we could pop in to see Isaka Sensei. There he was, with the full panoply of equipment, including the tetsugeta, which were invitingly placed ready for Yuko. I ended up with the tube, which, as IS says, “a good teacher.”

The thing was, IS and YS had decided to lay down the law. It was a "MORE DOWN" day. And that was the lesson. What I realized this was that when YS or IS shout this, the people who react are the people who are (a) not aware that they are not doing things properly or (b) not doing things properly.

You don’t need Occam’s Razor here to figure out that you have not being doing things properly.

YS and IS decided to lay down the law; they would shout "DOWN MORE" and those who would be nameless, excluding me, would lunge down. This was then followed by the shout, “if you are going down more, then you aren’t doing it properly.”

It's another Homer Simpson d'oh time!

Time to confess; until that point I regarded it as a badge of honor to be able to squeeze an extra five centimeters lower when the baying starts. Then, you know, like the ape with the femur in 2001: A Space Odyssey (or in my case, waste of space idiocy), it occurred to me- do it properly.

After nearly four years in the black belt class, it all fell, not a bit like Martin Luther, in a heap! Walk out of the stage, Kallender, and into the Sun!

I took a good look at myself and realized that I had just become very good at appearing to do things properly. When it comes to moving from heisoku-dachi into kiba-dachi, I am one of the people who appears to be able to move without sticking my leg out, keeping my hips in the center at all times.

Talking to IS about it, it wasn't really a question of me being lazy (I guess I am subconsciously when it comes to Karate) but arrogance; constantly trying to unlearn what you have learned. So many of us just want to try to look good and move fast (both of them not really options for me) and we are paying lip service to the fundamental mechanics. By realizing this and pushing myself to the limit, I had just made a realization that will help me get to the next stage- said IS.

I'll drink (a cup of coca) to that!

Yoroshiku,

Paul.

The Iron Triangle: Koshi No Tameru

...or rather, forward and sideways.

Welcome to the next (for now) installment of the KWF Iron Triangle.

What I was going to write about this session has been tempered by a bit of a breakthrough I had last Saturday during IS practice. The fact that YS was one meter from me breathing down my neck (and raising hairs on it to say the least) also helped. In fact, I think I can count the number of excellent jodan ke-age I have done on the fingers of two hands. All of them have been when YS has been giving me that "do it" stare. I'll write about that later.

Moving back to the KWF Iron Triangle and the concept of Koshi no Tameru (腰の溜める）

But first, a riff.

For me Karate is like writing kanji- the easier the Kanji is, the more difficult it is to write beautifully. If you take a kanji like Dai, oki(i) 大 it looks like a piece of cake to write. And indeed it is. But you try writing it perfectly with a proper fude （筆）and you will discover a whole universe of subtlety and beauty within it, from the balance and pressure and application, through the stroke speed, pressure and angle, to leaving the 和紙 (Japanese paper). All of us who can write Japanese can bang out kanji with a ball-pen that looks ok on paper. But how many of us understand the real art?

This is heart of 書道, shodo, the budo of the pen- traditional Japanese calligraphy. I think when I do become a father, I am going to go for a dan in this so I'll be able to teach our little boy or girl the sheer beauty and refinement of Japanese culture, as well as all the other great stuff from all over the world as well, of course!

The Art of Budo in Karate

So when you put your maegeri under the microscope, like your Kanji, how does it shape and measure up? How about your Heian shodan, the "simplest" of the Kata? Why does IS put people who are taking their 6th dan through Heian shodan, forcing them to perform it as slowly as possible? (Actually watching people who have no idea about weight balance can be very, very amusing- suddenly the proud and butch are reduced to looking like shambling pensioners...;-))

Of course, there may be many of you thinking, what the hell- it's fast and strong and very, very long so what's the problem. It's the sort of problem we see with good, but not great Shotokan everywhere for gyaku-zuki; people use the hips, but they just really don't understand the force- multiplier effect of knowing where your exact center of balance, weight distribution and hip position is to produce explosive koshi no kaiten power. Well, if you want to get powerful just by lashing out, Kyokushinkai is perfect. Sure, please go ahead and write your robun with a ball pen. In the KWF Honbu, maybe you could say that our study is calligraphy with our bodies. Instead of a traditional brush, we forge our bodies into wonderful delivery mechanisms not for communication, but for beautiful destruction!

WOW! Isn't Karate wonderful?! Why not dedicate yourself to something that is such an art. And you also get to hammer away at a bag if you want as well. Now that's got to be great, hasn't it.

OK, now that I have just fallen in love with Karate again (at moments like this I put my dogi on and try to do a bit of stretching, but tonight there is NO TIME) it's time to get back on target.

Koshi no Tameru

One of the most important other practices we did was Heian Shodan with gedan-barai for every move, slow, with speed and power and the gorei-nashi. The next Heian-Shodan was each move but gedan-barai->explosive gyaku-zuki; again, slow, speed and power and the gorei-nashi.

Oh what fun we had!

You can guess what is happening; if you want to practice extreme hanmi and then explosive release, a sort of KWF boot camp for one third of the trilogy of koshi-kaiten-shunshuku theory of KWF honbu, there is no better exercise.

As some of you will know, 溜める　tameru in Japanese means "to store up." Apply this into hanmi and you get the picture, right? One of our favorite "wind down" practices is Koshi no Tameru Heian Shodan, where each hanmi is held, held, held, butt squeezed in to the last, and then, wham! release for the gyaku-zuki. The point to watch here is to keep the hara/abdomen compressed but avoid extraneous tension in the back or the shoulders (basically unnatural posture) in the hanmi in order to make sure you are not just torturing yourself for the sake of it.

And nobody likes just torturing themselves for the sake of it now, do they Pieter...

Koshi No Tameru Heian Shodan

So I hope after all that the critical point about practicing Heian Shodan with gedan barai and then gedan barai gyakuzuki becomes obvious. First of all, of course, pushing that hanmi is good practice in itself. No matter how far you can go, go futher- but don't sress it on the shoulders or arms. But secondly that very stress, that building up of the reserve of power, has far as you can go, is what is going to give you the huge power in the gyaku-zuki. But you wait, wait, wait, wait for it holding the hanmi to the last moment before unleashing the gyaku-zuki. Now that's Koshi no Tameru！

Yoroshiku,

Paul.

The Iron Triangle: The Son of...Seiza!

Welcome to Part II of the Iron Triangle: The Son of...

....and a belated welcome too. In the daze of caffeine that keeps me going after lunch, I noticed that I hadn't even filed this one. Here is the "missing link" (pun intended) for the KWF Iron Triangle. Enjoy (or be annoyed, it's up to you!)

One thing about Tuesday's session that struck us (not literally) was the idea of assume nothing and question everything. The proposition was: how good is your maegeri- really?

Maegeri; Double Snap and Thrust Forward
If it's said once, it's said a thousand times at KWF- height is not important in a kick, snap and thrust are important. This isn't really an issue for me for side kicks or mawashi-geri, because I can only kick, on a good day, chu-dan level anyway. Of course I can get the kick up higher, but that involves me leaning back, an issue that I am sure is shared by many of you who are less elastic or slightly older. Count me IN in both categories.

And that's the point: leaning back is seen by the KWF (and many, I assume, outside of the pop! a point sports Karate crowd) as fatal. The critical issue with maegeri is mae- going forward- smashing into your opponent. Your opponent does grab your leg- well you should have the forward momentum to follow through as the opponent goes backwards to follow up with a oi-zuki or gyaku-zuki- right? So when we march up and down the dojo, the emphasis is on length and thrusting forward with the hips.

Leading from the Hips

A critical part of the lesson was basic posture; when practicing linear techniques, particularly oizuki and maegeri, the question was- what are you really doing with this? The answer in the context of the lesson this time was maximizing velocity, length and kime, while procecting yourself to the greatest degree, keeping your back straight and ago (chin) back. This really was maegeri 101. How many times have I seen myself with the same old problem- back slightly bent, chin slightly forward, and lacking snap. In other words chin in and back straight is a vital component of hips forward and kicking from the hips.

The Three-Part Maegeri

We never grow tired of doing this, which to my mind shows just how hard it is to do a technically proficient maegeri: how many of us remember those very first exercises as white belts, standing there in heisoku-dachi, kicking our heels back into our buts. It feels so wrong, so hard (well if you are me anyway) keeping a straight back and not wobbling forward or backward and kicking my heels back time and time again into my butt.

But (or Butt?) again, go back to basics beyond belief basics, we took apart maegeri again and did some basic drills- first leg raise is with heel tucked back, then hip thrust forward, then snap extension then snap back. In other words, while it should be a blur of speed and power, the long-fast-powerful maegeri should always have these three stages- the snap and snap back generating speed and power through the hips, rather than just stopping the kick being "hello, this is my foot, grab it and watch me fall over."

Maegeri from Seiza

The next stage of this basics-beyond-belief lesson was examining seiza. Asai Sensei was a great fan of this. Any of us who have seen his 1990s JKA videos will fondly remember his kicking from seiza. Well, if your posture is correct, I don't guarantee it's easy (I am sure it is a hell of a lot easier for a lot of you than it is for me) but even for me it's made possible by correct posture. There is nothing better out there for checking your maegeri than doing it from seiza. Basically, if your seiza posture is wrong, then you will find it incredibly difficult to do a maegeri. If your seiza is correct, then all bets are off, even if you are me (aka dobbins).

Seiza

The next part of this lesson was examining the importance of seiza in Budo by referencing it Iado and Kendo. We were reminded that in the Karate context, and you've all (I hope) seen the various Enbu at the Budokan from the 1970s onwards where people defend themselves from sitting positions with maegeri (from which in fact the YS isu-dori enbu is derived). We were told that fundamentally speed and power in terms of relationship with johanshin (upper body) are expressed through and derived from correct upper body posture, which is crucial to all efficient movement.

So after maegeri in seiza it was time for back to "normal" standing maegeri.

And STILL we haven't gotten to Koshi no Tameru and back to the KWF Iron Triangle. As I am running out of time, that's for the next installment.

Be seeing you ;-)

Paul.

The Iron Triangle: KWF Style

Time for a Change

We had a great time on Tuesday as it was decided to do something different as Jody from SA is spending a week with us to get in some training: it was time for what I will call the Iron Triangle, and it was very natsukashii, reminding me of training many years ago under Richard Amos Sensei.

There's nothing like basics to get to grips with things, and after the past few weeks of glorious spinning, it was good to attack that basic problem, tucking the hips and basic posture.

The Iron Triangle
Those of you who are familiar with the cliche will know the Iron Triangle in Japan refers to the collusive kickbacks, comfy-zone "one hand washes the other" relationship between pols, conglomerates and senior bureaucrats in Japan. Archetypal example: notoriously corrupt Kensetsu-sho (Ministry of Construction), your local LHP politician, and NakaSumiMitsuTake Buildo Conglomorate decide to spread the concrete gains around a bit. The pol needs to buy votes for reelection so proposes Project X for which NakaSumiMitsuTakeBuildo gets a huge budget authorized by Kensetsucho director who is set to retire to the conglomorate the following year on huge compensation package for "consulting." Three months later, politician's buddies in Nowhere-mura are all busily subcontracting away with a big surge in local employment while NakaSumiMitsuTakeBuildo creams of a huge profit and a year later a gleaming 4-lane highway appears between Nowhere-Mura and Notsurewhereeither-Mura in Yamagata Prefecture appears, paid for out of my work, property, business, local, ward, pension and health insurance taxes.

Heian Shodan in Hanmi
After Kihon, we spent a long time going back to even more basics. If this all sounds like white belt stuff, great!
This was a nice surprise; first of all we did heian-shodan. Then we did heian shodan with only gedan-barai. Then we did it again. Get the picture- hanmi, hanmi and more hanmi!

THEN, to contrast, heian-shodan with gedan-barai followed by gyaku-zuki- bang-BANG making sure to avoid "breaking" the rhythm and using huge thrust off the back foot for the gyaku-zuki. Then again. The again, full power. Didn't we have fun, boys and girls?

The KWF Iron Triangle
Well, we all guessed basically that this exercise was just to get us in the mood for something a bit dizzy. Right? NO. After this we did even more basic basics- checking the three most basic stances after heisoku-dachi.

a) Zenkutsu-dachi from shizentai
First we just practiced oi-zuki, slowly and deliberately, checking for full go-tai-ichi and shomen.
Having realized that we couldn't do this properly we took a sideways approach to learning- literally because
b) Move into Kiba-dachi from zenkutsu...and those of you who know anything about Shotokan karate will guess what is coming next, let's call it backwards step in terms of movement, but a giant leap for humankind in terms of basics...
c) Kokutsu-dachi and then back to (a)...

The Zen-Kiba-Kokutsu combi was first practiced slowly and deliberately making sure to check the following

1. Correct breathing from the hara at all times
2. No movement up, movement starts from the heel through the koshi
3. Keep tight using inner muscles using sweeping arcs in and out (actually this ranks with #10 for importance, we were told)
4. Keep meisen focused on target
5. Make sure of fully locked kime
6. Weight stance to "feel like" 80% on REAR leg in zenkutsu
7. Weight stance to ACTUALLY be 90% or 95% (or 96.397?% ;-)) on the REAR leg in Kokutsu
9. Correct Kiba-dachi is much more important than wide or low Kiba-dachi...and

MOST IMPORTANTLY:
10. Keep the hips tucked in, butt in, pelvis thrust forward, and keep the hip held in the hanmi/ or shomen position right to the end for maximum rotation and kime!

All this was deliberately done without the punches and blocks "thrown in," and then later sets with the punches in this sequence
a) First sets- slowly and deliberately right leg and left leg
b) Second sets fast and powerful right leg and left leg
c) Repeat until "happy."

Add in punches and blocks- i.e. oi-zuku, uraken, shuto:
a) First sets- slowly and deliberately right leg and left leg
b) Second sets fast and powerful right leg and left leg
c) Repeat until "happy."

Just For Kicks- I don't think so...
The next stage was adding in the kicks: you guessed it; maegeri, yokogeri-keiage and then front leg maegeri from kokutsu
a) First sets- slowly and deliberately right leg and left leg
b) Second sets fast and powerful right leg and left leg
c) Repeat until "happy."


Everybody happy? As Isaka Sensei likes to say...."Eeeeeeeeeeeeeessssssssyyyyyyyyyy" with a broad grin. The question is WHY?

And here, my friends, I will leave you in eager anticipation for The Iron Triangle: The Son of...which I will publish soon ;-) ....

Yoroshiku,
Paul.

Kusshin into Kaiten: The Yahara Reaper

Well sorry for the delay in filing things- we have been busy working on the KWF World Cup in Norway next year!

This is for Otto.

Review
Over the last few weeks we have been having fairly standard sessions working on getting our Kusshin deeper and stronger. The stronger the compression, the more explosive the power! Well the theory is understood by practically everyone in the dojo, but if you have very modest abilities like me, it takes hundreds and hundreds of repetitions over the weeks just to get used to the basic idea and then hundreds and hundreds to get into the swing of things, and then, as YS says, about 10,000 repetitions to get great at it. Add an extra zero for me!

Before anything else, congratulations to Bryan Dukas Sensei for being made Captain of the SA team at the WKF. And good luck to Jody on Sunday.

UPDATE: Jody fought well, but of course you knew the other guy was going to win as soon as Jody scored the first point and the judge gave the point, and every other point, to the opponent. The audience was also mystified by the decision against a certain competitor in the first round in favor of a competitor who couldn't actually do Jion. Nice sound effects though!

Still, the WKF was interesting and many of the competitors were wonderful athletes. But it is so far removed from Karate as to be unrecognizable. I suppose really it's the thin edge of the wedge. IS once told Yuko he felt terribly responsible for the degeneration of Karate because his generation of the JKA introduced the "bouncing" kamae, which has, through the KWF metastasized into some sort of amphetamine psychosis Saint Vitus's dance ;-(

Anway, it's no problem for KWF members outside the Honbu to compete the the WKF, as long as they leave that Karate outside when they enter the Dojo ;-)

And now for some Budo Karate
Yesterday's session was a real humdinger, with us having a go at the bag as well as each other and combining Kusshin with Kaiten Waza (spinning uraken), a KWF "trademark"

YS Theory behind Kaiten Waza
In full acknowledgement of the fact, YS love of Kaiten Waza comes directly from Asai Sensei. Andre Bertel is a source of great online info on this. Asai Sensei really made the point about using the body, particularly the snap of the joints in creative ways.

YS philosophy is similar, but the emphasis is on circular movements based on Kusshin from the hips, using centrifugal force generated from spin Kussin, through the hips, up the back and through the shoulders into the fist to great whiplash from the whole body. The point is that if you hit someone with spinning uraken, you don't hit the head, you take it off!

Yesterday, after Kihon, we went through the following steps.

1. Kusshin to gyakuzuki: make sure to start from very deep stance: 50 reps each side, rest, more reps
2. Slide back into Kussin and then gyakuzuki: again about the same reps but no blocks
3. Kusshin plus block (this time age-uke) into gyakuzuki
NOTE: typical 3rd-1st kyu syllabus for Jiyu-Ippon Kumite is age-soto-gedan-uchi-soto against kicks
4. Kusshin back into block, then gyaku-zuki, then Kusshin into explosive kizami-zuki.

Kusshin-Lauching Kizami-zuki
This really is a joy to do when you get it right, but can I? Hopeless! The thing is that it really tests if you are compressing and ready. After the gyaku-zuki you immediately forward compress again and then WHAM (or you like, BAM?!) launch forward like a missile for kizamu-zuki. If you haven't tried this before, this is the classic "finishing blow" concept- those of you who have seen YS using kizami-zuki know it puts people down.

Kusshin Kaiten Waza: Triple Wham!
The cliche is once you have ridden a bike, you never forget. Unfortunately if you are like me, you need constant practice or you get rusty. So to warm up, we marched up and down the dojo with spinning uraken, then the spin back and then the final spin uraken- triple trouble.

The essential thing with the first spinning uraken from zenkutsu-dachi is to make sure you spin down. Imagine yourself spinning down a plughole- if you aren't at least 15 cm lower when you execute the first spinning uraken, you are kidding yourself about your spinning Kusshin.

That's because the more you compress, the more you are absolutely dying to release the energy for the "counterspin" 2nd uraken- this is what gives Yahara Karate the "bangBANG!!" effect.

The third spinning uraken repeats the first, but the scale is supposed to be enormous, as in completely shattering the opponent. Generally speaking the first two uraken are in the ribs (although I have been knocked over with a dead shoulder when hit full power with them- these are great for blocking practice, because once you are committed, it's incumbent on your partner to block correctly) but the third is "Off with his head!"

Not the Grim Reaper: The Yahara Reaper
"You do not understand...I have come to take you away...."
To go through this once again, the first spining urkaken necessites powerful spinning down motion, like winding up a clock spring to maximum, the second, also aiming at the ribs, is unwinding the spring. The third however, is a completely different beast- it's supposed to be huge, and this is where YS hip spin really gets into play, because it's at the head and you sweep through the head. The same principals apply as with the heavy sandbag. We all know that if you aim to hit the surface of the sandbag, your oi-zuki is going to be troublesome to the skin of a rice pudding...so you aim behind it- in our case you go to punch through the opponent (of course makiwara focus is say 5 cm behind impact).

With your third spinning uraken, you let it go and sweep round an ark that is supposed to be like a scythe....I am christening this the Yahara Reaper.

With the Yahara Reaper, the finish point is very important. With the first two urkan, if you have not already...what is the right word...."discomforted" your opponent, the third one is to bid that person goodnight. The thing is is with Yahara Karate, you should already be ready to attack or defend in an instant so you should land from the spin in a kusshin poise ready to oi-zuki or attack again.

That's because the finish point is actually the start point for the next series of attacks; in this sequence with the sandbag, this is traditionally a huge oi-zuki, then yonhon-zuki, then another massive oi-zuki using kusshin again...and we generally also do the opposite too- the oi-zuki attacks followed by the kusshin-kaiten sequence described.

Randori, Repetition, Bag Work and Partner Training
To get all this going, we went through these step by step-first up and down practicing the first two spins; forwards and backwards; next, when people started getting the hang of this, then adding in the urakan.

So why no uraken from the start? Good question, Paul, I'm glad you asked that. Well, it's because it's easy to kid yourself that you are spinning down and up when you have your furious fist swinging away as a balance. Try to do it without the fist and you will soon find out if you are balanced or not...

....and probably find that you are not.

This brings us to another technical point- the pivot:
When you spin during the first two techniques, ideally your head and hips stay on one line- image the illustration in Best Karate where the is a pole running vertically through the head down to the hips which are portrayed as a cog wheel.

Exactly! ;-)

If you are balanced and pivoting correctly without your uraken, your technique is going to be balanced and effective. In other words, it's easy to "cheat" or rather kid yourself, if you are trying this out for the first few hundred times, using your uraken for "falce" balance.

The next phase is adding adding the third, the Yahara Reaper.
The next is adding urkan
The next is timing- ba-Bang!REAP!

The next is bag work against the heavy sandbag-unfortunately there were too many people and not enough time, so this is something to do for self-practice! We only had four or five people have a go. Of course, the heavy sandbag soon sorts you out.

Partner Training:
This comes in two phases, the first just attacking and blocking, and the second as yakusoku kumite, zenshin and koshin.

Zenshin Yakusoku Kumite:
Zenshin sees the uke block with a uchi-uke, as if blocking a mawashi-geri, then the aite attacks with tsuki, which is blocked by the second spinning uraken; with the aite usually off balance, kogeki unleashes the Yahara Reaper!
In my case Charles had a lot of fun with me, banging away at my ribs because I was too slow. Tsk, tsk, I wish I was his sempai sometimes ;-)
Koshin Yakusoku Kumite:
The defensive application of spinning uraken is just great- but we didn't have time for that on Thursday, unfortunately, but as you can logically realize, it's vs. oi-zuki and gyaku-zuki, with a nice surprise for the attack (the mirthful reaper) at the end.

Warm Down:
Bassai Dai focusing on big scale.

Yoroshiku..."it was the salmon moose" Kallender....

Fire in the Hole!

Well, sitting here at 06:00 on a Monday morning trying to work and just saw some nice photos of Isaka Sensei's course over in the UK recently via Facebook posted by Dennis Hanwright. Karate has hardly left my mind for the last 36 hours not so much because I am committed to it (tumbling down the hole..?) but so much as Isaka training followed by Yahara training followed by Ibusuki training followed by not warming down equals a real pain the back! Anyway, onto today's theme:

Apologies for delay in submitting:
I was crocked for three days- I am afraid that three hours of Karate followed by ji-yu-kumite and Gankaku were too much for old bloke Kallender's karada. We thought about hiring a crane, or some device purloined from an African game part to hoist tranquilized rhino, to get me out of the futon, but alas, I had to stagger and totter around without one. Sometimes I feel that I am two steps from the rojin home.

Lesson: NEVER forget to warm down, even if you can't do it right away, certainly before you get too cold.


Fire in the Hole
Last Thursday YS was back from a highly successful Algeria Masters Camp so there was a frisson of expectation in the dojo. You can't help feeling a bit tense, a bit excited, a bit worried, and very engaged by a YS lesson. Well, if you can, why bother? We also have a couple of guests over from the U.S. training with us for a month. When I realized this, I realized that this was going to spell pain for me, as I am used by Yahara sensei to demonstrate controlled techniques on. Fortunately he has millimeter control and I have only been knocked unconscious once this year (that I can remember ;-))


What is Karate?
After checking kihon, YS started his usual multi-step approach to explaining Karate and the basics of Kihon, with me the foil for oi-zuki and a couple of uraken to the ribs. No injuries this time. I think I must be growing protective bone. I will have to explain this basic lesson at some point.

If you don't know the answer, please send opinions etched in large platinum bricks to my home address (...only kidding).

Before we get into the main topic, our visitors had a few questions:
Q.1: Should I really do each technique with the objective of protecting myself at all costs while certainly disabling my opponent
A.1: Yes, of course
Q.2: But if we all do this, we will end up putting each other in the hospital
A.2: In yakusoku kumite, it is the duty of the attacker to hit his or her opponent. It is the duty of the defender to effectively block his or her opponent. Failure to launch a powerful, accurate attack is a disgrace to both partners. Failure to block correctly will result in getting hit. It is up to the responsibility of the partners to show mutual respect and maturity, including complete calm, while focusing full power.
In free fighting, mutual control and maturity are essential. YS has spoken about this on The Shotokan Way. In the KWF, bullies just don't make it into our black belt class. There is always someone stronger to teach the bully a lesson. People who don't work 100% don't last more than a session either.

Fire in the Hole- Kusshin Revisited, Again
The role of the rear leg really is a topic that we return to again and again. It seems that 99% of Shotokan Karateka don't use the rear leg- the most painful example is in ji-yu-ippon kumite. If you block with nekoashi-dachi in the KWF, you are going to hit the floor or bounce off the wall hard.

Trying to explain this, YS relies on two organic but unforgiving and rigid props
a) Shinai
b) "My beautiful legs"

To put it briefly Kusshin only works if
a) You are bending from the ankle
b) You imagine your leg as a spring in a tube- you never, ever loose the linear vector while compressing rear and down
c) You never stick your butt out- remember you tuck it in, in, and directly related
d) Your weight is forward.

The shinai comes in on (b) because, if you remember one of the first corrections you ever (should have) received, keep your rear foot pointing forward and never let your knee "blow" out sideways by even a few milimeters. If you can imagine compressing and coiling yourself down and back (a good 20 cm down is a good benchmark) your knee will still be pointing forward and your butt tucked in and the front toe of your supporting (rear leg) will be pointing in the same vector as where your fist is going...

Does it hurt?
Yes it does?
Is it Kurushii
Yes it is!
If it doesn't it ain't the real McCoy, if it isn't, you're out for your bento!
Indeed.

Yoroshiku,
Paul.

Power Lines

The Lines, the Lines, Where do They all Come from, Where do they all Go?
...so spoketh Tubs.

One of the things that grumpy disenchanted foreigners who come to Japan and find out it doesn't do what they wanted or expected complain about is the destruction of scenery by Japan's ever present powerlines- bloody great pylons laden with buzzing cables carrying umph-teen kV. It's quite an industry to come here for a few years, then go home and write sophisticated whines. Some do, of course, have a point. But I can't agree with people who think Tokyo is an ugly city. It's quite a work of art, really. And I would rather live in a comfortable block of Japanese danchi than a project or a tower block. In fact I do and I love my "mansion."

But that's by the by...I am, however, buzzing with verve and vim, because on Saturday, we worked on our Keiro- or our very own human power lines.

Our Very Own Yoda
And who better than to talk about our very own power lines than our very own Yoda, actually Yoda Sempai, who was back from Kyushu for the weekend to teach. Yoda Sempai made a deep impression on me a few years ago when we were doing Ji-yu Ippon Kumite, and I had made a pigs ear out of my jodan. (My jodan was a jodan ;-)) I said to him (in Japanese), "I am sorry, that wasn't good enough, can I have another go, sempai?" At which point, in a commanding voice, Yoda spoke English to me for the very first time ..."There is no second chance in Karate, Paul-san!" Yoda is not 3 foot tall green and not made out of rubber, but nonetheless, he is impressive. Most Impressive...

Keiro- Power Lines
Saturday's session was a surprise as we did no Kumite or Kata, but actually kushin-shinshuku pushing exercises after the usual kihon. This actually took an hour-- why, because there is no escaping whether you "have" it, i.e. can use it. And it makes all the difference. So, what is it?

If any of you mystics are looking for some sort of Ki energy magic here, you are going to be sorely disappointed. We all know when things "click," they just -WHAM!- seem to work...you know, if you have ever done Judo, sometimes you get in under your opponent and the Tai-otoshi is just perfect...othertimes you feel as if you are hauling a hundredweight of coal. Well, leaving aside a discussion of Ki, our session was more prosaic.

Keiro Partner Training
Have you ever tested your shinsuku with a partner? OK, go gedan-barai, do a gyaku-zuki, haul yourself back and down into extreme shinshuku (full compression) and the repeat the gyaku-
zuki launching off the rear leg for that powerful gyaku-zuki. Did you launch up at all? No? Really? Unless you are uber-sensitive, or very good, or very experienced and focused, I bet you did! I bet at least 20% of the energy went up and not forward...of course now you are aware of it, you can solve this problem, can't you? Or maybe not? Maybe no matter how much you attempt to hardwire this movement into an indellible pattern, it falls to pieces under pressure...

So how to get round this- the answer is partner training.

The first way to hardwire this movement is to understand it. The way we try to understand it is go the Isaka Sensei (IS) route by tracing the evolutionary wisdom of nature. Basically, one of the best ways to understand how the power vectors in the body work is to understand the interplay between the main nerves and the bones and the joints, the points of contact and pressure, andthe and the angles. What's this? Well, the easiest way to understand the Keiro or Power line that runs from (potentially) the tip of the big toe, or from the ball of the foot up around the back of the calf, then up the leg is the path traced by the Sciatic nerve. Where does it end up, right in the sacrum. This is not an IS lesson today, although Yuko is prevailing on me to start writing this up as we have dozens of untranslated pages, but if you can download a picture of the sciatic nerve from the NIH (National Institutes of Health), etc., you'll get the picture.

If you juggle around with your movement, and trace a mental line through your foot, up through your leg into your sacrum, you'll have a good idea about what the Keiro or power line is- the more milimeters your balance and center of gravity and weight distribution are away from delivering power from the tip of your toe to the end of your knuckle though your leg and hips (we are just looking at the kahanshin today), the more fakery in your gyaku-zuki.

Of course, the only way to really get a handle on this is to train, and the traditional way is the makiwara, right? But you can cheat yourself and the makiwara, so this is where partner training comes in.

Get your partner to go into zenkutsu-dachi and then hold out his or her palms. Basically, when you are in the chambered position, very close, you should not extend your punch but do a pressing of your palms against his or her very strongly held zenkutsu-dachi.

If you can push them back naturally just extending your rear leg (your front leg should be raised off the floor) then you are in balance and can take advantage of all the vectors properly. Welcome to Yahara Karate!

The point about this exercise is not to cheat yourself or have your partner cheat. It is so easy to lean in and use your weight against your opponent, and if your vector isn't correct, you will find yourself pushing yourself up against your partner.

Goro couldn't do it for the world of him in 30 or 40 attempts with his right rear leg pushing from shinshuku for his favored right hand gyakuzuki and the exercise was a good one for focus and patience. He swopped hands for the left gyakuzuki, left leg compressed and did it naturally without effort! So with the right, it's a case of "unlearning what you have learned" as Yoda (the three foot tall rubber one) would have put it, and pretty near what our Yoda said anyway!

When you get a hold of this exercise, good luck! The next stage is to put everything in the fist- and this one is quite a challenge.

With the fist version, have your attacking punch maybe one quarter extended and repeat the prior excercise. This time it is important that you do NOT try to extend the punch using your arm, but extend the rear leg for shinshuku. If you don't wobble at all, you are a better than me. Well, you probably are anyway.

Next, try this with oizuki!

Front Leg Compression in Oizuki
The basic point, the grass roots of all these exercises is to try to intellectually or at least physiologically try to understand the mechanics of one part of Yahara Karate, and then hardwire it into your movement, not by being an ossu-ossu moron, but by actually thinking about and exploring what you do. Know thyself! But, at the end of the day, it's to try to stop you going up when you move forward with oizuki and when you explode off the rear leg in shinshuku.

One of the most exhausting things for me in my black belt campaign was the constant insistance of YS on my oizuki zenshin- without telegraphing you must sink in lower as you go forward. In both oi-zuki and maegeri in the KWF we must lunge forward off the front leg, which is bent, with the knee well forward of the toe of the front foot. But today under Yoda Sempai, we were asked to reconsider this proposition. I've always been told that the power for maegeri comes off the rear leg through the hips, and the way to generate the powerful forward thrust to smash down your opponent is starting the kick by leaning forward heavily on the front (supporting) leg. Of course biomechanically this makes perfect sense and it works. But today, Yoda Sempai told us to forget this...what we should do is consciously bend our ankle forward. Have you ever thought of it that way. For me it was a bit of a conceptual breakthrough- don't think about bending your supporting leg kee- think about using your ankle as an essential component of forging the power in your kick or punch. I am not too cyncial enough to find that intersting!

Yoroshiku,
Paul.