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.