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Showing posts from 2011

The death of karate? Who cares?

I was introduced to the following article on a couple of internet fora, where people were getting up in arms about the author's contention that karate is weak and watered down:  UFC 140: karate is overrated . The author's contention is that because of McDojos, teaching children and antiquated techniques, karate is weak and past its use-by date.  It is deliberately a polemical piece, but one that reflects an attitude that is common and sustained amongst some areas of the martial arts community. My response?  Yep, cool.   That's it.  In the author's experience, he may even be correct.  But whether he is or not, doesn't matter. His opinion (and the opinion of pretty much everyone else on this planet) are not only not important, they are made nonsensical by the wide, wide diaspora that is karate.  I can pretty much guarantee that the karate I do is a different beast from the karate done down the road, in the next suburb, or in the next state or country.  Hell, I

Sorry for the silence

Recently, I have found that I am becoming less active in putting material on this blog, and wish to apologise to my few readers about this.  The two reasons for not putting content on have been the busyness of work and the birth of my third daughter, which has been hectic to say the least. Conversely, the birth of my daughter is also the impetus for me to begin posting again.  In order to help with her and her two siblings, I have given up going to formal training for the remainder of the year, and have mostly stopped regular self-training as with an average of 4 hours total sleep a  night I am struggling to find the energy and the time in the day, as the only hours I get to myself are after 8pm and before 10pm, and this time is needed to cook and eat dinner and try and maintain a relationship with my wife. This raises the question of how I can still be involved in progressing in my martial learning if I cannot actually train.  My solution is meta-trai

Jigsaw Learning

Or, why it's not a bad thing if you don't get it right all at once. Two years ago, I learned my first bo kata, shuji-no-kon.   I learned it in a weekend and took notes and videos and have practised it regularly ever since.   These last couple of weeks, we have revisited this kata and in just two run-throughs with my sensei, I picked up two major, fundamental flaws in how I was moving and half a dozen smaller things to work on as well.   My initial thoughts were along the lines of - "I wish I had known/realised this ages ago", but my second (and subsequent) thoughts were - "I probably wouldn't have understood beforehand anyway". I'm seeing this in my empty-hand work too.   Improvement seems to happen piecemeal or in sudden jumps, when something that I have seen many times before just suddenly stands up, slaps me on the face and shouts "THIS is how you should be doing it!"   And the reason why, I think, is that the brain and body can only

Seienchin Part 4

This is now a multi-part series.  You can find Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 here The final movement in each shikodachi step is a two-handed, open-handed soto uke followed by a slow retraction with the lead hand to the hip that is paired with a palm-up nukite to the front (not across the body as is done in a number of other schools). I have been shown two basic interpretations for the technique.  The first is an interception-catch-armbar of an incoming attack or grab attempt and is to the outside of the opponent and the second is similar in that it clears a grabbing arm/attack (to the outside as well) and then strikes into the exposed ribcage. The armbar technique is essentially a chin-na technique that extends and locks out the elbow, with the rear hand intercepting the attack, the lead hand coming through to clear and extend the arm, and the rear hand then applying outwards and upwards pressure (the "nukite") to the triceps tendon and providing a fulcrum for the lead

How good am I?

When I started karate I thought after orange belt that I knew a bit and was pretty good. Then, a couple of years later I got my brown belt and knew everything my school taught.  And I thought I knew a lot and was pretty good - especially compared to the me of a few years ago. Then, I also did some other martial arts and after a while in those I felt like I knew a bit more and was pretty good - much better than a brown belt who only did karate; what had I been thinking? After doing these other martial arts some more I felt that even though I knew more, I actually knew less than before. Then, after a break I came back to karate; a different school, a different style, a different teacher.  And I felt that I knew a bit and would be pretty good.  And I was - for an orange belt. After a while, I got my black belt and I felt that I knew a little bit, but didn't feel that I was pretty good. Now, almost a year and a half since then, I feel like I know a bit more, and that one da

Silat Suffian seminar - notes and random musings

I had a silat suffian seminar yesterday with Guru Maul Mornie and was once again deeply impressed by his skill, the depth of thought and care put into the seminar's content and by his art. What follows are some of my impressions, observations and thoughts on the seminar.  I was only able to attend Saturday's class, which was primarily concerned with basic drills that were to form the foundation for a lot of Sunday's content.  While I would have loved to have gone to both days, I was really happy to have attended just the Saturday session.  If truth be told, I tend to get more out of days where I can focus on the fundamentals, as too many techniques in one sitting can make my poor head spin! As usual, what follows is my interpretation/impression only and is subject to my general lack of memory, filters and incomprehensibility. correct distancing is vital.  Too far away, the attacker can reset, too close, the attacker can overpower the technique.  For practice, it is vital

Seienchin Part 3

This is now a multi-part series.  You can find Part 1 Part 2 Part 4  here Continuing on from Seienchin Part 2 , where I had only made it part-way through the first three arm movements in the first step of the kata. I originally learned as an application for this second movement of Section A, to deflect, grab and throw an incoming kick.  It is a good technique, but to my mind is definitely a more "henka" interpretation.  I must admit, I struggle to see this sweep down then up as a stand-alone technique divorced from the movements before and after it.  While it is done with both hands, it is a very similar feel to one of the basic wrist-escapes I learned years ago in aikiki aikido where the wrist is turned over and out, at the same time as the body turns and moves 180deg.  This is the same feeling that completing an elbow-press or elbow-wrap gives, and for me, this is currently the primary application I ascribe to that movement. Having said that, as seen in T

Seienchin Part 2

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This is now a multi-part series.  You can find Part 1 Part 3 Part 4  here So, finally, I have found some time to think some more about seienchin. As usual, my reason for doing these posts is to help myself make sense of what is happening in the kata and to explore different possibilities.  I am expecting to make mistakes and to pursue leads which go nowhere, but that's what happens when we learn. I took a video of myself doing the kata, and have attached it here.  As is usual, I have noticed quite a few things wrong with it and have fixed them up somewhat as a result (after all, isn't that the whole point of video-taping yourself?), but haven't had a chance to tape myself again.  Some things to note are that my arms are pushing too far forward in the double triangle "block" in Section A, and my hands are meant to be sweeping across high and low, not along a single mid-line in the two backward steps in shikodachi at the start of Section C. I will

more sanchin

I did some sanchin training with my instructor today - checking out stance, transitions and turns.  My body structure is improving, but needs a little more work on extending/lengthening my spine.  Stepping, I am bobbing a  bit much from the knees, and punching I am not extending enough, with a slight disconnect between my body and arm. In fact, extension is the main thing I need to improve on at this stage.  I am getting the grounding OK, but extension is one of the major things sanchin is about (much like happoren).  As my sensei said, the three battles are "concentration, breathing and ex -tension".

DIY Training Equipment #4 - Training Weapons

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I have been attending some silat seminars recently and, with my sensei becoming increasingly involved in learning silat, I have made myself some training knives. It seems a waste to go to a seminar and then not practise the techniques or principles learned - a waste of money, of my time and of the instructor's time. So, at the last silat seminar we did some golok (machete) work - no "techniques" as such, just basic stances, basic cuts and some djurus/flow drills with the basic counters to the basic cuts.  At the seminar I only had a stick, which is less than optimal as it is hard to get the correct feel of blade direction through the air. So, after looking at some of the goloks that others had at the seminar, I made a couple out of 12mm plywood, with polypropelene rope handles. They are modelled on a machete I used as a teenager to hack through blackberry and ragwort on my parents' property.  The blade length is my fingertip-elbow length.  They are a little l

What is ki?

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One of the perennial questions in the martial arts is "What is chi/qi/ki?"  Does it really exist, what does it do, how does it work? There have been a few posts on this topic on forums I frequent, and I'm posting here an expanded response I made on one of them. I identify different ways of defining ki/chi/qi. Ki that is a visualisation aid or metaphor for what the body is doing ("sink your ki into the ground", feel your energy shoot along your arm and out your little finger") I have no problems with as they can, depending on the person, aid in getting the correct technique or feeling better than, say, explaining something in anatomical terms.   Personally, I sometimes visualise a flowing, glowing line in my mind's eye when putting on certain locks and holds; it helps me get the correct bits in the correct place with the correct rhythm, but it's a way of mentally processing what I should be doing, rather than a causative factor. Ki as a direct an

Seienchin

This is now a multi-part series.  You can find Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 here I have been doing a lot of seienchin (seiyunchin) lately - it's my kata of the month, and one that I've identified as needing a bit of work on anyway. This is the first in a series of posts on how I view seienchin; the principles it contains, the applications that can be associated with/extracted from it (both those I have been taught, and those I can find); the mechanics of performing it and how it compares with other kata. The aim behind these is for me to explore and learn a bit more through the writing of these posts, so take them for what you will - my musings on and exploration of something I don't know much about (yet). So… Seienchin, as I understand it, is unique amongst the non-tensho/sanchin goju kata because it doesn't have any kicks in it.  Like sepai, sanseru and shisochin, it does not finish with mawashi-uke/tora-guchi; but it does finish in neko-ashi dachi, the

Imaging and imagining technique

Recently (the last year or so), I started doing something different when effectively applying a technique.  I would get an image in my head of how the technique should feel - mostly as some sort of flowing line, combined with sensations along parts of the line.  Depending on the technique, there might be loops, a fulcrum or two, or branching or steps. It's very weird, but whenever I do the technique with that image in mind, it almost always works exactly as it should.  Now, when I am learning techniques, I try and work out what its image should be, and I find that doing so allows me to pick it up quicker - If an image looks forced or doesn't hang together, I tend to find that I'm doing the technique wrong. Mental imaging as a way of helping to understand and guide the body through a technique is something I have seen mostly mentioned with regard to kata practise, where one is often exhorted to imagine they are being attacked by opponents, and to work out how the movemen

Silat Suffian Seminar

I had the good fortune to attend a 2-day seminar this weekend with guru Maul Mornie of Silat Suffian Bela Diri.  It's a Bruneian martial art and mostly weapons-based. This weekend, we did knife-knife, knife-hand and machete work.  It was my first time working with machete (apart from my teen years hacking acres of blackberry) and although we didn't progress much beyond the fundamentals with it, I still found it fascinating. We started Saturday with an hour and a half of basic drills - the basic cuts with a knife (over/fore, back, thrust), and the basic defenses against those attacks.  These formed the basis of the rest of the seminar. It was interesting to me that all basics began as knife v. knife.  Everything we did for the seminar (even the empty hand v. knife) went back to this basic premise.  It was also interesting to my uneducated viewpoint (I have done bugger-all knife work before) that the knife was never used to block/check/intercept the incoming knife (no metal on

Thoughts on daily training so far

Now that I've been going for a couple of months, my thoughts and attitudes to daily training are changing.   Organisation of time is so important - without my weekly schedule, I would waste each session by frittering away my time wondering what to do next.   But more organisation is needed within session.   Without someone else to motivate me, I need to break my sessions down in more detail so I can actually get maximum benefit from what I am doing.   How to push myself well beyond my comfort zone without anyone else there (either to push me by direction, or through competition) is still problematic to me. One side-effect of my daily training is that I find I now have the time to iron out flaws in what I am doing; a change from only training a few times a week, where I am mostly concerned with learning new things.   One thing I am trying to avoid, however, is doing to much of anything on autopilot - I am attempting to train mindfully.   This is having a flowover effect in my trai

75 days in - a New Year's Resolution Update

A brief update on my New Year's Resolution to train at least once every day of the year.  Well, I have failed.  Not miserably, but I missed training on Saturday. In my defense, I did 6 hours of gardening - shifting soil and mulch, pruning and mowing; and then went out for dinner and a movie.  However, I knew that this was going to happen and didn't plan around it (Actually, I had intended to get up around 6:30 to do some taiji, but my youngest had me up at 1am and 4:30am, so that fell through). So, I have done 74 of a possible 75 days so far - still on track to top 360, and I should break 300 days without any problems.  I know at the start of the year, I thought that would be acceptable, but now I'm in the rhythm of daily training, I will be disappointed if I don't get to at least 350 days.

Karate and Evolution

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Karate and Evolution. Over on the Blitzmag forum, I have been peripherally involved in a few conversations recently regarding karate, its efficacy, what constitutes "real" karate, and the concept that much karate that is being done is either not true to its origins (either okinawan, or if talking about okinawan karate, to China), or not true to the principles of "real" karate. What follows are my musings on issues and points raised in some of those conversations, from an evolutionary perspective. None of which, by the by, is of the least importance to the training or practise of karate. (And is, quite possibly, very wrong).  But it's fun to think about. Social v. biological evolution. Evolution in biology is inter-generational and Darwinian - in other words, the inheritance of characteristics caused by genetic mutation and 'favoured' over other characteristics in a population due to the influence of selection pressures.  Individuals cannot evolve; th