my appologies andy, I'm a little too rough around the edges with my words sometimes.

No need to be miss understandings happen all the time

Ous

Hi Jeff,

Agreed.

You know it's really intersting where the rice paddy concept came from as I understand Okinawa doesn't have them?

Of course the modern equivalent would be using naifanchi stepping to fight in a rebar field for a constructoin floor pour. While it would be dumb to fight there, you could make a logical case for using naifanchi stepping to move between the rebar.......nah too fetched....... but I'll start teaching that to the kids anyway, a good story is worth...

When I trained in Carl Long's school (Shorin Honda Katsu) in long ago days, he used to do some interesting training with naifanchi. One was to see how quickly you could execute the entire kata, with each move distinct... sort of naifanchi racing. Some how I remember 9 or 10 seconds. Of course it just highlites that kata training can be done at various speeds, but if you want to have an interesting time time yourself, or race a friend.

He also showed how to practice the kata with turns. When you foor step across the other foot (each time), immediately pivot 180 degrees and continue the kata. Its very interesting, you're almost doing the kata in place, and opens up some new application potential, imo.

I began the naifanchi with jumping spinning crescent kicks when I got a group of young people with too much excess energy (read brown belts). After the low block they perform a jump spinning crescent kick (turning to the rear) land and continue the kata, and it's done for both sides. (Old man equivalent, use a steping turning crescent kick for the same effect.)

From my part it was both 'work' but also a precursor for later training in the chinese form 'lung le kuen' where they spiral to the floor in a double block, and then uncoil with a jump spinning crescent kick from the floor.

It has a number of interesting potentials. For one thing nobody anyplace thinks of naifanchi with jumping spinning crescent kicks, so you're pushing your students potential beyond what others expect in Isshinryu.

But more so it really irritates the true naifanchi adepts. That wasn't why I worked it up, but if it works....

IMO, naifanchi has it's uses but I hardly consider its full potential the end of of what my karate will represent. In that sense it's not one wit better than any other kata, again imo. But keeping one's boundries flexible only helps.

Andy,

I've never seen those stories as worthless. I really think they were beginner explanations, a way to try and give a beginner a visual image to help their performance.

It's wrong to belive beginners can actually apply karate technique. A great deal of the technique in kata, even with years of practice, often eludes a student when they begin the conditing to use it.

Some applications are subtle and take great faith to learn how to use them. I've had students with many years of practice be unable of using a technique I've shown them many times and with multiple exlanations how to do it.

Karate was never designed to make it work instantly, and part of its lifetime study is how applicationp potential is revealed when you really get advanced, with more to come.

I don't even begin students study of kata application potential until they have quite a few years in technique performance of that kata behind them.

The 'stories' are one useful tool to help train beginners.

They're not the whole story, but any tool that works is fine.

Ok Victor I can see your point.I wasnt meaning you in that remark it just seems that naihanchi wrongly seems to get ridiculed.(seems that way to me) The good thing is my brain is beggining to "RE" see things as regards kata and stances etc.
slowly its getting there.

What might be worth considering is in a lot of karate here (UK) the kata was a means to get a grading and some silly bunkia was produced. Some good bunkai was also produced by re engineering but I am looking at the study of kata from the traditional point of view. Grass roots so to speak.
Okinanwa and China?

Anyhow before I go discussing what I think I know I will go in to the study in more detail.I have been doing karate on and off for years. Im 53 and started when I was 16.
I have been a first dan for about 20 years.
This has been my sort of way of doing karate

http://video.google.co.uk/videoplay?docid=7451855325156546591&q=Kyokushin

World apart from what I am
doing now. But I might be going back to it( and please im not to old) lactic acid is a problem but i can still function.They allow any style to compete providing the person signs a disclaimer in case some young stud is to fast and clever for people like me and I end up in sleep land.

Who knows and believe it or not I can see some of the answers in Trad okinawan karate to these guys but as I said I am saying "not a lot" untill I get where I want to

I will just plod on so to speak

So Victor your excellent education methods(and Eds thougth provoking/ educational methods and medulants input) on here are being put to use but not being an academic takes people like me a bit longer before things sink in.


Keep posting Victor you come into the leage of prime educator par excellence wether you know it or not.

OUS!

Hi Andy,

I don't know about re-engineering. As no kata applications (Beyond beginners spatial ones) were studied when I began, each one really is a new discovery of the technique application potential. Perhaps just words.

Some of the kata stories have other intended lessons, such as night fighting to make the student think about low level lighting and self defense. Or how to use techniques on a bride or a narrow place. Those stories represent a binding to older traditions, not exclusively demonstrating what something had to be.

I think they were useful tools back when instruction was one on one.

The kyo... kumite you shared is very similar to dojo kumite in Isshinryu when I began. We did not intentionally strike below the belt (but mistakes always happened), and we tended to block the head much more than shown in the clip. A function of different answers. But a lot of hard body contact kumite.

Arthritis issues cost me that over 20 years ago. I still do, but not what I did.

There are other answers that just that kumite, ones more involved, more complex skill building drills, etc. It's also inappropriate for the youth program I teach.

Still it has it's place in the program for those that need it.

I do blush at your charaterization of my teaching ability.

I just work with a student one on one, step by step and they do the rest.

The re engineering part. Well I have seen some good self defence techniques supposedly from kata.
Either way they were good techniques.
The vidios you posted some time ago on okinawan TV
Is there any more? How would I know if they are putting more on the web?

Thanks

Andy