Form follows function

No, not biology. That's not even a debate, where I'm from. But human enterprises, if they are functional, make their form adapt to their goals. Trying to hammer a nail down with a typewriter is doable, but...

So... How does function affect form in martial arts? Well... Remember MacYoung's focuses? If your martial arts are for health, they'll work different that if they're trying to assassinate sentries. Even in the same branch. Tai chi, for example, is very different depending on how you use it. Karate for grade school physical fitness is very different from classical Okinawan karate. There are variations in kendo techniques that will help you win a championship but mess with you martial understanding of it and, also, your health (wrist hyperextension, for one). I do recall an olympic competitor in judo who had his elbow relocated thrice in the Olympics in 1992. Do you think he still practices? A local sub-21 champion had quit judo because his shoulder got dislocated if you shook hands with him. He didn't seem to mind, back then.

So... What is your focus? What is you instructor's focus? And your branch's? What are they not transmitting? What are they changing? Or negelcting. Or...

Take care.

[Actually written Sept 14th, 2018]

Holes

Some months ago, we were training a KJKB technique at a seminar. I think it's the one against baton for brown. If this was jujutsu, it'd be a rather classical technique, locking the attacking arm and performing Nage waza. It is not. Done our way, the trick is finding the moment the attacker has the most forward momentum but the least adherence and then strike his head backwards. He flips.

I find it extremely difficult, done that way. And you need to practice it with a certain intent, or there's not enough forward momentum to work with. Apparently, I'm not the only one who thinks that way. At the seminar, a regional instructor suggested me to, basically, perform Ippon seoi. No, I told him. I already know how to do that. I'm here for learning (then, obviously, I tried Ippon seoi... and failed).

But it got me thinking... And it's mixing up with Rory's ideas against joint locks and with old school paradigms. Very old school.

Old schools say there's a 'front' of you attacker and a 'back' (omote and ura). Front is the short distance between your attacker's arms, back is the long one along his shoulderblades. That includes things we would call sides and such, yes.

Rory sort of advocates that it's more effective to get to his back and attack from there, but also that it goes against the grain, that our monkey wants to go up front.

Then, there are martial arts that are pretty good defending against frontal attack. Boxing and fencing, for instance, or Wing Chun; or Ittô ryû, in classical Japanese fencing. They control the centre, good luck using it. However, their very effectiveness come from having a very narrow 'front' that no one in his right mind wants to face. It's much more intuitive to try something else against them, say along the sides, than it is against, for example, a Tae Kwon Do competitor; or even a Muay Thai practitioner.

Competition Tae Kwon Do has much wider front. Even Muay Thai's is wider than Western boxing's. This also means that it takes a longer trip to get 'in their back'; it's a tradeoff (not that I'd like to go "straight up the middle" against a Muay guy).

Too long for background, I'm afraid. My point is that, besides the obvious differences, their classical principles, the difference in that earlier technique between the jujutsu approach and the KJKB one is in the front/back exploitation of vulnerabilities. The attack usually seen in demos, the lunge with a bat of the angry hooligan, has a rather large front, mostly open. It's rather 'easy' to get in there and act. The technique from KJKB opens the barrier between front and back, slides there into the back and uses it for the takedown.

Both are looking for a hole. The standard judo move exploits a circle in Omote it widens as it proceeds. The technique in Kajukenbo "erases" one of the limits between Omote and Ura and, doing so, leaks the bigger "Ura" hole into Omote. The wide hoolingan arch does the same itself. Advanced Wing Chun travels slightly into Ura while tightening the opponent's hole. Kajukenbo does something equivalent, although not exactly the same. Aikido travels wider into Ura for most Irimi (technique is a weird mix, from where I stand; while Tori is clearly rooted in Ura, the force travels straight from Omote). A slap into Uke's nape is as Ura as you can get.

But all of these are looking for holes. Wing Chun and Ittô ryû know perfectly well that you need a hole, and are masters creating it right into Uke's guard. The rest of us look for easier ways. The more artistic variants of Aikido illustrate the holes from where to create joint locks. Still, all of those are holes.With practice, you can create holes in tighter situations, and use smaller ones. But you need a hole.

Now, get this idea ad watch most martial artists discard it.

Take care.

The martial tax

Wing Chun 12" circle, cane. 25$, plus shipping.

Embroidery 12" circle, wood. 7€, shipping included.

I have seen similar discrepancies in other sports, but they're usually Spain-specific. You need, for example, quite a budget to sail in Spain. It's a luxury sport, "and so it should be, damnit!" Or kendo, where a local shop asked routinely for about twice what it asked practitioners. Not even long-term practitioners. And twice the price of a bogu or a sword is quite a price indeed.

It's silly, and it conditions us. It sets us apart and it kills our critical mindset.

And our traditions. It's as if karate needed special oars for its eku techniques. Or specific stones for its chi-ishi. Or special footwear, or...

It makes used, basically, to be scammed, to turn our training into a social construct instead of turning to the easiest, most effective method. And most effective is not that with the best result, but that with the best investment-result ratio.

If we fail seeing that in such basic, easy things, how are we supposed to realize that warmup is punishing our bones, that one contracting our spine and that other group is turning into a cult? Because there's not so much difference between 'this rattan circle is more authentic and using that is not Wing Chun' and 'our master's own tools are special and the rest are not properly done'.

From tools to mindset. Shouldn't it be the other way?

Take care.

Mistranslations... still there

We've known for a while, those who wanted to hear, that a lot of problems with "traditional" Western understanding of martial arts (very specially karate, but also kendo, Chinese systems...) was a matter of translation, of trying to explain very intimate sensations to people with a different language paradigm. As long as this has been known, it's annoying that it's still there.

For example, Jesse Enkamp's article on the Pinan kata. Or the translation of the 20 precepts of Shotokan. Check both versions.

We've had people fluent in Chinese in most of the West for decades. And yet, no "traditional" karateka thought of digging into that source? Respect to tradition, my ass! Then we have the Nijû kun... My fight with that meaning of sente's been boiling for a while. As a recap, there are two mistakes: one, that sente is no "first strike" but more similar to initiative; the other that if you never have the initiative in an assault, you die. No ifs, no buts. And the way it's become almost a religious mantra (you'll find woodcarvings of that precept far more often than any of the others) is disgusting and dangerous.

But it's not the only one. "Do not think you have to win. Think that you do not have to lose." Bullshit. Wiki translates the second part as "Think, rather, of not losing", which is completely different. The difference between "I will NOT lose!" [ie, I'll reach home safe and sound] and "No one's asking me to lose, after all".

The list of precepts is not wrong. The translations are. The interpretations are a damn disgrace. The blind obedience to that all is sickening.

We have people labelling themselves as "warriors", "fighters", and yet they get all huffy when you point to them that, well, they're demostrably wrong and, even more, wrong in such a way that it cripples them.

We should do skeet shooting with photographs of several scores of MA pioneers.

Take care.

Imperfection and profession

I was doing some cooking and something came to me. I had to slice some onions. I like to waste as little as possible, so I try to use as many layers as possible, and cut as close to the base and the tip as possible. This costs me some extra effort and time.

Something a professional won't do. He won't mind if he rips an extra layer or three while cleaning the skin, or waste a couple of extra slices from each extreme. Instead, he'll slice fast, clean, maybe not quite as regularly as the book says... But he'll have the onion cut in time, the oil ready at the right temperature. He might not spread the onion around the oil, and yet he'll manage to have all bits cooked alike.

The violence professional is the same. Doing several hundreds of reps is the focus of the martial artist. Lots of reps, just the right way. A professional doesn't need as much perfection, he needs adequate performance at just the right moment. Clear mind, good ingrained reflexes.

And then, some people get the worst from both worlds and train barely adequate performance without the proper mind focus. And you get shitty mechanics without focus, that gets worse when it performs under pressure.

Take care.

Mindset

We were doing some basic kali, this week. Snake disarms. Very basic, since kali is not our thing, just a way to get familiar with weapons and their effects.

But I come from classic Japanese fencing. The kali meme of "a stick is a sword is a stick"? I lean towards the sharp, pointy thingie. And yet, it seems I have something that should be more easy to grasp to people who lean "stick". Ie, pommel strikes.

What I'm finding in what little kali I've done is that people tend to strike with the "mono uchi", the last part of the sword when used for slashing. They forget pommel, they forget thrusts... The stick becomes a light baseball bat (or worse; a baseball bat does have a nice pommel, after all).

Now...the point of weapons is to get better offensive options. While it's true that, say, an F-18 isn't much good for a police restrain and yet a useful thing, it's not much good if you take a weapon and discard most of its uses. It would be like getting that F-18 and using it ONLY for dropping dumb bombs. What's the use of its radar, its cannon, its fly by wire? Get another weapon, if you only want that!

So, if you're only using slashing techniques, get a slashing weapon. But, oh, that needs edge angle awareness. So, we better keep a stick.

It's weird. the distance our style works best is close striking, almost grappling distance. With any other attack, we try to close there. And yet, most of us try to keep the distance when we have a stick. Why? The moment you've disarmed him, you do not need to get far away[*]. Use that pommel, use your elbow, use "abanico". There are lots of options, faster options, things that can really mess the other guy. But you need to use the whole of the weapon, for that.

The more I think about it (not only this once), the more I believe that we should train with short sword replicas, the more I see rattan leading to tactical laziness.[+]

Take care.

[*] Yes, if you've disarmed him and still carry your own stick, you're in a legal minefield.

[+] Not that swordwork is immune to that. There are a lot of distances available with a katana that are seldom explored. Even a lot of counter to a disarm attempt that try to control down the guy... when you'd started wanting to cut him down and you still have the damn sword!

Techniques' inflection point

Usually, martial arts techniques are responses. A succession of moves that take you from a losing situation into a winning result. So, if things start going downhill and yet you manage to succeed, there must be a point at which this changes, yes?

Where?

Again with my old system's technique. Yes, check it out again, please. Where does that thing go from "I'm going to get smashed" to "I have him"? Where do you think it happens? My opinion? The moment you control his elbow to your abdomen. Everything after that is commentary. It's very difficult to recover from that, and I'd say impossible once you put your other hand to him.

However, a bunch of instructors, even arts, concentrate in the shiny bits. The lock, the control, the takedown. They're nice, funny, often spectacular. But you need control of the situation to get there. And that's where many fail.

Now, yes, this point can change. A very good judoka can intercept a punch and put you down with no intermediate moves. It's not a safe way to bet or train, though.

So, where are your techniques' inflection points? When do you start controlling the situation?

Can you do properly what comes before?

Take care.

Again with blades

I seem to be repeating myself a lot, today.

Some days ago, I mentioned that blades seem to have a weird "feeling", a balance that pushes you towards certain fluidity. In that trip with friends this last weekend I bought several knives. A chef's knife, a MCusta folding knife, a Martiini one, and two fixed Spanish blades: a Muela inspired on Argentinian blades and a Nieto skinner.

I've ranted on some ideas on Spanish knives ust today, so I'll save you the bad points on that. Also, I'd have preferred the MCusta to be one with a thumb hole, unlayered, instead of a thumb stud, layered steel one. Functional preference[*].

But. Those blades have their own preferences of movement. The long Argentinian blade, a 6 2/3 inch blade, reaches out, changes your feel, makes you, perhaps, a tad more daring, asks for a guard. The skinner wants to be kept close to the body. With the very same movements. The folding ones are similar to the skinner, but faster, more inclined to "nick" instead of cut; maybe more puncturing, too.

Now, most of my short blade instruction is a weird mix of Kali, Silat... My Japanese learning is scarce on short blades and... well, a tanto is a rather long short blade. So maybe my ideas are restricted. But... I had similar feelings with that talwar I mentioned in my earlier post, and I'm told they were legit.

Hm... More feeling, less technique? Where have I heard that before...?

Take care.

[*] Layered steel, today, is not any more functional (and, sometimes, even less) than good factory steel. And I think thumb holes work better under stress.

Knives and responsibility

This kind of follows on the previous post, kind of doesn't. It has more general implications WRT awareness.

Some friends of mine are rearing their child with some... old fashioned? ideas on responsibility. As in, they're teaching him more things like left / right and less things like "hippopotamus". And he's been grabbing knives the proper way since before he could walk.

I was with them this first weekend of Easter and... it's curious. Curious how some people will freak out at the kid grabbing (properly) a knife, but will put him dessert out of reach, insuring an accident when the kid reaches for it (or tries to) at the same time the rest of the adults are busy staying out of the way of said waiters (and, then, presenting the bill to said kid; how come he needs better access to a bill than to his own food?).

Earlier that weekend, at a knife shop, the father was buying a shaving razor... just after a professional chef cut himself with a knife... and kept denying it. Still, there was blood on the floor when he left and no one else was bleeding. Denial. But... No one cleaned those knives he'd touched (or the floor). Let's just say my friend made sure his blade was in a factory-sealed container. You're left to wonder what happens if that guy bleeds on the menu.

Another knife shop, same guy, weeks ago, looking for a knife that would fit his kid's hand. In certain circles, "sharp is safe". Apparently not in a shop where they kept insisting on dull blades (the kid has several of those, gifts; those gifts are teaching him, basically, to play with blades... suboptimal), and that he could not carry the kid above knife-level (in case he fell on those knives; because, of course, the fall itself is meaningless)... and then promptly interfering with his range of vision and staying between parent and kid every single time they showed him a knife. There were Japanese blades on display.

But they were Following the Rules. That parent was a Maverick (TM). And so on... Still, the rules followed, they forgot about the meaning of those rules at the same time said parent tried to teach his kid how to safely work with those things.

What kind of parent do you thing raised the self-mutilating chef?

Take care.

Blades

He’d never had any patience with those sagas wherein the hero found, was given, or created a famous blade with a name of its own. Ridiculous! These things were just pieces of steel, not something sentient. And when you focused too much on "my famous blade, Gazornenplatz,” you were apt to forget that it was a tool, to be used and as readily left behind if need be. Aksel had felt the same, and when he’d caught cadets naming their blades and refusing to use any other, he often took the weapons in question to the forge himself and had them melted down, if they happened to have come out of the common arsenal. There wasn’t a great deal he could do about heirloom blades or gifts, other than to ban them from the salle, but that’s exactly what he had done.

Mercedes Lackey, Exile's Honor

Maija mentions she's been playing with Western swords, and about the differences in mindset due to different kinds of design. Personally, what I'd likely find annoying of a good deal of Western swords is the lack of guard to the sides of the cutting plane in the classic medieval "cross" design (Oakeshott).

But what I've found so far is that there's a kind of "feel" of blades. And considering how hard it was for me to switch practice swords and how natural some moves seem with completely unknown blades... And I mean going from katana-like designs to one handed sabres, or knives. I have the feeling that a lot of the problem with swords is not what you don't know.

It's what you DO know. To use the previous example: it was knowing the weight of my previous practice swords that made it difficult to me to adapt to the new ones. But when I tried a talwar some time ago, there were some movements that just "were" in the blade, movements that didn't come from my martial arts, but my body. Something similar happened with a sabre built to Japanese WWII requirements, and with an old knife with filipino delusions.

And I'm not sure it doesn't tie to those ideas from Rory. That we learn playing, not cramming ideas. That we know how to move and that, if we're not careful, MA learning ends up putting way to many restrictions and destroying the knowledge we already had of our own body.

Hm...

Take care.

Lies?

Rory just published a thought, on his blog, that seems to have been bugging him for a while. Thought #1, in that post.

Personally, I don't know enough of Lord Acton's life to judge if he was being sincere. He wouldn't be the first powerful politician to go against "his own". Engels and Kropotkin, for instance.

But...

Yagyū Munenori, of iaijutsu treatise fame (and starring several manga, and...), had the luxury of writing those treatises... because he was a courtier, absent from battle, worried by duels but not armies. Meanwhile, his brothers were invading natives' lands. Do we know what Cortez's family wrote regarding military matters? Or Custer's?

Miyamoto Musashi was a rural orphan "samurai" who left home at 16, deserted his lord in death (good idea, I would think, but quite improper for a worthy samurai) and became a brawler, one of those ronin who gave the name a bad rep. And, yes, he won a lot of duels. So, self-defence expert? Maybe. Great painter? Sure, much later on, tamed. The ultimate authority in strategy and budo? Hardly.

Morihei Ueshiba [*] hung himself from tree branches, loaded with weights, so that he could join the army... in time of a war of aggression (Russo-Japanese War). Not a particular "Do" moment, much less pacifist.

In the West, Machiavelli keeps saying that fear is more powerful than love... and then tries to bootlick his place into a court instead of joining the Inquisition. Adriano Emperado, "train until someone bleeds to be strong", had the luxury of remaining a civilian during the Korean war... and yet his training might have something to do with 20 years in a wheelchair.

And on and on...

No, I don't think this invalidates their stories, their narrative. BUT. Be aware, don't eat the narrative uncritically, hook, line and sinker. A narrative, BTW, probably heavily shaded by transmission. At the very least, those experiences shaped their teachings. Maybe, being aware will actually help you understand their teachings, be a better aikidoka (and, man, could I give you examples!). And beware of "interpretation cults".

Take care. Be aware.

[*] Recall: restoration onwards, names start being transcribed in a Western order.

It's lonely

I started MA in the mid 80s, in a weird gym with delusions of church premise. They kicked kids out when they reached their teens, but I'm not aware that anyone I met there practices any longer. Including the gym itself.

Then I went into a small gym, that hopped places a couple of times, in two... "seasons". Of the guys I met my first time there, kids, only two were still there when I went back. They left, junior black belts, and didn't come back. Pity, they had potential. Those who were at the smaller of the places we hopped into, some remain. They were already black when I met them. None of the others. My instructor apparently left teaching. One of the guys I respected has set up a weird association with, in those cases I can judge, suboptimal instructors. And gained over twice the dan he used to have.

Of those who left, one introduced me to Kajukenbo. He also did TKD. Left, at least, Ju Jutsu and Kaju sometime later. He'd wanted to be an MA teacher. Of the group I met in Kajukenbo those days, 10 years later only two instructors remained (Ángel Garcia and Jesús Juní). And myself, after those 10 years off. Of those instructors Ángel mentored, most have left MA, many have left his teachings.

The shop I bought my gis during my teenage years closed a year and a half ago. It had a name, a history, quality (although the old gis are way better), and yet it closed, its business down because of "The Crisis" [TM].

As I started Kajukenbo about seven years ago, I had a small bunch of higher belts. One remains (a tad off, since he just had twins), one is now my equal. The rest are gone. Of those "behind" me, many have left. And, since we are an unknown school, we have better retention than most. Still...

All that above? If you do MA for social reasons, be prepared for this or take another path. MA are lonely. People leave for a thousand reasons. They get tired of being hit, their jobs no longer allow for it (timetables, trips...), they grow a family that doesn't permit them the time, they get injured... And, years later, you find yourself talking about lost mates with people who managed to meet them briefly. Yes, at the higher belts, attrition is not as high, but when it's felt, it hits harder. All this assuming your mindset, your training routine, matches with your group.

Don't despair, that's not my thrust, but be ready. Take care.

Re-set the classics

There's a nice interview out there to Iain Abernethy, a great karate practitioner. He's a great worker of kata, and I don't mean a performer. And his works on the interpretation and on bunkai are important.

And yet...

I still think we're doing it wrong. Yes, that includes Iain and me. And, yes, he's much better.

In the second part of the interview, his interviewer, Jesse Enkamp, says:

And unless people are on this same level of understanding about Karate, it’s hard to even discuss kata! Here’s another dilemma: In ye olde days, people learned “bunkai” first, and then proceeded to practice the solo pattern (kata) by themselves, just as a memory aid. Today, it’s the complete opposite: We learn the kata first, and then grope in the dark for an understanding of the moves (bunkai). How can we reverse this process? Should we even?

Iain's answer is, by the way, "sort of". Read it.

I'm going to go further.

If we don't understand the kata, and if our styles have been severely influenced by the upheavals of the XXth century, and if technique (or bunkai, if you prefer) came before kata, should we still practice these same kata? Should we, instead, create new ones?

Ah... I just felt a great disturbance in the Chi, as if millions of couch shihans suddenly cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced.

How dare I!?

Well, I dare because kata are a language. And if we've lost the meaning, the ways to properly interpret it, we have about the same problem Jews had when they tried to resurrect Hebrew, but worse. As far as I understand it, they did have some people who still spoke the old version; we may not. We do have excellent teachers, but the chain of transmission for, say, Naihanchi is lost.

Now, these kata were not created by some sort of angel. Satori, in those cases were it is claimed, is not something out of this world. These kata were created by people who knew their style well, who needed a way to remember, and practice, moves. Who were, often, good enough teachers to have passed the information down to a next generation [*].

So... These days we have great practitioners, great instructors, people with good medical knowledge (at least by XVIth-XIXth century standards)... People like Abernethy himself, like the new batch of Western practitioners, like some Eastern ones. People who've "cross trained" in other styles, been influenced by them... like the masters of old. If karate was influenced by the Chinese (duh!), maybe even Siam / Thailand... why can't it be influenced, these days, by the constellation of styles? Back then, "influence" meant a stranded traveller, a lesson in secret, spying... These days, a trip to a seminar.

Where is the Sanchin, or the Naihanchi, that includes lessons from Muay Thai, from BJJ, from Western boxing, from Judo? Back again from White Crane? From Xing Yi? Silat? Were is the kata that condenses a whole modern system? If Naihanchi was the "book" for a whole style, why can't we create our books? Why do we need so and so many kata for black belt? Were is OUR kata? Have we become soldered onto kata we just realized we no longer understand? Why weren't they changed in the last... 50+ years or so? Tournament standards? Fear of insulting tradition? The old masters created and modified kata, but we're afraid of it? Or maybe too proud to recognize we need to change those kata if we have to use them, to profit from them?

Take care.

[*] Not enough of it, or we wouldn't have this problem. So, either they didn't think it was important enough or they weren't good enough teachers. Or maybe one led to the other. Man, isn't that another can of worms...!

Oh, damn it...!

I'm about to get into trouble.

Considering my opinions, and (other people's) expert opinion, I should avoid trouble. That's what it's there for. That's what that sinking feeling is there to tell me. "Run away", it says.

So, then, should I leave MA?

You see, my problem is with the classics.

I've said it scores of times. My mind is "classical". I deal better with kata, and structured teaching, than I do with that half-on, often-off "method" and structure in our usual class. Because I'm apparently an idiot, I'm looking for some extra information outside my standard school. As good as I believe it is, it certainly doesn't have every answer since the invention of the wheel. Because I am who I am, I was looking for "classic" themed information. The basic karate strikes, for example. Naihanchi kata. I was ready to find some quirky bunkai. Some exercises that wouldn't fit my mindset, or whose medical consequences were not thought thoroughly enough according to today's medical expertise.

Oh, Hell. Twice over.

What I'm finding are scripted bunkai that make no sense at all. Yes, sure, that's a known fact. Many bunkai don't make any sense. But I thought those were the Western ramblings of people who hand't learned enough about their own style. Or others. What I certainly didn't expect is certain amounts of crap delivered in a DVD by one of the last living pupils of the wave of Japanese karate pioneers early last century.

And it hasn't been the only one. I've been seeing clips for styles and meetings and schools and associations all over Okinawa and Japan. Considering how extended some of those associations are worldwide, some of them should be under trial for lèse humanité. What they're doing is not healthy. It's an insult to that "Do" suffix they insist on attaching at the end of "Karate", if "only" physically [*].

I think it was at Karate by Jesse --a site I only recently discovered-- that I recently saw an article where a Chinese master complained of how karate had lost its understanding of movements, even in Okinawa, while the culture itself was very aware of them (and he used the example of the samurai koryu). I don't know enough of Chinese MA to judge if they're much better than that (standard commercial schools aren't, for sure), or Okinawan-proper karate, either. But I see what he means.

And if the source is that diluted, that crammed with things that make no sense... how can the Western schools be any better? And, please, spare me "you only say that because you don't understand". I may not understand karate well enough, true. I do understand basic anatomy, thank you so very much. We no longer live in the XIXth century. Knowing that your hands will break up before you die of old age but that you'll kill your assaulter was okay back then, it's not so much there days. Among other things, current medicine is better at patching people than at healing arthritis. Remember Emperado.

On the plus side, watching that just helped me see one of the "lost elements", something that didn't make sense. And the "lost element" is not in the movement... it's in the timing! It opens a world.

Still... Oh, Hell.

Take care.

[*] No one insists on calling shiatsu, "Shiatsu-Do". And it's as much a "way" as karate, with possibly (likely) better health benefits. Why? Are we trying to convince ourselves?

Naihanchi

Since things are going to get erased, a reminder: Kajukenbo's 6th Palama kata is, basically, karate's Naihanchi. Now, I haven't been able to find a nice comparison of karate's many Naihanchi variants, certainly nothing similar to Sanchin, but it is known that there are several variants of it.

To my knowledge, none of them have the particular enbusen of KJKB's, which is NOT linear.

Now, Kajukenbo was started post WWII, not the best moment for karate. Martial arts had become set, scripted. Rows of people doing big moves. While Kajukenbo challenged some of this, and has some claim to that "the original MMA/RBSD" meme popular in the States, it was still a child of its times.

Those times went on, and Kajukenbo turned its back on kata, made them superfluous, barely apt for competition, like many other karate systems. Then, the Spanish branch started changing its understanding of the techniques, of teaching, of fluidity... Yet we kept our kata.

Meanwhile, karate realized what it had lost, and started rebuilding its kata, little by little. Interviewing old, retired masters. Looking at their kata with new eyes. People in the West started recycling their half-assed knowledge, brought from people who, while pioneers, had mostly not been properly immersed in the system.

What I want to get is a Naihanchi that reflects what Kajukenbo does. Not what it did, but what we use now. Our emphases, our patterns. They're there, but they aren't. And I see some things clearly, while others are... proving reluctant to embed themselves in an existing kata.

We'll see. Take care.

Like all beginners...

There's a tendency, in MA, to perfect the right attack. Besides the little annoying nugget that "right" depends on a lot of things (place, weapon, armour, size...), you cannot be sure that your attacker will perform according to your expectations.

These mistakes are sometimes obvious (seated defence against AK-47, anyone?), sometimes not so much. Now, however, next time you picture a defence against a knife attack, don't imagine a stationary mugger. Think an enraged fishmonger. Don't think about a flimsy switchblade (unless you're practising surprise attacks), think this:

Also, I was thinking about that knife up there, how similar it is to a Barong, how to maybe even turn it into one... And something clicked in. Short swords (or real long knives) might be the worst item to defend against, unarmed. Too long to reach behind, too fast reacting to use the downtime after a strike. I'll have to think on that one, see if a broadsword is short enough for this. If so... it would explain things.

Take care.

Wax on, carry the rice and put on your jacket

MA films are full of repetitions. From Pat Romita's "Wax on, wax off" to ackie Chan's jacket on a pole, to anything in between. Classic classes are full of repetitions. In zenkutsu dachi, in kiba dachi, you name it. Modern combative systems do the same under another name.

Western minds abhor repetition. We try to disguise it, to sugarcoat it. But it needs to be done. You learn to score doing a lot of free throws. Then you do some more and start getting into something more difficult. Then you go back to basics.

But we balk at doing the same in martial arts. When we are, in fact, worse than ever before.

Once upon a time, people moved daily. They had to. Those bales didn't stack on their own, that carcass didn't stroll to the butchering table (shouldn't have killed it so far away) and, anyhow, even that critter's leg is quite a weight. And so on. These days, even work that's mostly manual loses as much of it as it can (compare building a wall not so many decades ago and now; wheelbarrows have been motorized, there are bricklaying machines...). And it's good, healthier. But we don't get any of the fringe benefits. Kata guruma is a lot more difficult if you've never carried enough weight on your shoulders.

We only have so many ours at the gym. Use your own elsewhere as much as you can. Find your equivalent "Karate Kid" training. Might be as simple as changing the way to walk up the steps home, or how you push the supermarket's stroller (or a child's), or how you clean a blackboard or stack bottles on a shelf. When you go out buying, try to carry your own boxes, maybe your neighbor's (goodwill is a good investment), and check how you move, how you carry weight. Use that, it's a gift, and one you need.

Take care.

Blindfolds are black

At the very least from the inside.

I didn't feel this as much in Seitei, nor do I feel it in Tatsumi, but I've seen it / felt it in KJKB. Some people see the black belt as a sort über-level, so getting there makes so much of a big difference that they stop training once they reach it, their motive gone, conquered. Some comments by a partner might have pointed in that direction, just after the test. Maybe not: it would not be the first time his words come out of the wrong orifice but his actions keep being... Well, not 'good', but adequate.

Thing is, getting ready for the test, maybe seeing some techniques together, or training them slightly differently, allowed me to see some things that point into interesting directions... And that I don't yet understand completely, not even in execution.

So, to me, getting ready for black belt has been, in part, the removal of that blind. While I don't really expect to reach 10th dan, fact is thst I'm barely half way the formal knowledge recognition. That I'm seeing things I didn't see a year ago, that... That it would be sad if I stopped where I'm at now, now that I've seen some of my mistakes, perceived certain shapes.

And yet, the black belt sanctuary myth keeps on.

Take care.

Twenty years in the making...

I graded for black belt today, in Kajukenbo, through Angel GS.

First met KJKB through a gym partner, a guy who did three different arts and who left at least two of them not long later.

However, Angel was the first guy I met who said certain things about MA's relation to violence that have become more common these days, at least in lip service, but that I was getting weird looks for suggesting back then.

However, he was hard style and I was soft, even more back then. Then, about two years later, I left MA for quite a while. Saddened, done with the lot of self grooming associations... Missing MA every single week for ten years.

Got back into MA through a really nearby school I distrusted and ended up leaving, but by then I was already back in touch with KJKB, so I tried the style again. My mindset had changed some; Kajukenbo had, too. I'd gone to a seminar with testings and it looked like it was something I could make my own. Not completely convinced, back then, but that was late Feb'08. Might have been slightly sooner if life hadn't insisted on hurdles along the way. Still, not all that much: I did say my mindset was different, did I not?

Take care. Let's see what's out there.