Performing the Katas by Iain Abernethy
- Thread starter Black Belt Jedi
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I often wonder whether bunkai was taught much in karate at all. Hohan Soken is the only karateka of note that I have seen evidence of advanced knowledge of kata. He was the grandson of Soken Mutsumura, one of the true legends. Soken Matsumura, Kanryo Higaonna and Kanbun Uechi all studied versions of Kung fu to a very high level in China before bringing their knowledge back to Okinawa and incorporating it into the local 'Te'. I would assume the had a very high understanding of the kata they brought back with them.
I will use Goju as the example. I believe kata is the 'book of knowledge', but it is written in a way that you need expert guidance to find your way. The man behind the formation of Goju Ryu was Kanryo Higaonna. He spent many years in China learning then teaching Kung fu before returning to Okinawa and teaching Naha-Te. His student, and founder of Goju Ryu was Chojun Miyagi. I believe the original guys did not pass on their full knowledge to any but their top student. In Miyagi's case that was Jinan Shinzato. He was killed during WWII.
Now, I will present two hypothetical scenarios, both which end with the same conclusion.
1. Higaonna may have taught Miyagi all he knew. Miyagi was with Higaonna for about 14 years or about the same time Higaonna was in China. He in turn may have taught or began to teach Shinzato, who was killed in the war. Miyagi had numerous senior students, but no nominated successor. His knowledge died with him in 1953.
2. Higaonna taught Miyagi the basics, but not the full knowledge of the kata. This may have been because Master Ryu Ryu Ko, the man who taught him, was still alive in China. So he might have suggested that Miyagi travel to China to learn from Ryu Ryu Ko. After Higaonna died, Miyagi went to China, but Ryu Ryu Ko was no longer there, so Miyagi may never actually have learned the secrets of the kata. He returned twice more, for short trips only, so would not have had time to learn anything profound.
Wado Ryu is a recent style. Probably, it never had 'bunkai'. Yamaguchi claimed to be Miyagi's successor but Goju Kai only developed 'bunkai' in the 1980s, and it was just choreography. It did not exist when I started training. Yogi was Yamaguchi's mentor and a senior student of Miyagi but he didn't have the knowledge. Morio Higaonna is another high ranking Goju practitioner who has 'bunkai' on the web, but once again, it is choreography. He claims that An'ichi Miyagi was Chojun Miyagi's chosen one, but he didn't have the knowledge either.
Eiichi Miyazato, was the elected successor to Miyagi, but not only did he not teach these 'hidden secrets', he encouraged Masaji Taira to 'explore' the kata.
I'm not sure when George Dillman started with bunkai but I believe it was the 1980s and I think Iain Abernethy was not long after. So 'bunkai' is really a modern phenomenon.
Of what I have seen, George Dillman, Iain Abernethy and Masaji Taira are the ones who have done most to foster greater understanding of the kata. I know people are reluctant to take Dillman seriously, but his early work is very good. Iain's understanding and teaching is brilliant, and Taira's knowledge is just beyond everything I have yet found.
I would be interested in hearing if anyone has knowledge of 'bunkai' being taught prior to the 1980s. :asian:
In the 1970s, Peter Carbone Sensei help Taika Oyata come to the United States. Eventually, Oyata decided to make his home there. The style that Oyata taught was Ryu Kyu Kempo. George Dillman went to an Oyata Seminar early on and had his mind blown and that's how Dillman got his start. I guess, as the story goes, Oyata actually promoted Dillman to 7th degree blackbelt in Ryu Kyu Kempo in order to encourage him to keep developing his ideas, but Dillman steered into weird waters and Oyata cut ties with him. Further, I guess the main reason that Oyata changed the name of his style to Ryu Te was to distinguish himself from Dillman, who was using the name Ryu Kyu Kempo.
At any rate, Taika Oyata is probably one of the foremost experts in the United States on the topic of bunkai. I've gone to a seminar taught by him, hosted at one of his senior student's dojos in Moorhead, Minnesota. Oyata did things with traditional karate kata that I have never seen before. Oyata has precision striking, knowledge of anatomy, and combines it all with body manipulations and footwork. And he ties it all back to the kata. So, if you are looking for other sources within the US, people who are experts on the topic of bunkai and can teach you how it all relates back to kata, look no further then Oyata and Ryu Te.
http://www.ryute.com/
As a side note, my Tang Soo Do teacher learned bunkai from one of Oyata's direct students. He earned a shodan in Ryu Kyu Kempo before the name changed to Ryu Te. So, this is the source of the bunkai in my art. Essentially, my teacher began the process of dissecting the traditional TSD kata in the way that he was taught from his studies of Ryu Kyu Kempo and, since our arts kata share a similar lineage, much of the knowledge was directly transferable. Therefore, I owe a lot of my knowledge of bunkai to Oyata Sensei.
At any rate, Taika Oyata is probably one of the foremost experts in the United States on the topic of bunkai. I've gone to a seminar taught by him, hosted at one of his senior student's dojos in Moorhead, Minnesota. Oyata did things with traditional karate kata that I have never seen before. Oyata has precision striking, knowledge of anatomy, and combines it all with body manipulations and footwork. And he ties it all back to the kata. So, if you are looking for other sources within the US, people who are experts on the topic of bunkai and can teach you how it all relates back to kata, look no further then Oyata and Ryu Te.
http://www.ryute.com/
As a side note, my Tang Soo Do teacher learned bunkai from one of Oyata's direct students. He earned a shodan in Ryu Kyu Kempo before the name changed to Ryu Te. So, this is the source of the bunkai in my art. Essentially, my teacher began the process of dissecting the traditional TSD kata in the way that he was taught from his studies of Ryu Kyu Kempo and, since our arts kata share a similar lineage, much of the knowledge was directly transferable. Therefore, I owe a lot of my knowledge of bunkai to Oyata Sensei.
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Thank you for this info. I had the idea Dillman got his info from Hohan Soken as some of the material I have has come from there. Coincidently, it is the same material circulated by Erle Montaigue, so I just assumed it was of Chinese origin.
I obviously haven't done enough reading. I wasn't aware that Ryukyu Kempo was of Okinawan origin. However it would seem that Taika received his knowledge from Wakinaguri, not from a traditional Okinawan karate style. It seems that both his teachers, Uhugusiku and Wakinaguri, were descended from the '36 Chinese families' of Okinawa. So this ties in with my original thoughts, that bunkai was not commonly part of 'traditional' karate. :asian:
From my research into this, traditional Okinawan styles are pretty much teaching a "modern" form of karate. Many of the training methods implemented in Shotokan have been imported into Okinawan schools. Based on what I've read at the Hawaii Karate Library and from other sources like Patrick McCarthy, Mark Bishop, and Iain Abernethy, traditional Okinawan Karate teaching methods never mentioned the word bunkai. Bunkai is a modern word. The Okinawans would teach you the drills in the kata in small sessions, presided over by the teacher, and once you had mastered those, then you were shown the kata. Then, the movements in the kata would simply tie everything together. There was no need for the term bunkai.
Kara Te = China Hand
There probably isn't much that is Okinawan that isn't also Chinese.
Actually, Kara te does NOT mean Chinese Hand
The proper earlier reference is Tang Te _ China Hand
Kara can mean Empty or Tang, which refers to China.
Nope. You are mistaken...Kara is in no reference to "China"
Kara and/or Te, is purely a Japanese reference-term
I have some strong sources that seem to indicate that the character for Kara can be read as "China".
http://seinenkai.com/
If you have some information that would overturn this, I would surely like to see it. I would also like for my schools Japanese teacher, who is a skilled Wado stylist, to see it as well.
You have taken this out of context.
Kara and Te, is Japanese reference
Tang/Tode/Tuti, is the Chinese Reference
Saying Karate is reference per translation to Chinese Hand is like incorrectly saying if you speak Chinese, you can speak Japanese because they are both from Asia.
Now, in actual distinction, Tode/Tang originally had translated as Chinese Hand, but via the Japanese occupation they changed it to mean "Kara-Te, Empty Hand", as this was a attempt for the Japanese to get rid of the Chinese association
Ah, yes. I agree with you 100%. The kata can easily work with grappling. The reason I said "developing something more suited to ground work", is because a lot of the kata portrays very nasty, or lethal, techniques. Strikes with the point of the elbow, eye gouges, throat grabs, neck cranks, groin grabs, etc are all frowned upon in MMA competition. If you were to use kata for MMA (and I'm not suggesting you would) then the rules would have to be taken into account. But, on the other hand, I don't believe kata was intended for use against trained martial artists either.
And, I can identify with the 'aha' moments. We all had the same experience the first time we trained with Taira. You could see the lights coming on all over the place. Iain came to Melbourne two years ago and unfortunately I was away at the time. I'm really looking forward to next time he visits. :asian:
I agree that a lot of Okinawan martial arts are based on Chinese practice, but the Okinawans didn't import everything they learned. On top of that, a lot of what they learned was not passed on when karate was being used to promote health and fitness in schools and universities. I think we are fortunate now to be training in the time a lot of the applications are being rediscovered.
Something that we practise is Tegumi, or Okinawan wrestling. I incorporate Qin Na into this as well. Most Goju schools practise Kakie but very few use Tegumi. :asian:
Chris Parker
Grandmaster
Rickster. You're wrong. Deal with it.
The original term used on Okinawa was dominantly "Te" 手 (pronounced "ti/di" in the native dialect), sometimes "Tode/Todei". The first character, "to", is written with this character: 唐. That character is also pronounced "kara", and is a reference to Tang China. In other words, the term "karate" and "tode" are the same thing, written with the same characters, and with the same meaning: 唐手, "kara te", meaning "China (Tang Dynasty) Hand". In 1936 there was a meeting of some of the most dominant names in karate about what they were going to call their art for the Japanese people, and (from memory) Chojun Miyagi mentioned that he'd been using the same phrase (karate), but with a different character for the first part, meaning "empty", making "karate" 空手.
In other words, "karate" (唐手
is Japanese for "China Hand", and is an older name for the art known today as "karate" 空手. You're completely wrong with your references to "Chinese reference" and "Japanese reference", you know. And I have no idea what you're talking about with the whole "speak Chinese/speak Japanese" thing... yeah, and your dates on the name change are out as well.So, uh, no.
Sojobo
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Can it?
I'd say an easier way to learn how to grapple was to learn grappling?
As a Wado-ka and a Jujutsu-ka - I can understand where you guys are coming from but I think you are wasting your time if I am being honest.
Trying to shoe-horn jujutsu techniques into Karate Kata (particularly Wado kata) is like reverse engineering to me.
And it completely misses the point of doing solo kata in the first place imo.
We aren't learning jujutsu from Wado Ryu kata at all, we were saying that there are takedowns and grappling movements in it. Ohtsuka Sensei was a Jujutsu master so it's more than likely that there are grappling movements in the kata, you put in what you know after all.
Takedowns and grappling may be needed for defence, being on the floor isn't ideal, far from it but you don't not learn to fight on the floor just because of that. Fighting isn't ideal but we learn to do it for self defence.
http://iainabernethy.co.uk/article/karate-grappling-did-it-really-exist
What do you think the point of solo kata is?
Sojobo
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Hmm - What sort of Jujutsu do you think Otsuka was a master of?
In most main stream wado schools - the closest you will come to "ground work" is Idori - and to understand that, you have to look at where wado comes from.
Here is a good essay on the subject by Tim Shaw:
http://www.wadoryu.org.uk/jujutsu.html
As to what the purpose of solo kata is...
Have a read of that first
Sojobo
Interesting but only the view of one club, in Chelmsford rather than a world authority.
I think you have mistaken what we are discussing, you seem to think we are or think we should be learning grappling in a Wado Ryo class. We don't. It is just that some of the techniques in the Bunkai are either takedowns or a grappling move that is intended for self defence. That's different from the idea I think you have of what we are discussing. We aren't talking about doing ground work in Wado.
Sojobo
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Not really,
It's the view held, and understood by most main stream Wado-ka today.
I have no axe to grind about Bunkai, ground work, Knife defense or defense against a piece of fruit - in Karate Kata...
It’s just that it’s not there in Wado Kata - never has been - and it’s a waste of your time (as a Wadoka) trying to find it. imo.
Best to look at the principles of movement you are learning from them - then combining that with the Wado's paired kata...
At that point you have half a chance of connecting the dots.
Sojobo
It's the view held, and understood by most main stream Wado-ka today.
I have no axe to grind about Bunkai, ground work, Knife defense or defense against a piece of fruit - in Karate Kata...
It’s just that it’s not there in Wado Kata - never has been - and it’s a waste of your time (as a Wadoka) trying to find it. imo.
Best to look at the principles of movement you are learning from them - then combining that with the Wado's paired kata...
At that point you have half a chance of connecting the dots.
Sojobo
Okinawan Karate was influenced by the native Tegumi and Japanese Jujutsu. Many of the old masters wrote about Tegumi matches and talked about it's relationship to kata and many of the old masters were also trained in Jigen Ryu, a school of swordsmanship known for it's powerful first strike. Jigen Ryu has empty hand lists that show what a warrior would do when disarmed and some of these techniques can be found in karate kata.
