MA 80 In The UK

[Dan Anderson]

Hi All,

Just returned from a seminar junket in the UK. I spent 5 days with noted bunkai-jutsu expert Iain Abernethy. He's shown a ton of interest in arnis so we worked together for 5 days straight. He posted a short clip of us doing the flow on his blog. Enjoy

http://blog.iainabernethy.com/?p=58

Yours,
Dan Anderson

 

[exile]

Hi All,

Just returned from a seminar junket in the UK. I spent 5 days with noted bunkai-jutsu expert Iain Abernethy. He's shown a ton of interest in arnis so we worked together for 5 days straight. He posted a short clip of us doing the flow on his blog. Enjoy

http://blog.iainabernethy.com/?p=58

Yours,
Dan Anderson

I've called 911 to tell them that I am dying of envy and will they please take me to the hospital... may not be able to post for a few days.

You lucky so-and-so... Iai-AN the MAN himself... I'm hoping to get in a seminar or two with him if my sabbatical comes through for 2009 and if I can, as I hope, spend part of it in the UK....

any further details about your week working with him would be more than welcome, death-by-envy notwithstanding...

 

[Guro Harold]

Congratulations Dan!!!

 

[Brian R. VanCise]

Hey Dan that was cool and fun to watch!

 

[HKphooey]

Cool. Thanks for sharing.

 

[Carol]

That is so COOL!

Thanks so much for posting that, Dan! :asian:

 

[exile]

IA has for once managed to get his e-newsletter out on the first of the month and he has a large chunk of the issue devoted to his work on Arnis with Dan. It's worth subscribing to—it's free and has a ton of content in it, links to outstanding research and discussion of issues in the bunkai-jutsu `movement' (if that's what it is... can't think of a better description).

 

[arnisador]

Neat, thanks for sharing!

 

[Tez3]

IA has for once managed to get his e-newsletter out on the first of the month and he has a large chunk of the issue devoted to his work on Arnis with Dan. It's worth subscribing to—it's free and has a ton of content in it, links to outstanding research and discussion of issues in the bunkai-jutsu `movement' (if that's what it is... can't think of a better description).

Just seen I have mine and am skipping through the new posts so I can concentrate on the newsletter!

 

[crushing]

That's great Dan. I just saw your name in a newsletter this morning.

IA has for once managed to get his e-newsletter out on the first of the month and he has a large chunk of the issue devoted to his work on Arnis with Dan. It's worth subscribing to—it's free and has a ton of content in it, links to outstanding research and discussion of issues in the bunkai-jutsu `movement' (if that's what it is... can't think of a better description).

That's the newsletter and I only kind of skimmed through it. I look forward to reading it in more detail very soon!

 

[Dan Anderson]

Hi All,

For those of you who don't know who Iain Abernethy is, his one of the foremost authorities on the subject of combat application of classical kata. How we met is a good story.

I downloaded his free ebook on kata application. I saw that his application of the first move of Pinan Shodan was the same as my application of the first move of anyo 7. I emailed him (send him a copy of the odf file containing the page of my book) and told him I thought it was interesting that even though he and I had never met, we had the same application for the same move. He emailed back and asked if I was the Dan Anderson who competed back in the 70's & 80's. I told him yes and that was the start of a good friendship.

What doesn't come across in his blogs and newsletters is how personable he is. You'd think someone who is interested in the combat applications of kata would be somewhat of a hard guy but he is an easy smiler as well as you should see his eyes light up when he is learning something. He is hooked on arnis.

This was the second time I spent time with him and his family and they are a good crew. I am looking into how I can get him over here for some seminars. If any of you know of schools I could get in touch with to do so please email me at my website or though here.

Yours,
Dan Anderson

 

[exile]

Hi All,

For those of you who don't know who Iain Abernethy is, his one of the foremost authorities on the subject of combat application of classical kata. How we met is a good story.

I downloaded his free ebook on kata application. I saw that his application of the first move of Pinan Shodan was the same as my application of the first move of anyo 7. I emailed him (send him a copy of the odf file containing the page of my book) and told him I thought it was interesting that even though he and I had never met, we had the same application for the same move. He emailed back and asked if I was the Dan Anderson who competed back in the 70's & 80's. I told him yes and that was the start of a good friendship.

What doesn't come across in his blogs and newsletters is how personable he is. You'd think someone who is interested in the combat applications of kata would be somewhat of a hard guy but he is an easy smiler as well as you should see his eyes light up when he is learning something. He is hooked on arnis.

This was the second time I spent time with him and his family and they are a good crew. I am looking into how I can get him over here for some seminars. If any of you know of schools I could get in touch with to do so please email me at my website or though here.

Yours,
Dan Anderson

Great story, Dan. I'm not in the least surprised by what you say about Iain, it's just the way I picture him in fact, because that good nature you allude to shines out in his DVDs on realistic bunkai for various kata (I've got the ones for the Pinans and for Naihanchi and a couple others). His common sense approach to bunkai interpretation, his evident love of teaching and his lucid style of explanation—his books are really well written, practical and literate at the same time—are evident in his written and video work and in his newsletter. I've always imagined him as an all-around good guy who thinks carefully about his chosen area of inquiry and subjects his hunches and hypotheses to severe tests based on how usable they are in the very realistic bunkai/oyo training mode he advocates.

And I'm also not surprised that this icon of modern traditional karate is anxious to learn as much as he can from Arnis. No one has a better claim than IA has to have inherited the mantle of Itosu and Egami, but instead of a lot of mystification and protect-my-system-from-yours-at-all-costs, he's tried to distill as much MA wisdom as he can from any valid source he can get his hands on—as shown by the kind of collaboration he does with proponents of all kinds of other SD systems, along lines reported in his newsletter. We had an extremely good `tradition vs. evolution' thread running very actively for a while quite recently, and to me, IA seems to be a living synthesis of the two.

 

[stickarts]

Very Cool!

 

[bobquinn]

Dan I have known you for many years and It is about time.
I said it before and I'll say it again,
Dan you da Man,

 

[Steel Tiger]

Just watched the clip and I have to say that was very good. Interesting and good. I found a lot of the techniques demonstrated in the were very similar to the qinna that I know and that's kinda cool.