The hemlock trees are dying

It was wet in the woods the other day. Actually, I think this was two or three weeks ago now--it's been quite busy lately and I lose track of the time. Spring had arrived and everything was alive. Even the spiders were out. I could hear the stream that runs down the hill to the reservoir. In places where the evergreens were thickest, the forest didn't look all that different in the spring as it did in the midst of winter. But the maples and the oaks and the birches and hickories were starting to leaf out and it was easier to see which trees had died over the winter, opening up patches in the canopy. On the ground beneath them, you could see seedlings ready to take over. On the part of the trail where it's widest and there seems to be the most sunlight, small hemlock saplings, no more than a foot or two high, had sprung up along each side of the path. Further up the trail, the giant hemlocks stood, many of them over a hundred feet tall by the look of them, and stately--they seemed to have no need for spreading branches to establish their places like the spruce trees or the balsam pines.

In the first technique of Seiunchin,
both arms are initially brought up
to the outside of the attacker's arm.

But the older hemlock trees are dying. I could count dozens of them along the trail and more off in the woods, the bark stripped off in places, left like red mulch around the base of the tree. They've been hit by the wooly adelgid. It's an invasive species for which the hemlock has no natural resistance. The wooly adelgid brings the borer beetle, which feeds on it, and then, after the borer beetles have burrowed beneath the bark of the tree, the woodpeckers attack, stripping the bark to get at the beetles. Fungus begins to grow around the roots of the diseased tree, and before long, the tree falls. The cold New England temperatures kept the pest at bay for years, but now they're heading north as the winters warm, and the hemlock may go the way of the American chestnut. It shows, I think, it's all tied together; a chain of events that seems to connect things in a way that's difficult to see at the start--one thing leading to another or, if not so singularly predictable, a step in one direction changing the expected outcome while opening up any number of different possibilities, like a small alteration in the environment opening an existential niche that may not have been there before. 

The initial counter from the first
sequence of Kururunfa.

For some reason, all of this made me think of how we string the various techniques of a kata together. But I wasn’t thinking about the sequences of techniques in the standard way in which it is shown in kata—beginning with the receiving (uke) technique, then progressing with the controlling or bridging technique, and finishing with a throw or an attack to the neck or head--as much as I was thinking about how an understanding of the structure and themes of a kata allows one to move between the techniques of different kata within the system. Because the Goju-ryu classical kata are composed of sequences—with entry techniques and bridging techniques and finishing techniques—it’s fairly easy to begin with a technique from one kata and then, depending on how the attacker is moving or responding to your initial receiving technique, move into a bridging technique from another kata and, again, tack on a finishing technique from yet another kata. Understanding the themes or principles of the various classical subjects also helps facilitate this sort of flexibility, especially when each kata seems to be exploring a different theme or response to a different sort of attack--that is, the receiving techniques seem to show the most variation. How one bridges the distance in order to control the opponent may also show a certain amount of variation but the idea here is basically to maintain contact after the initial receiving technique and, without putting oneself in further danger, moving to the opponent’s head or neck to finish the encounter. 

Continuing with the first technique
from Seipai (on the non-kata side).

For example, in the opening move of Seiunchin kata—and in fact in many of the other techniques of this kata—both arms are brought to the outside of the opponent’s attacking arm, whether we see this attack as a wrist grab or a punch or a grab of one’s clothing. If one were to continue the sequence, the defender’s left hand would rotate in order to grab the attacker’s left wrist as the right forearm was brought down on the attacker’s elbow. This is the position in kata that looks like two down blocks in shiko dachi (horse stance) done at a 45 degree angle.

However, if one is thinking about variations, it is easy to see how the defender might move from this initial position in Seiunchin kata to the first attack in Kururunfa kata. The defender need only maintain contact with his right arm on the attacker’s left arm, releasing the left grab, and bring the left forearm up into the neck of the attacker. This is then followed by a left knee kick. 

Continuing with this technique from
Seisan kata by dropping the left arm
and stepping in behind the opponent.

But if these counter attacks are somehow thwarted, the defender can then tack on the first technique in Seipai kata (though it would be from the non-kata side), with the left forearm brought up alongside the neck, since the initial straight arm technique begins from this position with the elbow or forearm attacking the opponent’s face or neck. 

Or, by dropping the left forearm down along the back of the opponent’s left arm and moving to the back, the defender could continue with the bridging and finishing techniques from the first sequence of Seisan kata. 

Continuing with the pull down
technique from Saifa kata.

[Me with Bill Diggle from photos
we did for the book, The Kata and
Bunkai of Goju-Ryu.]

Or, once to the back of the opponent, the defender could grab both shoulders, as we see in Saifa kata, and pull the attacker down onto the knee and attack with the hammer fist strike. 

I think it is important to see the connections, but we can only really be comfortable with these kinds of connections when we understand the sequences of a kata and see the themes or principles contained within them. Once we are able to do that, the attack becomes relentless, sort of like the attack of the wooly adelgid on these stately Hemlock trees, I think. 

Hemlock tree after it has
been attacked by the
wooly adelgid, borer
beetles, and woodpeckers.

Same difference

I remember when we were little, when our parents would let us out and we would roam freely through the woods and fields. They expected we would come home for lunch whenever we got especially hungry. On summer evenings, we had to be in by dark. It was a different world, a different time. When I head off into the woods now, I generally stick to the trail. It might almost seem as though I'm headed somewhere--no longer running for a hollow tree glimpsed off in the distance or following a meandering stream. As long as I'm in the woods, it doesn't much matter to me where I am. I'm just content to plod along in the company of trees, without a hint of the grid-like overlay of civilization's labyrinth of roads and houses. I hear the echo of Bill Bryson's words: "However far or long you plod, you are always in the same place: in the woods," and that's enough. Though I've often felt that I could see the hint of a sneer on Bryson's face, as if he needed to shield himself against the criticism he anticipated from cynical urbanites.

Perhaps he didn't mean to imply anything in the least disparaging. His book, A Walk in the Woods, is wonderfully entertaining, though it seems to find much of its humor in the ineptitude of its protagonists, in the unlikeliness of their shared adventure to hike the Appalachian Trail. Yet I wonder why we should feel so out of place in these primal surroundings, which of course aren't even so primal anymore, now that we've fenced it in and preserved it as a state park or labeled it a conservation area.

The other thing about that quote is that it makes it sound as though it's all the same, that it's all just a bunch of trees, one pretty much like the next. Sometimes I think this tendency to generalize, to smooth out all the rough edges and do away with differences, is quite human. I remember it was almost a common retort when we were children to respond to a friend who might correct something you said with the quick rejoinder, "Same difference." I'm sure that ended it when I was a child, though I'm not at all sure what it really means. But it got me thinking about the ways we tend to treat techniques in kata when they appear to be the same--that is, we assume that techniques that look the same must function the same in kata.

Open hand block from Shisochin.

The open-hand "block" we see in Shisochin is not the same, nor does it perform the same function, as the open-hand technique in Seipai kata. If we isolate the techniques, they appear to be the same, but each technique in kata is influenced by the techniques that precede it and the techniques that follow it in any given sequence. And the logic of this suggests that there may be slight variations in how each is performed--variations that differentiate it from techniques that only appear to be the same. The supposition, of course, is that there is no hard and fast alphabet of techniques that comprise a single system of self defense and that we are then meant to rearrange these techniques--as if we were forming words and sentences from letters--into various kata. Though this is certainly how we seem to think of "basic" techniques when we practice head blocks (jodan uke) and chest punches (chudan uke) and down blocks (gedan uke) and front kicks (mae geri) at the beginning of every class. Perhaps we don't really stop to consider that these "basics" form a very small percentage of the techniques found in the classical subjects of Goju-ryu.

Open hand "block" from Seipai.

It is this bent of mind that tends to divorce kata techniques from their applications or bunkai. The open-hand techniques after the first turn in Seisan kata--turning to the south after the opening sequence of techniques in the front-facing line--are another example of this, I think. After the initial right arm circular block and the left palm strike, the kata moves into a right-foot-forward basic stance while the left arm and left palm is brought down and the right arm and palm is brought up, finishing with the right palm rotated and facing forward. This same technique is done once more, stepping forward into a left-foot-forward basic stance, before pivoting to the right to finish the sequence with the "punches" and kick to the west. In some schools, these techniques are done twice--first stepping with the right and again stepping with the left--and in others, four times, twice with each hand and foot. In either case, the "message" of the kata is that the two techniques are meant to function together; that is, both are part of the controlling technique of the bunkai sequence, following the initial block and attack of the first technique that occurs on the turn. (The repetition of four of these techniques suggests that both sides are being shown or practiced within the kata. Either that or an attempt to bring the kata back to the original starting point at the end, though this certainly does not generally seem to be of any importance in Okinawan kata.)

The second palm-up technique from
Seisan kata just before the pivot
to the west.

The point here, however, is that the second of these techniques (and the fourth, if one chooses to repeat this technique four times) is done a bit differently. In the first of these techniques, the right hand is brought up palm first and then rotated until the palm is facing forward. The second technique is usually done that way also, with the left palm rotated until it is facing forward. However, if you watch some of the older teachers perform Seisan kata, you will see that at least some of them do not rotate the left palm. Rather, the left palm is brought into the chest, only facing forward as it is brought in towards the chest, the movement that precedes the turn to the right (west) to finish the bunkai sequence. The reason it is performed this way in kata by some of the older teachers is that the left palm has been brought up into the opponent's chin (the right has hold of the hair) and as the left palm is brought in towards the chest the opponent's head is twisted in. Then, with the pivot to the right or west, the opponent's head is twisted sharply in the opposite direction.

This, of course, raises a difficult issue. Kata should always inform bunkai. Otherwise we're left with all manner of creative interpretations that don't bear the least resemblance to kata movement. But kata was meant to preserve bunkai or self-defense applications. We have, I think, an innate desire to generalize movement, to homogenize it in order to understand it. But from a certain perspective, there really is no such thing as standard or basic technique, no generic chest blocks, for example, when it comes to the classical kata if each scenario is unique. Certainly there is good technique and bad technique, but the performance of any given technique is really dependent on how it is used in a sequence of kata movements. Occasionally, I think, over time, some of these movements, for whatever reason, have undergone subtle changes--differences have been dropped, rough edges have been smoothed out, until what was once only similar is now seen as the same technique.

When I was a lot younger, I used to look at every tree, judging whether it was a good climbing tree or not. I know a lumberman who would look at trees and size up the quality of the wood--was it soft or hard, straight-grained or not. The techniques of kata are the same--they're not generic, but rather dependent on how they fit into kata, how they are used within the self-defense scenarios of Goju-ryu kata. Like trees, I suspect, they're all different.


[For a more detailed discussion of these techniques see my book, The Kata and Bunkai of Goju-Ryu,
https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/562446/the-kata-and-bunkai-of-goju-ryu-karate-by-giles-hopkins/9781623171995/]

A step at a time...maybe that's the problem

It rained all day. And then it stopped. The sun came out and the clouds drifted off to the southeast. The water just sits there, collecting in pools. I suppose the ground is still mostly frozen. Everywhere you look there are puddles reflecting the skeletal images of winter trees and bare bushes drooping by the side of the trail. Off in the woods, it's damp and the swamp has overflowed the old gravel and dirt road that cuts through the conservation area on its way to the lake. But last year they put some stumps along the side and nailed down some planks so you can make it around the flooded part if you're careful and take your time--the planks are narrow and a little twisted, and the stumps shift a bit in the ground.

How the last mawashi technique in
Saifa often begins.

On the north trail, you have to step carefully from rock to rock to avoid the mud and standing water. In the spring this stretch of the trail is swampy, with skunk cabbage and small wild flowers that cover the rocks and provide a home to a host of little insects, but in the summer it all dries up again, and then the hikers chart a "social path" around the rocks, reconnecting with the trail as it begins to climb up the nearest hill. With the damp and the cold temperatures, however, the rocks are slippery. You have to pick your way cautiously across this little boggy area, scouting out your route, balancing on each slick stone, looking for flat surfaces or somewhere you can get a purchase, as they say, carefully placing one foot in front of the other.

One step and then pause, and then the hands come up, almost like a counter-weight. For some reason it made me think of open training time in Okinawa, when you watched senior students toiling with the nigiri-game (gripping jars) across the dojo floor. At least that's what it reminded me of with the slow and careful placement of each step, keeping balanced and steady. Beginners were over to the side, carefully trying to match their steps with the footprints outlined in white on the floor, shifting their weight from one foot to the other as they practiced walking in sanchin dachi.

I wondered how this sort of care--focusing on one step at a time, one thing at a time--informed our practice of kata and, ultimately, our understanding of the techniques of kata, bunkai. I understand the need to break complex movements down into smaller, more manageable bits, sometimes separating the steps and movements of the feet from whatever the hands and arms seem to be doing, particularly when we're learning something, but I wonder whether this piecemeal approach to the teaching of kata has a detrimental effect on someone's ability to understand the applications of the techniques themselves?

I have often watched senior students, and even teachers, do kata in this sort of fragmented, staccato manner: First they step, then pivot, then the left hand moves, then the right hand moves, then the right hand moves again, turning over as it drops to the knee, then the right hand is brought up to the hip, then the left hand rotates as the body turns squarely to the front, and finally they both push forward. This is how you might describe the last technique in Saifa kata, the step into cat stance (neko ashi dachi) with the mawashi-like arm movements, as it is often demonstrated. The problem is that in attempting to analyze kata movement when it is performed in this fashion--the way we learn kata as a beginner--we often assume that there should be an explanation or bunkai for each separate movement. And this is a problem.

When we do kata this way--breaking each technique into smaller and smaller pieces--and then attempt to assign meaning to each of these pieces, we fail to see the technique as a whole. We fail to see how the arms and legs--indeed the whole body--functions as a whole. We have, in fact, put breaks or gaps into what should be a single, fluid movement. What should be seen as a final, head-twisting technique attached to the previous series of moves (beginning with the sweep and over-hand hammer fist) is instead seen as a series of individual blocks against multiple attacks, culminating in a final push.

It's fine to take the movements and techniques of kata apart in order to teach them. This is the way we learn most things. But you have to put them back together at some point. There really should be no gaps. Someone who has just learned a kata looks as if they are picking their way across a boggy meadow, stepping carefully from rock to rock. Someone who has been practicing the same kata for years, however, should be fluid, without any discontinuity in their movements--you see the connection between the arms and the legs. When they step into the last technique of Saifa kata, for
example, turning to the front in cat stance, there are really only two movements: one to gather the opponent's head, one hand on the chin and the other on the back of the head; and the second to twist the head and attack it with a knee kick. Two techniques. If you were beating time on a drum, you would hear two thumps, and that's it--one, two. Of course, the way most people perform kata they look as though their feet had sunk in the mud and their hands were carefully parting the reeds to get a better view. If we're aware of this, however, if we keep this in mind, maybe it will help when we go back to look at kata applications, and, in fact, maybe it will help us avoid looking as though we're picking our way over half-submerged rocks in a marsh.

The influence of the times

The vernal pools have started to appear along the trail. It's early spring. There are Canada geese overhead. A light coating of snow from the day before has melted and turned the trail to mud wherever rivulets of water run down the slightest incline or an old stream bed crosses the trail. In the summer these running springs dry up, leaving only rounded rocks and boulders in their place as if a glacier receded, leaving behind these miniature finger-like moraines. Actually, this whole mountain, quite surprisingly, was once volcanic. Blackened bits of volcanic rock appear haphazardly along the edge of the woods in the summer when the trail is dry and the leaves have been shredded and stamped to a fine dust by hundreds of hiker's boots and dog paws, eroding the trail another sixteenth of an inch, compacting the ground over time, ensuring that there is a trail immune from the efforts of long-buried acorns and catkins and trailing vines trying to push their way up through the soil.

One of the hair-grabbing techniques
from Seipai kata.

Today, however, there are long wet smudges where a boot heel has so obviously slipped or skidded across the watery surface of a flat rock. These skid marks tend to color my perception of the trail, and I find myself carefully watching where I put my feet, though in reality there are thousands of footprints going up this trail and very few places to mark where someone has slipped or lost their footing.

In the wet places, where these vernal pools appear, there are "social paths" that now meander off through drying woods and ground that seems a bit higher than the trail. A small cluster of beech trees stands at a bend in the trail, each with someone's initials carved in its smooth-barked trunk. It reminds me that this forest which was once a primal wilderness has now been largely tamed. The trails have been cut and the woods is managed to some extent. There are regular forays of bird watchers and dog walkers and concerned citizens looking for non-native invasive species to rip out and cart away. My perception of the forest, and what I should like to call "the wilderness," has been conditioned, no doubt influenced by the times.

One of the hair-grabbing techniques
from Saifa kata. The left hand has
grabbed the hair or topknot.

In some sense, this is like looking at kata through a glass darkly, like looking through an early morning fog that sits in the valley, hiding the river and the woods on the opposite bank, trying to discern not only the movements of someone in a distant clearing doing kata but the reasons for the movements as well, the
bunkai. We are conditioned, it seems to me, to see fighting or self defense in terms of blocking, punching, and kicking. We tend to interpret our martial arts in familiar terms, as something akin to boxing. Everyone is familiar with fisticuffs, dust-ups, brawls--all substitutes for boxing matches of one kind or another. But what if, looking back some two hundred years or so, the times themselves influenced the martial arts of the period? And the irony is that we are left with the outward form (kata) of this ancient martial tradition, yet we attempt to interpret how to use it (bunkai) by overlaying it with a 21st century template. It's as if we set out to trace letters on a stencil where we had accidentally superimposed a sheet of arial fonts over an ornate gothic alphabet.

Of course, much of this line of speculation only raises more questions. There are few easy answers here. Many of the self defense techniques of Goju-ryu classical, or as some say koryu kata, seem to begin from a grappling posture with a variety of techniques against grabs of one kind or another. Was this a response to how people dressed in ancient times? Was punching from the distance of an arm's length less likely and more awkward if one wore loose robes? Was one less likely to kick with the foot if one wore sandals or geta or zori? So many of the controlling and finishing techniques we find in Goju-ryu classical kata seem to show the grabbing of the opponent's hair or topknot or queue, and knee kicks (hiza geri) seem much more prevalent. Do we no longer "see" these techniques in kata because most people nowadays wear their hair short? Does the fact that we wear shoes most of the time make kicking with the foot a better option?

If the martial arts were largely practiced by--perhaps even developed by--the military classes, wouldn't you be most likely to fight empty handed only after you lost your weapon? And in that case, wouldn't you be most likely to charge your opponent, who may still have a weapon, so that his use of that weapon would not be to his advantage? In other words, would I really want to stay at a boxing range, arm's length, against someone with a weapon? Granted, the safest thing to do would be to run away. But if one chose to fight, and one could close the distance safely, wouldn't the ensuing brawl involve grappling?

I think in some sense this may involve the practice of weapons (kobudo) too, and particularly the staff or rokushakubo. Again, this is pure speculation on my part, but if--merely a fanciful hypothesis--practice of weapons was also mainly engaged in by the military classes, wouldn't these long weapons have been pointed or bladed for the most part? And if that's the case, as a more likely scenario, does that change how we "see" certain "poking" or "hooking" or "pulling" movements in different bo kata? That is, if the rokushakubo kata--e.g. Shushi no kon, Tsuken no kon, etc.--were actually first developed to preserve techniques of a halberd-like weapon, how would this change the way we viewed kata, and especially bunkai? This style of bo and these kata were clearly developed to utilize both ends of the staff--either blocking with the front end and quickly attacking with the other end or blocking/parrying with the heel end and quickly attacking with the front end. (This double-ended bo technique, I was once told by a noted Chinese sifu after I had demonstrated Tsuken no kon, was called dragon staff.)

A collection of Chinese bladed
weapons in the Matayoshi
hombu dojo.

But in some kata, the slicing (if that's what it is) or hooking or pulling motions seem to all be executed with one end of the staff. If only one end of the weapon had a hook (like the
nunti bo, for instance) or a blade of some sort (like all of the Chinese long weapons that stand in a rack at the front of the Matayoshi hombu dojo), could this explain the apparent different uses we see of the two ends of the staff? And did the substitution (if that's indeed what happened) of a staff for a more militaristic bladed or halberd-style weapon come about due, once again, to the influence of the times?

I can walk off in the woods and pretend that I've left civilization for a time. I can sit on a log under a leafy maple tree, and if I'm quiet enough and up-wind, a deer might wander by or an owl might perch in the same tree. But as I walk up the mountain, I see a tree that fell across the trail last week carefully cut in thirds, its pieces rolled to the side to clear the way for us wilderness hikers.

[For a more detailed discussion of these techniques see my book, The Kata and Bunkai of Goju-Ryu, here.]

Patterns or structure of kata

Snow showers. I'm not even sure what that means, but they left a light, powdery coating of snow on everything. A dusting, they call it. The trail cuts a white, meandering path through the woods, and even the rocks along the path catch the snow in places, like white shadows clinging to small indentations, protected for the moment from the winter sun or gusts of wind. It almost looks as though no one has passed this way, no footprints to mark the trail and scuff up bits of leaves and gravel. I might be the only one who has passed this way, at least today, because, of course, it's a trail. Someone made it, carved it out of the forest, cut saplings and cleared brush.

I'm thinking metaphorically again, walking along the trail, mentally practicing kata, thinking about bunkai and imagining the other side, the side that's so hard to picture; the attacking side. This sort of metaphorical thinking reminds me of that book by Murakami, What I Talk About When I Talk About Running. Or that line from Il Postino where Mario asks Neruda, "You mean then that...the whole world is the metaphor for something else?" And with a abashed look, Mario says, "I'm talking crap." And Neruda says, "No, not at all."

Someone made kata, these patterns of movement that we use to remember techniques of self defense, that we use to learn the martial principles of movement. But the patterns are confusing and seemingly as haphazardly composed as a meandering trail heading off into the woods. No two trails exactly the same. No two kata alike in structure, conforming to the same rules one might use to decipher their patterns. And yet someone passed this way before, left marks, however faint, that would point the way, like trail markers, and explain how we might go about figuring out these seemingly arcane and esoteric movements.

Are they arcane and esoteric? Certainly they are, to us, a bit anachronistic, in a way, a part of a cultural milieu and time period when one might have needed to defend one's life, fighting to the death with lethal techniques, as anachronistic as many of the techniques that seem to depend on one grabbing the topknot or queue of one's attacker. But esoteric? The effectiveness of most techniques, arguably, is based largely on their simplicity, not their complexity or the difficulty one might have in learning them. The difficulty lies mainly in trying to explain movements and techniques that we can only half see. With kata, we only see the defender's response to an attack. We can only imagine the other side, and this often influences how we interpret the techniques of kata.

And whoever created these kata, certainly did not make it easy. If a single person put the techniques of these kata together--I'm thinking of the classical subjects of Goju-ryu from Saifa to Suparinpei--then I would expect the patterns to be as uniform and predictable as the set of Pinan kata or the Gekisai kata of the 20th century. But they're not. Seipai kata, for example, is largely asymmetrical--with at least the first three sequences not showing any repetition--using the left hand to "block" and the right hand for the initial attack (which is also true of the fourth sequence, though that sequence is repeated on the other side). Each of the first four sequences--there are seemingly five total sequences, though the fifth sequence shows a variation, in part, on the other side--is shown in its entirety; that is, with an initial receiving, a controlling or bridging technique, and a finishing technique. This is not the same pattern we see in Seiunchin, for example, which, aside from its set of three opening techniques in shiko dachi, repeats most of its techniques on both the right and left sides--that is, in response to a right or left attack--whereas Seipai only repeats the fourth sequence. But even in Seiunchin we have a pattern that is "interrupted," where some of the sequences, unlike most of the sequences of Seipai, only show the final techniques tacked onto the second or final repetition. This is true of the opening sequence of moves, the high-low techniques in shiko dachi, and the "elbow" techniques--that is, the first sequence, the third sequence, and the final sequence.

Core receiving technique
from Sanseiru when used
with the stepping turn.

Sanseiru kata, on the other hand, shows significant repetition in its middle section, repeating this "core" movement--chest "block," kick, "elbow," "punch," kick series--three times, and using an opening sequence that is merely a variation of similar techniques. And Seisan is entirely different again, showing three variations of what is essentially the same bunkai in the three sequences that follow the opening series of repetitive basic techniques--the three punches, three circular blocks, and three palm-up/palm-down techniques with knee kicks followed by a grab and kick.

There are so many structural variations, in fact, in just these four kata that it certainly seems to suggest different origins or sources, and it certainly adds to the difficulty one has in trying to understand the original bunkai of the different kata. And yet, different kata structures do not change

The bridging technique
of the final sequence
in Sanseiru.

the basic martial principles involved, and these principles are retained regardless of which kata one is looking at or which structure has been used to string together the techniques of the kata. In fact, one of the more interesting aspects of this structural awareness, "seeing the pattern" if you will, is perhaps a sort of radical realization that at least some aspects of the structure of any given kata are completely arbitrary.

This may seem heretical or at the very least blasphemous, but it's merely another way of seeing the sequences of a kata, another way of practicing kata bunkai. For example: If we take the first sequence of Seiunchin kata described above, we see that the first two opening shiko dachi techniques are incomplete, with the finishing technique only attached to the third repetition--this is the push forward with the "supported punch" and elbow attack. If we attach the finishing technique to the first of these steps into shiko dachi (same as the third) and/or the second of these (on the opposite side), we are not really altering the intent of the kata. We're merely illustrating it in another way, completing the sequences that are only shown in part. We could do the same thing with the core double arm receiving techniques of Sanseiru, attaching them to the open hand bridging techniques we find towards the end of the kata.

Certainly what we find is that the flow of kata that we have become accustomed to is interrupted, but the real intent of kata is to act as a repository for self-defense techniques, not to be practiced as a performance piece. In fact, the less we see kata as a performance piece for winning trophies at tournaments, the more we may begin to understand its patterns, its structure, and thereby its bunkai.

[For a more detailed discussion of these techniques see my book, The Kata and Bunkai of Goju-Ryu, here.]

Just because it's a convention doesn't mean it's right!

[I wrote this last month, but I somewhat arbitrarily forgot to post it. But then again, what difference does a day make, or a week, or a month for that matter?]


Welcome to a new year--January 1st--and yet off in the woods the new year looks pretty much like the old one did a few days ago. The blue jays are scolding me as I trudge by on the trail and the squirrels pause to look up and jump behind a tree, waiting to see whether I'm a threat. I've read that squirrels are very territorial, so I suppose these are the same squirrels that were scurrying around last

First technique of Saifa kata.

week, digging up acorns that they had buried last fall. I wonder whether squirrels are really as busy as they seem to be or whether they might be a bit like office workers rearranging the papers on their desks into neater piles, just looking busy in case the boss comes by or the wives ask where they've been all day.

But the days are already getting longer, past the winter solstice. We've turned another page on the calendar. And yet all of this business of time and calendars is a human construct, isn't it? A mass delusion, or if not a delusion at least something that we all culturally have come to agree on; that is, there's little rhyme or reason to any of it, it's just accepted. I mean, we've had lunar calendars and solar calendars and some combination of the two. Not even the seven-day week is

First technique of Seiunchin kata.

anything but arbitrary, something we have just come to agree on. In fact, for a good deal of human history we haven't even agreed upon a 24-hour day. Daniel Boorstin's book, The Discoverers, has an interesting section on all of this. Way back in 1582, they took 10 days out to correct the old Julian calendar that was off by 11 minutes and 14 seconds each year, so really I'm not even sure of the date. And in America, we didn't even accept this restructuring until Colonial times.

Anyway, all of this got me thinking about what we accept as a society, what we take for granted as we carry on with our daily lives. Actually I was thinking about all of this because I had been reading Kazuo Ishiguro's book, The Buried Giant. He describes a medieval England where strangers are  feared and the forests are filled with ogres, and mists shroud the land and bring an eerie forgetfulness. And it's all accepted as perfectly natural.

Initial technique of the first
sequence of Sanseiru kata.

It made me wonder about all of the things we accept in karate without question, all supported and bolstered by the bulwark of convention or lineage or rank. Of course,  we practice all sorts of harmless conventions in the martial arts, from the karate gi to the formalities of seiza and bowing to the shrine and pictures of those teachers who have preceded us to the use of Japanese terminology and the practice of kata. But we also practice what I can only call conventional interpretations of kata technique. And these conventional interpretations (bunkai) get passed on with very little questioning of their practicality, as if we are hesitant to question anything that most everyone else seems to be doing.

First technique of Seipai kata.

And these problematic inter-pretations are everywhere in Goju-ryu. For example: The opening technique of Saifa does
not use both of the defender's hands to pull away from an attacker's wrist grab. Why disconnect from the attacker? The opening technique of Seiunchin kata does not use both hands to release the opponent's choke hold. Why would you step towards someone who was choking you? The opening technique of Sanseiru (after the three slow punches, that is) is not used in order to block an opponent's kick and then grab the kicking foot and muscle the attacker to the ground. Why would you lean forward with your head undefended as an attacker was coming at you and then even attempt to grab a kick? The opening technique of Seipai is not a nukite to the opponent's chest--it's not a nukite at all--nor an elaborate wrist release. Why would you even think of attacking a hard target with the finger tips? And why would you take the time to weave your hands in and out of the arms of an opponent grabbing you with both hands using the techniques that follow it, as the conventional interpretation shows? There is no response to a full-nelson in Kururunfa. Try it sometime against an uncooperative opponent who's bigger and stronger.

Convention suggests that this
technique from Kururunfa is
a release from a full-nelson.

And yet these are all conventional interpretations of kata techniques. The problem is they don't make a whole lot of sense for a variety of reasons: they are too slow or they leave the defender open to attack or they don't really follow kata or they are easily thwarted by the opponent, etc. Their only reason for being is that they are the conventional interpretations, and conventions are rarely questioned.
This is not to suggest that all conventions are useless or without merit. Clocks and calendars are very useful even if they are a somewhat arbitrary means of marking time. But conventional wisdom once suggested that the earth was flat, that there was witchcraft at work in Salem, that you'd catch your death if you walked around with wet feet.

Most of the conventional interpretations of kata, I think, are, at the very least, useful in pointing out some of the pitfalls one may encounter with interpretations of kata, as ironic as that may be. And by example, they can steer us off into better directions, bushwhacking through the woods in search of a better trail.

[For a more detailed discussion of these techniques see my book, The Kata and Bunkai of Goju-Ryu, here.]

Rhythm and timing

Deep into winter the weather has suddenly turned--a few days of above average temperatures--and I find myself thinking about fall and the changing seasons. The snow has melted, mostly, and out on the trails it looks as if it might be early spring or late autumn. No foliage, of course, but the leaves covering the forest floor make it look like another season, one not so still, as if the forest is holding its breath, everything waiting for the next nor'easter. Of course, winter will come back, but not today.

Today, I can wander up familiar trails, with no ice pack to hinder my way or boggy, mud-covered patches to look out for. And, as I often do, I turn onto the Pines Edge Trail off the Boggy Meadow Road that leads up to a trail called the Middle Path. Very zen. Though I suspect the name really came from the fact that the trail runs all the way up the middle of the Fitzgerald Lake conservation area. It's actually one of my favorite trails here, not because of the name but because it's so varied. It passes through swampy areas and up over rocky hills, through patches of mountain laurel, and down through pine forests. I've encountered a large pileated woodpecker here, ducks, frogs, water snakes, and a host of chipmunks scurrying over the leaves and peering out from hollow tree trunks.


A few months ago, I passed a large, bald-faced hornets nest hanging from a small sapling by the side of the trail. It looked like a giant Halloween mask. The hornets (Dolichiovespula maculate) were hard at work, carefully building the paper walls, spiraling outward, making it larger and larger. One could marvel at the effort--each one working for a few minutes before returning through one of the openings as another came out to continue the work. But I wondered who was overseeing this monumental effort. Was there a structural engineer? Did the hornets understand the dynamics of the situation, the stresses involved? What would happen in a torrential rainstorm? The nest already looked too big for the sapling where it hung.

When I returned a week later, most of the nest lay on the ground. Only a few small scraps of the papery nest still clung to the sapling. And the hornets were nowhere to be seen.

I don't know whether it's a romanticized notion of the natural world or not, but I tend to think that a tree knows innately what it needs to do in order to survive. That birds don't need to be taught where to get their food. Squirrels seem to know they need to amass enough nuts to make it through the winter months. Some people even think that the wooly bear caterpillar can predict how harsh the winter will be with its arrangement of black and brown stripes. I don't know, did some errant child take a stick to the hornets nest or did the hornets simply make a mistake, a miscalculation?

I was thinking of all this because it speaks to a kind of awareness of things, all things, that there's a rhythm to life, something like the seasons we experience in the world. And if you're not aware of it, it can get you into all sorts of trouble, or at the very least throw a monkey wrench into your plans.

I was listening to an interview of Charlie Gabriel on the radio the other night. If you're not that familiar with him, he's a jazz clarinetist, but he also occasionally sings, and they played a version of him singing "I'm gonna sit right down and write myself a letter." What struck me was his phrasing, his rhythm and timing. All the best jazz singers seem to have this incredible sense of timing, an awareness of the music and the other musicians they're playing with. Listening to Charlie Gabriel, it struck me that so much of life has to do with this sense of rhythm and timing. If you watch a game of soccer (futbol), you can sometimes, if the players are playing well, get a sense of the rhythm of the game. When you drive down the highway in heavy traffic, there's a rhythm to the flow. There's a rhythm to words and a rhythm and flow to walking down the street on a crowded sidewalk.

Receiving the opponent's punch
from Saifa kata bunkai.

There's a rhythm to karate as well. And if you don't have the rhythm right or the timing, you're dead.You can watch kata sometimes and see dead, stagnant places, places where there's no flow. But you really notice it in doing bunkai with a partner or ippon kumite or yakusoku kumite. When you do it correctly, you meet the opponent in a sort of synthesis of movement, as if you are both a part of the same movement, just a movement that's a bit more complex than either would be by itself. There's no gap or dead space waiting to be filled, there's no starting and stopping. When it's right, it looks as if it's natural, as if it's the way it's supposed to be. The counterattack follows, without effort, in the wake of the block. The block begins almost as soon as the opponent's attack, and meets it before the attack has finished, so that the energy of the attack is dispelled and redirected.

I don't really know how to describe this in words that don't make it all sound so needlessly cryptic and esoteric. It's just simply that there is a rhythm to both kata and bunkai that's important to be aware of. It reminds me of something that Toyama Zenshu sensei told me once many years ago in Okinawa. He was holding a piece of rice paper with Japanese calligraphy on it. It was a beautiful example of the art of Shodo. But then he turned it over--and of course you could still see the whole character quite clearly from the other side of the rice paper--just like kata, he said. Of course, that's a bit cryptic too, I suppose.

Book coming out...cross one more thing off the bucket list

This has gone through a lot of revisions, but it's finally at the printers. No more changes. Wait...no, just one more thing. Too late. I suppose that's the trouble with publishing anything; it locks it in, carved in stone. I know there are things I would revise even now, but it's taken almost two years already from when I began this book. 

Of course, I've been writing about this stuff--Goju ryu kata and bunkai--since 2002, when I published an article on the techniques of Seipai kata in the erstwhile Journal of Asian Martial Arts. And the blog posts have been fairly regular for the past few years. But this book is an attempt to put it all in one place, to discuss some of the key points of kata analysis in a more systematic way in each of the classical Goju ryu kata, from Saifa to Suparinpei, and with some reminiscences of training with some great teachers as well, teachers like Matayoshi Shinpo, Kimo Wall, and Gibo Seiki senseis.

There are a lot of books out there that illustrate a couple of kata and then throw in a few examples of applications. Then they pad out the book with oft-repeated historical information or illustrations of generic karate techniques. I've done very little of that here--after all, history, in this case, seems to be half guess-work and rehashing generic applications seems a waste of time. This book, like each of my magazine articles and blog posts, is an attempt to get at the original intent of the techniques found in the Goju ryu kata, to point out themes and explain the structures of the various kata, to show how we might better analyze kata, and how we can come to see it as a system, to see it all fit together.

What we so often see on the Internet, while wonderfully creative, can, in most cases, hardly be called realistic. And when it does seem viable, it does not follow the movements of kata and more often than not seems to ignore sound martial principles. Most of this is simply a repetition of conventional "wisdom," such as it is, and only seems to remind one of Miyagi Chojun's observation, reported by his student Genkai Nakaima in his "Memories of My Sensei": "Studying karate nowadays is like walking in the dark without a lantern." So my attempt is to offer students of karate something else. If I were merely repeating what others have done already, I wouldn't have bothered to write at all.

I've hinted at a lot of these things in blog posts over the years, but I've generally been fairly guarded about giving away "secrets." This, however, is an attempt to be far more clear and specific, with pictures to illustrate key points and descriptions of the bunkai to be found in each of the Goju-ryu classical kata. 

I'm hoping that others will read it, study it, understand the methods and principles, and that finally sharing this will help us all--me included--improve our practice and understanding of karate. North Atlantic Publishing and Blue Snake Books did a great job editing and laying out the book. It's fairly simple and straight forward, and in general pretty clear.

Anyway, it comes out the beginning of February, though you can order it now from Amazon or Barnes and Noble. Or you can get it here: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/562446/the-kata-and-bunkai-of-goju-ryu-karate-by-giles-hopkins/9781623171995/

Seiunchin once again

Off in the woods the other day, admiring the mushrooms and toadstools that seemed to have sprung up overnight, and generally marveling at the magical quality of the woods after a rainstorm, I found myself thinking about a news story I had heard on the radio a few days earlier. The story summarized an article published in Nature about the supernova known as iPTF14hls. (Now there's a catchy name!) It's 500 million light-years away--astounding to me but that's not what the astronomers found so interesting. What was unusual, apparently, was that they expected it to act like any other supernova and gradually dim until it would fade from view--something that takes around 100 days for your average supernova. This one has exploded multiple times since 1954 and this current "explosion," if I understand it correctly, has lasted three years. What I thought was interesting, however, was that the scientists said that it defied their understanding of how stars die--that current theories couldn't fully explain what was happening. In other words, they'd have to go back to the drawing board. And that's why they sounded so excited!

Gedan finishing technique for
the four angle sequences.

I wonder how many people get that excited when they get it wrong? And why? Does it take a certain thirst for discovery or is it a simpler pleasure, a sort of pleasure in the realization that one doesn't have all the answers, that there are new frontiers, new things to learn? Or perhaps it's the moment we realize that the structure or the rules or what have you are more complex and intriguing than we first imagined.

I was thinking about all of this while I was practicing Seiunchin. I like the movements of Seiunchin, but I thought that at least this kata was one that I felt fairly secure about, that I knew the bunkai. There are, after all, only five sequences in the kata (not counting repetitions).  And it's fairly clear, I think, that the counterattacks (or receiving techniques, if you will) are all against either cross-hand grabs or two-handed pushes. Of course, if you don't see the sequences, then even this part won't make sense. But that's a whole other issue.

The beginning of the second
of the north-south sequences.

Anyway, I realized that I may have failed, after all these years, to notice something about the structure of the kata. If you understand the structure of a kata, it can explain a lot about the techniques themselves. The problem is that at least in some cases there may be a fair amount of guesswork, though just as in any scientific inquiry there are some things that indicate at the very least whether you're on the right track or not.

But what I noticed was that the sequences on the angles--since this part of the kata is constructed in an "X" pattern, the angle sequences move to the northeast, the northwest, the southwest, and the southeast, in that order--all end with a downward forearm strike to the back of the opponent's neck. (This is the technique that is sometimes referred to as a gedan barai or gedan uke.) There are four of these angles but only two different sequences since each is repeated on both the right and left sides. What is of interest here is that the downward forearm strike to the back of the neck is a finishing technique, just as it is in Seipai kata.

The beginning of the third
of the north-south sequences.

The other three sequences of the kata all occur on the north-south axis. The first of these, of course, is the opening sequence, which is partially repeated three times, with the "finishing" technique tacked onto the third repetition--the left hand wrapped around the opponent's chin and the vertical right elbow attack coming up into the back of the opponent's neck. (I've written about this in an article in the Journal of Asian Martial Arts, 2005, vol. 14, no. 2.)

The second of the north-south sequences is the high-low technique done in shiko dachi and shown on both the right and left sides. The second of these, with the right arm up and the left arm down, shows a right hand grab of the opponent's right arm and a left, low nukite attack to the opponent's ribs. This technique seems to finish with a right forearm attack and downward elbow (and one should emphasize seems).

The technique that ends the
second north-south sequence
but seems less than satisfying
as a finish technique.

The third and last of these north-south sequences is often described as two elbow attacks. (I've tried to explain this misunderstanding in my new book, The Kata and Bunkai of Goju-Ryu, due out in February 2018.) The finishing technique for this sequence is the knee attack to the head, the last technique of the kata, often described as a yama uke in cat stance (neko ashi dachi).

But structure is everything. The structure or pattern of a kata is often the key to understanding the techniques--in this case, the sequences of the kata. I had always felt that the "finishing" techniques in the first two
north-south sequences, while good, seemed less conclusive, less lethal, than many of the finishing techniques in the other classical kata or even in the third of these sequences, and this was what I was thinking a few weeks ago while I practiced Seiunchin. And then I realized that the two patterns of the kata--the "X" pattern of the angle sequences and the north-south line of the other three sequences--might show two different finishing techniques, but only two. The first one is the use of the downward forearm strike. The second is the knee kick to the head in cat stance. The supposition is that the "yama uke" and knee kick in cat stance--the last technique of the kata--is the finishing technique for all three of the north-south sequences, only it's just shown once, tacked onto the third sequence. This structure--of showing the finishing technique tacked onto the final repetition--is typical of the classical kata. It also makes the end of each sequence more lethal, finishing the sequence with a more decisive blow, if you will. And it fits. That is, it's easy to move into this final technique from the end of either of the first two north-south sequences.

The technique that may, in fact,
be the finish technique for each
of the north-south sequences.

I found this realization, though admittedly only an educated guess on my part, to be exciting, even if I had been wrong in how I had been thinking about Seiunchin all these years. Live and learn. I still don't know, however, whether it was the discovery that I found interesting or the realization that the structure of the kata was more complex than I originally thought, that whoever created this kata had been so clever at hiding something and yet keeping it right out there in plain view at the same time. It was all so fascinating. And, of course, it also reminds me that there is always so much more to learn.

It's a system, like the trees in the forest

The forest was wet today. Droplets of water collected in the leaves here and there, and the moss looked a bit brighter green after the rain we had overnight. But the temperature is dropping gradually, the days are getting shorter, and most of the trees are bare. It's hard to tell which trees are dead this time of year. The only thing that seems to be thriving is the lichen and small colonies of mushrooms clinging to the old tree trunks that lay rotting by the side of the trail. 

Saifa kata

Seipai kata

When I'm out in the woods these days, I don't usually think of the forest as an eco-system, though I know it is. I know that when the larger trees fall, after a strong rain or a heavy storm with high winds, they leave a hole in the canopy overhead and the wild grasses, the ground cover, and the acorns lying buried beneath the leaves, some waiting patiently for years, will start to grow in the spring, reaching for the sunlight that's finally been able to make its way through the leaves of the taller trees. 

Suparinpei kata

Seiunchin kata

No, when I'm out walking in the woods these days, I'm just looking for the seemingly random beauty you can find when you go out "forest bathing." Nothing seems so systematic. Everything seems chaotic and haphazard. But, of course, it is a system, just like any martial art, despite what some may imply when they suggest that a style like Goju ryu, for example, is a random collection of kata that come from different sources andwere created by different people at different periods in the past.

Kururunfa kata

Seipai kata

While this may be true (and probably is given that the structure of the Goju classical subjects varies considerably), it does not change the fact that it's a system. The different kata show variations as if they were jazz compositions, as if different composers were given the same melody and told to improvise. One need only compare techniques from different kata to see the variations, to appreciate how different techniques explore similar themes. Certainly there are differences--any given self-defense scenario may vary depending on one's position in relationship to the attacker or, for that matter, what the initial attack is--but the apparent similarity of some techniques and the fact that they are used in a very similar manner (the application or bunkai) underscores the notion that they are all part of the same system, regardless of whether or not the different classical subjects may have had different origins.

Sanseiru kata

Shisochin kata

The key here, of course, is to understand (or "see") the applications. You can't rely solely on the appearance of the techniques. This is admittedly a challenge. We have to first let go of our expectations, which may include not only what the technique appears to be, but also
what we may have been told--in other words, the conventional interpretation of the techniques in question. The problem may be compounded by texts and pictures that seem to record "end" positions; that is, it's difficult to convey in pictures or words what happens in-between the pictures one generally sees in karate manuals or texts which discuss kata, and it's often in the space between one move and the next that we see how a given technique is applied.

Saifa kata

Seipai kata

And you need the whole system. You need all eight classical kata in order to address different scenarios on the one hand and, on the other, to be able to see how to move from one technique in one kata to a similar technique in another kata if the dynamics of the situation change--and they are likely to change. That is, you need to see the similarities and variations in order to alter your counterattack. You may begin with the opening or receiving technique from Saifa (as pictured above), but you have to be able to change to the controlling or bridging technique from Seipai, for example (the bridging technique from Seipai being the technique which follows the Seipai opening technique pictured above). In other words, once you "see" the similarities and variations, you should be able to move back and forth between the techniques of each sequence of moves. This is the way a system works. Of course, you have to also be aware of the sequences. And if you can see the sequences, then you realize that the techniques within a sequence function in specific ways--that is, they can't just mean whatever you want them to mean.

Some have suggested that any single kata is a complete system of self-defense in itself. This is a rather silly notion, as is the idea that any given technique has multiple interpretations or applications. Either one of these notions gets in the way of "seeing" the whole system and being able to comfortably work within the system. Both of these views are short-sighted. Metaphorically, they're like being lost in the woods, failing to see the forest for the trees.