Say what...?

Shuzan held out his short staff and said: "If you call this a short staff, you oppose its reality. If you do not call it a short staff, you ignore the fact. Now what do you wish to call this?" Mumon's comment: ...It cannot be expressed with words and it cannot be expressed without words. Now say quickly what it is. (from The Gateless Gate, by Ekai, called Mumon, in Zen Flesh, Zen Bones, compiled by Paul Reps, p. 127.)

This is not uraken uchi from Saifa.

I thought of this story when I recently came across a discussion of a posture in Sanseiru kata. In this particular posture, the kata practitioner is in front stance (zenkutsu-dachi) with the right arm up, elbow jutting forward, and the open left hand in front of the chest. Wait...I think they called it something like chudan-uke/ mae-geri/ hiji-ate. I guess you have to call it something, but the problem is that once you call it something you begin to think of it only in those terms. When you name something, you tend to put things in cubby-holes. Once you name something, you limit the "experiential" identity of the thing. This is particularly true of kata techniques. What I mean is, when you refer to a technique in kata as a hiji-ate (elbow strike), then that's the way you think of it in application or bunkai. What if the name, hiji-ate, is meant merely as a descriptor? In other words, the teacher is using a short hand method of saying, "Do the technique that looks like an elbow attack."

This is not a kaiko-ken zuki from
Saifa kata.

When the T'ai Chi teacher says, "Do the technique that looks like parting the wild horse's mane," he doesn't mean the application is to part a wild horse's mane! Nor does he mean that you use that odd bending over technique to search for a needle at the bottom of the sea. Calling a posture a cat stance (neko-ashi-dachi) doesn't have anything to do with its application. Words are sometimes more confusing than if we didn't have the words in the first place. 

But how would you teach if you didn't have the words to describe what you were doing? That's really a rhetorical question, isn't it? Sometimes I think people in the old days used words to intentionally hide what they were doing or at least the meanings of moves in kata. Give a technique a descriptive name--a poetic name would be even better--and someone not in the know, an outsider, might pick up the kata movements but never guess their meanings, the applications. 

This is not gedan barai from
Seiunchin kata.

You don't really need any words to teach karate, I think. You only need to demonstrate--first kata and then bunkai. Words can be misleading. Is there a sokoto-geri in Sanseiru kata or is it a hiki-ashi? Or maybe a hiza-geri? Is there a kaiko-ken zuki (crab shell fist as Higaonna sensei calls it in his first book) in Saifa kata or does it just look like that and you are really grabbing the opponent at the shoulders and pulling them down? Is the name describing the application or simply what the technique looks like? How can you think of it as a pulling technique if you call it a strike? If you call it a uraken-uchi (back fist strike) in Seiunchin, does that become the explanation of the application? Will you be able to see it as a forearm strike if you call it uraken? Is it really a block just because you call it a gedan barai? What we call things

This is not a hiji-ate (elbow strike)
in Shisochin kata.

influences how we look at them; we are tied to language. But we must remember that they are just "words, words, words," as Hamlet says to Polonius. Sometimes I think that words are the biggest obstacle to people understanding bunkai--that and tradition!

It's not what you thnik

I was reading To Kill a Mockingbird today with my students and we got up to the trial of Tom Robinson. There's this big outburst from the incredibly bigoted Bob Ewell. (I wonder whether Harper Lee used that name because so much of prejudice is based in the irrational and sheep-like following of others--hence the "ewe" part of the name--or whether she was thinking that, at least when she was writing, "y'all," meaning "you all," are prejudiced just like this guy.) Anyway, after the outburst, the judge raps his gavel and says, " People generally see what they look for and hear what they listen for..." And I thought, ain't that the truth?!

Pulling the attacker down onto
the front knee in Saifa kata.

People have all sorts of expectations when it comes to karate, and when those expectations are not met, or something comes along to challenge those expectations, they quickly drop into a defense mode--it's fight or flight. We cover our eyes and pretend it doesn't exist. We deny it. We dismiss it. Or we attack it.

But sometimes, it's just not what you think. Goju-ryu is a system of 10 "classical" kata--and I am using the term classical loosely enough to include Sanchin and Tensho. So if this is the case, I would suggest, it's not what people often think or at least not the way you often see it practiced.

Attacking to the back of the
opponent's neck in Seiunchin.

For example: There is no upper target punch in Goju-ryu. And even though you can walk into almost any dojo in the world and find students practicing a jodan tsuki, you won't find it in the classical katas. We don't punch up to the head--we bring the head down to punch it. All you have to do is look at the classical subjects and this disconnect is apparent. In most dojos, we practice "basics" that include an upper target punch. Why not practice "basics" that are actually taken from the classical subjects, not some generic techniques that only conform to someone's expectations of karate? Why not practice techniques that actually prepare students for the movements in the classical subjects?

Blocking and kicking in
Kururunfa kata.

If this sounds as though I'm nitpicking, consider that neither is there a down block (gedan uke), at least not the way you'll find it practiced in most dojos. It's a strike--a body-dropping forearm strike to the back of the neck in most of the classical katas. Who would bother going into shiko-dachi to block a kick like that anyway? Let's be logical.

In fact, the forearm is probably used to strike more often than the standard punch or the back fist. And yet in most Goju-ryu dojos you can find people spending hour after hour punching the makiwara, until their knuckles are hard and calloused. Perhaps we should appropriate the "wooden man" from the Chinese martial arts and start pounding it with our forearms.

And while we're on the subject of confounding expectations...There are probably more knee kicks (hiza-geri) used in the bunkai of Goju-ryu kata than actual kicks with the foot. And the kicks with the foot are more targeted to the opponent's knees than higher--higher targets are easier to block--though when you watch students practice the front kick in most Goju-ryu dojos you will see front kicks waist high...and few knee kicks.

How about that ubiquitous technique: the mawashi-uke? The mawashi-uke seems to me--though this may seem blasphemous--deceptively not so much a "receiving" technique (though we refer to it as an "uke") as it is a finishing technique. In the classical katas, it occurs most often at the end of combinations, and it's usually used to twist the head--i.e. break the neck.

There's no half-fist strike or clam shell fist in Saifa, even though you will find it described that way in any number of books on Goju-ryu. (See Morio Higaonna's Traditional Karate-Do: Okinawa Goju Ryu, Vol. 1: The Fundamental Techniques.) And you will see it used to attack the throat or the opponent's ribs. But it's a grab. It's a half-fist to simulate the look of the hand as it grabs the opponent's collar bone or trapezius

Painting by Magritte

muscles.

And there's no cat stance (neko ashi dachi). That is, it doesn't seem to be used for anything; it merely signifies where you kick, whether with a knee kick or a front kick. If you think that statement is "out in left field," just try kicking every time you stand in cat stance in the classical katas. See what it opens up for you with bunkai.

And there's no spear hand or nukite strike in Shisochin...or elbow attacks for that matter.

Something to think about when you don't get bogged down with too many expectations.