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| Opening move of Saifa kata |
"Saifa is not a kata my group practises, but today (22nd of November 2014) I took the sequence to the dojo and we spent 10 minutes at the end of the class collectively exploring the possible uses for the motion."
In fact, it is difficult to find any information about what style it is that this group practices, though I suspect it's Shorin-ryu. And the analysis (bunkai) came not from years of practice in the system of Goju-ryu, but from spending "10 minutes at the end of the class collectively" figuring it out. Oh, that and posting a request for video footage from blog readers who might have their own takes on the bunkai of Saifa. And submissions came from people who practiced Goju, Aikido, Tae Kwon Do, Krav Maga, Shotokan, etc. In fact, someone had even re-posted my own video of Saifa bunkai, and without my permission!!!
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| End of the opening sequence of Saifa |
You practice a variety of kata and the bunkai of a system so that you can understand, both with the mind and the body, the principles of movement that the system is trying to teach. It is the principles of movement that you use and draw from in the instant that you may need your martial art for self defense. It's unrealistic to suppose that in that instant you will be able to call up one particular bunkai from a vast collection of unrelated techniques that you have amassed from watching YouTube videos or attending seminars. And yet year after year, people attend seminars with teachers that bring them new and creative bunkai from kata that their group doesn't practice. Or they practice "systems" that aren't really systems at all, just amalgams of whatever works that some self-professed expert put together.
In all fairness, these bunkai are not necessarily any worse than half the stuff that purports to be from authentic sources, but I can't help thinking that something's missing. And some might argue that this is a fantastic resource, putting up videos of various people's interpretation of the opening moves of Saifa kata. But is this really what martial arts training has come to? Can you really learn a martial art this way? Or is it just another way for some people to create a following and make a dollar? It just strikes me as the height of arrogance: I don't know this kata, but I'll tell you what it means. And on top of that, I'll take a video of myself doing it and post it on YouTube. The ancient Greeks would have called it hubris. You would have been set adrift on the open sea for 10 years, unable to get home. Or maybe you'd have to poke your eyes out or something.
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ReplyDeleteIain's a Wado-Ryu practitioner, so definitely from a Shuri rather than Naha lineage. And I understand your point regarding practicing bunkai from kata that are not part of your system. That said, if there are universal rules to deciphering Okinawan kata (an assumption that you may not agree with), might exploring bunkai in kata sequences you are not familiar with have the potential to provide insight into deciphering applications from the forms that are in your system? Obviously, you wouldn't want to spend much time on it, but it seems like it could be used as a worthwhile supplementary exercise. Something of a self-quiz.
ReplyDeleteAnyway, I enjoy your blog and look forward to hearing your thoughts on the matter.
All the best,
Eric Parsons
Hi Eric, I appreciate your comments, but I do disagree with you for exactly the reason you state--the assumption that there are universal rules for deciphering kata, something I am not at all sure of. I am, however, fairly sure about the rules for deciphering Goju-ryu kata, because I've done the katas about 10,000 times, and most people out there, Abernathy included, break many of the rules and thus are left with fairly generic explanations based on piece-meal dissection of kata. He, and a lot of other big names out there, also seem to subscribe to the "theory" that bunkai can be anything that seems to work. Subscribing to either of these notions, in my mind, misses much of what is fundamental in Goju bunkai and some really beautiful and much more deadly stuff than what they're peddling. I don't mean to offend, as I see your dojo has sponsored Abernathy seminars, but there's a better way to look at kata, and the system. Best regards, Giles
ReplyDeleteNo offense taken. I have hosted and trained with Iain, and consider him a friend, but I’m not a disciple and certainly disagree with him on some points. Overall, I generally agree with your viewpoint that there was an original intent to the movements in kata. To my mind, the tricky part is that, as these intentions have generally not been passed down through the generations, we are all forced into the role of reverse engineers, which makes isolating that original intent difficult. Now, if you start with the single bunkai rule as your baseline and use that to guide your understanding of the system principles, that seems perfectly reasonable to me. However, starting with a set of rules and somewhat loosening the one application constraint doesn't seem unreasonable either. I guess it comes down to whether the principles resulting from either method are sound.
ReplyDeleteI'm also not 100% convinced of the idea of system "purity" (for want of a better word) and, hence, rules that are firmly system-specific, as it seems that in earlier times it was not uncommon for students to have more than one teacher, often from different lineages, and that students generally only learned a few kata rather than the numerous kata people learn as part of a system today. If those stories are true, it seems to me that it would be difficult to really "define" a system. Given that, it seems that the rules for deciphering kata may well have some level of cross-style portability.
Also, as a mostly unrelated side note, I was reading through your archives and saw your post on the sun-and-moon block in Seisan. I just wanted to let you know that you are not alone, as John Roseberry's Sho-Rei-Shobu-Kan organization does the sun-and-moon block (or, at least, something similar - I'm basing this on a couple videos I found online of you and Kimo Wall-Sensei performing Seisan) rather than the repeated palm strikes found in most Goju-Ryu schools.
Anyway, I am enjoying this discussion.
All the best,
Eric
Eric,
ReplyDeleteYes, we are put in “the role of reverse engineers.” So, of course, the question is how do you know when you’ve hit on a correct bunkai? To me, there are a number of ways. One is that the bunkai supports good martial principles (and many of these should actually cross style lines). For example, the opponent should not be in a position to hit you again. So many people block the incoming punch and, because it’s done under agreed upon conditions in the dojo, the attacker agrees not to hit you with the other hand though they clearly could. It should follow kata movement exactly, otherwise don’t call it bunkai. It should be lethal or else put the opponent down. In most cases this means counter-attacking to a lethal target, like the neck or head (which is what the kata shows most of the time). It should not be overly dependent on strength or speed—both of which deteriorate as you age, and what good is a self-defense system if you can’t use it when you are most in need of it? And lastly, it’s referential—I don’t know how else to put this one--that is, techniques seem to be variations of other techniques in other kata. In that sense, you’re not being asked to learn a thousand different techniques or bunkai, but in a sense a way of moving and responding that can change easily from one technique to another depending on the dynamics of the situation. Again, I don’t know whether the rules for deciphering kata are the same for the other major Okinawan karate systems simply because I don’t know those katas well enough. I suspect some of the same rules would apply—like, and here’s another, the kata shows you how to get out of the way or step off line. But I don’t know whether the katas in other systems are structured the same way. I’ll try to write more about this in my next blog post. I haven’t written specifically about all of these bunkai as I’m a bit protective of what I put on the Internet, and I don’t mean that to sound mysterious. If you want examples, you could drop me a private email, or stop by the dojo and train with us the next time you’re out this way.
All the best,
Giles
Thank you for the offer. I would certainly love the chance to train with you sometime. Hopefully, I can make it out that way at some point and get the opportunity to do so.
ReplyDeleteAll the best,
Eric