Let discuss cooperative drills

[Van Canna]

Hi Chris,

Thanks, and I am not immune to that criticism..we have all made some bad mistakes over time and prabably will continue to make hem.

It is frustrating though to see how some things come to an end...very sad.

[Bill Glasheen]

A few thoughts...

I found your understanding and insight on Zanshin interesting, Van.

My first karate instructor was native Japanese who taught what he called (at the time) Nippon Shorin Ken. (Rough translation - Japanese Shaolin Fist) Hamada was the real deal. You don't meet many such individuals in life. I've talked about him at times. Among other homeland connections, he brought his school to tour Japan, and to visit the dojo of Yamaguchi Gogen. I don't think people understood exactly what they experienced at the time. Only in the distant rear view mirror do you look at these lessons and appreciate what a very talented (however humanly flawed) individual tried to expose us to.

As Hamada Shihan would tell us, "Zanshin means remaining mind." It does - quite literally - just like Mushin means empty mind.

All performances were judged by a list of criteria. Zanshin was part of the evaluation. Zanshin wasn't a function of the exercise; zanshin was what you brought to the exercise.

Let me give an example.

One very simple example is the last sequence of Dan kumite`…the left kick is blocked, then there is a takedown, , a supposed finish with some half ass stomp to the nuts, then a roll over of the 'enemy', a breaking of contact, an assumption the opponent is done for, and we watch him as he gets off the floor.

You are not describing my dojo activity.

I don’t allow that at all, when telling the students I want to use this part of the drill as an operant conditioning for street defense.

And guess what? We are reading from the same hymnal.

It would take a good ten minutes of live demonstration to explain to you what we do just in this sequence alone. There is no loss of zanshin in my yakusoku kumite - FROM EITHER PERSON. As such, there is no good guy and bad guy, and not a single person who is designated to "win." There is just the battle, and the attention to the prime objective is never lost by either party.

I have a rule in my yakusoku kumite. If a partner gives you a target, take it. With control of course... And if they get you when you have this lapse of zanshin, THANK THEM.

It's a mindset we (should) bring to what we do, Van. And if not, then we should go home, because we most certainly aren't practicing a martial art.

- Bill

[Van Canna]

Here is the best example of 'Zanshin' I grew up with

http://www.metacafe.com/watch/959847/so ... _on_field/

[jorvik]

This is more me

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=_3WNmW5X8dI

[Van Canna]

Hey, Ray...when you do the fighting...I'll take good care of the Geishas for you

[lawchick]

Does anyone know if the Greg Postal you are talking about grew up in Long Island? Is he about 39?

[jorvik]

Van
One of the Geishas is a bloke....you can have him ........I'll have his sister

great movie by the way

that's a joke by the way Van.......there have been too many misunderstandings on these fora..wouldn't like to add to them

[Van Canna]

No problem Ray

His sister may be a transgender though

[Bill Glasheen]

Does anyone know if the Greg Postal you are talking about grew up in Long Island? Is he about 39?

I'll see that we get someone eventually to say yes or no to your question.

Welcome aboard!

- Bill

[gmattson]

Lawchick emailed me earlier this afternoon and I forwarded the email to Greg, who is stationed in Hawaii.

[MikeK]

George,
Has anyone looked to come up with a new set of kumite from scratch? It'd be interesting to set out some goals and guidelines and see what some of the seniors come up with.

[Van Canna]

Mike, I am not sure we really need to come up with anything different, because what we have has worked in the ways designed for.


‘Battle drills’

In one of her posts, Eva made a good reference to ‘battle drills’

'battle drills' which try to promote automatic responses to given situations.

This is a good observation, and I would define ‘given situations’ to also mean unforeseen acts of habitual violence which is what we’ll be up against…and this is the way McCarthy sensei teaches.

So as to ‘Battle drills’ …let us take a quick look at what Rory Miller has to say in his book. There is no question in our minds, I take it, that Rory knows what a ‘battle’ is in his dealings with violent attacks by prison inmates.

Most styles start much too far away to simulate a sudden assault. Either they are working from the ‘dueling assumption’ or the drill was introduced to substitute distance for time_ by making the attacker reach, it gave the defender a little more time to work on the subtleties of the defense.

Poor distancing can become a serious flaw in many ways. Entire classes of techniques can arise to fit a situation that only exists in training, [blocks]; timing will be off. Power generation for damage will be off.

Now I think that in Uechi we really don’t have much of this problem if we apply our battle drills concepts the way they were designed to be.

Bunkai are ‘battle drills’ that go to the heart of close quarters violence, which differs from the ‘dueling concept’ of exchanges at a distance that can be controlled, such as free style matches.

From my personal opinion, ‘Blocks’ in our kata and bunkai, are more of the disruption/redirection/shut down persuasion…than ‘block and counter’ ….

Kumites are for a different type of battle…the ‘duel’ which is no walk in the park, as the practitioners who have fought tough open tournaments can relate.

So I really don’t see any reason to get huffy about these two very separate kinds of skills within Uechi.

[Van Canna]

1. One person pushes, hands to chest, which is normally followed by the pushee striking first, to the head.

2. A swinging punch to the head.

3. A front clothing grab, one handed, followed by punch to the head.

4. A front clothing grab, two hands, followed by a head butt.

5. A front clothing grab, two hands, followed by a knee to the groin.

6. A bottle, glass, or ashtray to the head.

7. A lashing kick to groin/lower legs.

8.A broken bottle/glass jabbed to face.

9. A slash with knife, most commonly a 3 to 4"lockblade knife or kitchen utility knife. (Apart from muggings, sexual assaults and gang violence, the hunting/combat type knife is seldom used)

10.A grappling style head lock.

Only one occasion of a well known boxer, caught on night club cctv, opening the conflict with a hook punch to the body.

An interesting point was highlighted. Most fights, after the initial encounter, quickly degenerated into scrappy scuffling with head and waist grabbing and ended on the floor.

There are many more that even exceed this list by much.

[gmattson]

are an interesting way to test a student's ability to deal with multiple attacks using the tools in our system. We use them to test candidates for rank.

I've created a couple of unique drills over the years and so has many other teachers. Kyu and Dan kumite are nice since I can go to just about any dojo and be able to practice with their people using familiar tools. There are always variations enough to make the practice "interesting" and more stressful than simply doing kata.

[jorvik]

Well I would say that the shuto, backfist one knuckle punch is a good open hand combination, in fact a good CQB combination....but it is not really tested in a "Western" manner ...........after all if we have to fight we will have to fight MMA guys and boxers ,wrestlers etc...........this is what new folks will gravitate to......it would be nice to get those Blue suits out and just using those techniques ward off real world attacks..after all classical Chinese MA's have "Kungs" which are seperate from the art that you are doing, but don't detract from your art and classical Japanese arts had "Hiden" which is what you fight against...classical sword fighting schools learn Bo techniques because it is what they may face.......same as us ..............both I and Van love "Poor Bob" and he is a 21st Cebtury man, much better than a punchbag or a wooden dummy.so with out sacrifing the old........or even disgarding it ......we can train safely and realistically ..and use the new