Fantastic Mid-Atlantic Regional

[Bill Glasheen]

You folks missed a great regional at the Washington Karate Academy on October 30th. Bob Kaiser has quite a fantastic group, including the famous Dana Sheets and even "Uechiwoman" (Heather Lipin).

In the special study portion of the regional, I chose to spend almost all my time working with Dana on her Nakamatsu style of sanchin. And...by George, I believe I've finally got it! (I just need a few more thousand sanchins... ). I also got lots and lots of closeup pictures of Dana doing her thing on this subject. She's a great teacher, and a wonderful prototype of this whip-like method of power generation.

Unfortunately the next day was Halloween, and I owe that to my boys. And this week I am in Minnesota. So the writeup will have to wait.

Stay tuned. This stuff really rocks!

- Bill

[JaySal]

Bill:

Could you please explain what is Mr. Nakamatsu's Sanchin style ?

How does it differ from other senior okinawan teacher's ?

Thank you - Jay

[Bill Glasheen]

Every teacher leaves his/her mark. You know that when you are sitting on a test board and watch a student's sanchin, you can often nail whom their instructor is. This is a martial art, and individuals breathe life into it.

There are a number of ways to generate power, breathe, etc., etc. Nakamatsu sensei has a way to generate power that is very "whip-like." I believe the Chinese often use the term "jing" to describe this kind of energy. Sensei Campbell would appreciate what I am saying here. One most definitely makes a conscious choice to generate power in a strike this way vs. other perfectly legitimate ways. To get good at the "Nakamatsu method," you really need to devote a lot of time to it. There are other pefectly reasonable ways to approach the sanchin power subject.

Stay tuned, Jay. Your comments as I present will be appreciated.

- Bill

[AlanL]

Jay sensei,

Take a look at the video posted in Rick's Northern Light forum. Thread "post your sanchin kata here" page 5 has Dana's sanchin.

[JaySal]

Hello AlanL:

Thank you very much for directing me to Rick's forum. I was able to watch the Video of Dana, and as an extra treat for me. I got to see an old friend doing his Sanchin. I refer to Terry Daily from the UK. I remember training for years with Terry at the old Hancock st dojo. I have not seen Terry in over 20 plus years. It was great watching him. He looks as good as ever.

If any of you know Terry, ask him to tell you about our dojo bus trip from Boston, up to Jimmy Maloney's first tournament in Canada. Terry was the life of the trip with his songs and poems.

Thank you again Alan..

Take care - Jay

[Bill Glasheen]

At the Mid-Atlantic regional, Heather Lipin and I were talking about this as we were watching Dana teach while I held camera in hand.

You see... Heather is an acupuncturist. I am a biomedical engineer with a specialty in systems physiology. She is east; I am west. We share the same martial art, and we each have cross-trained in other arts. And we have great respect for each other.

Heather looks at her training partner Dana and sees the opening and closing of the qua on each side. I see degrees of freedom of motion working in staggered synchrony. She talks chi; I speak of compliance and neuromuscular reflexes. But we both are looking at Dana, who does a damn good job of reproducing the Nakamatsu I've never met but already know. It walks like a duck, it quacks like a duck... But how do we communicate what we see? Ahh, that's the challenge!

In the end, we each learn and use languages. I'll speak a combination of engineering, physiology, and photography. Heather and others may chime in (please).

I'm starting just with text. Pictures come later when I get back to Virginia, process the images already downloaded on my home machine, and pick out the useful ones that help make my points.

This will take time. Please be patient. If it comes out right, perhaps Dana and I can co-author something for a martial art publication. I've always wanted to prove to a few (unnamed) people that you can articulate these concepts.

- Bill

[Bill Glasheen]

As a white belt, we are taught the skeleton of a form called sanchin. In the beginning we are walked through something fairly simple.

1) Step this way.

2) Retract the arm this way.

3) Extend the arm.

4) Come back to sanchin arm position.

5) Repeat.

That's all there is to it? Yea, right... Ask Tiger Woods if a golf swing is a simple concept. Ask Manny Ramirez if swinging a bat at a 95 mph fastball or an 85 mph curveball is simple. Ask Curt Schilling why he pitched so badly with a bad ankle in the first game of the ALCS, and then so brilliantly in two more post-season games with a makeshift repair of an ankle tendon. It's just throwing a ball, right? Riiiggghhtt!!!


What do these activities share with Dana's sanchin thrust? They are all seemingly simple movements that we practice literally thousands of times so that we can execute them with maximal power and precision.

As an engineer, I see that word "maximal" and see the basic elements of the movement. And what do I see? A min-max problem in n-dimensional space. Multivariate calculus. Sure, Bill...

But I can translate. Basically we do this again, and again, and again. We vary this or that or the other element of it. That strike felt and executed differently from the previous one. We look. We feel. We hit. We get feedback. Eventually we find better ways to do things.

Sometimes though there are multiple peaks in n-dimensional space. I mean... Sometimes there are several perfectly reasonable ways to approach something. Each method is a choice. There are strengths and weaknesses to each. There are appropriate venues and applications for each. Remember that.

In any case, we see a certain degree of variability in golf swings, batting swings, and pitching styles in professional sports. Some of the differences are ideosynchratic. Some are substantive.

It should be no different with sanchin. This isn't religion; it's an artform.

- Bill

[Bill Glasheen]

Many years ago, I was a brown belt in a Japanese martial art who was learning a new art called Uechi Ryu. It was 1974 I believe. My instructor, the late Rad Smith, had run across an exceptional martial artist by the name of Ray Berry. He was a young Shotokan practitioner who had studied under Master Oshima.

You had to see Ray Berry to believe him. Bruce Hirabayashi can tell you. Ted Dinwiddie can tell you. This guy had a stepping lunge punch and a side thrust kick that were beyond words. The side kick in particular was superhuman. Ray worked out every day - a concept foreign to this young lad who thought achievement came from a lot of talent and a little bit of work. Somehow I felt I was lacking. I would watch Ray, and want to give up. Even Rad made comments about Ray's ability in similar fashion, which is saying a lot. Not many people I know past or present could stand up to Rad. Bobby Campbell yes, but only because Rad started as a Harvard senior and Bobby as a little kid.

Yes, Ray was exceptional with these two techniques. And every day he would work on them.

I knew how to throw a yoko geri. But I did not know how to throw one like Ray. He was the man; I felt like a boy. He was expresso; I was tap water. What was his secret?

Over the next few years, Rad left Charlottesville and I was thrust into a position of teaching - even before I had a shodan. I worked my a$$ off. Opportunity has a way of making people rise to the occasion, and it worked for me. Ray took notice. Ray took me under his wing.

Ray taught me his practice methods that allowed him to throw that phenominal yoko geri. I watched. I copied. I practiced. I assimilated. A year or two later, Ray showed me that Master Oshima decided a roundhouse kick was good after all. There was a similar method. Ray showed me a "flicky" roundhouse, and a real roundhouse. I saw. I copied. I assimilated.

Understand that I came into martial arts from cross country. As a young lad who was skinny with all arms and legs, I found a talent in myself with the legs. I ran with it. I took Ray's methods, and extended them to my Uechi front kick. I even choreographed a kicking form. Some of this material became the elements of work I submitted to George that helped me get my renshi designation.

Funny thing... When I used to look at pictures of Uechi Kanei doing a front kick, I would scratch my head. How could this man have his body and arms flying like that? What terrible form! Must be because he's "the man" and nobody would dare correct his sloppy form.

Time passed. I learned Ray's kicking method. I'm no Ray Berry but...I've got it. I transferred the concept to my roundhouse, then my front kick, then my crescent and reverse crescent kicks, my hook kick, my spinning hook kick... Because we were in Jhoon Rhee land, I taught my Uechika my kicks and my kicking "special sauce." Now and then I would have a Bruce Hirabayashi or a David Powell or a Lloyd Fall see what I was doing and really seize on it. I've accidentally knocked out foks in Dan Kumite before, and broken some forearms. Ive seen Bruce and David accidentally take out a few people. Lloyd once kicked a heavy back so hard that the bottom blew out and the stuffing went all over the floor. We obnoxiously left a sign on the UVa gymnasium bag - Uechi Ryu was here! We were boys, after all, with a new toy.

Then one day I watched that film of Kanei Uechi doing a front kick. You know...the one where his body gyrates and the arms fly out and such. And suddenly... Aha!!! What an idiot I was! The "bad form" was the caffeine in his coffee.

And Uechi Kanei once told someone that they should check out what Nakamatsu sensei was doing with his sanchin. (Source: Frank Gorman)

And so the circle closes. This isn't magic. It isn't knew. It's just good technique. We start with the skeleton of a golf swing, or a bat swing, or a throwing motion, or a side thrust kick, or a sanchin thrust. We layer stuff on it. Pretty soon, that simple motion has personality and life. And if we are lucky, we learn how to kick bootie with it. Literally in the case of martial arts...

- Bill

[Ted Dinwiddie]

Understand, in no uncertain terms, the power of Ray Berry's Oi Zuki and Yoko Geri. He could move the big blocking sled (six-man? eight-man?) on the football practice field with either one. One summer (1983?), at Randolph-Macon College in Ashland, VA (where Ray is a professor and I am now a graduate) a member of the football team there (Gary Ritchins) and I were in summer school together. He learned of my shotokan practice under Ray. He told me "I thought that karate stuff was BS until I saw Mr. Berry move the big sled with a punch".

Ray is about 5'6" and 170.

I still hear his voice when I practice kihon.

[Dana Sheets]

Bill is saying some very nice things about me. But I want folks to be very clear that the things he saw were things I was shown by one of four people:

First and foremost - Bob Kaiser- my teacher
Next - Frank Gorman - Mr. Kaiser's teacher
Next - Ken Nakamatsu - Mr. Gorman's teacher
Finally - Mr. Takara - Mr. Nakamatsu's teacher.

So what Bill and others are seeing is what has been transmitted to me. I don't have nearly the understanding some bring to this and nor have I been able to consistently implement it into all of my movements. But I've got it for some - and I do my best to represent what's been shown to me.

And as Frank Gorman put it - you're going to lose alot when it's really bad. So if this can add 50% or 60% to your power or explosion in the dojo, maybe you'll be able to keep 5 or 10% when you really need it.

And so far what Bill is saying is in the right direction. One of the main goals of the training is to bring the entire body into each movement in a coordinated, relaxed, and explosive way.

Dana

[Bill Glasheen]

Thanks for filling in the lineage, Dana. I believe I mentioned most of the parties above, but I didn't do the geneology as nicely as you just did.

And remember.. It may be your mission in life to be humble. But I'm a scientist; my job is to tell the truth. You are a gifted teacher, communicator, and practitioner. 'Nuff said.

- Bill

[Bill Glasheen]

On the surface, what Dana does is pretty simple. Sort of...

Just about everyone who does Uechi sanchin has the routine of a thrust down. First you chamber, then you extend the arm in a spirited fashion, and then you retract back to "sanchin position."

If you think about it, this is more or less the first degree of freedom of motion to consider. You chamber, and you extend. It's simple enough, right?

Doing more than a white belt sanchin involves adding in more degrees of freedom of motion. Sometimes it's subtle. Most "gifted athletes" understad this without being taught. Often I find when I teach kids, it's best first to teach them how to hold their hand, and then have them hit the bag. Tell them as little as possible. A lot of them more or less have the whole body motion down. Then you teach them sanchin, and use it as a vehicle to refine the motion.

Formal Uechi Ryu training is somewhat reductionist in nature. We start very simple at first, and then we add on piece by piece by piece.

The beauty of Takara and Nakamatsu's training methods is that they aren't afraid to make the additional degrees of freedom of motion perfectly obvious in the process of teaching/learning. Everything is done very, very big. Everything is exaggerated. Get it down while doing things so obvious that even the teacher can see it from across the room. And then later on - MUCH later on - you make it smaller and smaller until the untrained eye cannot see it. All you see is an awesome crack of the arm. Where the hell did that come from??

There actually are three additional degrees of freedom of motion to consider.

1) Compression vs. extension of the lower body.

2) Rotation vs. counterrotation of the torso.

3) Spinal extension (lumbar lordosis) vs. spinal flexion (crunching and/or pelvic tuck).

It's an odd thing when you think about it. As the saying goes, first we make the mold; then we throw it away. Most teachers spend a lot of time teaching legs at just the right bend, a square posture, and a pelvic tuck. But an advanced way of thinking about it is that this sanchin posture is the median position in a very dynamic stance. Takara and Nakamatsu have taken the license of dramatically running with that concept, and making people move A LOT in ways they though "are not sanchin." The median posture is still important, and it's still vital that we make students spend thousands of hours in it. But the more familiar we make that to the student, the easier it is to teach them how to vary about that median position and not fear that they won't instantaneously snap back to it as the thrust rockets out to its target. I cannot overemphasize how important this is. Consequently, I think doing this kind of movement is something best left to intermediate and advanced classes. First we crawl (robot sanchin), then we walk (Kabuki theatre sanchin), and then we run (supercharged sanchin).

As I explained to Heather, sometimes I'm quite comfortable with her Eastern language. The "yin yang" thing most definitely applies here. Sanchin posture is the neutral position. But when we chamber (yin), we also compress the legs (yin), rotate back (yin), and extend the spine (yin). Then - with a timing that takes months to years to get right - we fire into yang mode. We execute leg extension, counter rotation, arm extension (first supinated, then instantaneously pronated), and finally the cruch/tuck.

If you see those different motions, you have the elements down. But the intra-body timing is what turns motion to magic. Finding that elusive sweet spot is what drives folks to believe in concepts like chi. But it's not magic.

- Bill

[Bill Glasheen]

This this is a bunch of hooey? Guess again.

the Atlatl and Dart is the first true and natural weapons system of the human race, invented thousands of years before the Bow and Arrow and used longer by humans than any other weapon system yet developed. It was the Atlatl and Dart that first placed humans at the top of the food chain, ranking us above all other predators. It is, in fact, our natural ability to throw a projectile at prey that separates us from all other predators. Predators such as Lions, Tigers, and Bears run faster than humans and have sharp teeth and pointed claws, which we do not. Those are the attributes which make these predators successful. The Atlatl is the supreme expression of our natural ability to throw a projectile at a prey animal and is our advantage over all other predators, which makes us the supreme predator.

- BPS Engineering

There is indeed a science to rigid vs. flexible propulsion systems. If man had relied on the spear, perhaps we never would have dominated the planet. But thousands and thousands of years ago, man developed the flexible atlatl and dart system. What first could only be thrust with little velocity or held firmly in hands suddenly became a weapon that catapulted out of the arm of the thrower at well over 100 mph.

Many sources have documented the chilling effect that the atlatl had on the conquistadors who accompanied Cortez on his trek through Mexico in 1520 A.D. The Spanish felt they were the better equipped, state of the art, military machine. The height of armored splendor and firearm technology for the times. And they were in a position to show the natives just what that machine could do. But they met with a terrifying stone-age technology. In the hands of an expert the atlatl could hit a target from up to a hundred yards away. Bad enough in itself but this weapon had the ability to pierce their armor and plow right on through and into their chests, effectively pinning them inside where they could die a slow and agonizing death. Points on the six-foot-long darts were barbed so that they had to be drawn out the other side in order to be removed. You can imagine the terror these things exacted on these men. The records they left vividly told of it. But hundreds of years later atlatls were a mystery and many scholars were doubtful that the stories told by the conquistadors could be true. Those who tried to make atlatls were somewhat disappointed in the performance and the secrets of the atlatl seemed lost in the past.

But we've come a long way since the early days of atlatl experimentation. After decades of research we can now boast of atlatl and dart systems that can perform just like those of the ancients. We have a lot of knowledge about the different styles of atlatls that were used historically and a good idea of how the system functions.

- Secrets of the atlatle

This is no rigid spear and sling. The secret to its "zing" is the flexible nature of the dart, and the impedence matching between it and the atlatl. Here is a somewhat simplified view of what it looks like in action.

The mechanical function of atlatl technology is the flexible dart. The dart can't launch with good accuracy or thrust if it's rigid. Under acceleration by the atlatl, the dart flexes and compresses like a spring, storing energy to be used to push itself away from the atlatl and launching at velocities that easily exceed 100 mph. When you start your swing with a flexible dart, it humps up, like a hissing cat.The dart will flex and at launch point it will recoil and literally jump off the atlatl.

The great innovation of atlatl weights in the evolution of this technology bears the mark of true genius. By superimposing flexibility into the atlatl shaft and applying a mass to influence the amount of flex during the swing, the energy stored in the spring of the atlatl can be exactly matched to that of the dart. This allowed for a more efficient use of the available energies by forcing the atlatl to push the dart away at the same time the dart is pushing away from the atlatl, much like a diver pushing away from a springboard platform.

Over time, different types of atlatl weights were developed to improve upon this effect. One particular type, commonly known as the bannerstone, used ancient "stealth" technology, and went so far as to silence the zip-like noise caused by the swing of the atlatl.

All of these innovations together make the atlatl the impressive weapon it was historically. It's effectiveness can still be dramatically demonstrated today as well.

- Atlatl & Dart Mechanics

Think of a simple vs. Nakamatsu-inspired sanchin like the difference between a simple spear and a flexible atlatl. The magic is in the flexion and the extension. In the case of the human body, the way we store and release this energy involves more than one dimension of movement. But the principle is the same.

More science and math of the atlatl-dart system can be found here.

- Bill

[jorvik]

Well I'm afraid that I don't understand When Dana firsted posted her kata somebody said ( I forget who) that if you want to change Sanchin, then just do it.why try and apply stuff in it that requires such work? if you are developing power from a zenkuts stance then do that instead of Sanchin.why try and fit other dynamics into Sanchin? I mean no critiscism of Dana or her kata ( which I said at the time was excellent, and repeat that now ).
The second point, and I'm talking from someone who is trying to learn Tai-Chi, Jing or Fa-Jing which means discharging energy ( for the cynical a push).when done in TC uses a more vertical than horizontal method i.e. the feet are the handle of the whip the waist continues that and it escapes through the upper Qwa ( peng) thru the chest into the arm or hand.very like an atlatl.looking at Uechi I see a great deal of similarity with TC............check out
http://store.yahoo.com/ymaa/taijclasyans3.html
I think that ther are free clips of movements using these principles.
A third point I know Dana is a film maker .has she not thought of putting this to celluloid
and final is there any way of testing the extra ".uumph!!!"
generated by this method...........i.e. a comparison hitting heavy bags perhaps?

[Bill Glasheen]

Good points all. I don't have answers to all your questions.

It should be known that Van, who is most associated with "TC", has seen Dana do sanchin. I don't think there is any disagreement. We're all on the same page, with some minor variations.

Nobody here invented these concepts. Looking at the atlatl, it's obvious man has understood it for thousands of years. Different cultures seize on it, and manifest it in their own unique ways. It could be called TC, or jing, or Takarra/Nakamatsu style, or "Fred." Each touches on similar principles, and teaches/executes it in a unique way.

Dana happens to be really good at the process of teaching and executing this particular manifestation of some of these principles.

More to come. And I'll work on Dana about the film bit... Meanwhile, I've got some nice still shots.

- Bill