Hi

[T. Blauer]

Just wanted to drop in and say hi. I posted amessage to all on Van Canna's forum.

It was good to meet you, looking forward to hooking up in the near future.

Tony Blauer

[Bill Glasheen]

Tony

Thanks, and it was good meeting you too. Too bad we didn't have time to talk more. We will.

While you are here, I wanted to draw you out a bit. As you recall in your seminar, you said something like this. <BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote

It's better to have effortless power than a powerful effort.

There has been a lot of variability in the execution of the Uechi system, and one can see it in sanchin kata. I wish you could have see the dramatic variation that was shown at the 6th through 8th dan testing on Saturday evening. Talk about extremes! And I would personally do something somewhere inbetween the extremes that were shown. For obvious reasons, I will not dissect these specific performances, but those that saw will understand what I mean.

Another interesting thing happened in the demo on Saturday evening. There were two rather dramatic injuries in the sparring exhibition. One was known by everyone, and one was not known unless you heard later on. In the former case, a lip was busted open and the match ended rather quickly. In the latter, a rather serious eye socket fracture resulted from a strike that few saw. While few people saw the injury happen, it was the reason why the fighter subsequently lost the match (he lost binocular vision). In both cases, the contact was almost incidental. Frankly I believe this makes your point.

I was wondering if you had some philosophical points you might like to make that could be applied to the way we and others might practice our most fundamental kata.

Thanks, and I'll do my best to keep this from being controversial. I know (and understand) the differences of opinion on this subject.

- Bill