The Weird Thing About Kata

It wasn't that many years ago that you could very easily find people in the martial arts world completely dismissing the practice of kata. A lot of people thought it was stupid.

I never thought kata was stupid, not even when I had no real clue what I was doing with it. You see, I took it for granted that the people who created and preserved the kata weren't idiots. I had enough common sense, just barely, to realize that there had to be a purpose to those things we called "chambers." Had to be. Only an idiot would take such a position without a darn good reason, so I figured there had to be a reason. I just didn't know what it was.

The other day, over at Okinawan Fighting Art: Isshin Ryu, Mr. James published, making reference in the process to something that Shotokan's Rob Redmond wrote, Elmar Schmeisser's rules for interpreting kata. There are, of course, other sets of rules for interpreting kata. There are the rules that Toguchi Seikichi said that Miyagi Chojun gave him (read this), which the authors of The Way of Kata expound in even more detail. Then there is the approach that Javier Martinez takes in Okinawan Karate, The Secret Art of Tuite. (This seems to be out of print. Amusingly, someone has priced the only used copy that Amazon lists at almost a thousand simoleons. It was an interesting book, but I guarantee you, it ain't worth that much. You could buy the whole set of Taika Seiyu Oyata's tapes for half that, and you could buy everything that Yang Jwing-Ming has written about chin na for less than a couple hundred, I'm sure.

On the other hand, I do own a copy that's in pretty good shape. I'll let it go for a comparative pittance--say, five hundred bucks. Anybody up for that?) Bruce Clayton seems to take another approach in Shotokan's Secret. The RyuTe Renmei, under Taika Seiyu Oyata's guidance and leadership, uses yet another approach. It will surprise no one that I am most impressed with RyuTe's approach. It consistently produces an effect known in the blogosphere as either headdesk or facepalm, that is, when you, if you come to RyuTe from a different system, as I did, and you see some of the RyuTe applications for all those movements you've wondered about for years, they are so intuitively obvious that you immediately want to slap yourself silly for not having seen it before.

But you know what's weird? It seems to me that all of the interpretive approaches I mentioned above (and I'm sure that I've left some out) yield at least some usable techniques. This is in spite of the fact that sometimes those methods seem dramatically different from one another. One method I've read insists that the movements of the kata be followed in order; that method produces at least some usable techniques. Another method considers the movements as though they are linked in modules. Here is what you do if the opponent grabs your wrist. Then, if he does this, you do that. And if that, then this. That method also produces at least some usable techniques. They all produce at least some usable techniques.

It seems to me that no matter what approach you take to interpreting the kata, if you do the creators and preservers of the kata this one favor, that of assuming that they weren't complete fools and really look hard for useful techniques, the kata will do you the favor of yielding up at least some of its secrets to you.

The Short and Painful Truth About Taekwon-do

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Depending on your view of a certain word, there may be a mild language issue with the following. My usage is technically correct.

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I just read, in a forum elsewhere, some comments about taekwon-do and karate that were absolutely painful to read.

Now, before I carry on, let me make something clear: I am not trying to "run down" taekwon-do. I trained in taekwon-do for some few years, a long time ago. Was 1st gup (kyu) when I left, as a matter of fact (for the uninitiated, that means my next test would have been for first-degree black belt). If I lived in some part of the country where the only martial arts instruction available to me was in taekwon-do, I would certainly enroll and make the best of it.

My annoyance is only with the relatively painful ululations of those taekwon-do practitioners who have bought, hook, line, and sinker, into the mythology perpetrated by so many taekwon-do organizations, and I seek only to utter a small corrective.

Taekwon-do is not the modern form of some centuries-old Korean battlefield martial art.

Taekwon-do is not "super karate," which is the way one local chain used to refer to it.

Taekwon-do is not even, in my opinion, despite much bloviating to the contrary, a blend between Japanese karate and an art indigenous to Korea, called "tae kyon."

It's bastardized Shotokan, that's what it is. Look, Choi Hong Hi was a nidan in Shotokan, and I defy you--flatly defy you--to identify any significant differences between Shotokan and the taekwon-do you'll see in older books like Duk Sung Son's (which is, of course, actually named "Korean Karate") and Jhoon Rhee's old series. In the old days, the Koreans used to actually use the Okinawan forms--which, of course, were the forms used in Shotokan. I have found that some taekwon-do teachers have actually gone back to those forms.

Some years back, the Koreans decided, apparently, to go over almost completely to the sport side of Korean karate taekwon-do, and gradually made modifications that have, shall we say, stripped it of much of the combat power that Shotokan had. In other words, yes, unless you are lucky enough to find a taekwon-do school that's still teaching taekwon-do as it was taught back in the sixties, taekwon-do is bastardized Shotokan.

Again, I'm not trying to run it down. If that's all that's available to you, or you happen to like it (and millions of people do), by all means, go for it. I just get mildly annoyed every so often at some of the pretentious nonsense I read about it.

From Dr. Bruce Clayton's Shotokan's Secret

I found Dr. Bruce Clayton's Shotokan's Secret fascinating. Not that I agree with him on a great many things; I don't. He is so obviously sold on the idea that Shotokan is the ultimate fighting art, that its linear punch is so overwhelmingly powerful as almost to vitiate the need for careful targeting, that saying there is a certain amount of bias in what he writes is a considerable understatement. Also, there are some things about which, at least according to what I have heard from other sources I know to be reliable, he is simply wrong. And there are places where I know from personal experience that he is simply wrong.

On the other hand, it seems to me that there is a certain element of, shall we say, bold speculation in his writing that sometimes generates some of the most interesting insights. He asks questions like, "What tasks should we reasonably expect the martial art practiced by the Okinawan Royal Guard to be able to accomplish? And knowing that kata was the principle means by which those guards got their practice, what movements in those kata might accomplish those tasks?" In answering those questions, he has come up with kata applications that, frankly, I'm not sure I ever would have--but many of them look like they could work.

Kata's weird that way. I have seen several different methods of interpreting kata and unlocking the techniques within, and the weird thing is that all of them seem to produce at least some practical and useful techniques. Dr. Clayton's method is no exception. He writes, at one point:

The real bunkai of the Shuri-te kata is so vicious it quite takes your breath away. It breaks necks. It breaks arms. It incapacitates multiple people in a single move. It rips out eyes. It crushes throats. It destroys knee joints. It targets and breaks critical bones. It ruptures vital organs. People hiss and flinch when you demonstrate.

Bunkai, for those who don't practice karate, are the applications drawn from the movements of the kata--the dancelike routines you see people performing in karate classes. And you might be wondering, if all you've ever seen of "karate" is the stuff that kids and teenagers do, wearing pillows on their heads and hands and attempting to score two points by walloping each other upside the head with their metatarsals, if karate really can be so nastily effective as Dr. Clayton paints it.

The answer is yes. Yes, it can. I take issue with his description of those techniques as "the real bunkai," for the reality is that all of those motions have more than one application (almost the first thing I was taught was that all the movements can be applied as strikes, as blocks, and as tuite), but it is nevertheless true that some of those applications really can do those things, at least with sufficient training.

Break necks? Yes, you can find neck breaks--or at least movements that can effectively break necks--in the kata.

Break arms? Yes. Mostly at the elbow. Elbows are not all that hard to break. What is difficult is overcoming the resistance of the muscles around the elbows, the muscles that are protecting the elbow joint itself. But there are ways...

Incapacitate multiple people in a single move? I suppose it might depend on what you mean by "incapacitate." But Dr. Clayton does give at least one example, and I have seen more than a few demonstrations on Youtube of people tying two, or even three people up in knots with martial arts techniques.

Rip out eyes? Of course you can.

Crush throats? You can. Might not need to. Simply punching the throat might very well send it into spasms severe enough to make your opponent pass out.

Break knees? You kidding? Of course.

Rupture vital organs? I don't know how easily, but I do know that if you know where an organ is, and can hit darn hard, an ability that classical karate certainly purports to develop, you can hit it hard enough to really hurt. You might not even have to rupture the organ. There's a nerve right around the kidney that will certainly get an attacker's attention, for example. Hit that with the tip of your thumb, and "rupture" isn't exactly necessary.

One of the things that, to my mind, characterizes realistic applications is that people really do shudder, or "hiss and flinch," when you start showing them. When you've got a real application, you don't really have to convince people that it would work. They can see it, and it's so obvious--"intuitively obvious," as my own instructor put it once--that contemplating it will send a shiver down your spine. They may never have thought of putting a hurt on a human being that way, but once they've seen it, there's a part of them that's thinking, "Sweet Honey Mustard! What demented freak thought that up?!"

And the answer is: the sort of demented freak that was determined to go home alive and mostly unharmed to his wife and family. Period.

From Dr. Bruce Clayton's Shotokan's Secret

Just an excerpt. I thought some might find it interesting

As if karate history were not confusing enough, one eventually realizes that Japanese writers and karate masters enjoy a very special relationship with the truth. It confounds the naive Western reader to discover that respected Japanese sensei casually conceal, distort or fabricate stories about karate's historical origins for their own purposes. In Japanese culture this is the normal thing to do, and it would not occur to them to do otherwise. In Japan, the official story is more important than the actual truth. In fact, they consider the official story to be another kind of truth, even if the story is completely inaccurate and deliberately misleading. For a person to question the official story is shockingly rude. People who insist on digging for verifiable facts are derided as rikutsuppoi, or "reason freaks."

We can lay this philosophy at the feet of Ieyasu Tokugawa, the master of mind control. The Tokugawa edicts forced the Japanese people to adopt a double standard of truth. Every person had their private opinion, their secret honne, which was not safe to share even within the family. Instead, they all staunchly supported the official government story, the tatemae. It was the only safe thing to do in an era when a careless word could doom an entire family, or even a village.

This distinction between honne and tatemae appears again and again in karate history, right down to the present day. Honne refers to a person's true feelings, underlying motives, or the true facts of the case, and is written using the kanji for "true or real" plus the kanji that means "sound." Tatemae means the cover story, and is written with kanji that mean "to build" and "in front." In other words, tatemae is the screen we erect to hide the truth.

For example, in 19th century Okinawa, the tatemae (official story) was that the Sho kings were in charge of the kingdom, and they reported only to the Emperor of China. The hidden honne (the real situation) was that the Satsuma overlords were secretly in control. The Sho kings didn't make a move without Satsuma approval. That's the difference between honne and tatemae.

This curious relationship to the truth has an important corollary: Japanese citizens are quite comfortable with information that is inconsistent, contradictory, ambiguous and incomplete. They're used to it. Ambiguity is a major feature of the language itself. It's normal. Contradictions cannot be investigated, because that would question the tatemae. Incomplete explanations cannot be researched and explained. Japanese citizens simply assume that they are being kept in the dark for a good reason that will be revealed to them, or not, in due course.

For instance, Japanese authors seem quite comfortable with the jumble of disjointed, self-contradictory information they have assembled on the history of karate. They often repeat tatemae directly to their readers as if it were real history.

Not to put too fine a point on it, but I'm pretty much convinced that--despite flaws elsewhere in the book--Dr. Clayton has touched on something here. The more I dig into the history of karate, the more I am convinced that there has been almost as much of an effort to obfuscate as to reveal. One of the most glaring examples that comes to mind comes from a simple perusal of two books: Shoshin Nagamine's The Essence of Okinawan Karate-Do and Kiyoshi Arakaki's The Secrets of Okinawan Karate: Essence and Techniques. I say this simply because Arakaki says he learned karate punching from Nagamine, and yet the methods illustrated by Nagamine and Arakaki in their respective books are polar opposites. You cannot read both books and rationally conclude, in my opinion, that they are trying to teach the same material. One is left with very little option but to conclude that some people, to this day, are trying very hard to leave most karate practitioners with incomplete or erroneous knowledge and that therefore it is quite possible that much of what you might learn from some people is, in fact, erroneous, and quite possibly through no fault of their own.

Just something to be aware of.

Essential Karate Books

Some time back, I put together a list of books on karate--or on subjects I think are closely related to karate, or contribute to a proper understanding of karate. Here it is, for those interested. I'll tell you right up front that my recommendation of a book in no way means that I agree with every jot or tittle contained within it, and that with some, I have serious reservations. Nevertheless, something in that book is worthwhile.

First up: Masatoshi Nakayama's Dynamic Karate. In my opinion, this is the definitive work on how to do modern Shotokan, surpassing even Funakoshi's Karate-Do Kyohan. Despite the criticisms some make of the changes Gichin Funakoshi and some of his students made to Okinawan karate to produce Shotokan--which is probably the quintessential modern Japanese version of karate--such as that the method of forming the fist and generating power have been altered, many of the applications of the old forms discarded, etc., etc., etc., the reality is that enough of the basic material is left within Shotokan that with the old bunkai added back in (something that is happening more and more as this knowledge becomes more widely known and accepted), Shotokan can be a fiercely combative art. Shoot, even without some of the old bunkai, Shotokan is nothing to sneeze at. Those people have learned how to hit hard, even if their method of punching differs from Kiyoshi Arakaki's, and some of the modern bunkai are downright vicious.

This book breaks the movements of Shotokan down in detail. I think a person who, out in the sticks without a karate instructor, had this book, could at least get going on the basics and maybe not go too far wrong. That's saying something. Something important.

Bunkai, for the uninitiated, are applications drawn from the kata, which are the prearranged sets of movements you see karate practitioners doing.

Next: Patrick McCarthy's The Bible of Karate: Bubishi. The Bubishi is an old document that a number of Okinawa's old masters treasured. It has been copied and recopied and there are parts of it that are confusing and hard to deal with. Mr. McCarthy's translation and commentary, especially as regards history, are invaluable.

A caveat: It is clear from certain of Mr. McCarthy's words that his worldview is somewhat incompatible with biblical Christianity's. However, that does not impact the material in this book, nor its usefulness. It is just something to be aware of in your evaluation of some of the things he says.

Next: Yang Jwing-Ming's Analysis of Shaolin Chin-Na and also his Comprehensive Applications of Shaolin Chin Na. Chin Na is the corpus of close-quarter seizing and grappling techniques common to kung fu styles, and is very similar in some ways to the tuite practiced in Okinawan karate--practiced in Okinawan karate, that is, if you have an instructor familiar with it, which is not too common. Both books cover the subject well, with the former, much shorter book dwelling more on how the techniques work, while the second attempts an exhaustive catalog of the major techniques. The striking of vital points--or cavity press, kyusho-jutsu in Okinawan karate--is also covered to some extent.

Next: Javier Martinez's Okinawan Karate: the Secret Art of Tuite. An introduction to the close-quarter grappling and seizing techniques common to Okinawan karate. An eye-opener.

Next: Kiyoshi Arakaki's The Secrets of Okinawan Karate: Essence and Technique. A book almost entirely about how to generate and use power in karate technique. Invaluable especially for its discussion of how to form the fist.

Next: Shoshin Nagamine's The Essence of Okinawan Karate-Do, principally as a reference on the sequence of moves in many of the major kata. I will say that it is hard to "get" how those movements are performed solely from still pictures in a book. However, anyone reading this post has access to a major asset: YouTube. You can find almost anything on YouTube these days, including expert kata performances, and this certainly helps. I would caution you to look at more than one performance of any given kata you may be interested in, though, as some of the videos are clearly posted by proud parents, and others are posted by people with real skill. At any rate, you can learn the movement sequences of a number of kata from this book, and combined with the examples available via YouTube, you might have a fighting chance, so to speak.

I know that the Goju Ryu guys, Isshin Ryu guys, and Uechi Ryu guys might object that Nagamine's book leaves out their kata, some of which are quite famous and influential. Nolo contendere. That is true. The karate I practice seems to me more from the Shuri-te/Tomari-te stream than from the Naha-te stream, though I do practice (badly) the Uechi Ryu version of Sanchin, largely as an exercise. If I read an outstanding book that clearly delineates some of the Naha-te kata, I'll add it to the list.

None of the books mentioned, in my opinion, do a great job of how to deal with the makiwara. I'll do another post on that sometime. Even got it named: I'm going to call it The Forge of Karate.

Next: Zhao Da Yuan's Practical Chin Na: A Detailed Analysis of the Art of Seizing and Locking. If I had to limit myself to one book on chin na or tuite, this would be it. I'm told that years ago, Taika Seiyu Oyata wrote one for his students, but I have never seen a copy. Until I can obtain a copy of that highly-desired book, this will have to do. Very clear and logical explanations of the range of motion of each joint of the body, and how to lock them up.