The personal interpretation aspect of the quote references the creative nature of bunkai. There are many interpretations of the techniques in kata. The key isn't finding the "correct" one. The important thing is finding out which ones work for you, and practicing them enough that they become as natural to you as walking.
Understanding the bunkai to a technique is essential to performing the technique correctly. Just like anything else in life, if you don't understand what you're doing there's very little chance you'll do that thing correctly.
The personal interpretation aspect of the quote references the creative nature of bunkai. There are many interpretations of the techniques in kata. The key isn't finding the "correct" one. The important thing is finding out which ones work for you, and practicing them enough that they become as natural to you as walking. There are always many bunkai for different techniques in a kata. Considering how realistic the attack you're defending against is very important. Many bunkai I have seen demonstrated involve unrealistic movements from the attacker such as stepping back into a basic stance first, or doing something silly like throwing two roundhouse punches at the same time. When you're shown something like that, it's important to realize that there's much more to it. Your instructor will certainly show you some basic bunkai, and if you're lucky maybe even a few more realistic applications. The best way to expand your knowledge
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Good questions open doors for martial artists. This can feel like a bit of a paradox in a system that places so much focus on self-discovery (as well it should). Below I'll delve into both sides of the coin as we explore the art of asking good questions in the dojo.
The important thing is not to ask for answers. Even if your sensei gives you an answer, it's less valuable than something discovered yourself. Instead, ask for ideas, examples, and jumping-off points. The important thing is to still ask questions. We're always trying to figure out more about karate. One way to show an instructor what you're ready to know is that you reveal your thinking through a good question. The answer to a good question can put you on the path, but you're still the one that's going to have to walk the path. One way to practice kata is by practicing a single section of a kata repeatedly. One may do this for several different reasons.
One reason is to work on an area of difficulty. This is similar to a musician learning to play a song. If only one part of the song gives the musician difficulty, then they would practice that part until it sounds better and then try the whole song. You can do the same thing with difficult parts of kata. Another purpose behind repeatedly practicing a certain portion of a kata is to examine the bunkai more closely. This is an activity I do quite often when another Sensei or a high ranking student is running the warm-up exercises in a class that I am helping them teach. I find a certain sequence that I am either unsure of the bunkai, or suspect that there may be more to it than the bunkai I know (there's always much more to every technique than what I know) and I repeat it several times while visualizing different attacks until I discover an application that is new to me and effective. A third reason is the development of power. Practice a technique dozens of times consecutively either on the air, on a target, or both to develop power by getting the technique just right, and the repeated action exercises the specific muscles involved in throwing the technique. Below is an article on a Goju Ryu website which has brief overviews of the kata taught in both Goju and Shorin Ryu systems. It contains information ranging from the translation of the actual name of the kata, to the history of who created it and when.
http://www.hathagojuryukaratedo.freeservers.com/photo3.html As with other outside links, I encourage parents to read the outside website before sharing with their kids. As you know, I teach students of a very wide range of age, ability level, etc. A formula that I have both said, and heard a lot about is "pounds per square inch."
While gauging the exact "power" of your strike would be extremely difficult, but utilizing pounds per square inch is a simple way to get a ballpark estimate, and improve your form to maximize your number of pounds per square inch. If you're into math, you're basically taking the number of pounds of force in your strike (let's just say 100 in order to make the math simple), and then you are dividing it by the number of square inches of surface area that is making contact when your strike lands. So 100 pounds of force divided by 10 square inches of surface area would only allow for a 10 pound strike. While the same amount of force divided by 2 square inches of surface area would yield a 50 pound strike. This is why in many styles of martial arts the idea of focusing your strike into a smaller amount of surface area is part of the technique. One example of many in Shobayashi-Ryu would be that in our basic "punch" you are often taught to strike with only the first two knuckles rather than the entire flat fist. This may seem contradictory to something that I've talked about on here and something that I still feel strongly about. These are my feelings when it comes to learning multiple styles of martial arts.
I hold many styles of martial arts in high regard. Shobayashi-Ryu just happens to be what I started with over 20 years ago and from my research it still happens to be my favorite. I think that the common practice of spending a few years in a style and then moving onto the next is not a productive way to train. People who do this sometimes even train until black belt and then move on. When someone tells me that they have black belts in half a dozen styles, I know that it's more than likely that they probably don't know any of those styles on a very deep level. I have studied the ideas and techniques of other styles over my years of training, but I have always been a Shobayashi guy. In fact, a lot of what I have learned by researching various styles has helped me gain more knowledge about Shobayashi. Here's a short and very incomplete list of martial arts styles for those of you who want to do a little research but aren't sure where to start:
Below is a link to a friend's karate blog. He did a very in depth and interesting article about my favorite kata. Passai.
http://www.ikigaiway.com/2014/making-sense-of-passai-an-exploration-of-origin-and-style/ I've been waiting to post this article so that some of my friends there could email me photos to go with it. But alas, they've been busy with the holidays.
Pytel Sensei and I had the good fortune to attend the 2013 York PA gasshuku (training seminar) hosted at York Okinawan Karate Academy in York PA. The training was in-depth and varied. I'll go through some of the highlights here. The morning started with some warm-up exercises done mostly independently. Then there was a short introduction in which everyone introduced themselves followed by a lecture style session. Instead of talking about specific techniques, we discussed the larger principles and ideas present in Shobayashi-Ryu so that we could then apply the ideas to our techniques, kata, etc. Then after a short healthy lunch break we went through several techniques taken from various kata. Just like before, the techniques were taught in order to present an idea that could then be carried over to other kata. The senior martial artists in the groups then assisted with the technique either to correct mistakes, or to take the technique to a more advanced level. After the physical part of the training, we had a chance to discuss ideas, and look through some of Hayes' Sensei's photo-albums from his time on Okinawa. Pytel Sensei and I were fortunate enough for Hayes Sensei to look through the photos with us, giving interesting details and anecdotes to go with each picture. With the welcoming family style of an Okinawan karate brotherhood, we all went and got dinner together that night. Food choices were healthy all around both to help us recover from a long day of training, and to prepare us for another. The final day of the training consisted mostly of breathing exercises and kata practice. There were a lot of people asking questions about ideas and applications of the techniques. As always, when a lot of people are asking questions, interesting and informative answers are provided. Then I had the 5.5 hour drive home during which I contemplated all that I'd learned over the weekend. Sometimes karate-ka will focus on the technical perfection of a kata. This is usually when they're learning the kata. Once you've had the kata memorized and you've been at it for a while the focus tends to shift toward the understanding of the ideas, concepts, and bunkai of the kata.
While it's very important to have good form, I see a lot of karate-ka who have excellent form, but very little understanding of the kata beyond the physical movements of it. As with a lot of aspects of karate, several sides of it are important and connected. Without good form, you may miss out on a bunkai application if your form is imperfect and your hand is not where it needs to be for the bunkai to work. One term that I often hear but don't agree with is the concept of an "advanced kata." This implies that some kata are more developed than others. This has not been my experience when studying the various kata of our system.
One example that I will use to do away with the idea of advanced kata is that just before I began training, Seisan was the first kata taught. When I began training it became the sixth kata taught. Did Seisan become more advanced and therefore was reserved for students of higher rank? No. From what I am told the change only occurred to suit the needs of the higher numbers of young students starting. The Naihanchi kata are shorter and therefore easier for younger students to memorize. Being a teacher, I find many parallels between karate and teaching. The fact that we continue studying the same kata after having "passed" it while still applying more advanced concepts to the study of the kata is essentially a spiraled curriculum. So in my opinion, there is no "advanced kata." There are simply kata that you learn when you are more advanced and skilled as a karate-ka. Looking at it also unlocks more information about the kata. If you only look at your first kata at a white-belt level, you'll never understand it any deeper than that. If you look at the same kata with your deeper understanding later in your traini |