An interesting post over on The Critical Corner blog about Unorthodox Karate. 

In this post, the author (zenhg) discusses the taboo of orthodox karate that prevents changing things – changing the kata, adding or subtracting kata from a syllabus, etc.  In zenhg’s mind, most orthodox karate styles have a brick wall against anyone changing anything, once the style has been created by its founder.  I am sure that this mindset is prevalent in many styles, and where thats true, I couldn’t agree more with zenhg’s comments

First of all, something that is not allowed to grow is already dead, and something that needs so much protection must be extremely fragile, toppling down like a house of cards with the slightest gust of wind; such is the price of over-rigidity.

I am a believer that one of the most important traditions in karate is that of cross-training.  If you research back only 2–3 generations ago, its pretty clear that the world of karate in Okinawa was pretty small, and most of the “style founders” trained with several instructors, going beyond the boundaries of what today we call styles.  They would absorb kata from various teachers and synthesise them together into their own system.

They would also adapt the various kata to suit their own systems – why else would we have multiple versions of Kusanku, Bassai, Seisan, Naihanchin and others?

The tradition of evolution seemed to stop for many styles in Japan, where karate and its kata became somewhat rigidised.  The Japanese precept of “deru kugi wa utareru” (the protruding nail shall be hammered down) seems to have been realised in karate’s transition to the mainland.

So I am a believer that karate and its kata change over time.  But an important point is that there are seem pretty important threshholds that should apply, IMHO, before someone has the right to change something. They should know a system inside out, fully understanding the ins and outs of its teachings before changing something.  Or they should evolve beyond to form their own new system, with a new name, that will stand its own test of time.

And importantly, anyone who moves down this path shouldn’t be surprised or feel slighted when one day one of their own students does the same thing.

Change is an important tradition in karate.  Evolution must continue to act to ensure that karate is relevant, and not just a cultural relic.

I’d love to hear your opinions on this topic of change in karate.

The Critical Corner II: Critical Light: Unorthodox Karate?.

Haven’t been posting much lately, for a number of reasons.

One of the key ones has simply been that I was blocked from posting due to some software that was doing too good a job of blocking spam – it just blocked everything.  Thats fixed now, and hopefully we’ll be back online now with more regular posting.

There’s also a new issue of the newsletter in the pipeline, and there are two upcoming interviews for The Applied Karate Show podcast.

Iain Abernethy (author of various books on Kata Applications, martial techniques and mental strength and guest on Episode 009 of The Applied Karate Show podcast) has released the latest episode in his series of podcasts.

This epsiode discusses The Meaning of “Pinan”.  The name of a very popular series of beginner to intermediate kata, created by Anko Itosu, Pinan (pronounced Heian in Japanese) is generally literally translated as “Peaceful Mind”.

Clearly Iain is not a believer in this translation, and for good reason.  Firstly, its quite clear that the word “Mind” is not represented by either of the kanji in Pinan.  The first kanji – Pin or Hei (å¹³) – means peace, while the second – An (安) – can mean easy, cheap or tranquil.  So a more correct translation might be “Peace and Tranquility”.  This would be a very good explanation in finding a Japanese translation of the word Pinan.

Cleverly, Iain has realised the obvious that most of us haven’t necessarily considered – that Okinawans at the time of Itosu’s creation of the Pinan kata (late 19th or early 20th century) didn’t necessarily look to Japanese literature in naming things.  Instead, they looked west to China, an empire who had a massive influence on the tiny kingdom of Okinawa for centuries.  So Iain has looked for a more Chinese translation.

I won’t spoil the ending here, so please listen to Iain’s podcast on The Meaning of Pinan.  Its somewhat controversial, but a very thought provoking discussion.

I don’t think it really matters if Iain is right or wrong on this one.  What matters most is that he has taken the time to build a hypothesis, and has found logic to support it.  This type of thinking is important in the martial arts, as it gives us a chance to try to “get inside the minds” of the originators of our discipline, and thus gain a greater understanding of our art.

Over on the Karate Conditioning blog, Joe Berne has posted about his early kettlebell experiences as a martial artist, in the aptly named An Ode to the Swing.

So doing the swings and concentrating on that hip snap has really improved my hip drive when throwing punches.  I suspect that that same movement – full extension of the hip – is going to transfer over into greater closing speed the next time I fight, too.

I challenge anyone to find a better exercise that the kettlebell swing for developing explosive hip power.  I will readily believe that there are exercises that may be as good, but I don’t know of any.  The fact that the swing generates power from the hips to the extremities using focus (kime) in a unique way is the main reason it is often proclaimed a strength exercises for budoka. 

But there is an additional factor that (IMHO) is less considered.  This is that in the split second, following the technique, the swing forces the kettlebell user to recover and work hard to regain balance on the rebound.  Not necessarily an easy task.

Together the explosive hip power, focus and recovery inherent in the swing make it an amazing exercise for the budoka.

I am also a big fan of the Turkish getup when it comes to develop rock solid strength and stability in the shoulders and upper body.  This is something also vital for strikers.

An Ode to the Swing – Karate Conditioning.

Doing the rounds on the web at the moment is the wonderful Mikka Bouzu series of comics about a martial arts student travelling the path.

I think I identify with this one….

Interesting forum discussion and poll over on Iain Abernethy’s website about “Karate: Jutsu or Do”.

Pop over and answer the poll.  It will be most interesting if a lot of people answer it!

Like many, I am somewhat sceptical when I see a book advertised as having the “previously untold” secrets of karate that were handed down to an author, but no-one else. The fact that Hidden Karate by Gennosuke Higaki also claims to tell the story of a pact by Okinawan karateka, including Gichin Funakoshi, to hide the true bunkai of kata when introducing karate to Japan also made me somewhat dubious. However, I also admit to being a little intrigued, so went ahead and ordered it anyway.

First impressions always count, and I must say that this book is beautifully presented. Clearly a great amount of effort was put into the exterior look and feel of the book, and it immediately made it to the top of my reading pile. Second impressions also count, and reading the author’s bio was interesing as it was clearly written in a poor version of Janglish – that hybrid of Japanese and English. I must admit to worrying about the overall quality, but my concerns were reduced when I set out on reading the intro – clearly the translator did an excellent job on the actual content of the book.

To be honest, I quite like the approach taken by the author. With rules along the lines of a primary attack is a punch, kick or strike, and that the effectiveness of a strike is greater if an opponent is immobilised, a good game plan for interpreting kata is provided, whilst continuing to rest on karate’s primary weapons augmented by the locks, holds, strangles, etc.

This is kind of refreshing in an age where many have interpreted karate kata as being primarily responses to very close range, grappling encounters. Although those aspects are clearly catered for, I am a believer that our primary weapons tend to the longer range punch, kick and strike scenarios.

In all, I would recommend this book to anyone who wants to see an approach to kata application that sits somewhere in between the primitive punch and kick only scenarios, and the grappling only scenarios that seem to have some favour today. You may not agree with everything (I don’t), but there is some good food for thought.

Buy Hidden Karate at Amazon.com (aff.)

Fresh from Mark’s Daily Apple comes this post highlughting 8 “health” foods that contain high fructose corn syrup (HFCS).

High fructose corn syrup is also terrible for you, and not even the most conservative of nutrition experts disagrees with that. While there are a few slightly more terrible liquids out there – liter fluid, for example – it’s really a shame that the “foods” available to us are so commonly laced with HFCS. And it’s even worse that they’re often promoted as being suitable for a healthy lifestyle or weight loss! They may look very cute, but beneath the fiber sprinkles and happy labeling lurks the heart of darkness. Really.

HFCS is a really bad additive to foods, and along with trans-fats is one of the two ingredients we should look for and absolutely avoid on food labels.  The stuff has a major correlation to obesity rates and those of metabolic syndrome.

The fact that HFCS is present in junk food is pretty much a given.  But its presence in so called healthier foods is a major cause for concern.

Read the article on Mark’s Daily Apple to find out 8 foods that should know better….

Thanks to both Straight to the Bar and Rif’s Blog for this excellent link to a video on YouTube about Okinawan Karate and Kobudo.  It features Goju and Shorin karate, Bojutsu, Saijutsu, Hojo Undo exercises and more.

Caught this video promo of a Kettlebell beach class run by Kettlebells Los Angeles.

Nicely put together!