# Bunkai



## Eric Daniel (Jan 25, 2006)

Hey Everyone, 

I was reading an article on bunkai and you can check out the articles at 

http://www.iainabernethy.com/articles/BasicBunkaiPart1.asp 
for part 1 of the article and 
http://www.iainabernethy.com/articles/BasicBunkaiPart2.asp 
for part 2 of the article. You can read the article and let me know what you think. 

Sincerely, Eric Daniel


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## Eric Daniel (Jan 25, 2006)

One thing I found interesting in article one was that Ian stated that 
"The karateka who understands bunkai will find themselves including throws, locks, trapping, gripping, chokes, strangles, takedowns, close-range striking, and many other martial methods into their training." 
I think that this might be a good example of why we should train our forms because if we train our forms enough we might actually see a throw or a lock, etc. in the form. There are also some examples in the article. 

Sincerely, Eric Daniel


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## TheBattousai (Jan 25, 2006)

I'm glad to see bunkai being expressed more and more as an important peice of knowledge to have. I've seen MA who don't know the concept or know what it is, thank goodness we've come full circle through the ages. I like the article, but I'll need to see the more full depths of bunkai this guy takes his readers. But the concepts he is talking about (including throws, joint-locks, etc.) should be noted as karatejutsu or shuho (the taking princible). This concept shouldn't be limited to just forms but all movement and techniques, to develop the idea of realitive movement; it all fits together. That my short say on the matter, but thanks Eric for posting the article.


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## Zorba (Jan 25, 2006)

bunkai is part of the sylabus of the school i go to. for grading we do bunkai of heian shodan to yondan and bassai dai. but whenever we learn a new kata we discuss the practical application of most techniques.


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## eyebeams (Jan 27, 2006)

Eric Daniel said:
			
		

> One thing I found interesting in article one was that Ian stated that
> "The karateka who understands bunkai will find themselves including throws, locks, trapping, gripping, chokes, strangles, takedowns, close-range striking, and many other martial methods into their training."
> I think that this might be a good example of why we should train our forms because if we train our forms enough we might actually see a throw or a lock, etc. in the form. There are also some examples in the article.
> 
> Sincerely, Eric Daniel



Excessively imaginative bunkai are as damaging to karate as overly narrow bunkai.


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## jujutsu_indonesia (Jan 28, 2006)

In the Wado style we don't really use the word "Bunkai" (btw I'm JKF-Wadokai so maybe other groups use it but not ours).

We use "kaisetsu" which means "explanations", so, explaining each individual movements of a kata to reveal its mechanism and purposes.

then we use the word "ohyo" which means "applying" the techniques from Kata for self-defense.

Kaisetsu and Ohyo is applied not only to the Okinawan Kata tha wado has, but also to the paired kata from Jujutsu which us wadoka inherited from the yoshin-ryu jujutsu style.

This way, wado people are taught to be able to apply the movements of kata to many situations.


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## Eric Daniel (Jan 31, 2006)

TheBattousai said:
			
		

> I'm glad to see bunkai being expressed more and more as an important peice of knowledge to have. I've seen MA who don't know the concept or know what it is, thank goodness we've come full circle through the ages. I like the article, but I'll need to see the more full depths of bunkai this guy takes his readers. But the concepts he is talking about (including throws, joint-locks, etc.) should be noted as karatejutsu or shuho (the taking princible). This concept shouldn't be limited to just forms but all movement and techniques, to develop the idea of realitive movement; it all fits together. That my short say on the matter, but thanks Eric for posting the article.


 
This was a article I found interesting and I thought I would share it with others. Thanks for all the opions.

Sincerely, Eric Daniel


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## TheBattousai (Jan 31, 2006)

jujutsu_indonesia said:
			
		

> In the Wado style we don't really use the word "Bunkai" (btw I'm JKF-Wadokai so maybe other groups use it but not ours).
> 
> We use "kaisetsu" which means "explanations", so, explaining each individual movements of a kata to reveal its mechanism and purposes.
> 
> ...


 

Good point, oyo (or ohyo), is another important tool in our martial belt.
Without actually applying the things we bunkai, we can't fully check if the legitimacy of a technique to see if it would work in a real situation. But alot of people combine the two into just bunkai rather than making the distictive separation to refine the concepts.


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## Eric Daniel (Feb 6, 2006)

TheBattousai said:
			
		

> Good point, oyo (or ohyo), is another important tool in our martial belt.
> Without actually applying the things we bunkai, we can't fully check if the legitimacy of a technique to see if it would work in a real situation. But alot of people combine the two into just bunkai rather than making the distictive separation to refine the concepts.


Very good and interesting point.


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## Dan G (Feb 6, 2006)

Eric Daniel said:
			
		

> Hey Everyone,
> 
> I was reading an article on bunkai and you can check out the articles at
> 
> ...


 
I went to a seminar in London (UK) with Iain Abernathy teaching a couple of years back. A very nice approachable person, excellent and enthusiastic teacher and hugely knowledgable. If you can get over to the UK, or you can persuade him to visit (and getting Brits to visit the states is like shooting fish in a barrel) I doubt you'd be disappointed. First rate practitioner and an utter gentleman.

Dan


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## Explorer (Jun 3, 2006)

We use three terms to help us interpret kata.  

The first is bunkai; for us a bunkai interpretation will follow the moves of the kata exactly.  

The second term is oyo (ohyo); the oyo interpretation generally follows the moves of the kata ... moves may be transposed or ignored in a oyo interpretation.  

The third term is 'short hand'; in a short hand interpretation one move of the kata may represent multiple moves in a technique.  For example; we have a number of kata in which you make a 180 degree turn to neikoashi dachi ... I often use this move to represent the deflection of an incoming push or grab, the capture of the arm and the application of an arm bar.  When applying this technique I'll turn 180 degrees to face the same direction as the attacker.


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## KOROHO (Jun 22, 2006)

The word "bunkai" is more accurately a verb than a noun.  The best translation would be "to pick apart", or "to dissect".

To properly bunkai a kata, you need to break it down and seperate the movements.

Often times, people who do not really understand bunkai say that kata is not practical, because you would never do certain moves immediately after the preceeding technique.  This just goes to further reinforce this idea.

Think of your kihon as the alphabet.  The kata are a text book written with that alphabet.  Study the textbook in depth and learn to apply what you learned.

Also, don't just think about "bunkai".  There are other terms that go along with studying kata.  Bunkai is the beginning, looking at the kata for the basic applications.  Those applications are what the creator of the kata say they are. Anything else is someone else's interpretation of that kata.
Then you also have henka, oyo and hakushi or okuden.

Henka and Oyo are essentially variations. 
Hakushi and Okuden are "secret" applications that the creator of the kata kept hidden from most.

Okinawan Karate is very much a grappling art, but sadly much of it has been lost.  Over the last 40 years or so, some teachers have taken to learning Judo, Aikido, Jujutsu, etc. in order to understand the mechanics of the throwing, choking, joint locking, etc. and putting it back into Karate kata.  But it was all there to beging with.


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## Ken (Dec 8, 2006)

In the style of karate I study, we learn bunkai for every kata and as we progress to higher understanding of kata principles we go back to the kata/bunkai we thought that we knew and learn it over again. At higher grades we are taught to be open minded and experiment with our own application, encorporating all the throws, take-downs, locks, chokes or any other technique that we can see in the kata movement. So Mr Abernathy is teaching to the converted in this case, but any martial artist can only improve by attending one of his seminars. A very proficient teacher and a nice man.
www.sanchinryukarate.co.uk


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## stone_dragone (Dec 8, 2006)

Thanks for the articles!  

We use the bunkai/oyo in our teachings, but I have seen some pretty far out oyo.  I agree with eyebeams...overy imaginative bunkai is as bad as overly narrow bunkai.


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## exile (Dec 8, 2006)

stone_dragone said:


> Thanks for the articles!
> 
> We use the bunkai/oyo in our teachings, but I have seen some pretty far out oyo.  I agree with eyebeams...overy imaginative bunkai is as bad as overly narrow bunkai.



I think that Iain Abernethy's approach, while ingenious and innovative so far as bunkai are concerned, is relatively conservative in the matter of oyo---he's not big, as far as I can see from his books and videos, on hidden moves, for example---which is fine with me! Kane & Wilder's book, _The Way of Kata_, has just a little too much reliance on interpolated techniques that the kata themselves don't attest for me to be 100% confident in their approach...

... on the other hand, it's probably true that, as (I _think_) K&W said, experienced fighters in the era when the kata were originally formulated would take it for granted that there were certain transition steps between certain moves, and those could then be left out of the kata, since those whom the kata were designed for could be expected to `read them in'. My question would then be, how do you _know_ when an oyo for a given form is really implausible, along the lines eyebeams pointed out? What's the giveaway---anyone have any ideas about that?


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## shoshinkan (Dec 16, 2006)

also think about bunkai practise from kata against actual methods people attack, ie common methods of assault - a very interesting thing happens to your karate, it becomes applicable and usefull quicker, for self defense etc etc.

When was the last time someone was mugged by oi tsuki eh??????

Of course i do use karate technique attacks to illistrate principles, but for drilling technique sets I see little value in it,


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## exile (Dec 16, 2006)

shoshinkan said:


> also think about bunkai practise from kata against actual methods people attack, ie common methods of assault - a very interesting thing happens to your karate, it becomes applicable and usefull quicker, for self defense etc etc.
> 
> When was the last time someone was mugged by oi tsuki eh??????
> 
> Of course i do use karate technique attacks to illistrate principles, but for drilling technique sets I see little value in it,



This is the classic problem with assuming that sparring training and techniques will carry over into CQ self-defense situationsby and large, the attacks you face in the latter are going to be wildly different from what you face in a formal sparring practice within your art. Your sparring partner will not, as a rule, be allowed to pick up and throw a small but heavy object at you from close up and then, while you're ducking or throwing up your hands to protect your face, grab your shirt and head-butt you or kick you in the groin or...

I've read a list somewhere of the ten most common `untraine' attacks you're likely to encounter in bars or on the street. A lot of the kinds of techs that Abernerthy and Co. have extracted from karate kata, or Simon John O'Neil for karate poomse, turn out to answer these attacks briliantly. But as far as I can see, the serious analysis of MA patters to recover the disguised apps and technique sequences is still in its infancythe `decoding' rules that Abernethy, Kane & Wilder and O'Neil give are very useful and widely applicable, but we can probably do still better, using their work as a starting point. There's a real question out there that eyebeams' post raiseshow do you know that a bunkai tech is practical and applicable? My guess is, there's never going to be a way to tell in advance. You actually have to `experimental MA'take your hypotheses about what constitutes a practical, robust bunkai for an MA pattern into the lab, i.e., the dojo/ang and try to apply with a seriously noncompliant training partner, the way Abernethy describes in his book _Bunkai-Jutsu_ and Stuart Anslow does in an interview in one of IA's recent newsletters about his new book on the bunkai for ITF TKD. Eyebeams says that `excessively narrow bunkai are as damaging to karate as overly narrow bunkai', but doesn't actually give a criterion for identifying a given bunkai description as one or the other. I think the only way to do that is in the `lab'trying out various bunkai that look promising with a practice partner under conditions of decreasing compliance, and seeing whether they hold up. 

The question of `hidden moves' is another big topic that might be worth getting into... I'd be interested in hearing what others think about that issue...


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## shoshinkan (Dec 17, 2006)

one of the good ways to see if bunkai is practical is to keep it simple, that it works against a left/right, high/low attack - within reason. (some are more specific) and remember that you are practising the principle, the technique just happens.

Non standard attacks help alot, as does tempo of delivery, ie change it, working from a push or verbal attack start, using a 'fence' kamae - body language but hands are useful........

building the intent of the attacks is also key and we shouldnt rush, students build the ability to cope only with time training and expierience gained, and remember everyone gets caught out from time to time, including Sensei.


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