Bunkai Pinan Nidan / PyungAhn Edan, Spear Hand

[Tez3]

Abernethy interprets the spearhands as rotated strikes with the palm heel, with the fingers having no involvement at all—and the strikes are not strikes to the midbody, but to the attacker's forcibly lowered head as a result of what he analyzes as controlling techniques immediately preceding. The real striking surface, given the bunkai he presents in his DVD on the Pinan kata set, is the base of the palm.

Seriously, I've always been taught that it was more of a palm heel strike than a 'finger' strike. We do a strike kata where the spear hand is used across the eyes/top of face from the side with the palm doing the striking. In the same kata the spearhand is done palm up to the groin.

 

[exile]

Seriously, I've always been taught that it was more of a palm heel strike than a 'finger' strike. We do a strike kata where the spear hand is used across the eyes/top of face from the side with the palm doing the striking. In the same kata the spearhand is done palm up to the groin.

One thing that militates in favor of the palm-heel interpretation of those spearhands is the fact that Itosu seems to have viewed the Pinan forms as kind of the basic training curriculum for karate—not necessarily that they were inherently 'children's forms' (Abernethy does a good job, I think, in showing that they have plenty of hard combat content that you probably wouldn't want to teach children about), but that they were the early stages of the syllabus, as he pictured it. And the spearhands show up in the very first ones in the set. If you're teaching people new to the game, it seems unlikely that you'd offer them even disguised versions of techs that require years of conditioning to do safely, such as a finger strike to the midbody. As people have pointed out already, if you're attacking a bony area, (such as the ribs), a finger strike is probably the worst possible weapon unless you're really advanced. By contrast, the palm heel strike—especially performed with a vertical hand, which makes it much easier to get the fingers out of the way than a palm heel which starts with the palm parallel to the ground and then rotates it inward toward the defender's body to extend the palm heel surface ahead of the folded fingers—requires no conditioning at all and has all the advantages of a 'blunt force trauma' strike.

 

[arnisador]

If you're teaching people new to the game, it seems unlikely that you'd offer them even disguised versions of techs that require years of conditioning to do safely, such as a finger strike to the midbody.

Agreed.

So, now we need a photograph of Ankō Itosu doing the form in the late 1800s. The palm heel with the fingers turned either all the way out nearly 90 degrees) or only part of the way out (30-45 degrees) appears often enough that that seems a reasonable bet to me--a side palm heel strike to the lower ribs rather than a spearhand strike to the midline.

So...when did the transcription error enter? Do we blame it on 'dumbing things down' for the Japanese again?

 

[exile]

A photo of Itosu doing pretty much any martial technique would be one of the great finds of MA history. The prospects seem dim... but who knows? There could be a bunch of them in a dusty old box in someone's attic, or some archives together with a bunch of other stuff that has no connection with the MAs... something that only a connoisseur of early Karate would recognize for its true value. That's the damnable thing about trying to do responsible history: you're really at the mercy of chance for the preservation and revelation of your crucial documents. It's the same dilemma that music lovers face: who knows how many great works of Mozart or Bach are sitting in forgotten filing cabinets in some church basement somewhere... best not to even think about it: that way lies madness...

But Arni's question—where did the transcription error come in?—beams in on the key issue that's emerged in the recent, much more rigorous approach to the history of the Karate-based arts that's emerged during the past decade or so: what actually was happening in the early years? What was the training philosophy? How was it realized in the curriculum of the Okinawan masters, and exactly what changes did Funakoshi make, and when, to that curriculum? How was the method of bunkai taught, and to whom, and how were its results pressure-tested? (We know that some of the greatest karateka of all, such Kyan and Motobu, believed in 'extreme reality-based scenario training', i.e., deliberately sought-out streetfights and barroom brawls, but we also know that this approach was not exactly, um, approved of by the senior masters of the time.)

Harry Cook has a new edition about to come out of his Shotokan Karate: a Precise History that I've already plunked down a C-note for (with luck, it'll be out before I'm too old/weak to do MAs), and a new book on the history of Okinawan karate that I've already prepaid for and am sitting around almost sick with anticipation waiting to get my hands on. I'm hoping the answers will be in those books; if anyone can crack this mystery, it's Cook, probably the best Karate historian there ever was or will be. The problem is, we now know in a sense the kinds of questions we need answers to, but the nature of the situation is such that the evidence to answer those questions may just.... not exist.

 

[robertmrivers]

I respectfully offer this:

Solar Plexus Level does not mean hit to the solar plexus. It means what you are hitting is at your solar plexus level.

One only hits soft targets with the spear hand motion.

Therefore, we have to look at the kata and REALLY understand (meaning, move away from conjecture and actually study the art from a reputable source and learn the answers from the source) how the transitions work to get those soft targets to the level that the kata says to strike.

It also acceptable to simply use the "height of the strike is a variable" method, but, in my experience, there is a reason that the posture used to apply those spear hand motions at solar plexus level.

As I've said in the past, you're not going to figure it out. There is material needed to complete this puzzle that you cannot get anywhere else but the source.

The utilization of the "kata as an element of the complete martial art that is Okinawan Karate" matrix is pointless unless you have an interest in getting to the root of it. Its use and practice is not something that can just plug into another martial art...

Best

Rob Rivers

 

[DavidCC]

One thing that militates in favor of the palm-heel interpretation of those spearhands is the fact that Itosu seems to have viewed the Pinan forms as kind of the basic training curriculum for karate—not necessarily that they were inherently 'children's forms' (Abernethy does a good job, I think, in showing that they have plenty of hard combat content that you probably wouldn't want to teach children about), but that they were the early stages of the syllabus, as he pictured it. And the spearhands show up in the very first ones in the set. If you're teaching people new to the game, it seems unlikely that you'd offer them even disguised versions of techs that require years of conditioning to do safely, such as a finger strike to the midbody. As people have pointed out already, if you're attacking a bony area, (such as the ribs), a finger strike is probably the worst possible weapon unless you're really advanced. By contrast, the palm heel strike—especially performed with a vertical hand, which makes it much easier to get the fingers out of the way than a palm heel which starts with the palm parallel to the ground and then rotates it inward toward the defender's body to extend the palm heel surface ahead of the folded fingers—requires no conditioning at all and has all the advantages of a 'blunt force trauma' strike.

yeah, it's like a chicken-and-egg problem

do you take beginners and start them conditioning for a strike that you won't teach them for years, or do you teach them the strike before they are conditioned for it, and tell them not to use it yet? neither seems like a good idea...

Of course if you eventually get where you can jab your spearhand through a board, that is pretty impressive. But it seems more like a demo trick than anything your average student would have available to them. Especailly with modern students' training time available...

 

[Bill Mattocks]

Newbie here. Please disregard if what I say is stupid!

We learn nukite strikes in several kata and our basic upper body exercises (tegata barai, nukite). We practice as you say, with a 'knife hand' to the solar plexus.

However, when we do bunkai, sensei breaks it down for us. He pointed out just what you said - that the knife hand to the solar plexus may not be an effective striking point or that the knife hand may not itself be the best thing to use. But, having learned the nukite, he pointed out how in an actual fight, it could easily be a nukite to the throat (as you also showed), a shuto punch or chop with the edge of the hand (and you showed that too, I think) or the nukite could become a palm strike or a haito using the inside ridge of the hand to various parts of the face, or even a rising punch or jodan oi tsuki.

He also pointed out that in isshinryu, the hand is not commonly held like a knife, but is cupped slightly, as if one is scooping and drinking water from a bucket. This appears (to me) to make the ends of the fingers about the same length, and lets me strike with a nukite with much more force; and without having done time on a makiwara or a pot of sand to desensitize my hands.

Am I on the right track?