Questions for karateka in kata-oriented dojos

[RyuShiKan]

Originally posted by D.Cobb
Shuri-who? You don't need RyuShiKan's help in this regard.
He has answered your questions, why don't you return the courtesy?
Most of us are here to learn or exchange information, you seem to have left that idea behind, as soon as RyuShiKan, stepped up and answered your questions(or at least some of them), and now refer to this all as a dance.
If, as you seem to be, you are one of these guys who just get off on pushing other peoples buttons, might I suggest that you go and play these silly games on rec-martial arts forum.
Otherwise just answer the bloody question!

Actually he doesn’t need to bother answering any of the questions I have asked.

The only reason why I asked about his dan rank, style and teacher was because on his user profile under Primary art and rank it said 5th dan shihan.
I thought it was kind of odd and just asked for clarification.
It is obvious shurite has some issue with divulging this information since he is so reluctant to do so.
At this point I don’t really care what he studies or where he got rank from since he has already demonstrated what kind of person he is.

 

[Shuri-te]

RyuShiKan,

Thank you.

 

[chufeng]

ShuriTe,

You, sir, are the one refusing to answer questions...
You are the evasive one...
I think everyone on this thread is getting tired of it...
I know I am...hence this will be my last post on this thread.

But RyuShiKan did NOT ask when you got promoted to shodan...
He asked, WHO promoted you to godan? and WHO awarded you the title of shihan?

I don't think it's reasonable to ask someone to post a dojo training schedule...given that you've not even answered two simple questions.
At first I thought you might be looking for some ideas about how other schools run class; but now, I think you are "fencing" for the fun of it and the time those of us, who answered your questions, spent answering your questions was wasted...

Given the way this thread has gone, it is extremely unlikely that I'll consider future questions from you worth answering...

But I'm just one small voice...

Good Day,
:asian:
chufeng

 

[Shuri-te]

Mike

I have to apologize right up front. I started this long post to you this morning. I had two purposes. First was to give you some information regarding what I do. But also provide readers some small hint that I am not some newbie imposter, as accused by RyuShiKan, but a long time and dedicated student of the art. So I made this long post in Word and when I went back to add it, I saw another post by you where you indicated long replies might not be welcome. So here are my apologies right up front. My reasons for not revealing my art are complex and much relates to the complexity of what we call Shuri-te, so here my goes.

Mike Clark said you said you did it training in the bunkai from the kata Seipei.

This kata is from the Naha-te tradition is it not? And I was wondering how come you practise it if you train in Shuri-te?

The 'feeling' found in the kata from each of these traditions is very different, as are the fighting stategies encoded in the kata. Do you train in many Naha-te kata then? And if so, where do they fit in with teaching the concepts put forward by the Shuri-te tradition? Off hand I can't think of an Okinawan Shuri-te school that teaches Naha-te kata?

It would be helpful to know which branch of Shuri-te you train in also, as that way I'll be able to get a better undestanding of your approach to karate.

Glad you caught that one. I was waiting for someone to ask. My students and I are doing a demo for a visiting master. We each do bunkai from different kata. Therefore students of mine will do bunkai from the Pinans, Kusanku Dai, Bassai Dai, and Naihanchi. My shodan studied some Naha te kata earlier, so we will include Seipei. Actually, I myself am going to do some bunkai from Kururunfa, if my shoulder survives some seminars I want to attend prior. I have twenty students, myself included, that will participate. Each of us does a Han, something practiced in Iha's Shidokan, a branch of Kobayashi that I have studied. Four students surround the defender, and launch a variety of attacks. Each student does a unique combination, all including some kind of takedown. The fourth defensive combination ends with a control technique of a lock or choke. Since we are all doing unique techniques, that comes to 80 combinations, all with takedowns.

One of my students will be doing Pinan Godan movements against a bo. Did you know there are really cool bo disarming techniques in Pinan Godan.

Regarding my reluctance to be pinned down on a style, it would be helpful if I ramble a bit regarding the evolution of Shuri-te. I could organize this better but after typing for a bit longer than I should have in an effort to quiet down RyuShiKan, I am a bit tired. I rolled onto my shoulder at 4:30 am and have been up since.

For those like you in Goju ryu, it is important to understand that when compared with those of Naha-te, these Shorin Ryu "styles" have enormous variability. A hundred years ago, there well may have been a number of masters that may have been known as Naha-te teachers. But today we think pretty much of Higaonna and Miyagi, and therefore, it was unified much more recently. Even in name it is the same. All Miyagi's students that teach his system call it Goju-ryu. But it is not the name that is important. The really significant thing is that from system to system, the kata are all so similar, at least when compared to Shuri-te. (There are of course, masters that studied with Miyagi that teach other systems, such as Mabuni and Tatsuo Shimabuku.)

This is not the case with Shuri-te. 100 years ago there were many masters whose influence pervades the art, and as such, there is great variability between the various systems. In some ways I consider myself a student of "Shorin-Ryu" systems, as I have familiarity with many of the kata of most of the more prevalent systems. The reason I don't like the term Shorin Ryu, is that it tends to exclude mainline branches in Japan. Toyama, Mabuni and Funakoshi all trained under Itosu. But the arts of these masters are considered Japanese. And both Toyama and Mabuni learned Naha-te kata from Higaonno, and this also tends to make people further exclude them when they think of "Shorin Ryu" branches. But Toyama's kata, at least as practiced in Shudokan and Koeikan, and Mabuni's kata all have great similarity to the kata practiced by Chibana's students. Only Funakoshi decided to make the stances longer in his kata.

Typically, when we refer to Shorin Ryu, we refer to the systems that have come down from Kyan, Itosu and Hohan Soken. If we look at Itosu's major systems, we have Chibana's Kobayashi, and Nakamura's Okinawan Kempo on Okinawa, and we have systems coming from Funakoshi, Mabuni and Toyama in Japan. If you look at a total count of students, the vast number of students studying in systems that evolve from Itosu, they are in systems we call Japanese karate, not Shorin Ryu. It is my opinion that the term Shuri-te better captures the breadth of Itosu systems, including those in Japan.

It is when we look at the kata of the systems that have evolved from Kyan, Itosu, and Soken that we really see some major differences, but we still call them all Shorin Ryu. (Of course two students of Kyan, Tatsuo Shimabuku and Joen Nakazato chose not to keep the term Shorin Ryu for their systems. But Zenryo Shimabukuro, Eizo Shimabuku and Shoshin Nagamine all kept the Shorin Ryu name, as did Chibana and Hohan Soken.)

The first difference in kata regards the practice of the Pinans. In the Shorin Ryu systems that descend from Kyan, both Nakazato's and Tatsuo Shimabuku's don't teach the Pinans (as Kyan did not teach them.) But the others do. (In my opinion, that would be like some Goju Ryu schools not teaching Sanchin.) Obviously they are done in Zenryo Shimabukuro's Seibukan. He learned them from Nakama And Eizo Shimabuku included them is his Shobayashi as he learned them from Chibana.

And Nagamine has them in Matsubayashi but you have to use a process of deduction to see where they came from. In "The Essence of Okinawan Karate" he states he learned kata from Kyan, Motobu and Arakaki. We know that Motobu and Kyan were almost certainly not the source. As Nagamine states that Arakaki studied with Gusukumu, Hanashiro and Chibana, (all students of Itosu.) we can assume one or more of them might have been the source.

Regarding the Pinans, those practiced by Soken's Matsumura Seito have some major differences, compared to those handed down through mainline Itosu systems. Bishop reveals the various discrepancies regarding the source of Soken's kata where he states that in an interview Soken told him he learned Pinan Shodan an Nidan from his uncle, Nabe Matsumura, who is reported to have learned all his kata from his grandfather the great Bushi Matsumura. So the origin of Soken's Pinan is a question that may never be resolved.

While there are some differences in the approach of the various Shorin Ryu systems to the Pinan, fortunately they all have the common thread of Naihanchi. But when you get beyond those two families, the differences are really great. Although there are commonalities between the kata of Itosu and Kyan, there are far more differences. The two versions of Chinto kata probably have the greatest differences, and it is arguable that Bassai could be next in degree of difference. And both Kusanku and Gojushiho have perhaps as many differences as similarities. On top of that Itosu systems differ from Kyan's in that they have Jion, Kusanku Sho, Matsumura Bassai and Bassai Sho (as it is called in Shotokan and Shito Ryu).

This is not meant to be a complete catalogue of differences, just a splash to show the great variation.

It is my opinion that the enormous variation of the way kata is practiced across Shorin Ryu or Shuri-te styles makes it hard to categorize them as a common system. I train in a number of these systems, and the focus I have in trying to understanding the range of kata and application in these many systems makes me reluctant to pigeonhole my study and teaching into what I consider an increasingly obselete notion of "style". My "style" is unique, because it comes from own experiences and training in grappling arts, as well as Okinawan systems. I integrate it all into a package I practice and teach to my students.

I have been fortunate to have be exposed over the years to good bunkai for a lot of the kata, and have shared it freely in dojos of a number of different "styles" or systems. In fact, I find bunkai to be the great bridge between the various systems. Usually you have to make some small modification anyway to a movement in the kata to make any particular application work, so if different systems have to make slightly different alterations, what's the difference.

Although my focus is almost completely on "Shuri-te" systems, I have trained with several Goju schools and know all the kata. And I have some great bunkai for some of them. In Kururunfa, are you aware of a wrist lock after you break away from the full nelson? Are you aware of a leg lock after the movement initiated after you bend forward to the ground with both feet together?

Let me know if you would like me to share some ideas on application with you. And please let me know if this post was too long and unwelcome. I find the information fascinating, and I imagine there just might be a Shorin Ryu person out there that might benefit from it.

 

[Shuri-te]

Mike Clarke,

In response to your most recent message.

You asked about MMA. It is mixed martial arts. The are many who believe that grappling arts are deficient in striking and striking arts are deficient in grappling and MMA is an approach to training that includes both. It is not uncommon to combine Muay Thai with some form of submission wrestling, such as shoot fighting, Brazilian Jiu Jitsu and the like. I am just beginning to incorporate ground work for my students. But I do an abundance of locking and throwing and so the art I teach has an abundance of grappling commonly found in Aikido and JiuJitsu.

Mike Clarke said: Not living in America I'm not privy to the local terminology you are using. Also, I have to say that for a guy my age who says he's been training as long as I have, your reluctance to disclose who you have trained and been tested by in Shuri-te karate only serves to make you look silly. If you took a poll today, I think you would find this to be the case.

You are entitled to your opinion. But do please note that you can review this thread and will find I have never claimed to have been tested in Shuri-te. That was an unfounded claim made by RyuShiKan. Shuri-te is merely the name I use to post here.

I am not averse to sharing this information with virtually anyone. However, I have felt it in my best interest to trust RyuShiKan with very little personal information about me. I think he uses personal information for personal attacks, whenever it pleases him. I would be happy to share my background with you via email.

Mike Clarke said: Why you choose to 'dance' [as you put it] like this is a sign of immaturity, and I can't see what you gain from it if you wish people on this forum to have any respect for the things you have to say.

I chose to respond to RyuShiKan in kind. Instead of an exchange of ideas, we danced around the subject at great length. I am familiar with his tactics on this "friendly" forum of martialtalk.com and I do not like the way he has treated people he disagrees with. If you think I am being unfair, see if I am alone. Pose him a direct question on this forum, and then see if he provides a "satisfactory" answer. Ask him to provide, on this forum, the total number of times, across all threads, from the time he has begun posting, that moderators of Martialtalk have given him warnings that his postings were not in the spirit of a "friendly" discussion. If you get a satisfactory answer, I will commit to making you a film, cut it to mpeg on CD, and ship it to you in Australia, free of chare. It will include 25 bunkai from Naha-te kata, all with takedowns. Would that be a fair exchange? For your benefit, I have great confidence that you will never have seen any of these interpretations before.

At the risk of recieving a very long [and unwanted] reply, can I ask you a simple question in the hope of getting a honest answer back from you? "Have you ever posted on this forum under the name Zhao Dei Wei?"

No, I have never heard of him prior to RyuShiKan's flight of fancy.

Perhaps you can help me on this. On what thread(s) has this notorious person contributed. I would be very interested in reading his writings. You know we all have a writing style, in which we reveal a lot about ourselves. Perhaps you can tell of my Irish heritage because I love to argue at great length, when I think it is called for. My guess is he writes very differently from me and a quick comparison of our writings would settle the matter. I also think you can be the judge from my post on Shorin Ryu whether I am some newbie imposter.

And let me know if this met your standard of long, lengthy and unwanted. I like to answer questions with good information, and hoped to provide that here, but if is unwanted, I shall refrain from doing so in the future

 

[Shuri-te]

Chufeng,

For those of you that like RyuShiKan, and enjoy communicating with him, I apologize for these long posts.

However, RyuShiKan supporters are not the only readers of this forum. There are many who have born the brunt of his scathing comments.

I wrote these in part for those folks, at least those that have not yet given up being insulted by him and abandoned martialtalk for a truly "friendly" forum.

Again, I apologize for the inconvenience to you, and I am hopeful that RyuShiKan will take the message from my long-winded replies that I would be extremely grateful if he simply ignored my posts.

I would like to point out some issues.

Chufeng wrote: RyuShiKan did NOT ask when you got promoted to shodan. He asked, WHO promoted you to godan? and WHO awarded you the title of shihan?

To set the record straight, On 2/27 at 6:49, RyuShiKan wrote:

Please give us some insight into your art.
- Where did you learn it? Or Who did you learn it from?
- What is the name of your art?
-How many years did it take you to reach black belt and how many to reach 5th dan?
-Which kata do you practice? How many repetitions do you do of each kata? Is there anything different about you art that is not found in other similar arts?
-What are some of the principles associated with your art? (i.e dojo kun or something along those lines)

A barrage of non-answer questions, typical of your friend RyuShiKan.

You claim that I am the one refusing to answer questions, and that is your opinion and I can't change it. But perhaps you could share with me why RyuShiKan required any information from me at all. I never asked him to provide me with an answer to the first question until after he began continually accusing me of being someone I am not. So I thought a fair trade would be in order. Let him answer the initial post and then I would provide it.

I have difficulty in seeing the evasiveness of that.

And I apologize for not answering a question you posted earlier. I started to gather some info for you on the web because I wanted to correct RyuShiKan's misinformation. I would be curious where he has found the definition of Shihan equivalent to that of teacher.

So here are several links turned up from a google search. The first three define Shihan as master teacher. The fourth, master instructor or teacher of teachers. In general usage it is usually just defined as master.

http://www.collectivesociety.com/national/jan2k.pdf
http://www.westnet.com.au/c.e.crampton/Grading.htm
http://www.unitedkosho.com/serv01.htm
http://www.shotokan-karate.freeservers.com/terminology.htm

 

[arnisador]

Note that we now have a MMA forum on MartialTalk.

-Arnisador
-MT Admin-

 

[GojuBujin]

Great googly moogly......this is almost as much "fun" as what i had on the jujutsu forum a few months back....

Michael C. Byrd
www.inigmasoft.com/goyukai

 

[SRyuFighter]

Reminds me a tad bit of a soap opera.

 

[Shuri-te]

Fellow posters.

I have updated my profile for all to see. I believe that RyuShiKan now may recognize that he may have been in error to accuse me of being Zhao Dei Wei.

But I had participated in this forum some time ago under the web name "SenseiMike".

RyuShiKan took many opportunities to belittle me web moniker, my training, and my discussion of bunkai. I got frustrated with his barbs and bowed off.

However, I did want to see if this forum would be helpful in my research into the way kata is practiced today, as well as in years past.

Before coming back on, I read a few posts from over the past few months and noticed RyuShiKan was still the same flamer he had been in the past, still receiving warnings from the moderaters reminding him that this was a "friendly" forum.

So I apologize for having some fun at your expense (having to read my long posts).

It would be my great hope that RyuShiKan would avoid my posts altogether. I will strive to have the fortitude to ignore has replies.

BTW, if anyone doubts my rank, I can send you a jpg of my menjo.

-Mike Eschenbrenner - aka Shuri-te
Sensei - Cornell Karate Dojo

 

[A.R.K.]

Well let me step in here with some input....

I have updated my profile for all to see. I believe that RyuShiKan now may recognize that he may have been in error to accuse me of being Zhao Dei Wei.

First off, 'he MAY be in error'??? NO, he was in error. You and I are NOT the same person! The moderator/administrator can easily check and verify this.

I don't appreciate Ryu suggesting it nor do I appreciate your perpetuating it. I understand your reasons as Ryu has no IPC skills but don't drag me into it.

Nuff said.

 

[chufeng]

zhao,

Ryu Shi Kan admits he made a mistake on this...
ShuriTe only posted to deceive, so whatever he says beyond this post is suspect...

On behalf of RyuShiKan, I apologize...

Hopefully, we can all get along in the future.

:asian:
chufeng

 

[A.R.K.]

Hopefully, we can all get along in the future

That would be a wonderful thing. Even a quick glance at this website will reveal there is quite an offering of 'martial arts'. Although it would be asking alot for everyone to agree on everything I think that disagreements could be posted in a much more tactful way. And I include myself in this!

We all have much to share. Anyway take care.

 

[Shuri-te]

Chu feng,

You have accused me of only posting to deceive. Actually, I only began posting to better understand how kata is practiced in kata-oriented dojos today.

I would be grateful if you would point out any statement that I made that was a deception. I, and many people on the web, do not equate anonymity with deception, especially when it protects oneself from personal attack, an activity RyuShiKan has engaged in great frequency towards me on this thread, as he has done in the past under a previous name I used.

I have an additional request. You have informed us that RyuShiKan has apologized. I have reread his postings and I am unable to locate it. Would you point it out to me?

Thank you for any efforts in response.

Mike Eschenbrenner

 

[chufeng]

ShuriTe,

You have informed us that RyuShiKan has apologized. I have reread his postings and I am unable to locate it. Would you point it out to me?

NO...

:asian:
chufeng

 

[SRyuFighter]

Hahaha

 

[Matt Stone]

What does the original question really mean, anyway?

What relevance does the number of repetitions of one or more forms have to do with anything?

Practice all you know, as many times as you can. There. That's how many and how much in a nutshell.

You can't measure development or understanding by the numbers of reps put in. If so, then there would exist an easily replicated formula of mastery.

Time to move on to something worth while...

Gambarimasu.
:asian:

 

[Mike Clarke]

Shurite, or whatever your calling yourself these days?????


I'm no longer interested in ANYTHING you have to say under any name you wish to say it.

Mike Clarke.

 

[Matt Stone]

Got this in email from him today...

This is from my 6thkyu student that hasn't trained for about 5 years. He met Mike last time he posted.

"I did meet Mike Eischenbrenner and a class. He doesn't adhere to any style in particular but takes bits and pieces from here and
there to suit his lessons. He does seem to borrow heavily from Taika's Oyata's method though."

Gambarimasu.
:asian:

 

[vin2k0]

Originally posted by Shuri-te
1. What would be the rate of introduction of kata. (A new kata introduced, on average, every xx months.)

2. What would be a rough estimate of the number of total repetitions for all kata, that this student would practice in the dojo in a typical month. If the number changes over time, the rate of change would be useful as well. (1st year students - xx number of total kata reps per month, 2nd year students - yy number of total kata reps, etc.)

1. A new kata should be introduced approx. every 4 months, providing the student has attended enough lessons, and has passed the periodic grading.

2. Kata can never be practised enough... the whole kata should be broken down, movement by movement. At times my sensei would go through just one or two movements of a whole kata and spend a whole lesson perfecting each technique and understanding it fully. There is no amount of time you should stick to when practising kata. Do as much as you can, without focusing upon it more than each other section. Do not put on the 'blinkers' and concentrate too heavily on kata while everything else falls by the waistside.

Why do you ask such? are you interested in becoming an instructor? If so, then no offense meant, but you are not ready. If not and you are simpley curious then i apologise :asian: