Throws in Isshin-Ryu

[Gaucho]

In his book, Isshin-Ryu Karate-Do: An instructor's manual, Bill Reynolds mentions five throws which are [at least sometimes] included in Isshin Ryu training. I know that because I bought the book and then put it in a storage unit the size of Grand Canyon. If anyone here can relate what the five throws are, I would appreciate it. Thanks very.

 

[isshinryuronin]

There are no throws in traditional isshinryu kihon. (Kusanku kata has 1 throw in it.) Of course, there is nothing to stop any instructor from adding extra stuff to his school's curriculum. His father studied isshinryu in Okinawa and also had some background in judo. Bill's dojo incorporated some other styles including kenpo, judo and others, taking an eclectic approach. So, whatever throws he teaches are likely unique to his particular school/organization.

 

[Hot Lunch]

There are no throws in traditional isshinryu kihon. (Kusanku kata has 1 throw in it.) Of course, there is nothing to stop any instructor from adding extra stuff to his school's curriculum. His father studied isshinryu in Okinawa and also had some background in judo. Bill's dojo incorporated some other styles including kenpo, judo and others, taking an eclectic approach. So, whatever throws he teaches are likely unique to his particular school/organization.

I've always questioned the claim about karate having more throws before Funakoshi (he shouldn't have been able to affect Okinawa or Kenwa Mabuni).

When you see karate youtubers explaining the bunkai of certain steps in kata as a throw, they're clearly using the throw from judo that looks the closest to it - not any hypothetical native Okinawan throws.

 

[isshinryuronin]

Funakoshi did indeed have some throws, but their origin (as far as I know) are unknown. I haven't seen anything about him studying judo and throws are not really present in traditional Okinawan kata (though I suppose the possibility exists that there may have been a few with the bunkai being lost at some early point - a couple can be seen in the Bubishi.)

We do know that in Japan grappling moves were taken out of (Shotokan) karate so it would not overlap judo's hegemony of that aspect, but as you note, this would not have influenced the Okinawans. So, if there were throws, there would have been some good record of them, which there aren't.

Taking the view that karate evolved as self-defense fighting, techniques that were direct, simple, low risk and capable of rendering an opponent injured ASAP, strikes and breaks would seem the most effective and preferred moves.

This leads to the conclusion that throws and other "non-karate-like" techniques that can occasionally be seen today have been introduced from the outside by individual instructors and schools to broaden their curriculum.

 

[Bill Mattocks]

There are plenty of throws, trips, reaps, and locks, in Isshinryu, but we're not talking omote bunkai here. It's oyo bunkai and beyond that the throws are seen.

 

[marvin8]

In his book, Isshin-Ryu Karate-Do: An instructor's manual, Bill Reynolds mentions five throws which are [at least sometimes] included in Isshin Ryu training. I know that because I bought the book and then put it in a storage unit the size of Grand Canyon. If anyone here can relate what the five throws are, I would appreciate it. Thanks very.

Per Bill's article "Grappling Techniques," the Isshin-ryu curriculum throws are...

1. Inner reap (Ouchi gari)
2. Outer reap (Osoto gari)
3. Hip throw (O goshi)
4. Shoulder throw (Ippon seoi nage)
5. Circle throw (Tomoe nage)

 

[Kung Fu Wang]

Per Bill's article "Grappling Techniques," the Isshin-ryu curriculum throws are...

1. Inner reap (Ouchi gari)
2. Outer reap (Osoto gari)
3. Hip throw (O goshi)
4. Shoulder throw (Ippon seoi nage)
5. Circle throw (Tomoe nage)

When I was in a Judo forum, I tried to learn those Japanese words for Judo throws so I could communicate with Judo guys in that forum. A guy said, "You are not even a Judo guy. Nobody cares about what you want to say. Why are you still hanging around here?" I left that forum quietly that day. Even today, those Japanese Judo terms can still bring back my bad memory.

 

[Cri70]

I've always questioned the claim about karate having more throws before Funakoshi (he shouldn't have been able to affect Okinawa or Kenwa Mabuni).

In my $.1, that doesn't necessarily mean much. Economic and social forces lead to similar results even when there's no specific communication between individual people. For example, if a song becomes a hit and makes millions to its producer, other producers will make similar songs because they too want to make a hit. If the king starts wearing a certain type of clothes, the courtiers will begin as well without anybody telling them to, and ultimately this will percolate to the general population. And so forth.

At the end of XIX/start of XX century, Okinawans were considered somewhat rural and rather second class in Japan, for a number of reasons (see for example Between a Forgotten Colony and an Abandoned Prefecture: Okinawa’s Experience of Becoming Japanese in the Meiji and Taishō Eras - The Asia-Pacific Journal: Japan Focus ). What Funakoshi proved is that, as an Okinawan in Japan, one could have a relatively high degree of social and economic success by doing things in a certain way: adhering to the social context of the time, adapting to he established sport landscape, importing customs and practices from Japanese art and avoiding ruffling feathers by removing overlapping ones, promoting karate as way to fitness and a mean of instilling discipline and obedience to authority into young people and so on. Healthy, strong soldiers, used to line up, show respect to their master and obey his orders enthusiastically and without question.

Adapting is the key word. Funakoshi lesson was clear: to succeed you have to adapt, cut and sew again - something that probably was inspired by his own master which has done similar things in Okinawa, for a similar reason - remaining relevant in a changed context. And of course by the fact that karate had always changed, incorporating effective practices form elsewhere.

Funakoshi introduced karate to Japan in 1922. If not the first, he was the first doing it successfully and with a big impact. Moreover he was the first to successfully make a living from karate. Okinawans weren't full time teachers. Even his masters had "proper jobs", so to say, or violence was their job (as opposite to teaching). Perhaps without willing, he created single handedly the job of karate teacher. He had introduced one more, extremely effective change - only the effectiveness was not in unarmed combat (something which was socially quite irrelevant at that point and had been since his masters' time) but in making teaching karate a way to live and thrive.

Mabuni was born 20 years later than Funakoshi, lived in the same Japanese environment and created Shito-Ryu in 1931. He also happened to have the same master as Funakoshi. He is remembered as one of the first practitioners to teach in Japan. By then the same forces were even far stronger, and the "Funakoshi formula", so to say, was crystal clear. Funakoshi did not need to affect the Okinawans in Japan - they would have seen his success, and affected themselves. Incidentally, you can still see what happened to the few ones who did not. Choki Motobu is the classic example, and you can measure their successes by the size of the respective practitioners worldwide. Not many for Motobu-Ryu, so to say.

As for the Okinawans back in the islands, they weren't stupid: they saw what worked and the generations afterwards probably saw it even better - especially when a certain military base was established there and making money teaching karate to GIs became definitely a market (many of whom learned the lesson so well that they opened dojos once back home..). And when you need students to make a living, you give perspective students what they want - regardless of what the art is or is not (even assuming that, by then, you even remember). Because there's no making a living with actual unarmed combat. By the time Isshinryu was put together (late 40s) the formula had been around for a long, long time.

To this day, what's considered perhaps the most "different" karate style - kyokushin (pardon me the others) - is essentially a derivative of shotokan. Almost all the successful ones are, because that's what the initial market wanted, and karate spread mostly from that initial market, not Okinawa.

So while there may or may have not been throws in karate before Funakoshi (I am not sure, there's his 9 and more can be discerned here and there), what took them completely off the table were the adaptations that allowed many practitioners to live on teaching karate instead of using it in anger.

 

[isshinryuronin]

In my $.1, that doesn't necessarily mean much. Economic and social forces lead to similar results even when there's no specific communication between individual people. For example, if a song becomes a hit and makes millions to its producer, other producers will make similar songs because they too want to make a hit. If the king starts wearing a certain type of clothes, the courtiers will begin as well without anybody telling them to, and ultimately this will percolate to the general population. And so forth.

At the end of XIX/start of XX century, Okinawans were considered somewhat rural and rather second class in Japan, for a number of reasons (see for example Between a Forgotten Colony and an Abandoned Prefecture: Okinawa’s Experience of Becoming Japanese in the Meiji and Taishō Eras - The Asia-Pacific Journal: Japan Focus ). What Funakoshi proved is that, as an Okinawan in Japan, one could have a relatively high degree of social and economic success by doing things in a certain way: adhering to the social context of the time, adapting to he established sport landscape, importing customs and practices from Japanese art and avoiding ruffling feathers by removing overlapping ones, promoting karate as way to fitness and a mean of instilling discipline and obedience to authority into young people and so on. Healthy, strong soldiers, used to line up, show respect to their master and obey his orders enthusiastically and without question.

Adapting is the key word. Funakoshi lesson was clear: to succeed you have to adapt, cut and sew again - something that probably was inspired by his own master which has done similar things in Okinawa, for a similar reason - remaining relevant in a changed context. And of course by the fact that karate had always changed, incorporating effective practices form elsewhere.

Funakoshi introduced karate to Japan in 1922. If not the first, he was the first doing it successfully and with a big impact. Moreover he was the first to successfully make a living from karate. Okinawans weren't full time teachers. Even his masters had "proper jobs", so to say, or violence was their job (as opposite to teaching). Perhaps without willing, he created single handedly the job of karate teacher. He had introduced one more, extremely effective change - only the effectiveness was not in unarmed combat (something which was socially quite irrelevant at that point and had been since his masters' time) but in making teaching karate a way to live and thrive.

Mabuni was born 20 years later than Funakoshi, lived in the same Japanese environment and created Shito-Ryu in 1931. He also happened to have the same master as Funakoshi. He is remembered as one of the first practitioners to teach in Japan. By then the same forces were even far stronger, and the "Funakoshi formula", so to say, was crystal clear. Funakoshi did not need to affect the Okinawans in Japan - they would have seen his success, and affected themselves. Incidentally, you can still see what happened to the few ones who did not. Choki Motobu is the classic example, and you can measure their successes by the size of the respective practitioners worldwide. Not many for Motobu-Ryu, so to say.

As for the Okinawans back in the islands, they weren't stupid: they saw what worked and the generations afterwards probably saw it even better - especially when a certain military base was established there and making money teaching karate to GIs became definitely a market (many of whom learned the lesson so well that they opened dojos once back home..). And when you need students to make a living, you give perspective students what they want - regardless of what the art is or is not (even assuming that, by then, you even remember). Because there's no making a living with actual unarmed combat. By the time Isshinryu was put together (late 40s) the formula had been around for a long, long time.

To this day, what's considered perhaps the most "different" karate style - kyokushin (pardon me the others) - is essentially a derivative of shotokan. Almost all the successful ones are, because that's what the initial market wanted, and karate spread mostly from that initial market, not Okinawa.

So while there may or may have not been throws in karate before Funakoshi (I am not sure, there's his 9 and more can be discerned here and there), what took them completely off the table were the adaptations that allowed many practitioners to live on teaching karate instead of using it in anger.

A good sociological overview of karate evolution in the 20th century and some of the forces acting upon it, Cri70. Many of the Americans stationed in Okinawa in the late 50's and early 60's were Marines, known more for their fighting proclivities than for their subtle interpretations of kata. Their main instructor was isshinryu's Shimabuku who tailored the curriculum with this in mind. As a result, the first few dozen Marines (mostly) who opened dojo here in the US were taught largely the basics and techniques useful in freestyle sparring, and they were happy with this. And just as importantly, they were overseas for a limited time which kept them from learning the fuller version.

The downside was that the karate brought back to the States was quite incomplete with much missing kata bunkai and traditional Okinawan self-defense doctrine. It took several decades for the missing pieces to find their way back into America's Okinawan karate curriculum, though some styles stayed truer to their roots thanks to the Oriental teachers who immigrated here.

Karate was rapidly "Japanized" after Funakoshi, at least in Japan as you described. They did not like nails sticking up, preferring to have them all uniformly pounded down. Okinawa was resistant to this for another10-25 more years but gradually made some concessions to the Japanese way.

Contrary to your opinion, I think the first wave of American instructors were returning US servicemen stationed in Okinawa along with Japan based soldiers who brought back a "basic" form of karate as well, but for a different reason. Shotokan karate-do was already modified by its public-school curriculum and other socio-economic forces you mentioned. Karate's history is quite interesting and rather complex throughout the 1800's and 1900's, being reflective of the historical environment to a high degree.

 

[Gaucho]

Per Bill's article "Grappling Techniques," the Isshin-ryu curriculum throws are...

1. Inner reap (Ouchi gari)
2. Outer reap (Osoto gari)
3. Hip throw (O goshi)
4. Shoulder throw (Ippon seoi nage)
5. Circle throw (Tomoe nage)

Thank you for that. I found the book today, and you were certainly correct. It's a list of basics alright. I always preferred Tai otoshi to o goshi, but they're fairly similar.

 

[Cri70]

Contrary to your opinion, I think the first wave of American instructors were returning US servicemen stationed in Okinawa along with Japan based soldiers who brought back a "basic" form of karate as well, but for a different reason. Shotokan karate-do was already modified by its public-school curriculum and other socio-economic forces you mentioned. Karate's history is quite interesting and rather complex throughout the 1800's and 1900's, being reflective of the historical environment to a high degree.

Thank you, you are of course correct - I was thinking in general of the eventual size of the japanese "expansion" with respect to the GIs-back-from-Okinawa (I may be wrong, but I think Shotokan variations are by far the biggest practitioners/dojos to this day) and re-reading I realize it wasn't at all clear.

A bit of my point was that by the 1950s also Okinawans (a couple generations detached from the last bushis or hobby teachers) had seen what was working in social and economic terms, and therefore they sold more of that - as you say. I haven't been on the island so I may be wrong, but I read it's still happening, with more on more japan-style experiences there since, well, it's what brings customers in.

Another interesting aspect is that the GIs were, by definition, already trained in unarmed combat, at least to a degree, and therefore they already had a specific idea of what it was supposed to look like; this probably influenced what they were willing to "buy", and therefore what the teachers had to offer to make a living.

It's also so that by definition the karate is not meant to be super effective against trained opponents (if I can grapple a little, a grappler can grapple much better, if I can throw a little, a jujutsu guy can throw much better and so on). Still better than nothing, but just by sheer size, athleticism and training the GIs must not have been easy to impress (or beat!). A lot of the mysticism, mysteries and mannerisms etc can have been useful marketing tools to sell the experience in that context.

 

[isshinryuronin]

Another interesting aspect is that the GIs were, by definition, already trained in unarmed combat, at least to a degree, and therefore they already had a specific idea of what it was supposed to look like;

This is a good point. They had "old style" military training, tougher than today, and many of them had lethal combat experience. Karate would have little attraction for them if they thought it ineffective. Of course, they would have liked it just for the opportunity to hit each other and be physical. (I'm sure MP's like Bill liked them having a way to burn off their masculine energy.)

Still better than nothing, but just by sheer size, athleticism and training the GIs must not have been easy to impress (or beat!). A lot of the mysticism, mysteries and mannerisms etc can have been useful marketing tools to sell the experience in that context

I think this was the reason for many of the "stories" explaining some of the kata bunkai. The true bunkai was withheld from these "visitors."

- I was thinking in general of the eventual size of the japanese "expansion" with respect to the GIs-back-from-Okinawa (I may be wrong, but I think Shotokan variations are by far the biggest practitioners/dojos to this day)

Yes. I think the initial American sensei, dojo, and students were mostly from the Okinawan based Marines. But as time went on Japanese based karate grew. Japanese sensei immigrated to the US (and there are many more mainland Japanese than there are Okinawans.) Also, there were a good number first and second-generation Japanese living here and they would be more apt to join a Shotokan dojo than another style. The strength of the JKA as an organization likely helped the spread of the style.