Uechi-Ryu Zankai - My Anamnesis - Part 10

January 8th, 2008 at 23:59 · Filed Under Essay, Karate, Philosophy, Taijiquan, Training Journal · 2 Comments 

In my previous anamnesis part 9 and earlier, I mostly wrote about my feelings and understanding of the Uechi-Ryu concepts. This part gives this a change, not to talk about Uechi-Ryu solely but the underlying fundamentals and concepts common in all martial arts.

I am having muscle ache on my stomach, arms and chest due to the heavy workout last night. So, today not much of practice for myself. As usual, after checking the students’ Sanchin, we went on dantai no kata for Kanshiwa and Kanshuu, then Kanshiwa bunkai.

Tonight, only adult students were coming. None of the kids, including mine came for training. My muscles were aching and not much practice for myself. A perfect time to talk about some concepts. I talked about concepts, not so much of Uechi-Ryu but the fundamentals of tanden (or Tantien in Chinese) and the body structure and skeleton alignment. I also demonstrated explosive 1 inch power punch (of course with controlled amount of energy not to hurt anyone). I continued to demonstrate and to explain the concept of Taijiquan and the differences between the external and internal system. I gave quite a lengthy talk about both internal and external weight change and of course, the scientific explanation of this underlying fundamentals. Martial arts is also martial science which involves human anatomy, physiology, bio-mechanism, kinesiology and physics.

I find it important to let older students to know about this so that they can understand the concept and learn to utilize their body more effectively. This fundamental knowledge is also crucial for them to understand not only Uechi-Ryu system but also other martial arts. The knowledge is also an eye-opener to not be superstitious about Qi, Tantien and the myths about Taijiquan as seen on Youtube as well as in discussion forums.

If I say I have not learned Taijiquan before but am able to explain and demonstrate the Taijiquan concepts, will you believe it? :)

This appears to be a short anamnesis but I will continue to write about this fundamentals in more depth.

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Captivated

December 1st, 2007 at 10:57 · Filed Under Days in My Life, Karate, Kata and Bunkai, Philosophy, Training Journal · Comment 

To those who are curious why I chose Uechi-Ryu Zankai (including my students), Toyama Sensei’s performance of Sandairyu captivated my heart more than a year ago. The video I saw was actually from Okinawa’s Wonders website. It is very rare to find a grand master to perform such fluent and powerful performance at this age.

After meeting him in person when I visited Toyama Sensei’s dojo with Seizan Sensei at Zakimi Okinawa, his health becomes one of my motivation. I envy to have his health in my old age.

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Uechi-Ryu Zankai - My Anamnesis - Part 4

October 22nd, 2007 at 13:08 · Filed Under Essay, Karate, Philosophy, Training Journal · 4 Comments 

Previously, I mentioned about some training philosophy of Uechi-Ryu Zankai, how the organic training enhances our health and strengthening our body. In this episode, I am going to dissect the basic foundation of all techniques which we can find in the kata Sanchin using natural phenomenon, ocean waves. I am not going to write the length and breadth of every techniques, but I am going to particularly focus on Wa-uke or circular block.

The old-style Uechi-Ryu (Zankai) is a defensive style and deploys different approach compare to most modern style Uechi-Ryu. So I am not talking about modern style but my focus is the old-style.

Wa-uke is the most important and the only blocking technique used throughout every kata. It is the most misunderstood blocking technique in Uechi-Ryu. Many people, including some of my students, have misunderstood wa-uke. Some say it is slow. Some say it is ineffective. Some say it is less defensive compare to other blocking techniques in other style of karate. Some say how can one blocking technique be applied to all kind of attacks.

Yes, Wa-uke is one blocking technique that applies to all kind of attacks including grappling. Thus, the old-style Uechi-Ryu is a CQC (Close Quarter Combat) system but still remains as effective for long range combat. This misunderstanding is due to lack of in-depth study and understanding of the technique itself and the application (bunkai) and philosophy of Uechi-Ryu kata.

As the name implies, wa-uke or circular block, travel in a circular or elliptic motion. Uechi-Ryu is not a linear system, rather, it is circular. To understand the underlying concepts and philosophy, you have to think circular or elliptic. The movement in Uechi-Ryu kata is like ocean waves. When you are practicing kata, you need to move like ocean waves.

Ocean waves are mechanical waves that propagate along the interface between water and air. The restoring force is provided by gravity.
Uechi-Ryu Zankai Ocean Waves
(Source: Wikipedia)

After we understand the mechanical concept of ocean waves, we now can apply the concept into wa-uke and techniques in Uechi-Ryu kata: A wa-uke is a circular or elliptical mechanical arm motion which propagate in a plane between the defensive and the offensive body. The motion is circulated by gravity and centrifugal force.

The Sanchin kata is the foundation for all Uechi-Ryu kata. As I mentioned in previous episode, all Uechi-Ryu kata have staggering effect, complementing each other. To understand the application of wa-uke, we have to gain deeper understanding of Sanchin. While the understanding of Sanchin increases, it complements the understanding of other kata in the system. One significant point we need to focus in Sanchin is the turning of our body. It not only creates centrifugal force, it is the fundamental movement we need to understand and master in order to apply wa-uke effectively.

With wa-uke, you can perry an attack; a kick or a punch or any combination followed by counter strike. Or if you wish, you can lock then throw or a take down depending on the degree of damage you think is necessary to be inflicted onto your assailant.

The mastering of Sanchin movement and wa-uke is more than enough to defend against any untrained attacks. If the assailant is a trained attacker, deeper understanding and years of training will be required to defend against such attack effectively with combination of other techniques. But if the mastering has exceeded the expert level, the wa-uke and Sanchin movement alone is more than sufficient.

Sanchin alone requires entire life time to understand and master. It embeds vast concept and knowledge like the ocean; providing unlimited exploration, improvement and perfection. We are only a tiny dot floating in the ocean.

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Uechi-Ryu Zankai - My Anamnesis - Part 3

October 20th, 2007 at 10:44 · Filed Under Essay, Karate, Philosophy, Training Journal · 13 Comments 

Let’s put the 1% aside.

My visit to Okinawa improves not only my knowledge and skill in karate-do. It has been an eye opener and it lets me discover the real karate-do, its culture, philosophy and spirit; as an ancient budo art of Okinawa.

The Okinawan system is not as rigid and militarized as the Japanese system. The Okinawan system is more flexible in many ways. The Malaysian karate-do has been following Japanese styles which are very much a militarized training. The influence was from Shotokan, one of the few introduced to Malaysia in the earliest karate era of Malaysia.

Many times people have been asking me, “Is style really matter?” These people are thinking, if any karate that can teach you to fight well, what is so important what style it is. To me, the real essence of karate lies deep in its root of the style which has been forgotten by the new generation of practitioners. Many who know the real budo path of karate-do are not too interested in changing people’s thinking and often choose to be self-contained for self-improvement and self-preservation.

If you Google for “karate”, you will find many funny styles and names across the world. Many new styles are created outside of Okinawa/Japan. Really, can we call these karate? It is very difficult to have a stand on this argument. Call it whatever if you find nothing wrong about it.

My visit to Uechi-Ryu Zankai on Okinawa was absolutely an ultimate experience. Toyama Sensei is one of the very few grand master who really doesn’t care about the outside world. He is very disappointed how polluted karate is today. Of course, he feels very sad if he sees some videos of poor performance. He is entirely into preserving and passing on his knowledge to his high ranking students. My teacher, G. Seizan Breyette Sensei, a hatchi-dan (8th dan) kyoshi to-dan, is one of the very few high ranking students of Toyama Sensei.

The Zankai’s Training Philosophy

Uechi-Ryu Zankai is one of the remaining few old-style traditional karate-do on Okinawa devoting to continue to teach and to preserve the pre-World-War-2 karate-do which Kanbun Uechi Sensei brought back from China. And Toyama Sensei is the only legendary left on the earth who is actively passing on his knowledge which he learned from Kanbun Uechi Sensei.

The training at Zankai is very organic. Unlike most modern styles of karate-do, the Zankai uses training methods derived from organic living mechanisms which largely resembling a living organism in organization or development and profoundly affecting our bodily organs and functions. Many modern karate-do as well as other martial arts introduce free form sparring element to their training for competitive sports purposes with influences from Hong Kong and Hollywood movies. The introduction of free form sparring is also to transform monotonous old-style training to a more dynamic and exciting activity. It is rather hard to have modern people especially the youngsters to involve in a monotonic daily devotion. Martial arts training in the old days (100 years and more ago) was a daily devotion and monotonous with repetitive training. Modern youngsters prefer exciting new stuff such as sparring to display their male machoism.

The organic training of Zankai enhances functions of heart and lung especially. Take Sanchin for instance. Beginners (new students) learn Sanchin as first lesson in Zankai. To perform proper Sanchin, the shoulder must be down and pulled back, tummy tucked in and pulled up so the chest will rise and expand. This increases the capacity of the lung and reduces pressures onto organs such as the heart, the lung and digestive organs. The heart can pump more freely with bigger room. Bad body posture has long-term effect on our internal organs such as our heart. When our body postures collapse, our organs are squashed against each other. This is the reason for an enlarged heart appears in X-ray. Because of restricted space, the heart has to work harder to push against the pressure from the lung and other organs. Gradually, the heart enlarges due to the stress.

The kata system of old-style Uechi-ryu has staggering effect onto one another and they are closely inter-related and enhancing each other in one way or another. There is no basic or advanced kata in old-style Uechi-Ryu. In fact, all the kata complement each other at various stages of the training, enhancing and strengthening the body (skeleton, muscle tissues, organs and vital body functions), motor skills, balance (stability), breathing, mental concentration and ultimately all the senses.

Human is actually animal but with slightly higher intelligence and having civilization after going through many evolution. The human evolution contributes to the lost of animal characteristics both physically and mentally. Invention and innovation reduce our physical activities while we become more dependent on tools and machineries. Comfortable lifestyle has made us a lazy animal and lose all the primitive animal characteristics and instinct. Essentially, the training retrain us (human) to become an animal again. The training is based on 7 animal forms: Dragon, Tiger, Crane, Snake, Cobra, Leopard and Mantis. Dragon, Tiger and Crane are the major animal forms in the training. These animal forms teach us to move like them. After some period of training, you can notice improvement in physical strength, bodily structure and vital functions.

The old-style Uechi-Ryu training, like many old martial arts in the olden days of China, does not include jiyu kumite or free form sparring. Kumite (for short), cause destructive effects and harms more than constructive growth to our body. The ancient Chinese had learned a great deal about injuries many thousand years ago without sophisticated medical equipment. Many Chinese martial artists were practicing for their health and to protect family and country. They rarely flashing their skills. Until today, this culture remains in modern Chinese martial artists. But no doubt, there are some going around (the world) displaying and promoting their strongest arts. Like many other modern martial arts, the wushu introduces San-shou or free form sparring into some of their training for competitive and other reasons mentioned above.

I have written articles about injuries and their potential long-term effects. You can read my articles about injuries here.

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