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Are there other theories about this? Serious question.
Are there other theories about this? Serious question.
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Well it seems impractical as well because it wasnt intended to be a block. It was a strike. When in close you rammed the fore arm upward into the opponents jaw or face to create space to then follow up on.
Thats whats wrong with kata . It's original intention was to be a means to preserve techniques in an age where people didnt have modern technology to record them and often were illiterate. However the problem with this means is it was almost impossible to keep them in line with the founders ideas thus moves become forgotten or bastardized down the generations.
I would say it was originally nothing than another swinging strike where you would connect with your forearm or side of hand
like this
PIMP GETS KO'd by KARATE MASTER! - YouTube
:icon_lol:
Flexwave2003
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Golden!
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Well it seems impractical as well because it wasnt intended to be a block. It was a strike. When in close you rammed the fore arm upward into the opponents jaw or face to create space to then follow up on.
Thats whats wrong with kata . It's original intention was to be a means to preserve techniques in an age where people didnt have modern technology to record them and often were illiterate. However the problem with this means is it was almost impossible to keep them in line with the founders ideas thus moves become forgotten or bastardized down the generations.
I would say it was originally nothing than another swinging strike where you would connect with your forearm or side of hand
like this
PIMP GETS KO'd by KARATE MASTER! - YouTube
:icon_lol:
Good post. I was once told that almost any block is potentially a strike. To add to the ones you mentioned, gedan barai (low block) is a strike to the balls of a sideways opponent. The height is right, works like a charm if not expected. :wink:
Shuto uke (knife hand block) could be a strike to the neck as mentioned, I've even see it followed up with a Haito Uchi to the same spot for massive shock damage. Not permitted in competition BTW.
Age uke I've seen as a forearm strike to the armpit of a trapped hand in a few old bunkai videos.
From what I've seen in most Shotokan dojos these moves are taught as blocks to the lower belts - no questions asked, just practice the moves - and then gradually their use as strikes is revealed. This kind of "secrecy" is probably unnecessary but I guess that's the way it is done "traditionally" - learn first, understand second.
G
Guestx
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The only talk I've heard about it so far at my wado dojo is that you are supposed to use the the momentum gained from the retracting motion on one side to add power to your strike exploding out on the other side.
I have heard the "you're pulling someone to you" theory, and maybe there's something to it, but in my opinion there are questions raised by this interpretation. For instance, why in the kata did the creators not create a specific grabbing motion? It seems to me they would have, not only to program muscle memory but also just to be clear. Second, you're really expected to grab some and pull them to you after EVERY hand technique? Because it's not like you retract your hand to your hip only after certain moves . . . you do it after EVERY move. Lastly, I'll just point out--for whatever it's worth--that early Shotokan competition videos that still survive didn't involve anyone grabbing their opponent and pulling them into a strike. It seems that, unless this secret of the art had already been lost by then, they would.
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Here's an interesting article about hikite:
Shotokan Myth 1: Hikite by K. Yokota
IMHO it's a training tool much like the wide blocks - the correct motion is overemphasized only to return to "normal" at higher levels. And again, the same goes for stances - low for beginners, upright at higher levels.
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Alright, long winded rant coming up..
There's an interesting phenomenon that's taken over the karate world: the need to find deeper meaning in all the techniques we had learned when we were beginners. And it's kind of come at the realization that, well, those beginner techniques are as useful as a can of beans in a fist fight (unless you use that can of beans to strike someone in the face, but I digress). People belonging to smaller Karate organizations, armed with the power of the internet, are going all around to try and make sense of hip chambering, of high blocks, of cat stance and even of bowing before your kata.
And people are getting popular because of it. Karatekas such as Iain Abernethy have now become internet sensations because they are 'discovering' the secret meaning of Katas; even though if you have ever watched Iain's seminars, the punch/kick training portions are subpar and uninspiring, and all his students throw sloppy haymakers with little control. Yet, the grappling is top notch: realistic, resistance training in what looks like a combination of wrestling and judo. Did he find the hidden secrets in the Katas of karate, or is he using his far superior grappling resume to interject things on his own, creating his own interpretation?
It seems a common 'belief' in many organizations is that the beginners Karate moves we have learned are all grappling techniques; the high block is after a grab to break an arm, the hip chamber is pulling an arm towards you, the cat stance is a great way to grab a charging saber-toothed tiger.. Yet, these answers don't really solve the question of: why are beginners Karate techniques so worthless? Futhermore, it doesn't really help make sense of the kata... in older forms of Karate, the high block in katas has someone sticking his hand up and 'grabbing' with one hand then throwing high blocks up with the other hand. This has been used as evidence for the 'grabbing and striking aspect' of the high block. Yet, why do we do it three times in a row? Are we breaking a guys arm twice? Are we fighting an octopus? I've actually asked some of these questions to high level karatas such as sensei Cleveland Baxter, sensei Richard Amos, and Sensei Alex Sternberg. Their answer is all the same: you do over-exaggerated movements so when the time comes to actually get in a conflict, even if you short change your form, you will still be fighting legitimately.
Let's take the Karate hip chamber during a gyaku zuki. Now, this is not the way you'd want to punch someone in real life, you want to keep your guard up. So, why teach it? The grabbing idea is nice and it certainly is applicable, but why would you grab him downward to your hip? He will lose balance and you risk throwing him into an area where you can't hit him cleanly. There must be something about the hip area which makes it an optimal area for the grab.
In my opinion, and how it's been explained to me by many instructors, the hip chamber is the ideal way one winds up his punches in Karate. In a lot of ways, this is a chamber and this is a chamber and this is a chamber. These fighters aren't shooting their punches from guard, they're winding up and throwing a fully loaded cross or hook. That's the same concept when one throws a karate punch and wants to put all his power in it, especially since the hand placements in our stances are much lower than other styles: the lead hand is out and guides the opponent so he can't break distance, the back hand stays a bit lower to protect our body (that was kind of a Shotokan breakdown, I know Goju/Wado/Kyokushin can be a bit different). It's easy to draw that rear hand back to throw a full powered punch. Likewise, the lead hand can be drawn back during the punch to load a combination, kind of like how a boxer throws a cross and brings his other hand down for an uppercut. No one in their right mind advocates doing this all the time, but just like how you see boxers drop their guard to throw combinations or wind up to throw a knockout blow, (here's my favorite example of a boxer 'chamber') there's times when it should hapen.
Now, that's not to say the grab doesn't EXIST in Karate. We see its mechanics in the kata, the "grab" motion followed by a punch of any variety. Added to that, I can give you a ton of other theories I have heard off the top of my head for the hip chamber, like elbowing a person in back of you, throwing a person off balance who grabs YOU... It may very well be that none of these are wrong. You train this motion so it becomes second nature, so that when you DO grab a person, you grab them in a way which fully loads your punch, and automatically loads your next punch. When someone grabs your arm, you are ingrained to throw your arm back and throw a full powered punch to an off balance opponent. Or, when you have someone on the ropes and you want to put someone's lights out, you know to wind up your punch from the hip so you can shoot out a perfectly linear, untelegraphed reverse punch with all your force. After all, Karate was a culmination of the 'te' okinawan arts, Southern Chinese martial arts and some samurai juijitsu. It makes sense for some techniques to have multiple purposes.
But I simply don't believe, from all that I have gathered, that hip chambering is simply a grabbing technique that we've forgotten about. Like all techniques, it's how we ingrain throwing a wound up punch, so when the opportunity arises, we wont just throw a haymaker, we'll throw a hip chambered reverse punch. Now, does this explanation justify why beginner techniques are so useless and justify drilling them until we can actually learn to defend ourselves? I don't know. That's an opinion I don't want to get into. But the logic makes sense to me.
Anyway, to throw in my two cents:
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When I said this, the community said. "Oh no!... NO wayyyyy!" On poster later relented....
KarateStylist
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I think we've all concluded here @ Sherdog that you right on this score. What a waste time....
Two guys dancing [**facepalm**]....
KarateStylist
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I've seen the light. Ty. Going to cross-train in boxing. It's natural body mechanics is efficient and powerful.... Cut some of you quote short to emphasize what I will be working on from now on....
KarateStylist
Buffmedic01
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The video's of his blackbelts sparring are pathetic, sloppy arm punching, tkd snap kicks to the body and terrible takedowns and ground fighting. It is really sad to watch.
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American Kenpo is complete bullshitsu. I studied it for a little while and had to use it in a real fight at school. Totally unnatural and ineffective. The linear movements and 90° blocks and the types of strikes (such as punching straight down on a foot that is keep cling your balls) are a joke. It's like Ed Parker was taught the watered-down pussified karate that the resentful Japanese were teaching to the US troops after they lost the War...and that's the garbage that he built his system on.
Later I studied BJJ for a short while and then studied Ryu Te. I used both of them in real fights in the streets and alleys when I drove a paddy wagon around picking up people who were intoxicated in public. The Ryu Te (Okinawan karate) was very natural and effective. All the blocks and strikes were at 45° angles which provided strength and stability to the impact and you didn't lose any mechanical advantage. Some of the drills they do in advanced Ryu Te have some busy footwork and seem a little Aikido-like, but the fundamentals of Ryu Te are solid. I'm talking about real Ryu Te as taught by Oyata, not the bizarre garbage from George Dillman (who should probably change the name of his scam from RyuKyu Kempo to something more accurate like Dill-do). Of course, once you get a guy down on the ground, the BJJ was effective (although there is some grappling and trapping in Ryu Te). When I was in the army, they were teaching jujitsu to us I basic training too.
Later I studied BJJ for a short while and then studied Ryu Te. I used both of them in real fights in the streets and alleys when I drove a paddy wagon around picking up people who were intoxicated in public. The Ryu Te (Okinawan karate) was very natural and effective. All the blocks and strikes were at 45° angles which provided strength and stability to the impact and you didn't lose any mechanical advantage. Some of the drills they do in advanced Ryu Te have some busy footwork and seem a little Aikido-like, but the fundamentals of Ryu Te are solid. I'm talking about real Ryu Te as taught by Oyata, not the bizarre garbage from George Dillman (who should probably change the name of his scam from RyuKyu Kempo to something more accurate like Dill-do). Of course, once you get a guy down on the ground, the BJJ was effective (although there is some grappling and trapping in Ryu Te). When I was in the army, they were teaching jujitsu to us I basic training too.
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wonderboy doesnt do american kempo. he does tetsushin kempo./
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Kata are essentially a syllabus for what should be studied. Just like a class syllabus tells you what you will be covering in the course but to learn the course, you still have to read the chapters in the textbook. Remember that true karate, the way it was originally taught before it was "sportified" to be acceptable to the Japanese authorities (for public schools, etc.) at the beginning of the 1900's was all about fighting. So there are no "guards", no guarding hands, in karate (just as you don't have those in a real fight once the clash has begun). In other words, there are no hands that are just sitting around doing nothing--just waiting. Both hands are in the fight. One might be striking while the other is clearing obstructions (moving the other guys hands out of the way, making and opening, trapping, and..yes...maybe pulling).
Some kata are intentionally NOT clear because the students who created them did not want potential enemies to learn what techniques they were learning. Kata contains many grabs, throws, strangles, joint locks, as well as strikes. Bunkai is the study of kata to discover the techniques within.
Here's one exercise: take a kata (like naihanchi, etc.) and lie on your back on the floor and do the kata and see how many grappling moves you can recognize.
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That last part about katas, hidden techniques and the grappling example you gave were pretty deep. Even though I don't exactly know what you're talking about since I don't train Karate, it makes sense (if what you're saying is really true).
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The kenpo vids and the kata discussion all tie into my biggest pet peeve - which is the implication that generic body movements applicable to fighting must be smushed down into specific techniques.
@Jukai speaks to why the original katas are so seemingly useless. A sentiment shared by many and the numerous explanations for why they incorporate X or Y with the repetition are explanations that I hear all over the place. I disagree with all of it.
From my understanding and experience, katas serve no purpose but the grooving of large scale physical principles. How certain body movements chain together naturally. Training the body to recognize that from one position the body can flow into another position.
Where individual styles arise, both positively and negatively, is when people try to insist that a specific series of movements always mean a specific series of techniques. Is the hikite a pulling motion? Of course it is. Does it serve the same physical purpose as loading your punches? Yup. Well which one is it? Depends. If you're punching then years of exposure to the hikite will make you comfortable extending your fist in various fashions from less than ideal body positions. If you've managed to grab someone's shirt or sleeve then the hikite has made you comfortable pulling that shirt/sleeve while transitioning into something else.
The more I train, the less I attach specific techniques to a single kata. One day the kata will be about striking and the next day the techniques will be completely different. What doesn't change is the ability to move through the movements naturally. Freeing my mind to deal with the actual opponent in front of me.
I've come to that conclusion from years of random cross training. From judo, to hung gar, to minimal MT, to boxing, to wrestling, to one day of kenpo in college, to capoeira. The only consistent thing between all of those arts is that I was physically comfortable with the techniques they taught from day one. And that's because there was never a fighting technique that wasn't based on a physical sequence that could be found in a kata somewhere. Sure, the details of every technique might be martial art specific but I never had to teach my body the gross motor side, just the smaller technical details that separate one art from another.
This Kenpo guy in the vids, Abernathy, etc. are all taking the fundamental movements of fighting and then teaching that they have to applied statically (that's not a perfect description of course). But the reality is that a fight is going to be dirty and unpredictable and unless you spend years practicing actual free form fighting, none of it works. All you can really rely one is the sheer amount of muscle memory that you've grooved and your ability to think about your specific situation. To me, kata is an extremely efficient way to groove lots of pure muscle memory that can then be taken to any other martial art for specific technique training. A physical foundation for fighting, not the actual fighting itself. Just my $0.02...maybe $0.03.
@Jukai speaks to why the original katas are so seemingly useless. A sentiment shared by many and the numerous explanations for why they incorporate X or Y with the repetition are explanations that I hear all over the place. I disagree with all of it.
From my understanding and experience, katas serve no purpose but the grooving of large scale physical principles. How certain body movements chain together naturally. Training the body to recognize that from one position the body can flow into another position.
Where individual styles arise, both positively and negatively, is when people try to insist that a specific series of movements always mean a specific series of techniques. Is the hikite a pulling motion? Of course it is. Does it serve the same physical purpose as loading your punches? Yup. Well which one is it? Depends. If you're punching then years of exposure to the hikite will make you comfortable extending your fist in various fashions from less than ideal body positions. If you've managed to grab someone's shirt or sleeve then the hikite has made you comfortable pulling that shirt/sleeve while transitioning into something else.
The more I train, the less I attach specific techniques to a single kata. One day the kata will be about striking and the next day the techniques will be completely different. What doesn't change is the ability to move through the movements naturally. Freeing my mind to deal with the actual opponent in front of me.
I've come to that conclusion from years of random cross training. From judo, to hung gar, to minimal MT, to boxing, to wrestling, to one day of kenpo in college, to capoeira. The only consistent thing between all of those arts is that I was physically comfortable with the techniques they taught from day one. And that's because there was never a fighting technique that wasn't based on a physical sequence that could be found in a kata somewhere. Sure, the details of every technique might be martial art specific but I never had to teach my body the gross motor side, just the smaller technical details that separate one art from another.
This Kenpo guy in the vids, Abernathy, etc. are all taking the fundamental movements of fighting and then teaching that they have to applied statically (that's not a perfect description of course). But the reality is that a fight is going to be dirty and unpredictable and unless you spend years practicing actual free form fighting, none of it works. All you can really rely one is the sheer amount of muscle memory that you've grooved and your ability to think about your specific situation. To me, kata is an extremely efficient way to groove lots of pure muscle memory that can then be taken to any other martial art for specific technique training. A physical foundation for fighting, not the actual fighting itself. Just my $0.02...maybe $0.03.
The problem with American Kenpo is it's designed to counter unrealistic attacks with a barrage while the attacker stands there. Similar to Krav Maga in that respect.
Karate did have Judo like grappling but it was taken out because the Japanese already all trained Judo. When it was taught to Americans it was taught without throws.
If you want useful Karate take Enshin, it's not traditional but it's improved. Enshin adds leg kicks with the shin, replaces karate hand strikes with boxing punches, more realistic blocks and Judo to the standard arsenal of chambered karate kicks.
It's base is Goju Ryu and Shotokan. The katas are functional sparring techniques, no need for interpretation and mostly learned outside of class. Lots of sparring.
Karate of the gods.
Karate did have Judo like grappling but it was taken out because the Japanese already all trained Judo. When it was taught to Americans it was taught without throws.
If you want useful Karate take Enshin, it's not traditional but it's improved. Enshin adds leg kicks with the shin, replaces karate hand strikes with boxing punches, more realistic blocks and Judo to the standard arsenal of chambered karate kicks.
It's base is Goju Ryu and Shotokan. The katas are functional sparring techniques, no need for interpretation and mostly learned outside of class. Lots of sparring.
Karate of the gods.
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Yes, the long scripted sequences with names like Five Sword, Flashing Wings, Bowing to Buddha, Raining Lance, Dance of Darkness etc, are like zip files containing the basics of the system, much like kata contains indexed information for an Okinawan Karate System, Professor William Kwai Sun Chow in Hawaii taught Ed Parker the founder of "American Kenpo" but he did not emphasis kata or forms, instead he taught these two-man sequences but without the fancy names, he taught around 500-700 of them so when Ed Parker started teaching he named them so that students could remember them better, he would name one of them and assign letters to those techniques that were variations of it, so you can see the condensing process starting early, by the time we get into the last 20 years of his life, he had eliminated the variations and replaced them with extensions and some were completely deleted, leaving only 154 and he created forms to support a progressive training system, each lesson building on the last but it was geared to take someone from scratch to being a creative innovator and instructor. For example the first form teaches to use available space to create distance and defensive blocks, the next form will add a counter after the block, the next form will teach advancing and blocking and attacking together, the next form will teach advancing and countering on angles and the next form will build on the last and the next form will get into techniques that defend against being grabbed, the next form will build on the previous one and the one after that will work techniques that counter strikes, eventually getting into forms that counter weapons and forms that use weapons. While these forms are being learned 1 to 2 forms with each advancement in rank the techniques at each level try to give the student a chance to work against each category of attack, grabs and tackles, pushes, punches, kicks, hugs and holds, locks and chokes, weapons and multiple opponents and challenge the students coordination and timing as they progress. Qualified instructors who understand the concepts and principles that Ed Parker emphasized are supposed to be teaching these principles and tailor the techniques to each student and eventually help the student become a self-correcting and creative innovator who will have his own individual fighting style while still teaching the base system if he or she does decide to teach.
What happened is that commercialism and catering to paying customers took greater importance than actually training the student properly. For example Professor Chow and his Kenpo instructor both emphasized conditioning so did Ed Parker during the pre-commercialization era but when it became available to the public as a whole, being taught to famous Hollywood celebrities and soccer moms and children the training that went hand in hand with being able to apply the majority of the martial art successfully (without hurting yourself) went out the window. So they just memorize the motions and the partners attack unrealistically and are completely compliant and conditioning the weapons and body is very rare certainly nothing like what would be required to land strikes with the type of hand formations that Kenpo uses at the speed they use without breaking ones hands. Case in point Keith Hackney of White Tiger Kenpo (American Kenpo offshoot) broke his fist one the Sumo Emmanuel's head and he was actually in shape but the traditional practice of using a striking post and splashing hands and iron palm etc are not done, if you find a Kenpo school that still does things the old fashion way, most would hate it, think Shaolin Temple pre-communist take-over. Or to put it like this, The first technique is Delayed Sword, basically striking with a hammer fist, snap kick and chop, stances used are neutral bow stance, transitional cat stance, transitional crane stance if you took the time to train each element of the technique that means conditioning the hammer fist the ball of the foot and the edge of the hand, it means developing the timing to drop the hammer with the dropping of weight and to kick from a cat without rising up and to again time the chop with the dropping of the foot after the kick, also their is the actual pinning and stepping if it is defending against the standard attack that would need to be trained to and when all the individual parts were ready to be put together, it would be time to train the flow, speed and power transfer for each as well as training accuracy and coordination drills, after that basic level of function was attained it should be practiced in multiple variations of the attack and finally it should be done against progressive levels of resistance. None of that or very little is going to take place in a commercial studio because the students are going to get tired of working the same thing over and over and going through the pain and discomfort of conditioning.
In conclusion their are excellent Kenpo schools out there teaching a version of Ed Parker's system that is very effective but for every one of them their are 10 or 20 out there that are making a buck while students memorize a bunch of stuff that they wont ever be able to use well. I love the art of Kenpo I have been at it for 27 years and I don't think I will ever quit, it has saved my life many times but the thing about those long sequences is that when you have trained the individual parts, you rarely if ever get to nail someone with a 10 hit combo, unless your a sadistic douche bag and your beating someone who is no longer capable of defending themselves. Guy rushes you and swings at your head you slip the thrust and land a punch to the ribs they drop, its Kenpo sure its the first part of Attacking Mace but the follow up round house kick to the groin and punch to the kidney are not going to be available if they drop, however if your punch knocked them back, you can keep driving forward with the kick to the nads, each individual move if well trained can be the end of the confrontation but if its not you will be hard wired to keep going. Eventually you do learn that you can nail some fighters with a combination that keeps them moving into the next move but every fighter learns to do things like that with practice.
The Ed Parker System Kenpo which became known as American Kenpo or Ed Parker Kenpo Karate is monstrous in the size of the curriculum, it has to be in order to live up to Ed Parker's definition of an all-inclusive version of Kenpo, it includes within its basics specialized moves and methods that included numerous grappling basics because Ed Parker was a black belt in Judo (also had a background in Boxing) before he took up Kenpo but again in the commercial studio world where making a buck and keeping customers happy is priority anything that borders on painful is down played. To keep it simple if you go to a Kenpo school just ask the instructor to have a friendly match with you or if he is over 80 ask him to have his top student have a match with you, if you win or they refuse, keep moving if they defeat you, see what you can learn with an open mind.
