Video of first Seiunchin sequence

My son tells me I should post things on Instagram--the younger generation, I guess, and I suppose the general direction of the world is more into Instagram than these formats that actually take longer to read and perhaps a bit more effort to understand--but I’m not sure whether that’s the right format. Can you really investigate kata and bunkai in a 60 second format? I’m not sure.

And does it leave questions unanswered and things unexplained? Does it become "just another bunkai," like a 10 second sound bite, that gets viewed passively as we scroll through things on the Internet or social media, searching for anything that will provide a quick minute of entertainment.

So I went out to the barn dojo and filmed a kata sequence with him: first the kata movements and then the bunkai. I decided to start with the first sequence of Seiunchin kata, only because the conventional interpretation of these moves is...well, the conventional interpretation has always seemed to me to be so bad, so illogical.

But in a short 28 second video clip how can I explain that any bunkai that doesn't show why you step forward into shiko dachi is ignoring an important lesson from the kata? How can I explain that thematically the kata is showing a series of responses to a cross-hand grab and that the defender doing kata brings both hands to the outside? And I can't really show that this bunkai echoes a similar technique we find in Suparinpei--that is, it's a variation, because it's a system where the applications from different kata all seem to fit together and reinforce the same principles. The effort in practicing kata and bunkai should be to discover (the original intent) not to create.

But I tried to explain things in the book, The Kata and Bunkai of Goju-Ryu: the essence of the Heishu and Kaishu kata. And since I can't seem to figure out how to upload a viewable video on here, I'm going to put a few videos on my Facebook account (under my name) and on Instagram at "Kodokangoju." Nothing professional, just some amateur videos that show technique. I hope they prove useful and perhaps even spark some discussion. And if you try any of them out, please be careful.

Check it out:

Instagram: Kodokangoju

Looking at oak trees

Up the hill on the far side of the conserva-tion area where I often walk, the oak trees predominate, taking over for the pines and hemlocks that seem to prefer the other side where it's shadier and the ground is wetter, with a number of small streams or rivulets trickling down towards the lake in the early spring. There are also outcroppings of granite here, covered in moss, and mountain laurel that grows so thick along one side of the path that it almost seems as though someone had planted hedges. This is where the butterflies gather in the late summer. At the top of the hill, the forest floor is covered with oak leaves all year. It doesn't matter what the season; the look is still the same, with a carpet of brown leaves everywhere--mostly red oak and pin oak, though I think there are some white oak and chinkapin oak, too.

The oaks are wonderfully durable looking, of course, craggy and almost avuncular with their gnarled branches and patches of blue-green lichen that seem to have colonized the bark on one side, looking like alien spoors that have fallen from the sky and splattered the tree trunks. Of course, the oak trees endure all of this; that's their nature. They're steadfast and long-lived, firmly rooted and unwavering--symbols of strength and endurance. The oaks are a hard wood, unlike the pines that share this forest. We use its wood to make floors and furniture. The Okinawans used the red oak to make rokushaku bo.

This sort of personification of the oak always reminds me of how we often seem to think of Sanchin kata in the curriculum of Okinawa Goju-ryu classical subjects. It is almost universally recognized as the foundation (or at least fundamental) to the practice and understanding of Goju. And yet I have often wondered what exactly is so foundational or fundamental about this kata. Its techniques are so basic--composed of only a few simple and relatively straightforward movements--that it would be difficult to argue that an understanding of Sanchin, no matter how complete, would lead one to a more thorough understanding of the techniques contained in the other classical kata. But its position within the curriculum seems so sacrosanct that any questioning of its purpose or nature seems somehow blasphemous.

But few teachers do anything more than document the outward shape of the kata--that is, confining themselves to a brief description of the stance, the stepping, the position of the arms, the posture, and the coordination of the breath, with some explanation of shime or body checking. Most, I suspect, offer no explanation at all; the students merely follow along, mimicking the movements of their teachers and the other students in class. There are a few, of course, who indulge in suitably vague and cryptic references to meridians or descriptions of how one should guide one's breath to travel along the internal energy paths in order to be able to nourish and project one's qi. But in practice, this aspect of training Goju appears somewhat mystical or at the very least confusing, and I shy away from the mystical. I think that aspect of one's training is best left to each individual to work out for him or herself.

Sanchin kata

For some years now, in addition to my regular training, I have set out to practice Sanchin kata three times a day, every day, not blindly as if I were merely going through the motions, but with an eye to understanding what this particular kata was trying to teach me. When I was younger, I spent many years undergoing both "hard checks" and softer checks of my kata. Sensei would step up on our legs, throw punches at the latissimus dorsi, bring his palms forcefully down on our shoulders, and break boards over our thighs and extended arms whenever we put on a demonstration for the public. All of this "checking" seemed to solidify the general impression that Goju was a "hard" style of karate that emphasized physical conditioning and toughness. Over the years, however, I found myself questioning many things about the oak-like hardness that seemed to characterize the practice of Sanchin.

After all, Goju-ryu was supposed to be both "hard" (Go) and "soft" (Ju). But I also started to wonder what the intention must have been if the kata was originally, as oral tradition tells us, a completely open hand kata. Were we meant to strike with the open hand or push with the palm? The double-arm kamae posture, with both arms held up in front of the body, hands at shoulder level and elbows down, was also the beginning posture of Sanseiru, Seisan, and Suparinpei, and I had come to believe that the techniques of these kata were largely based on close-in or grappling confrontations. Then there were all of the apparent contradictions. What purpose could an immoveable stance serve if one of the first martial principles we see illustrated in the other bunkai kata is to get out of the way or to move in such a way that your attacker has only the one opportunity (the initial attack) to attack you?

The hard checking, I believe, really conveys the wrong idea, not just to the general public who may be watching a karate demonstration, but to the practitioner as well. But the checking itself, presumably passed down from teacher to student over the years, may help one's understanding if we can understand the things that such checking is trying to point out.

Most of the checking, whether hard or soft, should be done at the point where the movement has been completed--that is, for example, at the full extension of the "punch." At that point, stepping on the back of the rear leg or pushing down on the calf is used to signal the one doing the kata that the energy of the "punch" or push should come from the heel of the rear leg, through the body, and out the arm. If the energy is not being projected up from the foot through the leg and waist to the arm, the  rear leg will be weak and easily bent.

Slapping or pushing down on the shoulders should remind the practitioner to keep the shoulders relaxed and down, making the transfer of the energy through the waist that much easier. If the shoulder is too tense or raised up, the different parts of the body cannot work together.

Similarly, pushing or punching the abdomen is a reminder that the belly is relaxed and the mind (and the center) is in the dantien or tanden. Checking the small of the back or the straightness of the spine is the same thing. If either of these is not correct, the posture is weak and you will not have the balance or sufficient coordination of these elements to affect your opponent or to withstand your opponent's attack.

Pushing or kicking against the side of the front knee is a forceful reminder that as the student pushes out, with the force beginning from the heel of the rear foot, the front leg rounds out, with the knee over the foot, with a kind of elastic tension, not stiffness. This affects "grounding" oneself far more than simply spreading one's toes and gripping the ground.

And lastly, we often see the teacher hold one hand up against the student's punch while the other pulls lightly on the student's other arm. To me, working against this sort of counter-motion reminds me that whether we are pushing out or pulling in, we must use the waist or koshi--that is, all of these upper body movements must be generated by the waist. As it says in the Chinese classics: "The millstone turns but the mind does not turn. The turning of the millstone is a metaphor for the turning of the waist." So often, because of the perception that Sanchin kata is teaching one to be solid and unmoving, like the oak tree, we see students locked in place, immoveable, with the trunk of the body as rigid as a toy soldier at Christmas time, as if the message here is to stand straight in the face of an attack and be able to withstand any punishment someone is able to mete out. But that's not what Sanchin training is all about, I think. I love to look at the oak trees out in the woods, but I don't want to look like an oak tree when I'm practicing Sanchin.

The hemlock trees are dying

It was wet in the woods the other day. Actually, I think this was two or three weeks ago now--it's been quite busy lately and I lose track of the time. Spring had arrived and everything was alive. Even the spiders were out. I could hear the stream that runs down the hill to the reservoir. In places where the evergreens were thickest, the forest didn't look all that different in the spring as it did in the midst of winter. But the maples and the oaks and the birches and hickories were starting to leaf out and it was easier to see which trees had died over the winter, opening up patches in the canopy. On the ground beneath them, you could see seedlings ready to take over. On the part of the trail where it's widest and there seems to be the most sunlight, small hemlock saplings, no more than a foot or two high, had sprung up along each side of the path. Further up the trail, the giant hemlocks stood, many of them over a hundred feet tall by the look of them, and stately--they seemed to have no need for spreading branches to establish their places like the spruce trees or the balsam pines.

In the first technique of Seiunchin,
both arms are initially brought up
to the outside of the attacker's arm.

But the older hemlock trees are dying. I could count dozens of them along the trail and more off in the woods, the bark stripped off in places, left like red mulch around the base of the tree. They've been hit by the wooly adelgid. It's an invasive species for which the hemlock has no natural resistance. The wooly adelgid brings the borer beetle, which feeds on it, and then, after the borer beetles have burrowed beneath the bark of the tree, the woodpeckers attack, stripping the bark to get at the beetles. Fungus begins to grow around the roots of the diseased tree, and before long, the tree falls. The cold New England temperatures kept the pest at bay for years, but now they're heading north as the winters warm, and the hemlock may go the way of the American chestnut. It shows, I think, it's all tied together; a chain of events that seems to connect things in a way that's difficult to see at the start--one thing leading to another or, if not so singularly predictable, a step in one direction changing the expected outcome while opening up any number of different possibilities, like a small alteration in the environment opening an existential niche that may not have been there before. 

The initial counter from the first
sequence of Kururunfa.

For some reason, all of this made me think of how we string the various techniques of a kata together. But I wasn’t thinking about the sequences of techniques in the standard way in which it is shown in kata—beginning with the receiving (uke) technique, then progressing with the controlling or bridging technique, and finishing with a throw or an attack to the neck or head--as much as I was thinking about how an understanding of the structure and themes of a kata allows one to move between the techniques of different kata within the system. Because the Goju-ryu classical kata are composed of sequences—with entry techniques and bridging techniques and finishing techniques—it’s fairly easy to begin with a technique from one kata and then, depending on how the attacker is moving or responding to your initial receiving technique, move into a bridging technique from another kata and, again, tack on a finishing technique from yet another kata. Understanding the themes or principles of the various classical subjects also helps facilitate this sort of flexibility, especially when each kata seems to be exploring a different theme or response to a different sort of attack--that is, the receiving techniques seem to show the most variation. How one bridges the distance in order to control the opponent may also show a certain amount of variation but the idea here is basically to maintain contact after the initial receiving technique and, without putting oneself in further danger, moving to the opponent’s head or neck to finish the encounter. 

Continuing with the first technique
from Seipai (on the non-kata side).

For example, in the opening move of Seiunchin kata—and in fact in many of the other techniques of this kata—both arms are brought to the outside of the opponent’s attacking arm, whether we see this attack as a wrist grab or a punch or a grab of one’s clothing. If one were to continue the sequence, the defender’s left hand would rotate in order to grab the attacker’s left wrist as the right forearm was brought down on the attacker’s elbow. This is the position in kata that looks like two down blocks in shiko dachi (horse stance) done at a 45 degree angle.

However, if one is thinking about variations, it is easy to see how the defender might move from this initial position in Seiunchin kata to the first attack in Kururunfa kata. The defender need only maintain contact with his right arm on the attacker’s left arm, releasing the left grab, and bring the left forearm up into the neck of the attacker. This is then followed by a left knee kick. 

Continuing with this technique from
Seisan kata by dropping the left arm
and stepping in behind the opponent.

But if these counter attacks are somehow thwarted, the defender can then tack on the first technique in Seipai kata (though it would be from the non-kata side), with the left forearm brought up alongside the neck, since the initial straight arm technique begins from this position with the elbow or forearm attacking the opponent’s face or neck. 

Or, by dropping the left forearm down along the back of the opponent’s left arm and moving to the back, the defender could continue with the bridging and finishing techniques from the first sequence of Seisan kata. 

Continuing with the pull down
technique from Saifa kata.

[Me with Bill Diggle from photos
we did for the book, The Kata and
Bunkai of Goju-Ryu.]

Or, once to the back of the opponent, the defender could grab both shoulders, as we see in Saifa kata, and pull the attacker down onto the knee and attack with the hammer fist strike. 

I think it is important to see the connections, but we can only really be comfortable with these kinds of connections when we understand the sequences of a kata and see the themes or principles contained within them. Once we are able to do that, the attack becomes relentless, sort of like the attack of the wooly adelgid on these stately Hemlock trees, I think. 

Hemlock tree after it has
been attacked by the
wooly adelgid, borer
beetles, and woodpeckers.

Same difference

I remember when we were little, when our parents would let us out and we would roam freely through the woods and fields. They expected we would come home for lunch whenever we got especially hungry. On summer evenings, we had to be in by dark. It was a different world, a different time. When I head off into the woods now, I generally stick to the trail. It might almost seem as though I'm headed somewhere--no longer running for a hollow tree glimpsed off in the distance or following a meandering stream. As long as I'm in the woods, it doesn't much matter to me where I am. I'm just content to plod along in the company of trees, without a hint of the grid-like overlay of civilization's labyrinth of roads and houses. I hear the echo of Bill Bryson's words: "However far or long you plod, you are always in the same place: in the woods," and that's enough. Though I've often felt that I could see the hint of a sneer on Bryson's face, as if he needed to shield himself against the criticism he anticipated from cynical urbanites.

Perhaps he didn't mean to imply anything in the least disparaging. His book, A Walk in the Woods, is wonderfully entertaining, though it seems to find much of its humor in the ineptitude of its protagonists, in the unlikeliness of their shared adventure to hike the Appalachian Trail. Yet I wonder why we should feel so out of place in these primal surroundings, which of course aren't even so primal anymore, now that we've fenced it in and preserved it as a state park or labeled it a conservation area.

The other thing about that quote is that it makes it sound as though it's all the same, that it's all just a bunch of trees, one pretty much like the next. Sometimes I think this tendency to generalize, to smooth out all the rough edges and do away with differences, is quite human. I remember it was almost a common retort when we were children to respond to a friend who might correct something you said with the quick rejoinder, "Same difference." I'm sure that ended it when I was a child, though I'm not at all sure what it really means. But it got me thinking about the ways we tend to treat techniques in kata when they appear to be the same--that is, we assume that techniques that look the same must function the same in kata.

Open hand block from Shisochin.

The open-hand "block" we see in Shisochin is not the same, nor does it perform the same function, as the open-hand technique in Seipai kata. If we isolate the techniques, they appear to be the same, but each technique in kata is influenced by the techniques that precede it and the techniques that follow it in any given sequence. And the logic of this suggests that there may be slight variations in how each is performed--variations that differentiate it from techniques that only appear to be the same. The supposition, of course, is that there is no hard and fast alphabet of techniques that comprise a single system of self defense and that we are then meant to rearrange these techniques--as if we were forming words and sentences from letters--into various kata. Though this is certainly how we seem to think of "basic" techniques when we practice head blocks (jodan uke) and chest punches (chudan uke) and down blocks (gedan uke) and front kicks (mae geri) at the beginning of every class. Perhaps we don't really stop to consider that these "basics" form a very small percentage of the techniques found in the classical subjects of Goju-ryu.

Open hand "block" from Seipai.

It is this bent of mind that tends to divorce kata techniques from their applications or bunkai. The open-hand techniques after the first turn in Seisan kata--turning to the south after the opening sequence of techniques in the front-facing line--are another example of this, I think. After the initial right arm circular block and the left palm strike, the kata moves into a right-foot-forward basic stance while the left arm and left palm is brought down and the right arm and palm is brought up, finishing with the right palm rotated and facing forward. This same technique is done once more, stepping forward into a left-foot-forward basic stance, before pivoting to the right to finish the sequence with the "punches" and kick to the west. In some schools, these techniques are done twice--first stepping with the right and again stepping with the left--and in others, four times, twice with each hand and foot. In either case, the "message" of the kata is that the two techniques are meant to function together; that is, both are part of the controlling technique of the bunkai sequence, following the initial block and attack of the first technique that occurs on the turn. (The repetition of four of these techniques suggests that both sides are being shown or practiced within the kata. Either that or an attempt to bring the kata back to the original starting point at the end, though this certainly does not generally seem to be of any importance in Okinawan kata.)

The second palm-up technique from
Seisan kata just before the pivot
to the west.

The point here, however, is that the second of these techniques (and the fourth, if one chooses to repeat this technique four times) is done a bit differently. In the first of these techniques, the right hand is brought up palm first and then rotated until the palm is facing forward. The second technique is usually done that way also, with the left palm rotated until it is facing forward. However, if you watch some of the older teachers perform Seisan kata, you will see that at least some of them do not rotate the left palm. Rather, the left palm is brought into the chest, only facing forward as it is brought in towards the chest, the movement that precedes the turn to the right (west) to finish the bunkai sequence. The reason it is performed this way in kata by some of the older teachers is that the left palm has been brought up into the opponent's chin (the right has hold of the hair) and as the left palm is brought in towards the chest the opponent's head is twisted in. Then, with the pivot to the right or west, the opponent's head is twisted sharply in the opposite direction.

This, of course, raises a difficult issue. Kata should always inform bunkai. Otherwise we're left with all manner of creative interpretations that don't bear the least resemblance to kata movement. But kata was meant to preserve bunkai or self-defense applications. We have, I think, an innate desire to generalize movement, to homogenize it in order to understand it. But from a certain perspective, there really is no such thing as standard or basic technique, no generic chest blocks, for example, when it comes to the classical kata if each scenario is unique. Certainly there is good technique and bad technique, but the performance of any given technique is really dependent on how it is used in a sequence of kata movements. Occasionally, I think, over time, some of these movements, for whatever reason, have undergone subtle changes--differences have been dropped, rough edges have been smoothed out, until what was once only similar is now seen as the same technique.

When I was a lot younger, I used to look at every tree, judging whether it was a good climbing tree or not. I know a lumberman who would look at trees and size up the quality of the wood--was it soft or hard, straight-grained or not. The techniques of kata are the same--they're not generic, but rather dependent on how they fit into kata, how they are used within the self-defense scenarios of Goju-ryu kata. Like trees, I suspect, they're all different.


[For a more detailed discussion of these techniques see my book, The Kata and Bunkai of Goju-Ryu,
https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/562446/the-kata-and-bunkai-of-goju-ryu-karate-by-giles-hopkins/9781623171995/]

It was a gray day

Just a short two weeks ago, as I was out walking the trails at Fitzgerald Lake, there was a cold north wind that gusted its way through the tops of the hemlock trees. It didn't feel as though spring was quite in the air yet, though by the calendar it certainly should have been. You could make out small red buds on some of the trees but there was nothing else to really suggest that winter was over except that when the wind wasn't blowing, where the trail widened and there were fewer trees and very little undergrowth, the sun was warm. It might have been fall--the trees were still mostly bare.


I stopped by the edge of the swamp off Boggy Meadow trail to watch a lone mallard drift lazily around the fallen trees. There's usually a lot of activity here. Sometimes you can see turtles hanging out on floating logs and trunks of trees that beavers have felled and abandoned, probably because the trees were too big to maneuver through the maze of stumps and dead trees and branches that have broken off in storms or simply rotted and dropped in the water. The mallard, its iridescent green head catching the sunlight, seemed oblivious to me, but it was in its element and it knew, I'm sure, that I was just a spectator. I'm not sure whether it was the sun breaking through the clouds or the mallard--the only bit of bright color in an otherwise dull gray landscape--that brought my attention to the  grayness of everything around me. There are winterberry bushes with their red fruit and a few flowering weeds here and there, depending on the season, but all of the trees in the swamp, for as far as you can see, are dead, with dead, gray bark--no greens or browns or rust colors here. It all reminded me that most things in life are gray in a metaphorical sense; nothing ever seems simple or black and white, especially, I suppose, when it comes to the applications of kata.

The first technique on the turn from
Seisan, blocking with the right and
attacking with the left palm strike
...or is it another block?

We were fooling around with a different bunkai for the first sequence of Seisan kata the other day, the sequence that begins with the first turn. I had noticed there was something about this sequence that reminded me of the first complete bunkai sequence in Suparinpei, the steps and open-hand "blocks" that follow the last angle technique in shiko dachi to the northeast. I have always assumed that in Suparinpei, the defender is stepping in on an attacker standing in front of him; the first step, with the left foot and left hand coming to the outside of the attacker's right arm and pushing down, and the second step, with the right foot and right hand, coming up inside the attacker's left arm, pushing out. This is followed with another step, bringing the defender's left hand past the attacker's head, kicking with the right, and then bringing the attacker's head into the defender's right elbow attack. Then the right arm comes out and, with the left hand on the chin and the right grabbing the hair or back of the head, the opponent's head is twisted forcefully, breaking the neck.

The beginning of the first complete
bunkai sequence in Suparinpei,
after the last of the four angle
techniques in shiko dachi.

In Seisan, on the other hand, I have always assumed, because it fits with the principles we find in many of the other classical kata of Goju-ryu, that in turning around we are stepping off line, avoiding and blocking the left punch of an attacker stepping in from the west--blocking his left punch with the semi-circular motion of the right arm while attacking the head with a left palm strike. However, if the principle of stepping off line is not one of the things being illustrated by the structure of Seisan kata--if it is more akin to Suparinpei since there are many other similarities between these two kata--perhaps the bunkai or how to apply these techniques in Seisan is also similar to the above section of Suparinpei. If one is simply turning to face an attacker, and the attacker is either grappling with both hands or punching with first the left and then the right, we have something similar to Suparinpei, though initially on the opposite side. If this is the case, the defender would first

The beginning of the head twisting
finishing technique in Seisan.

block with the right from the outside of the attacker's left arm, pushing it down, and then block with the left on the inside of the attacker's right arm. Then, stepping forward with the right foot, the left hand, still in contact with the attacker's arm, pushes or pulls the attacker's right arm down, while the defender's right arm is brought up to attack the opponent's neck with a right, palm up shuto. Then, grabbing the hair (in ancient times, the topknot), the defender would step forward again, pulling the head down, while bringing the left palm up to grab the opponent's chin. The sequence from here pivots to the right (or west), twisting the head, and finally employing the ubiquitous knee kick to finish.

The beginning of the head twisting
finishing technique in Suparinpei.

I'm not sure which is the right answer, at least so far as what may have been the original intent of kata, and in some ways this bunkai and the one I have always practiced (and illustrated in my book, The Kata and Bunkai of Goju-ryu)--that is, stepping off line--are very similar. An awful lot may depend on the kind of attack the moves in kata are a response to, and that's the side that we can't see; all we have is the kata side, the defender's movements. And then there's the question of how this view might alter one's understanding of the other two bunkai sequences in Seisan kata. In other words, rather than showing three variations of the same bunkai or applications, the other two sequences would, if begun the same way, be substantially different. Would that, in turn, change how we thematically looked at the techniques of Seisan kata?

Of course, even so, some ideas may be better than others. Or, it may be simply a matter of personal preference. I don't know. Sometimes there is a lot of gray area in the landscape.

Connections

The temperature hit 50 degrees F. (10 degrees C.). Spring seemed just around the corner even though the paths through the woods were still covered with ice. The last snowfall had been packed down along the most travelled paths from countless boots and dog paws, melting in the daytime and then refreezing at night. The snow was gone alongside the trails. Even in under the shade of the evergreens, it looked like fall, with a blanket of dead leaves spread out everywhere. You could hear the squirrels hurrying about, surprised, I suppose, that anyone was out in the woods today--it was really too icy to navigate the trails. It was a day to bushwhack off to the side of the main trails, looking for landmarks, heading up the hill in the general direction of the ridge with its outcropping of rocks.

Off in the woods in the late winter and early spring, the trees stand quietly, no wind rustling through the leaves, as if they are patiently or perhaps stoically waiting for warmer weather, for the longer days that will tell them it's time to wake up, to "shake off this downy sleep, death's counterfeit," though I don't know why Shakespeare's words should come to mind now. The woods in winter seem far more prosaic, or at least I do, plodding along the trails.

The double-arm kamae shared by
all four kata.

Without the leaves and underbrush, you tend to notice the trees themselves more. Most of the lower branches have dropped, scattered across the forest floor. The ones that have fallen on the trails have been picked up and thrown off into the woods, keeping the trails clear for hikers. The bark is the only thing that tends to distinguish one tree from another in the winter, though there are the odd aspens and small oak saplings that seem to have hung onto a few of their dry, brown leaves. There are oaks here, but they confuse me at this time of year. There are red oaks and pin oaks and eastern white oaks and maybe a chinquapin scrub oak, but I can't tell the difference just from the bark. I'd need to see the leaves, and even then I'd have to bring along Sibley's tree guide. The birches are another story, what with the horizontal striations up and down their trunks, and there are a lot of birches, scattered in their own little groves along the trail. There's the familiar paper birch, though sometimes from a distance the smaller ones look an awful lot like quaking aspens. Then there's the yellow birch and the river birch and the black birch, also known as sweet birch, I believe, because they used the sap for making birch beer.

I used to have two large European white birch trees in back of the house. One had a trunk almost three feet in diameter and must have been over sixty feet tall. But we lost them both to borer beetles and had to cut them down.

Suparinpei.

The birches are all related, of course--you can see the lenticels on the bark quite easily--but I think it's rare that they inter-breed. Yet the fact that there are so many related species here calls to mind that old discussion about Goju kata origins that seemed to rage for years, and still seems to crop up now and again. The argument that many put forward suggested that originally there were only four kata that comprised the classical curriculum of Goju-ryu: Sanchin, Sanseiru, Seisan, and Suparinpei. The other kata, it was argued, were either from different sources or were added later by Miyagi Chojun sensei, but they were not part of the original system taught by Kanryo Higashionna. It's an easy argument to put forward since there seems to be no documentary proof either way and there is an obvious similarity between the techniques of those four kata. In fact, it wouldn't be too far-fetched to suggest that Suparinpei itself is a sort of composite of the three other kata, which for me, as heretical as it may be, always calls to mind the old chicken and egg question: Which came first, Suparinpei or Seisan and Sanseiru?

One of the similarities between
Seiunchin and Suparinpei.

But those three kata--Sanchin, Sanseiru, and Seisan--are so obviously related to Suparinpei, why not Seiunchin? There are similarities there, too. Look at the opening mawashi series in Suparinpei and compare it to the opening series in Seiunchin, the right hand head grab and left hand "nukite" to the chin or neck. It may not be identical--Suparinpei comes off a mawashi-uke technique while Seiunchin comes off an arm-bar technique--but the application is the same. And neither one is an end in itself--that is, the finishing technique in Seiunchin is only shown after the third repetition and the possible finishing techniques in Suparinpei are shown separately, later in the kata.

The angle technique from Suparinpei.

And what about the opening technique in Seiunchin, the left hand grab release that begins the kata? We see this same technique (admittedly with only a single hand) used later in Suparinpei, one of four steps into shiko dachi done along the  northwest-southeast and southwest-northeast angles. In both cases, the key principle is the dropping of the elbow as the left hand is rotated up and the defender drops into shiko dachi. Both look very much like release techniques from an attacker's cross-hand grab. The difference is that Seiunchin kata is a good deal clearer than Suparinpei, but only because the structure of Seiunchin clearly shows a bunkai sequence with a beginning, middle, and end, or an initial receiving technique, a controlling or bridging technique, and a finishing technique. Suparinpei, because of the uniqueness of its somewhat fragmented structure, only shows the initial technique and the bridging technique, moving from a left-foot forward shiko dachi to a step into a right-foot forward shiko dachi. The interesting thing is that the logical finishing technique for this is the step back into a left-foot forward shiko dachi, attacking with a left arm gedan barai or what is often called a down block. We see this in Seiunchin kata as the finishing technique for each of the four angle sequences.

The forearm attack from Seiunchin,
also done on the angles.

So should Seiunchin kata be included in the "original" kata of Goju-ryu, since it too shows distinct similarities to Suparinpei? And if Seiunchin, why not Shisochin and Seipai and Kururunfa? After all, I'd be hard pressed to tell the difference between the leaf of a black birch and an American beech tree, and birches are related to alders and hazels and hornbeams as well. These origin debates may seem pretty fruitless and academic to most people, but a comparison of seemingly different techniques may, in fact, help explain certain techniques that may at first glance seem utterly baffling.

A step at a time...maybe that's the problem

It rained all day. And then it stopped. The sun came out and the clouds drifted off to the southeast. The water just sits there, collecting in pools. I suppose the ground is still mostly frozen. Everywhere you look there are puddles reflecting the skeletal images of winter trees and bare bushes drooping by the side of the trail. Off in the woods, it's damp and the swamp has overflowed the old gravel and dirt road that cuts through the conservation area on its way to the lake. But last year they put some stumps along the side and nailed down some planks so you can make it around the flooded part if you're careful and take your time--the planks are narrow and a little twisted, and the stumps shift a bit in the ground.

How the last mawashi technique in
Saifa often begins.

On the north trail, you have to step carefully from rock to rock to avoid the mud and standing water. In the spring this stretch of the trail is swampy, with skunk cabbage and small wild flowers that cover the rocks and provide a home to a host of little insects, but in the summer it all dries up again, and then the hikers chart a "social path" around the rocks, reconnecting with the trail as it begins to climb up the nearest hill. With the damp and the cold temperatures, however, the rocks are slippery. You have to pick your way cautiously across this little boggy area, scouting out your route, balancing on each slick stone, looking for flat surfaces or somewhere you can get a purchase, as they say, carefully placing one foot in front of the other.

One step and then pause, and then the hands come up, almost like a counter-weight. For some reason it made me think of open training time in Okinawa, when you watched senior students toiling with the nigiri-game (gripping jars) across the dojo floor. At least that's what it reminded me of with the slow and careful placement of each step, keeping balanced and steady. Beginners were over to the side, carefully trying to match their steps with the footprints outlined in white on the floor, shifting their weight from one foot to the other as they practiced walking in sanchin dachi.

I wondered how this sort of care--focusing on one step at a time, one thing at a time--informed our practice of kata and, ultimately, our understanding of the techniques of kata, bunkai. I understand the need to break complex movements down into smaller, more manageable bits, sometimes separating the steps and movements of the feet from whatever the hands and arms seem to be doing, particularly when we're learning something, but I wonder whether this piecemeal approach to the teaching of kata has a detrimental effect on someone's ability to understand the applications of the techniques themselves?

I have often watched senior students, and even teachers, do kata in this sort of fragmented, staccato manner: First they step, then pivot, then the left hand moves, then the right hand moves, then the right hand moves again, turning over as it drops to the knee, then the right hand is brought up to the hip, then the left hand rotates as the body turns squarely to the front, and finally they both push forward. This is how you might describe the last technique in Saifa kata, the step into cat stance (neko ashi dachi) with the mawashi-like arm movements, as it is often demonstrated. The problem is that in attempting to analyze kata movement when it is performed in this fashion--the way we learn kata as a beginner--we often assume that there should be an explanation or bunkai for each separate movement. And this is a problem.

When we do kata this way--breaking each technique into smaller and smaller pieces--and then attempt to assign meaning to each of these pieces, we fail to see the technique as a whole. We fail to see how the arms and legs--indeed the whole body--functions as a whole. We have, in fact, put breaks or gaps into what should be a single, fluid movement. What should be seen as a final, head-twisting technique attached to the previous series of moves (beginning with the sweep and over-hand hammer fist) is instead seen as a series of individual blocks against multiple attacks, culminating in a final push.

It's fine to take the movements and techniques of kata apart in order to teach them. This is the way we learn most things. But you have to put them back together at some point. There really should be no gaps. Someone who has just learned a kata looks as if they are picking their way across a boggy meadow, stepping carefully from rock to rock. Someone who has been practicing the same kata for years, however, should be fluid, without any discontinuity in their movements--you see the connection between the arms and the legs. When they step into the last technique of Saifa kata, for
example, turning to the front in cat stance, there are really only two movements: one to gather the opponent's head, one hand on the chin and the other on the back of the head; and the second to twist the head and attack it with a knee kick. Two techniques. If you were beating time on a drum, you would hear two thumps, and that's it--one, two. Of course, the way most people perform kata they look as though their feet had sunk in the mud and their hands were carefully parting the reeds to get a better view. If we're aware of this, however, if we keep this in mind, maybe it will help when we go back to look at kata applications, and, in fact, maybe it will help us avoid looking as though we're picking our way over half-submerged rocks in a marsh.

The influence of the times

The vernal pools have started to appear along the trail. It's early spring. There are Canada geese overhead. A light coating of snow from the day before has melted and turned the trail to mud wherever rivulets of water run down the slightest incline or an old stream bed crosses the trail. In the summer these running springs dry up, leaving only rounded rocks and boulders in their place as if a glacier receded, leaving behind these miniature finger-like moraines. Actually, this whole mountain, quite surprisingly, was once volcanic. Blackened bits of volcanic rock appear haphazardly along the edge of the woods in the summer when the trail is dry and the leaves have been shredded and stamped to a fine dust by hundreds of hiker's boots and dog paws, eroding the trail another sixteenth of an inch, compacting the ground over time, ensuring that there is a trail immune from the efforts of long-buried acorns and catkins and trailing vines trying to push their way up through the soil.

One of the hair-grabbing techniques
from Seipai kata.

Today, however, there are long wet smudges where a boot heel has so obviously slipped or skidded across the watery surface of a flat rock. These skid marks tend to color my perception of the trail, and I find myself carefully watching where I put my feet, though in reality there are thousands of footprints going up this trail and very few places to mark where someone has slipped or lost their footing.

In the wet places, where these vernal pools appear, there are "social paths" that now meander off through drying woods and ground that seems a bit higher than the trail. A small cluster of beech trees stands at a bend in the trail, each with someone's initials carved in its smooth-barked trunk. It reminds me that this forest which was once a primal wilderness has now been largely tamed. The trails have been cut and the woods is managed to some extent. There are regular forays of bird watchers and dog walkers and concerned citizens looking for non-native invasive species to rip out and cart away. My perception of the forest, and what I should like to call "the wilderness," has been conditioned, no doubt influenced by the times.

One of the hair-grabbing techniques
from Saifa kata. The left hand has
grabbed the hair or topknot.

In some sense, this is like looking at kata through a glass darkly, like looking through an early morning fog that sits in the valley, hiding the river and the woods on the opposite bank, trying to discern not only the movements of someone in a distant clearing doing kata but the reasons for the movements as well, the
bunkai. We are conditioned, it seems to me, to see fighting or self defense in terms of blocking, punching, and kicking. We tend to interpret our martial arts in familiar terms, as something akin to boxing. Everyone is familiar with fisticuffs, dust-ups, brawls--all substitutes for boxing matches of one kind or another. But what if, looking back some two hundred years or so, the times themselves influenced the martial arts of the period? And the irony is that we are left with the outward form (kata) of this ancient martial tradition, yet we attempt to interpret how to use it (bunkai) by overlaying it with a 21st century template. It's as if we set out to trace letters on a stencil where we had accidentally superimposed a sheet of arial fonts over an ornate gothic alphabet.

Of course, much of this line of speculation only raises more questions. There are few easy answers here. Many of the self defense techniques of Goju-ryu classical, or as some say koryu kata, seem to begin from a grappling posture with a variety of techniques against grabs of one kind or another. Was this a response to how people dressed in ancient times? Was punching from the distance of an arm's length less likely and more awkward if one wore loose robes? Was one less likely to kick with the foot if one wore sandals or geta or zori? So many of the controlling and finishing techniques we find in Goju-ryu classical kata seem to show the grabbing of the opponent's hair or topknot or queue, and knee kicks (hiza geri) seem much more prevalent. Do we no longer "see" these techniques in kata because most people nowadays wear their hair short? Does the fact that we wear shoes most of the time make kicking with the foot a better option?

If the martial arts were largely practiced by--perhaps even developed by--the military classes, wouldn't you be most likely to fight empty handed only after you lost your weapon? And in that case, wouldn't you be most likely to charge your opponent, who may still have a weapon, so that his use of that weapon would not be to his advantage? In other words, would I really want to stay at a boxing range, arm's length, against someone with a weapon? Granted, the safest thing to do would be to run away. But if one chose to fight, and one could close the distance safely, wouldn't the ensuing brawl involve grappling?

I think in some sense this may involve the practice of weapons (kobudo) too, and particularly the staff or rokushakubo. Again, this is pure speculation on my part, but if--merely a fanciful hypothesis--practice of weapons was also mainly engaged in by the military classes, wouldn't these long weapons have been pointed or bladed for the most part? And if that's the case, as a more likely scenario, does that change how we "see" certain "poking" or "hooking" or "pulling" movements in different bo kata? That is, if the rokushakubo kata--e.g. Shushi no kon, Tsuken no kon, etc.--were actually first developed to preserve techniques of a halberd-like weapon, how would this change the way we viewed kata, and especially bunkai? This style of bo and these kata were clearly developed to utilize both ends of the staff--either blocking with the front end and quickly attacking with the other end or blocking/parrying with the heel end and quickly attacking with the front end. (This double-ended bo technique, I was once told by a noted Chinese sifu after I had demonstrated Tsuken no kon, was called dragon staff.)

A collection of Chinese bladed
weapons in the Matayoshi
hombu dojo.

But in some kata, the slicing (if that's what it is) or hooking or pulling motions seem to all be executed with one end of the staff. If only one end of the weapon had a hook (like the
nunti bo, for instance) or a blade of some sort (like all of the Chinese long weapons that stand in a rack at the front of the Matayoshi hombu dojo), could this explain the apparent different uses we see of the two ends of the staff? And did the substitution (if that's indeed what happened) of a staff for a more militaristic bladed or halberd-style weapon come about due, once again, to the influence of the times?

I can walk off in the woods and pretend that I've left civilization for a time. I can sit on a log under a leafy maple tree, and if I'm quiet enough and up-wind, a deer might wander by or an owl might perch in the same tree. But as I walk up the mountain, I see a tree that fell across the trail last week carefully cut in thirds, its pieces rolled to the side to clear the way for us wilderness hikers.

[For a more detailed discussion of these techniques see my book, The Kata and Bunkai of Goju-Ryu, here.]

Patterns or structure of kata

Snow showers. I'm not even sure what that means, but they left a light, powdery coating of snow on everything. A dusting, they call it. The trail cuts a white, meandering path through the woods, and even the rocks along the path catch the snow in places, like white shadows clinging to small indentations, protected for the moment from the winter sun or gusts of wind. It almost looks as though no one has passed this way, no footprints to mark the trail and scuff up bits of leaves and gravel. I might be the only one who has passed this way, at least today, because, of course, it's a trail. Someone made it, carved it out of the forest, cut saplings and cleared brush.

I'm thinking metaphorically again, walking along the trail, mentally practicing kata, thinking about bunkai and imagining the other side, the side that's so hard to picture; the attacking side. This sort of metaphorical thinking reminds me of that book by Murakami, What I Talk About When I Talk About Running. Or that line from Il Postino where Mario asks Neruda, "You mean then that...the whole world is the metaphor for something else?" And with a abashed look, Mario says, "I'm talking crap." And Neruda says, "No, not at all."

Someone made kata, these patterns of movement that we use to remember techniques of self defense, that we use to learn the martial principles of movement. But the patterns are confusing and seemingly as haphazardly composed as a meandering trail heading off into the woods. No two trails exactly the same. No two kata alike in structure, conforming to the same rules one might use to decipher their patterns. And yet someone passed this way before, left marks, however faint, that would point the way, like trail markers, and explain how we might go about figuring out these seemingly arcane and esoteric movements.

Are they arcane and esoteric? Certainly they are, to us, a bit anachronistic, in a way, a part of a cultural milieu and time period when one might have needed to defend one's life, fighting to the death with lethal techniques, as anachronistic as many of the techniques that seem to depend on one grabbing the topknot or queue of one's attacker. But esoteric? The effectiveness of most techniques, arguably, is based largely on their simplicity, not their complexity or the difficulty one might have in learning them. The difficulty lies mainly in trying to explain movements and techniques that we can only half see. With kata, we only see the defender's response to an attack. We can only imagine the other side, and this often influences how we interpret the techniques of kata.

And whoever created these kata, certainly did not make it easy. If a single person put the techniques of these kata together--I'm thinking of the classical subjects of Goju-ryu from Saifa to Suparinpei--then I would expect the patterns to be as uniform and predictable as the set of Pinan kata or the Gekisai kata of the 20th century. But they're not. Seipai kata, for example, is largely asymmetrical--with at least the first three sequences not showing any repetition--using the left hand to "block" and the right hand for the initial attack (which is also true of the fourth sequence, though that sequence is repeated on the other side). Each of the first four sequences--there are seemingly five total sequences, though the fifth sequence shows a variation, in part, on the other side--is shown in its entirety; that is, with an initial receiving, a controlling or bridging technique, and a finishing technique. This is not the same pattern we see in Seiunchin, for example, which, aside from its set of three opening techniques in shiko dachi, repeats most of its techniques on both the right and left sides--that is, in response to a right or left attack--whereas Seipai only repeats the fourth sequence. But even in Seiunchin we have a pattern that is "interrupted," where some of the sequences, unlike most of the sequences of Seipai, only show the final techniques tacked onto the second or final repetition. This is true of the opening sequence of moves, the high-low techniques in shiko dachi, and the "elbow" techniques--that is, the first sequence, the third sequence, and the final sequence.

Core receiving technique
from Sanseiru when used
with the stepping turn.

Sanseiru kata, on the other hand, shows significant repetition in its middle section, repeating this "core" movement--chest "block," kick, "elbow," "punch," kick series--three times, and using an opening sequence that is merely a variation of similar techniques. And Seisan is entirely different again, showing three variations of what is essentially the same bunkai in the three sequences that follow the opening series of repetitive basic techniques--the three punches, three circular blocks, and three palm-up/palm-down techniques with knee kicks followed by a grab and kick.

There are so many structural variations, in fact, in just these four kata that it certainly seems to suggest different origins or sources, and it certainly adds to the difficulty one has in trying to understand the original bunkai of the different kata. And yet, different kata structures do not change

The bridging technique
of the final sequence
in Sanseiru.

the basic martial principles involved, and these principles are retained regardless of which kata one is looking at or which structure has been used to string together the techniques of the kata. In fact, one of the more interesting aspects of this structural awareness, "seeing the pattern" if you will, is perhaps a sort of radical realization that at least some aspects of the structure of any given kata are completely arbitrary.

This may seem heretical or at the very least blasphemous, but it's merely another way of seeing the sequences of a kata, another way of practicing kata bunkai. For example: If we take the first sequence of Seiunchin kata described above, we see that the first two opening shiko dachi techniques are incomplete, with the finishing technique only attached to the third repetition--this is the push forward with the "supported punch" and elbow attack. If we attach the finishing technique to the first of these steps into shiko dachi (same as the third) and/or the second of these (on the opposite side), we are not really altering the intent of the kata. We're merely illustrating it in another way, completing the sequences that are only shown in part. We could do the same thing with the core double arm receiving techniques of Sanseiru, attaching them to the open hand bridging techniques we find towards the end of the kata.

Certainly what we find is that the flow of kata that we have become accustomed to is interrupted, but the real intent of kata is to act as a repository for self-defense techniques, not to be practiced as a performance piece. In fact, the less we see kata as a performance piece for winning trophies at tournaments, the more we may begin to understand its patterns, its structure, and thereby its bunkai.

[For a more detailed discussion of these techniques see my book, The Kata and Bunkai of Goju-Ryu, here.]

Just because it's a convention doesn't mean it's right!

[I wrote this last month, but I somewhat arbitrarily forgot to post it. But then again, what difference does a day make, or a week, or a month for that matter?]


Welcome to a new year--January 1st--and yet off in the woods the new year looks pretty much like the old one did a few days ago. The blue jays are scolding me as I trudge by on the trail and the squirrels pause to look up and jump behind a tree, waiting to see whether I'm a threat. I've read that squirrels are very territorial, so I suppose these are the same squirrels that were scurrying around last

First technique of Saifa kata.

week, digging up acorns that they had buried last fall. I wonder whether squirrels are really as busy as they seem to be or whether they might be a bit like office workers rearranging the papers on their desks into neater piles, just looking busy in case the boss comes by or the wives ask where they've been all day.

But the days are already getting longer, past the winter solstice. We've turned another page on the calendar. And yet all of this business of time and calendars is a human construct, isn't it? A mass delusion, or if not a delusion at least something that we all culturally have come to agree on; that is, there's little rhyme or reason to any of it, it's just accepted. I mean, we've had lunar calendars and solar calendars and some combination of the two. Not even the seven-day week is

First technique of Seiunchin kata.

anything but arbitrary, something we have just come to agree on. In fact, for a good deal of human history we haven't even agreed upon a 24-hour day. Daniel Boorstin's book, The Discoverers, has an interesting section on all of this. Way back in 1582, they took 10 days out to correct the old Julian calendar that was off by 11 minutes and 14 seconds each year, so really I'm not even sure of the date. And in America, we didn't even accept this restructuring until Colonial times.

Anyway, all of this got me thinking about what we accept as a society, what we take for granted as we carry on with our daily lives. Actually I was thinking about all of this because I had been reading Kazuo Ishiguro's book, The Buried Giant. He describes a medieval England where strangers are  feared and the forests are filled with ogres, and mists shroud the land and bring an eerie forgetfulness. And it's all accepted as perfectly natural.

Initial technique of the first
sequence of Sanseiru kata.

It made me wonder about all of the things we accept in karate without question, all supported and bolstered by the bulwark of convention or lineage or rank. Of course,  we practice all sorts of harmless conventions in the martial arts, from the karate gi to the formalities of seiza and bowing to the shrine and pictures of those teachers who have preceded us to the use of Japanese terminology and the practice of kata. But we also practice what I can only call conventional interpretations of kata technique. And these conventional interpretations (bunkai) get passed on with very little questioning of their practicality, as if we are hesitant to question anything that most everyone else seems to be doing.

First technique of Seipai kata.

And these problematic inter-pretations are everywhere in Goju-ryu. For example: The opening technique of Saifa does
not use both of the defender's hands to pull away from an attacker's wrist grab. Why disconnect from the attacker? The opening technique of Seiunchin kata does not use both hands to release the opponent's choke hold. Why would you step towards someone who was choking you? The opening technique of Sanseiru (after the three slow punches, that is) is not used in order to block an opponent's kick and then grab the kicking foot and muscle the attacker to the ground. Why would you lean forward with your head undefended as an attacker was coming at you and then even attempt to grab a kick? The opening technique of Seipai is not a nukite to the opponent's chest--it's not a nukite at all--nor an elaborate wrist release. Why would you even think of attacking a hard target with the finger tips? And why would you take the time to weave your hands in and out of the arms of an opponent grabbing you with both hands using the techniques that follow it, as the conventional interpretation shows? There is no response to a full-nelson in Kururunfa. Try it sometime against an uncooperative opponent who's bigger and stronger.

Convention suggests that this
technique from Kururunfa is
a release from a full-nelson.

And yet these are all conventional interpretations of kata techniques. The problem is they don't make a whole lot of sense for a variety of reasons: they are too slow or they leave the defender open to attack or they don't really follow kata or they are easily thwarted by the opponent, etc. Their only reason for being is that they are the conventional interpretations, and conventions are rarely questioned.
This is not to suggest that all conventions are useless or without merit. Clocks and calendars are very useful even if they are a somewhat arbitrary means of marking time. But conventional wisdom once suggested that the earth was flat, that there was witchcraft at work in Salem, that you'd catch your death if you walked around with wet feet.

Most of the conventional interpretations of kata, I think, are, at the very least, useful in pointing out some of the pitfalls one may encounter with interpretations of kata, as ironic as that may be. And by example, they can steer us off into better directions, bushwhacking through the woods in search of a better trail.

[For a more detailed discussion of these techniques see my book, The Kata and Bunkai of Goju-Ryu, here.]