Aunkai: Can anyone tell me more about this art?

I've been checking out this new japanese art lately: Aunkai.

The principles behind it (as described in the website) seem to be sound and free of nonsense. There is full contact sparring, a focus on developing the basics and applying them, and some people (including bullshido members) have apparently attended some of the seminars and concluded it was legit.

Here's the website, and here's an interesting review at an Aikido site. The first post of this page is a review by one of the guys at bullshido.

So what do you think of Minoru Akuzawa and his Aunkai? Have you heard anything about it? Good or bad? I am intrigued by the idea of developing core principles in the body and letting your personal style and imagination emerge from the well-developed frame.

If anyone knows more... =)

 

There's a distinct lack of detail on the instructor's biography.

Words like Koryu are thrown around without mention of which particular ones.

It's all a little vauge for my liking.



Bloke might be a complete bad ass though.

 

I know he trained with Yukiyoshi Sagawa, but not sure for how long.

I recall reading, however, that he kept his biography low-profile because he isn't a fan of martial arts legitimacy being validated by lineage. Kind of makes sense when he's advocating personal innovation, skill, and "taking it to the ring".

 

Yes but if you claim to have studied something and feel it's important enough to use to market your system then you should back it up.

 

I see what you mean and I agree. However, I have seen masters with flawless lineages that can't teach. What is calling me about Aunkai is the fact every single witness report is overwhelmingly positive.

I'm reading stuff from people with all backgrounds that sounds too good to be true. Yet there it is:

"I had Akuzawa-sensei (aka 'Ark') standing in front of me while balanced on only one leg, yet I couldn't budge him, while he could effortlessly straighten his compressed arms against my locked-out arms. BIZARRE! It might not sound like much reading this here, but trust me, it is uncanny ... not-human." (judoforum.com)

"Particularly his use of "shaking power" is very impressive. He is deeply rooted and almost impossible to "push", his striking power without any visible windup is potent and he moves with an efficiency that is undoubtedly the result of "tanren" and not just technical practise." (e-budo.com)

"A guy called Mike Sigman was trying to explain how this kind of "movement" and "skill" were completely different in nature. People called BS etc, so a meet-up was held, and a fair number of people showed up, including an army cqc instructor with a purple in bjj. It was pretty funny to hear how fast the naysayers tune changed after they got hands on time. Pretty much everyone (excluding those that had already been exposed to this stuff) walked away with a "whoa...I've never seen anything like this before." (bullshido.net)

I don't know. I have heard only goodies about him. I planned to be in tokyo next summer so I might check it out.

 

Well I know nothing about him other than what is on that website, it was just the lack of detail on there that made me raise an eyebrow.


The rest certainly sounds interesting though.

 

I've never met him, but I've met those who have and he's legit. I met a couple of guys at a Mike Sigman seminar who had gone to an Aunkai seminar & were impressed by Akuzawa's power and most importantly lack of visible wind up behind it (this was from a man with a few dan grades across arts, door work and time spent in professional boxing, so not someone lost in internal hocus pocus). I think Upyu who used to post here trains with him and translates when he holds seminars in Europe and USA.

Despite all the hippy crap mumbo jumbo and noise discussed around internal training, especially by those who apply their own "well I see it as this" nonsense, it's not up for debate & pretty much agreed exactly what it is by those who can deliver (I'm not one btw, I've just got out and met some impressive people). It's physical body skills gained through hard work & intelligent practice, but I do understand why alarm bells ring when internal training is mentioned.

 

The materials are decent. I have his videos.

I train "aiki" with one of the other seminar guys, and at the end of the day - it is all more or less the same thing. The Chinese "internal" training and the Japanese that is.

What these guys have is a very clear and simplified training progression. By simplified, I mean you don't have to spend years learning intricate forms, before the teacher tells you what the hell it's really about like you might typically get in a Chinese system.

 

I just read this thread.. I hadn't heard of this art before.
I went straight to our old buddy youtube, to watch a demo of this art.
I found several videos that leave me with a good impression. Those two were the ones that I liked the most.

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wbvipmVYGzA&feature=related"]Aunkai Akuzawa demo - YouTube[/ame]
[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6IALtHUWiyU&feature=related"]MINORU AKUZAWA DE L'AUNKAI - YouTube[/ame]

I still don't know what to make out of all this. I mean I also find really disturbing that the founder doesn't reveal much about his own martial art training and biography!!
He doesn't mention how many years he practised internal arts and under who and he doesn't even bother to mention which Koryu he studied.
How can someone trust this guy, especially when he/she doesn't have a prior experience in internal or koryu arts?

 

It's like systema wandered up to a very lonely, desperate taijiquan in a bar. One thing led to another. And 9 months later, we get this.

(Not intended as an insult to any of the systems mentioned. The clip just looks very reminiscent.)

Not my cup of tea. But I certainly wouldn't dismiss it without more experience.

 

Those are definitely good questions.

Actually, I think the depth of those questions trascend this special case. What do we value when we choose a master?

I admit this guy sounded sketchy when I first heard of him. But he apparently endorses and enforces competition by their students, and seems to be willing to demonstrate his martial art against anyone interested, which has lead to all the positive reviews everywhere. He has apparently sparred with many MMA people in Japan and all of them seem to leave impressed.

In my opinion, demonstrable skill and ability to teach are much more important than lineage. I had two Aikido teachers, the second one being a student under the first, with much less experience. Yet the younger teacher was immensely better, and I learned much more with him.

A parallel: I play an extremely rare instrument called the Hang. It's so hard to craft that the very few artisans that produce it (I believe there are 6 or 7 in the world) can be traced back to the original designers one way or another. My Hang is a top quality instrument, and it was crafted by an obsessive russian luthier that had simply reverse-engineered the instrument, and thus wasn't known. Now he's very respected and has an incredible demand, even though he can't "prove" he knows how to do it right. His instruments sound beautiful, and that's all the proof he needs.

 

Honestly, that's exactly what I thought when I saw the clips. I couldn't tell if the reactions by the students was that sort of hypnotised compliance you see in fake martial arts, but the reports seem to say the opposite.

Also... There is a distinct scientific clarity in the website section that explains the principles behind the style. There isn't a single mention of ki, breath, indescriptible "internal energies"... It's pure biomechanics and body structure. That earns a lot of respect from me, honestly. What turns me away from Systema is the "psychic" crap that seems to surround it. Thankfully this and other aspects of the paranormal seem to be absent from Aunkai.

 

I haven't had the chance to read the website. I guess I'm just leery of a lot of scientific explanations. Those are really only rightfully more compelling if the reader happens to understand the science involved. If the teacher is just dropping a lot of terms like "vector" into the description, then it may as well read "qi."

That's one of the things I really appreciate about things like boxing, muay thai, etc. The self-evidence of it. I'm not a competitive soul. But I do like being able to look at something and know that a punch in the face is going to do essentially what it says on the box. I need neither scientific terminology nor esoterica to know that getting kicked really, really hard in the side of the leg is going to make me fall on the floor and seriously consider staying there.

Know what I mean?

 

I absolutely understand.

But hey, that's the point. This guy claims his "frame" usage and his motion can produce some results. He offers to show those results to anyone interested, without any compliance.

Apparently, respectable people have gone there and confirmed those results are true. That's enough to pique my interest. What better proof than reading people who were skeptical at first and came out convinced, specially when it seems to be unanimous?

Watching videos is important too, but most of those are demonstrations of principles, not fighting techniques, which may be a bit misleading.

My only nitpick is that I'd like to see some clips of them sparring, of which I can't find any, but admittedly I haven't dug too deep.

 

I 've seen one of his now senior student sparring in a clip. It was some time ago, and he wasn't all that experienced in Ankui compared to now i would have thought.

It was ok. It might still be up, it was "Upyuu" mentioned before, he posted here a bit and has a youtube channel of the same name.

 

Here's a cool clip I found
[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qpP_HmoJoHg&feature=player_embedded"]Minoru Akuzawa senseï 12/2009 Paris - YouTube[/ame]

Note this is a seminar in France, so people aren't necessary cooperating with him.

Again note that his strikes and stances don't have any semblance of being "fighting techniques". They're just body usage principles.

 

I agree. Sounds like you're on the right track to me. I actually meant to respond to your thread on aesthetics, by the way. I'm very much in the same camp. I just didn't get much of a chance.

 

It's okay, that thread isn't going anywhere fast =).

Thanks for saying that about me. It's good to get reality checks every now and then, whether they're negative or positive. I'm learning a lot lately which means I constantly adapt my views, and sometimes it's hard to know what to believe.

Oh and some more info dump for those interested. A nice interview with Minoru.

 

Thanks for the article Falcord!
Akuzawa speaks in greater detail here about his style's technical part!
I am expecting some comments from the internal guys and the other knowledgeable guys in this field (body and skeletal structure and mechanics), we have here in MAP.

I personally found in this article the same problems we talked about earlier.
He doesn't give us any definite information about his backround.
I found the story about the old 50 years old Koryu guy ridiculous and several other things he said, didn't sit well with me at all! His comments on Bruce Lee and Kyokushin for instance.. All in all, I didn't like what I read.

 

Keep in mind the author interviewed Akuzawa through translators.

With that said I had some concerns too. Particularly the comments about "bujutsu is different" and maybe what he meant was "The Aunkai Bujutsu Method" being different.

I'm going to chalk it up to some of it not being clear in the translation.