Simon Says

Okay,

First let me apologize to Simon Yeo, I went to Tower Records, Junkudo, and both Kinokuniya's this weekend but couldn't find a copy of your book. I am beginning to think I hallucinated seeing it in the first place. This might be a good thing, maybe the sales have been that good. I did find a book by some Toshindo dude dressed in BDUs with friends dressed in cheap samurai armor. I will keep looking for it. In the meantime, I ran across some interesting clips by Simon, who seems like a well meaning, dedicated guy.

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ab5ygpaK38Y&feature=related"]YouTube - NINJA THROWING TECHNIQUES[/ame]

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JN-jkUKunwY&feature=related"]YouTube - NINJA PUNCHING BY SIMON YEO[/ame]

Since we have been discussing teaching on MAP recently, I think we should clear up a few things. First, mastery takes a lifetime(duh). However, I might have exaggerated when I said a teacher should have mastered the curriculum before they teach(if I said it in those words). They should teach once they have mastered at least the first two levels of the art, and on their way to the third(which basically begins by/around/after godan). If you follow this progression in the art, you should be able to teach for beginner and intermediate students while you work on improving your own abilities. To reach this level(again this depends on a lot of variables), you should have gone through pretty much the entire curriculum of the art at least twice. Considering the breadth involved, it might take a while. Remember, in the beginning Hatsumi sensei didn't give names of techniques or much detail, he used his students to train himself and it was often brutal. Some members had to get signed letters stating it was alright for them to die from their parents. If the people now teaching all went through this kind of training and were still around, they perhaps would be better suited to share/illuminate the path of the ninja. There would probably be fewer of them, but probably more consistency.

I guess in the end Don Roley said it best, we can say what we want but it is Hatsumi sensei's call. People will continue to get second rate or worse training and the reality of the art will continue to remain with the few. Being that this is ninjutsu, perhaps this is fitting.

 

I'm really not a fan of performing ganseki nage the way Simon demonstrates it in the first clip. But I did like the second clip, the one on punching. I'll pass that on along to my class I think

Incidentally I'm guessing but the book that Reality Please mentioned is probably the new one by Hakim Isler called "Modern Hand To Hand Combat".

 

Yeah, I had a few issues with the ganseki. Kakushiken(the hand covering where they grab your chest) had the elbow too far back(as in behind the body) and that kind of footwork to throw is kinda problematic. Ganseki isn't a throw in the sense of I throw you, it should be more of he gets thrown.

Having said that, I heard the "I give up" form of ganseki with the hands in the air like you just don't care came about because some foreigners couldn't do it the right way. Now this has become the gospel truth of ganseki, and a good way to get reversed if your opponent knows what he's doing. Glad he didn't do it like that.

On the punching, although I didn't agree that most boxing punches are mostly shoulder and arms, I wasn't exactly sure what he was trying to show her. It was like a jun tsuki but not quite an oitsuki. Either way, I prefer more dent than push on the bag but that's just me. Not the worse I have seen by far but not I'm used to either.

Yep, that's the book! Pretty weird one. Reminded me of an old Mc Hammer song: Can't Touch This.

 

Oh lawd!

Your tachiwaza is contaminated Simon!


Maybe it was the camera, or you were feeling ill that day, but that ganseki nage was horrible!


Get your butt to a Judou dojo asap. No joke.

 

I don't have the book in question yet, I'm sure I'll get a copy at some point though.

As for the ganseki, my problems with it were more the fact it's a lovely juicy set-up for the opponent to use morote seoi nage (or a version thereof), using his right elbow to create cover as he enters. There's nothing wrong with the basic idea but there are just too many fundamental holes unless you control the space better.

My first thought was "ah, he's not showing it properly because the person who will be trying it for this show doesn't need loads of working detail, just a cut down version etc". But I've just checked Simon's book, the one you couldn't find a copy of RP and it's shown in the same way on pages 76-77 so...

By the way, did I really just say "control the space"? That's it, there's no hope for me.

I AM BECOME BEN COLE :hat:

 

Kukan balls!

 

Iga Mountain Oysters = Tasty Budo?

 

That's interesting, yesterday I was working on that and it seemed more difficult to pull off but once working was very effective. I've done both before but yesterday we worked on the concept of Ganseki without using your arm, this then evolved into using the arm for the 'Staying Alive' version and seemed good.

There seems to be a lot of 'different ways' in the Bujinkan (referencing the other thread on here...) consistency would help, but would eliminating that throw improve the Bujinkan or not?

 

I think it would be fair to give Simon a chance to explain these two clips if he wanted to. In the meantime, here's my two cents:

The movement in the ganseki clip was awful; the student grabbing Simon had no kamae, and illustrated a problem that I have found with some people's notion of "uke": the purpose of uke in this context is to attack tori, not just stand there and allow tori to do whatever. There is a purpose to shifting back on a forty-five degree angle; your uke should be grabbing you and moving in such a way as to unbalance you and knock you on your ass. If uke isn't grabbing and moving with the intention to injure/maim/kill you, then your own movement becomes somewhat disingenuous, to say the least.

The following is, in my humble opinion, a very good demonstration of ganseki:

[ame="http://http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NOUw7qo0_K4"]http://http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NOUw7qo0_K4[/ame]

Like I said, just my humble opinion. My apologies to Daniel for including him in this discussion without asking first!


- Mark Spada

 

QFT.

One of the things I have found over the years is that when I have a technique right it gets easier to do the harder and more committed the attacker is.

 

Hi Mark,

While I agree the clip you presented gave a more technically correct ganseki, and a better performance by uki, I would want to point out the color of tori's belt in Simon's clip. Clearly, she is very new to the art.

I don't think uki just standing there is unreasonable when tori is trying to learn the very basic movement. This allows tori to focus just on getting a feeling for how to move, without any pressure from uki at all. I found starting with a setup very much like what is shown in Simon's video, then little-by-little, as tori could absorb it, refining the exercise from both uke's and tori's perspective until it more closely resembles your posted video works very well.

Much, of course, depends on the student. I've had students who were very athletic, who could almost start at the point of your posted video, and some who were so far at the other extreme, even Simon's setup would have been a challenge

Terry

 

Both clips were super basic form. The girl although claiming to have martial skills didn't know much. She is a tv presenter and we only had a couple of hours to do a load of techniques. Regarding the Ganseki everyone understands the judo grab hence the starting point. I could have used an elbow lock or control the scapula with my elbow. I wanted to keep it really basic. I have also a very good transition between the two styles of Ganseki depending on how the opponent reacts

Regarding the boxing reference, this was a poor analogy, but wanted to emphasise the use of the body behind the strike.

 

Kudos for getting involved, I think that most people will forgive slightly inaccurate descriptions of the mechanics of other arts.

 

It looks like he might be saying the same as you but using Bujinkan speak to do so.

:Angel:

 

Yup, makes perfect sense. And anyone who doesn't ultimately work ganseki against judo grabs, wrestler grabs, and plain old crappy "whatever" grabs is fooling themselves if they think they understand ganseki.

 

This is of course the long form of the punch but is should be practiced at all ranges and most importantly without stepping through but shuffling forward

 

While I understand where you're coming from, I'm afraid that I have to disagree on some points.

The uke I was referring to in Simon's clip is the the young man who was initially acting as Simon's uke; the movement they were both displaying is flawed to me.

And while I can agree to varying degrees of performance based on experience with the movement, that doesn't and shouldn't necessarily preclude any sloppy technique on the part of the instructor when he/she is demonstrating the movement; even a white belt on their very first day in the dojo needs to have a decent idea of what they are aspiring to.

I'm not trying to falsely accuse Simon of this, but former students of Stephen K. Hayes, whether from To Shin Do or from "back in the day", have admitted to me in conversation that there seemed to be this enormous gap between how a so-called "beginner" is expected to do the movement and how a "black belt" is expected to do the movement.

It is just my opinion, but I don't feel that correct movement and technique should hinge on a practitioner's experience.


- Mark Spada

 

Whats the book version of Ganseki?

From my skillset i observed him completing Ganseki, not the best, not the worst but Ganseki with the principals of what it should be.

Hatsumi teaches variations of everything, whats the basic nowadays?