Well I went to try a local Karate club the other night and found myself doing chi sau drills (although nobody called it this). Advanced students were doing breakfalls and I was told that clinchwork and grappling takes place on one of the other nights of training. Supposedly there's a few Judoka at the club. I was also shown the first Kata and worked some one step sparring (never seen any continious fighting). Is this common to Karate or do you think this sounds like a progressive system??? Anyways I will go for a few weeks before commiting myself.
Hi John Chi Sao? Clinch work? Breakfalls? I'd say you've been lucky enough to find an extremely progressive karate club. Mike P.S. Of course I would say that - these are exactly the sort of exercises we were working on in our club last night.
Thanks Mike Its seems like a good club. Very friendly with a good mix of students. Its looking promising I intend to go to thursdays class and see how it goes. The styles called Shoto Budo and seems to be part of a pretty small organisation.
As far as Chi Sau in Karate, I had the benefit of getting to participate in a Goju Ryu Karate workshop with Sensi Chuck Merriman (I don't believe he uses the title Master). One of the first drills we worked on was, for lack of a better description, a Chi Sau type exercise (though different from traditional Wing Chun Chi Sau). Personally I think if you look to the earlier forms of Karate, like Goju Ruy you'll see a lot of "Chinese" aspects like that in them. In factit's one of the reasons that I love participating in Karate Seminars like the one I mentioned. I often get a better understand of the Kung Fu that I do looking at the more streamlined versions of the moves I see in Karate. - Matt
I have a feeling that might have been it. It was funny, it befuddled most of the Japanese praticitioners at the workshop. The Chinese folks took to it like fish to water. - Matt
"I have a feeling that might have been it. It was funny, it befuddled most of the Japanese praticitioners at the workshop. The Chinese folks took to it like fish to water. " I am not surprised, When KARATE was brought to Japan from Okinawa much of the Chinese influence was removed. That is when the it was made to be all hard kick / punch. Much of the flow, grappling , ground work which is the heart of much of the KATA BUNKAI was changed. EX. In a KATA what many JAPANESE see as a down block of a kick/low punch , Okinawain stylist will see as a regrab of the arm , a take down, repostion of the arm as a setup of the next technique. A sayaing I like, A BLOCK , IS A STRIKE , IS A LOCK , IS A THROW
Actually, what is called Chi Sao in chinese systems is also a fundamental part of okinawan karate, which is named Kakie.
