I was shown some old clips of Tatsuo Suzuki about a week ago. There was one in particular, where he does a mix of katas, starts with Seishan, goes to Wanshu, a bit of this and that, and ends by kicking through a thick block of wood. It was very impressive of course. My question though, is about a jump he does mid way through his demo. It looks very similar to what Shotokan do in Unsu. I have never seen him, or any other Wado master I don't think, do it anywhere else. Does anyone know what this jump is? Is it Wado or just done for demo purposes? He wasn't the kind to just do a fancy jump just to impress, so it must have meant something?
Puma wrote: Has anyone seen a useful application for the jumps in Unsu and Kanku Sho? Like many sequences in kata, I just don't see how they map to meaningful movements in empty hand fighting?
Well, In Wado Ryu they're not so much jumps and myself think that they resemble a double leg takedown... but hey ho it's conjecture. However most of the jumps don't exist in the older kata i.e. Nagamine's book, early Wado ryu footage etc I tend to view them as stylistic developments ala Pinan Godan's leap in modern day vs early performances... that's my tupenny's worth..
if he was doing a medley of parts of different kata, then it was purely for demonstration purposes, as that's the purpose of a kata-mix medley. also, the jump in the shoto katas is a modern invention, probably for athleticism. the okinawan version has a standing turn.
The Kata is called Ryu Sei: [ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bKMIttaPS-U"]Kata Ryu Sei by Tatsuo Suzuki - YouTube[/ame] It is his own creation / compilation (as far as I understand). I don't know whether Otsuka ever taught Unsu. I've heard he taught Suparinpei very early on, so it is possible he also taught Unsu, but it isn't arround in Wado these days - except for in those groups that have "Wado-fied" the Shoto version for competition perhaps!? Gary
Yeah, that's the kata. A different video to what I saw, but the same kata nevertheless. Suzuki was adament that Ohtsuka never taught Suparinpei. Others, as you say, said he did. I don't think there was anything in what he did in that video that was meant to be flashy, or competition like. I don't think he did the jump just to show off. He didn't leap right up in the air like some do. The only thing I can think of is there is a similar move to that jump in some of the sword defences he does. But it still isn't quite like that.
In his book "The Fullness of Life in Karate" Suzuki does explain that he remembers being told that Otsuka did teach Suparinpei to some of his early students however gave up fairly quickly!! Hakoishi Katsumi from the JKF Wado-kai has a book (published in Japanese only) where he shows Unsu and Suparinpei kata (Wado version), but it is a point of some speculation as to whether they are his interpretations or whether he learnt them from Otsuka. I doubt it was the latter TBH, more like trying to keep up with what the rival Shotokan and ****o-ryu university clubs were doing. Gary
Fish of Doom wrote: Do you have any evidence to support this statement. There are, to my knowledge, two versions of this Unsu that have survived, one from Mabuni, one from Funakoshi. One has a jump, one doesn't. I don't see how the evidence supports this as a "Japanese" invention. There are several versions of Kusanku sho that descend from Itosu. The Miyahira (student of Chibana) version and the Funakoshi versions have a big jump at the end. The Mabuni version does not. Yet the Chibana version would be considered by many to be purely an "Okinawan" system. The Yara version of Kusanku in the ****o Ryu system, and the Yara version of Kusanku in the Kyan systems both have these big jumps in them. I don't see why this would be considered a non-Okinawan change to the kata. We can even find variation within individual systems. There are youtube videos of Shorinkan Chinto where the jumping kick in the beginning is modified and done with two steps with no jump. That was my experience in Iha's (student of Miyahira) dojo. I found that the standard way to practice the two moves with jumps, in both Chinto and Kusanku sho, was not to jump but to step. The jumps were optional. And in general, older students did not do the jumps, and neither did Iha sensei. I believe that speculation about changes in kata is speculation, and should be considered as such. Funakoshi certainly changed the length of the back stance, and to some extent, the front stance. We can see that because he documented his kata in pictures in the mid-20s. He also replaced Chinese names of kata with Japanese terms. Higaonna and Itosu, and likely others, modified open-hand movements to closed-hand movements. And Nakama stated that Itosu changed movements from simultaneous block/strike, to block then strike movements. And we know that Itosu modified some "Channan" forms in his development of the five Pinan to be taught to Okinawan high school students, in part, to prepare them for military service. Outside of those minor modifications, we really don't have any documentation about what was changed, and by whom. I believe there are two ways to look at the kata. The first is highly prevalent. This school of thought claims that for each kata of a given name, there is some "original" form from which current versions were developed from. In addition, this school of thought credits the Okinawans with making these modifications. But since there is nothing in the historical record about when these change might have been made, the entire argument is speculation. There is a another way of looking at these variations in kata. Motobu, Funakoshi, Nagamine and others claim the kata we have today are of Chinese origin. It's quite possible the Chinese taught variations of kata. For example, we have some quite different versions of Passai. ****o Ryu has three of these, and there are others, some similar to these (Hohan Soken's Dai, e.g.) and some quite different (Hohan Soken's Sho, Genwakai's Ryufa, Shuri Ryu's Bassai, etc.) We can speculate that sometime within the last 150 years, maybe earlier, Okinawans started with some "ancestral" passai, and made modifications. Or, we can look at these kata and speculate that perhaps all of them trace back to the Chinese, who have been credited with passing them down. And we can speculate as to why as well. I would argue that variations provide more information. If the goal of the Chinese was to transfer information about movements that could help the Okinawans protect themselves, then variations gave them more options. Many Chinese traveled to Okinawa and remained for the 6-9 months before the trade winds changed allowing for the return voyage. In that short period of time, one way to impart a lot of information is to teach individual Okinawans unique concepts. Collectively, after just a few months, the group of Okinawans would have far more detailed information than could be shared if everyone learned the same thing. To me, two interesting aspects of kata variations is that, 1, in general, the goal is to wind up on the same spot, and 2, each "style" uses just a few stances. But the stances, from style to style, differ in length. For example, the "weight back" stance can be a stride long (Mabuni, Kyan), slightly longer (Chibana), and longer still (Funakoshi). The weight forwards stances also differ in length, and many systems have a short and long "weight forward" stance. Side stances (Shiko and Kiba) also can differ slightly in length. But each system has consistent lengths for these four stances. This practice of consistent stance lengths, combined with the requirement to return to the same spot, has the obvious result in minor differences in embusen between styles. Angles are often different. In one system, it is 90 degrees, another 45 degrees, etc. This "style" consistency extends beyond stances. The shuto movement is found in many Shuri-te kata. Yet, from style to style, the movement is done with variation. Kyan and Chibana systems use body rotations in the direction of the movements. Mabuni and Funakoshi execute the movement with a counter rotation. Soken students have virtually no rotation. And the path of the hands, starting and endpoints all vary to some degree. But again there is consistency within the style. Across a style's many kata, the shuto movement is done the same, just as the stances, the strikes, the blocks are done consistently the same. This is, IMO, the same issue that I discussed above. How did this get this way? Did all these modern masters make all these variations? Or is it possible, that the variations are quite old, and that they have been handed down, preserved, in what we have today? We can never really know, because they all died off without revealing any information about these changes. But I find it more satisfying to view all kata movements as potentially quite old, and likely Chinese, than to imagine that in the past 100 years there was some explosion in variation of the old kata.
could it be a bit of a case of the kick was supposed to be there, but as the senseis got older they couldnt do the jumps any more, so just did the kicks with a step, and people mis-interpreted this? I know similar things happened with my jujitsu when people watched Terry Parker doing some techniques after he had sufferec a neck injury and he had to do things differently because he couldnt move his neck like before, and for years people were doing some techniques differently because he had had to change how HE did them because of physical limitations. or it could just be different peoples views on how to do the kata...
i mean the 360 turning jumps, cayuga. unsu, kanku (kushanku) sho and enpi (wanshu) being the prime offenders (the latter having a standing jump, the others the prone jump). jump kicks are jump kicks, they are a technique unto themselves. matsubayashi kushanku - no turning jump: [ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mTXzrsF0JM8"]Jim Sindt - Kushanku (matsubayashi shorin ryu) - YouTube[/ame] sukunahayashi kushanku - no turning jump: [ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=56NlyLiquAs"]Zempo Shimabukuro - Kushanku (sukunahayashi shorin ryu) - YouTube[/ame] kyudokan kushanku sho - no turning jump: [ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eEgAb0euajQ"]Kushanku Sho - Okinawa Shorin Ryu Karate-do KYUDOKAN - YouTube[/ame] ****o-ryu kosokun sho - no turning jump: [ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H_Yeb6dFIwA"]Koshokun Sho ****o Ryu - YouTube[/ame] ****o-ryu unshu - no turning jump: [ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6FzMVpTYi2o"]Unsu ****o ryu - YouTube[/ame] inoue-ha ****o-ryu unshu - no turning jump (note that inoue trains champion kata competitors, and they use a jump in competition. it is added for athletic value): [ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xMyqRfnxmOE"]Unshu Miyuki Osawa - YouTube[/ame] wanshu by nagamine shoshin - no turning jump: [ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HqUdKaQ9SkQ"]Wanshu Kata - Nagamine Shoshin - YouTube[/ame] matsubayashi-ryu wanshu - no turning jump: [ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n2cZj85sBNQ"]Wanshu - YouTube[/ame] seibukan wanshu - no turning jump: [ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3zo1emnRwN0"]Seibukan Wanshu Kata - YouTube[/ame] wanshu by nakama haruka (1926 - 2010): no turning jump: [ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wmloB_v2diU"]Wanshu - YouTube[/ame] in addition, i have been told by an actual competition judge (my sensei's sensei, actually), that further modifications are made in competition nowadays for athleticism (even compared to the early "big" movements popularized in and by shotokan), which can be confirmed seeing both what the movements are like in shotokan nowadays compared to ye olden days (crisp, ultra high jumps, occasionally with a jump side kick or back kick, compared to the fast and low "sloppy" jumps of people like mikio yahara), and the addition of such things to kata of other styles even if they're not practiced in the "classical" form (case in point, inoue-ha ****o-ryu practitioners and competitors).
Fish of Doom wrote: I would argue that jump found in Funakoshi's Unsu has often been as high as one could jump. I thought Nakayama gets some pretty good height in the video from the 60s. Like the jumping kicks in Chinto and Kusanku Dai, most practitioners go as far as they can, just like they exert maximum strength in most techniquest. That is the beauty of jumps. For once, one is not contained by stance in exploding to one's fullest potential to achieve height and distance. [ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9gNTc283kAg"]Old Unsu shotokan karate kata jka - YouTube[/ame] Regarding turning jumps, you have called out the 360 degree turn in Funakoshi's Unsu as a jumping turn. Likewise the 360 degree jumping turn in Funakoshi's Wansu. I would also categorize jumps that turn 180 degree as "jumping turns." Like those found in the classical kata of the Chitose's Kusanku, the Yara versions of Mabuni and Toma, an the Miyahira version of Kusanku Sho. ****o Ryu Yara Kusanku - Turning jump (1:23) [ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cgayAHO6NZ4"]****o-ryu, Chatan-Yara Kusanku, Hasegawa Yukimitsu - YouTube[/ame] Shorin Ryu Yara Kusanku - Toma (Student of Zenryo Shimabukuro) - Turning jump 55) [ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fca0JIR8Ikk"]Kusanku Kata - YouTube[/ame] Chito Ryu - Kusanku - Turning jumps (2:26 and 2:33) [ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0SnQ9Hg8arw"]Sanshiryu Kusankudai - YouTube[/ame] Shorinkan Kusanku Sho - Turning jump (1:13) [ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qBE9k5pIqxQ"]Kusanku Sho - 45 Aniversario Sensei Miyazato en Argentina - YouTube[/ame] These are Okinawan, and I would argue, likely as classical as any other surviving kata.
Hi Fish / Cayuga The Wanshu / Empi jump was described by Funakoshi in both Karate Jutsu and his first edition Kyohan. He emphatically states that it should be a big jump in both texts. It was definitely current in the 30s.
good catch on chatan yara no kushanku, cayuga. i stand corrected on the jump being a purely modern invention (same re: funakoshi's enpi. cheers jwt). however, the addition of said jump to kata where it is not present as traditionally practiced (unshu, for example), is a different story, particularly given that at least in some ****o-ryu lines a particular technique is used (slapping the knee and then the forearm while turning). i have no idea what that technique actually is, though, having never seen traditional bunkai for unshu, and of course one can only speculate as to which was the "original" version for any given lineage and why that was so .
interesting that the chito-ryu sensei does the leg slap, turns and THEN jumps and keeps turning. ah, krotty, why are you so confusing?
