Uechi vs Headlocks

[Van Canna]

It did turn out into a good thread as my ‘instincts’ told me it would.

However, if I were lost on a mountain side and, after asking directions to one person how to get down, he were to say: ‘just follow the sun and your ‘homing instincts’ and you will get there’ _

Then if asking the same directions to another person and he said ‘follow the sun along particular pathways _ as I will show you how to recognize’ I would take the second person’s advice.

[chef]

We were blessed to have Roy Bedard teaching some classes at the WinterFest this year. As you know, Roy, comes from a police background and trains policemen all over the US and abroad. He was teaching one class that focus on ground work...primarily showing us various manuevers the police use to stop someone, getting them into headlocks from various positions (standing, kneeling, on your back if attacked, etc.). In each case, we always got into the head lock, working around the opponent, and went from there to immoblize him. Even little me was able to hold Jerry in the head lock well...and he fought to get out. Great stuff!

Roy, if you are out there, it would be great to get your input. I do hope you can teach this same stuff at SummerFest this year.

Regards,
Vicki

PS and, yes, Bill, it was the place off of Staples Mill I was considering.

[RA Miller]

However, if I were lost on a mountain side and, after asking directions to one person how to get down, he were to say: ‘just follow the sun and your ‘homing instincts’ and you will get there’ _

Then if asking the same directions to another person and he said ‘follow the sun along particular pathways _ as I will show you how to recognize’ I would take the second person’s advice.

That's a key difference, Van. The second person's advice will work for one particular mountain; the first person's advice will work (less efficiently for a particular mountain, but) for many mountains. If you already know what mountain you will get lost on, go for the local guide. If you don't know, learn the principles.

Rory

[Van Canna]

That's a key difference, Van. The second person's advice will work for one particular mountain; the first person's advice will work (less efficiently for a particular mountain, but) for many mountains. If you already know what mountain you will get lost on, go for the local guide. If you don't know, learn the principles.

Very true.

But _ what I am referring to is:

1. You already know the principles [they are in our kata, in sanchin etc.]
2. So the lost person already knows the principles to navigate an unknown side of the mountain, in fact he even has a compass.
~~
A] Yet he runs into two people who wish to help, one who suggests ‘homing instincts/principles’ _
B] Another who tells him to use his principles plus giving some specific new knowledge on how to spot ‘pathways’ in the side of the mountain, any mountain.

Like a JJ expert pointing out how the karate principles emerge with excellence along the specific pathways of defeating chokes used in JJ.

This is exactly what Joe Pomfret was showing us last Saturday night.

~~

[Bill Glasheen]

This is a good thread, Van.

****

More information is always better.

And Joey is a rare find amongst teachers and training partners. Joe is amongst that rare group of exceptionally good fighters that I'm never afraid to train with head to head. He's so good that - as I ask of my students - he does what he means and he means what he does. He can dial it up, down, and sideways.

I try to teach that. With some it is a challenge.

Do you do Sudoku puzzles, Van? It's something I picked up a few months ago. I got a book at the bookstore that has 100 puzzles in it. I'm on about 65 right now.

The answers are in the back. You can get these electronic ones that actually give you hints if you want. But you know what? To me, that takes the joy out of it. The whole point of doing Sudoku is to train your brain to view every solution on the grid in at least 3 different dimensions. When I can't get one, I sleep on it and pick it up the next day. Then the thing just starts to unravel. I have just done my brain push-ups for the day.

You used directions as an example. It reminds me a bit of conversations we've had in the past about such. You love your GPS. I wouldn't have one. I LOVE finding my way with the bare minimum of instructions and then the cues of the highway and of Nature. I guess it's the old Boy Scout in me coming out. It's also partly a hard-headed guy thing though.

Way back when I was a geochemist, I went out in the field with a geologist to help them with their workload. The guy I was with could get in a car and drive anywhere in the country without a map. Of course when we got there, we did our work with the finest USGS maps so that we could mark our soil samples or electronic measurements as acurately as possible on a 2-Dimensional grid. But find your way from town to town? I was jealous that my work mate could do that. So I started practicing what he could do. Over time I found I could do it.

Guys in particular are good at orientation. Women are better at features, and following directions. There's a lot of interesting gender-based research on it. One brain isn't better than the other; the two just find different ways to accomplish the same thing.

Fun stuff!

This is the motto that I like to follow in martial arts.

"Do not seek to follow in the footsteps of the men of old; seek what they sought." - Matsuo Basho

There must be a reason why I went into research.

- Bill

[hoshin]

Van, i like your analogy. it kinda points to what i was saying but maybe you can put things better then i can.
however i would add why is this guy traveling? is he looking to clime every mountian in the area over the next few months or is he lost ,hungy and tired and wants to get back to the city as fast as posible with the least amount of energy expended?

[Van Canna]

It's all good Bill. And it is fun to search things out.

But then I see the big words _SAFETY _ SPEED_

In the case of my State trooper friend those words are paramount.

As to A GPS...in my work, I need to find my way quickly and safely to people's homes, business addresses, accident scenes, etc., sometimes as quickly as possible after being dispatched there by an emergency call from a client to get there as fast as lightning to preserve whatever evidence possible, interview witnesses before they disappear, and immerse into ongoing investigations by police, OSHA, and other official bodies when an event is still ‘red hot’ so as to ‘trial prep’ the case as minutely as possible.

One night I was dispatched at 2 AM to the location of an accident where a run away truck down a steep hill _ owned and driven our insured _ had crashed right through a house killing several people and causing an explosion and fire.

The night was dark, it was raining _ the town not readily familiar, other than in a general sense, I was foggy from interrupted sleep, adrenaline rushing at the thought of what I would find upon getting there _ and my thoughts were focused on the approach I needed to_ ‘take over’ the direction of the ‘exposure’ in order to gain the confidence of official bodies at the scene _ and ‘protect’ our ‘insured’ from panic, criminal and civil consequences.

I never swore so loud in my life when finding myself losing precious time having to look at maps and street signs to get me there.

Reason why the GPS is now in all the cars that I own.

We agree Bill, on many things, but we do have a different mindset.

[Van Canna]

Van, i like your analogy. it kinda points to what i was saying but maybe you can put things better then i can.
however i would add why is this guy traveling? is he looking to clime every mountian in the area over the next few months or is he lost ,hungy and tired and wants to get back to the city as fast as posible with the least amount of energy expended?

This is just an example to point out how any of us can suddenly find ourselves in the 'jaws of hell' despite our best plans.

In my work _handling catastrophic exposures of all kinds_I have learned to look at things, at times, in awe and foreboding.

'Pointed knowledge'

There is a book out:

Handbook on Knowledge Management: Knowledge directions
By C. W. Holsapple
Edition: illustrated
Published by Springer, 2003
ISBN 3540438483, 9783540438489
738 pages

As the most comprehensive reference work dealing with knowledge management (KM), this work is essential for the library of every KM practitioner, researcher, and educator.

Written by an international array of KM luminaries, its approx. 60 chapters approach knowledge management from a wide variety of perspectives ranging from classic foundations to cutting-edge thought, informative to provocative, theoretical to practical, historical to futuristic, human to technological, and operational to strategic.

It will point the finger in directions we did not know they existed.

[fivedragons]

Posted by Bill: "You quite often entertain me in a very morbid way. Thanks for brightening my Monday morning."

I should hope so, considering you have devoted much of your life to teaching people how to kill other people.

It's hilarious when you think about it. All these people dressed up in their sparkling white gi's, trying to learn about spiritual values and discipline, etc., by studying a system of movement that was specifically designed to train and condition people physically and mentally to beat and kick people to death.

WTF?

[fivedragons]

And then you have the "operant conditioning" thing. Which really means, when you get down to it, undergoing a change in the way you see yourself and everything around you.

Operant conditioning is another fancy word, among others, for "learning".

The practice of chi kung could be considered operant conditioning, not necessarily confined or limited to a sense of violence or conflict, but in that it is a way of training the mind.

Without the mind, what will the body do?

[maxwell ainley]

Maybe uechi-ryu study methods are out of date. Some thing as simple as headlocks arn't really being addressed ,even as kids and the scraps I and many others ended up in ,a headlock more than likely was there involved some were down the line of fights.

That being said ,I know full well Sanchin does not offer quick fix tactics ,unless someone is going keep pulling them out of Sanchin, sort of do the work for others ,I am saying this to illustrate the old uechi Philosophy " Narrow study ,then go deep then produce breadth " maybe there is a modern need to get some of that breadth into action .

Kanei had broadened things no question ,but was it the right type of broad ?

[Bill Glasheen]

Kanei had broadened things no question ,but was it the right type of broad ?

Good question, Max. And it's a perfectly reasonable one.

I think there's a general consensus among most experienced traditional Okinawan martial artists that contemporary traditional martial arts (ugh!! ) forgot to include the tegumi in the supplemental drills. Many traditional Okinawan kata in fact are almost purely grappling, and yet those who practice them don't really think of them as such.

There are good reasons for the curriculum being limited the way it was - not the least of which was the expense of doing grappling (with mats), the time it took to develop Kanbun's style as it was, and the popularity at the time of kicking/striking over grappling. So the supplements to "the system" are what they are today.

Some argue that ANY addition to The Big Three, conditioning, and "sparring" is blasphemy. You know how that is. You aren't going to make everyone happy when some take dogma as religion.

I think present company is doing a great job of mixing the minds. Certainly the MMA sport arena has given lots of visibility to the grappling side of our martial heritage. The big issue then is "What next?" Do we assume that we keep all these arts separate and never allow them to be other than the way rigid minds want them to be? Do we co-mingle and let what happens happen? Do we keep a core and encourage specialization?

Lots to consider.

- Bill

[Van Canna]

I think one of our posters, a while back, wrote that all the traditional karate 'grapplers' got the sh-it kicked and choked out of them in UFC matches.

How could that be?

Oh wait...the real fighting techniques were outlawed

[mhosea]

Oh wait...the real fighting techniques were outlawed

As I recall, there weren't a lot of rules in the beginning. I don't really want to get into that subject again, except to say that it didn't surprise me to learn of it. I trained in Matsubayshi Ryu long before the UFC existed, and I don't remember even once practicing a takedown defense. Looking back on it, I expect I wouldn't have lasted 60 seconds against a good BJJ fighter. I did have some wrestling skills at the time, but not knowing about submission fighting would have made me an easy mark for almost any decent submission attempt.

Karate class wasn't quite insular, though. My first karate sensei taught me the headlock defense that Fred showed along with a few other defenses--lapel grab, front choke, bear hug. All of it was beginner stuff, and we practiced it enough that I wouldn't have to think about doing it to do it. I remember like it was yesterday (it was 35 years ago). As far as I know, none of these techniques were in any of the 18 kata, at least not in such a way that you could identify them in your first few decades of training, and if you ask me that means that they quite effectively weren't there. There was no mention of them in Nagamine's book. I don't know where he got them from, but I think it was a good model. I don't myself see any reason to be ideological about martial arts. If anything ought to be based on practicality above ideology, it's martial arts.