Sei San Bunkai Props

[John Giacoletti]

What's being used these days for props in Sei San Bunkai?

We use what I presume is typical, either a Shinai (bamboo sword) or a Bokken (hardwood practice sword). But I think a 4 foot 2x2 would serve as well.

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=& ... tnG=Search

For the overhead strike we used to arm the attacker with a length of lead pipe. I know some places use a short "virtual" weapon. I think a short 2 x 2 about the length of a nunchuku would also do fine.

The props add realism to the workout and/or testing experience.

Kycho Martin changed a couple of years ago and replaced the pipe with a high range right reverse punch. Defence remains the same.

Sensei Sumpter in Philadelphia uses the Shinai is his youth classes. He teaches the kids how to move and pivot out of the line of attack and use tension steps against controlled Shinai attacks. The kids love it.

[gmattson]

seisas bunkai traditionally performed using a Shinai against the forward leg, using a low "hook" kick to the outside of leg followed with a looping roundhouse punch.

At the N.E. Hut, we experimented with different attacks that can be as creative as our imagination permits. However, the outside hook kick and punch is probably the best application I've come up with.

I wasn't on Okinawa when they created the seisan bunkai. At the first black belt test, they asked me to demonstrate with a partner some of the possible applications found in seisan.

[Bill Glasheen]

In my experience, a 2-handed shinai attack has been used both for the front elbow attack (the front leaning stance elbow) and for the Seisan jump. Lacking a shinai or bokken, any available stick (or even an obi) was used. I've never seen anyone carry two props to a dan test. However what you do, John, makes perfect sense to me.

I try to teach my people a "vanilla" Seisan bunkai for shodan exams. It helps that they can go to any dojo and do the bunkai with someone else. However... A couple of the applications in the Okinawa-based bunkai are IMHO odd to outright silly. For some of them, it's hard for me to fathom whether the chosen bunkai was out of keeping things simple, hiding the good stuff, or just plain not understanding the kata. We can leave that to the historians to ponder over. Certainly a number of the techniques can have myriad acceptable bunkai. But for example the groin strike bunkai to me just totally misses an important principle of kata - setting up a truly lethal blow by understanding normal human responses. And frankly I'm not too worried about bad guys hiding behind bushes with their katanas. There are plenty of empty-hand bunkai to do with the Seisan jump that make as much if not more sense.

So past shodan, I teach my people "alternate" bunkai for a half dozen or so of the sequences. I mention this because a single stick for the front leaning stance elbow - as you have done, John - is my "alternate." It makes quite a bit of difference if you have the person attack one- or two-handed. For a one-handed attack (the pipe, stick, or looping overhead punch), the bunkai involves an inside (uchi) counter. There's a great picture of that being done in Uechi Kanei's kyohon. For a two-handed attack (the shinai) the bunkai involves an outside (soto) counter.

- Bill

[Joe Graziano]

The 4 foot 2 x 2 (or any other stick handy for that matter) works just fine. I'm careful to stay away from any sort of sword application (C'mon now, is anyone that good?) .

[Robb in Sacramento]

Well you have cetainly burst my bubble on the whole sword thing Joe. Charles had us use a shinai for safety purposes, not because he or anyone else for that matter ever thought the sword attack was particularly realistic (and if you have ever been on the receiving end of a Kendo strike, you know how unrealistic it is). I have folks use either a shinai or the puffy padded things you can get from Century. The nice thing about using puffy padded things as opposed to hard hurty things is that people feel OK about swinging fast. There's not much of a control issue. Also, when you get hit with the pads, you know you have been hit, but you can continue to train. I am still bummed about the whole sword thing though.

Peace
Robb in Sacramento

[Stryke]

delete . stupid question

[John Giacoletti]

Thanks Robb.

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The nice thing about using puffy padded things as opposed to hard hurty things is that people feel OK about swinging fast. There's not much of a control issue. Also, when you get hit with the pads, you know you have been hit, but you can continue to train. I am still bummed about the whole sword thing though. 

Are there possibly any undiscussed gender issues in the use of the Shinai in Sesei bunkai?

Weapon training is not a requirement for karate students in our school but the majority of our karate brown belt students have at least two years of kobudo training before they learn Seisan Bunkai.

Those who have the advantage of kobudo training have had a couple of years advantage in finding the Warrior Within. Those who don't have the kobudo advantage don't transition as easily into holding the bokken or shinai and letting loose with a healthy, disabling cut or whack.

"Whimp" isn't gender specific so we have to fast track the "whimps" through an accelerated "Kill Bill" module of holding and swinging the Shinai, of actually making the other student jump to avoid being hit, and some pad time using the Shinai or Bokken in thumping and whacking drills to get the entire body involved. When you can hear their cuts "whoosh" they are getting close to ready.

Students have to be taught there's the low jump back making cut towards the lower leg that then circles through and over the opposite shoulder for the over head downward cut which the defending student has to jump forward and circle block.

The conclusion of Seisan Bunkai requires lots of partner application practice, requires excellent timing and distancing skills, requires a sense of the dramatic and a controlled yet realistic release of hostility.

The above all made much easier by a couple of years of bo training that's principally augmented by sai and nunchuku drills.

We find we can help students reach deeper if they have developed a blood curdling weapon's yell (keai) in their power strokes.

[Bill Glasheen]

The shinai, bokken, katana, whatever, are all good. We make it work in our dojo.

Yes, I see the kobudo parallels. Lately I teach Hamahiga no tonfa and Tsukenshitahaku no sai because they both are so very Seisan. If the student has done either one of those forms with me for a while, by the time they hit Seisan, they totally get it from a kinesthetic point of view.

But to me it isn't about "jumping the sword" per se. To me, jumping a sword in Seisan bunkai is metaphorically equivalent to Fonzie jumping the shark.

Jump-the-shark moments may be scenes *** that finally convince viewers that the show has fundamentally and permanently strayed from its original premise.

To start with, it is my understanding that the original ending move in Seisan did not necessarily involve a jump. Check with Tomoyose Sensei and/or Toyama Sensei on this and see what they say.

Secondly, Okinawan kobudo shows that if you use this move as avoidance for a weapon attack (particularly a sword cut), then the "lifting" leg does something a bit different from the way people do "the jump" in Seisan. Tsukenshitahaku no sai and Hamahiga no tonfa involve lower leg "tucks" rather than a "jump." The moves are most definitely similar, but the way you apply the move determines the exact way you do it.

Moving your center (a.k.a. "jumping") involves muscular contraction against your entire mass. Basic physiology tells us that the speed of contraction is inversely proportional to the mass that the muscle is moving. So if you want that leg out of the way, you lift the leg rather than lift your whole body with the leg. To prove my point, we do the movement against the sword with very little center-of-mass movement, and do just fine. The folks who insist on jumping are the folks I can easily whack with the shinai. And me loves to whack people...

The need for a double leg movement (with or without a long, showy jump) more likely was inspired by Chinese iron broom sweep. Picture doing a low crescent or roundhouse to the front leg. As the person lifts the leg to avoid the front leg assault, you drop to the floor and sweep the one-legged stance with a spinning hook (the iron broom sweep). This is the reason for the "jump" as you now need to skip-rope that lower sweeping hook kick from your compromising one-legged stance.

Other more practical uses of the sequence get right into the lead-in for the jump. Rory Miller showed that lead-in as one of the three universal movements he uses to enter virtually any attack. Once there, the leg lifts with the "salutes" work really well to dump someone - particularly if they are holding your wrists. The heaven-and-earth motion pulls their weight on one leg, and a lifting leg can take that right out from underneath them. The second lifting leg can be a chambering before stomping on them.

Yes, there are many, many other applications using the pieces and parts of the "Seisan jump." You see echoes of them in the two kobudo forms I mentioned, only the parts are shown to be interchangeable. Some such applications I have incorporated into our own little dojo partner ditties.

But... People seem to like jumping swords for demo the way Karate Kid had Miyagi doing a jumping front snap from a Goju crane stance. That is NOT the application of that Goju kata move, FWIW. But... call it cinematic license, I guess.

- Bill

[JimHawkins]

I think instead of "jump back" it should be "jump in"...

That move done in instead of back would then be a seed element of sticking legs or leg jamming to defeat kicks and trap legs, so long as you take it to the next level by looking for what leg/stance placement concepts can come after the jump in, which could also be a knee strike going forward...

[Bill Glasheen]

The movement does not go forward in kata, Jim. At the very least in the movement front, you jump rope on a spot. Virtually every rendition that is done for kata demonstration is a backwards movement - whether by jump or by step.

But... you spring right back forward. So in a way it's a bit of baiting.

The way I do it in the bunkai (with the swinging shinai), I tell my students not to move their center of gravity back on the hop. You start with someone way too far away (with them having a weapon) for you to clear their offensive perimeter. But their movement forward during their attack brings them in range so that your subsequent movement - the jump forward - does indeed make interception much easier.

There are other Uechi kata movements that make the leg interception you speak of a more plausible application. And certainly elements of the seisan jump sequence can be used in myriad ways.

- Bill

[MikeK]

I remember the Swinging Shinais, one of my favorite bands back in the day.

[John Giacoletti]

I like to think of the "jump" as a quick shift of step and leg position that's timed to the swoop of the Shinai towards the right front leg and then a rebound spring forward timed to block the overhead downward Shinai cut.

The shift in the discussion to the so-called jump is a bit of a red herring, off the matter initially brought up regarding the efficancy of swinging the Shinai hard and realistically. I've seen all sorts of baseball bat holding adaptations including one right-handed student who held the Shinai with the left hand on top of the right.

Some of these students swing so reluctantly and terribly that the other student hasn't the slightest chance of being hit and the follow-up overhead second strike is so inept and ill timed that it destroys the whole fight simulating sequence.

[gmattson]

The sword attack is reminiscent of the old "Judo chop", used many years ago. No attacker ever would use the old "chop" and I doubt if any Judoka demonstrating a technique against the "chop", thought he/she was actually performing a judo technique against a "real" attack.

The emphasis in the demonstration is on the performance of the technique, not on the application of that technique against a real attack.

So, my take on the sword attack in Seisan bunkai is that the creators came up with a kind of "judo chop" simple attack that helps the candidate demonstrate a seisan "technique".

I don't think any Okinawan senior would believe that the jump/jump technique is an option for defending against a live blade. However, as originally performed, the sword attack provides an interesting "prop" for candidate's technique performance.

Remember.... candidate is being tested for a "theoretical" attack situation.... and the test board is looking for a clear and accurate technique against a simple attack.

[Bill Glasheen]

George

And this is why I save my "alternate" bunkai application for after the shodan exam. Let the people digest something simple before getting them into the intricacies of the good stuff. Even Mozart probably once had to play Mary Had a Little Lamb.

But I'm always willing to share the myriad other applications with the handful of folks who stay late and/or appreciate substance over form.

John

I agree with you about the shinai business. Teachers really should teach the basics in how to do these attacks. Not being able to handle a shinai during one of these demos plays about as well as inbred aikido dojos where nobody in the dojo ever learned how to throw a punch.

This is one reason why I spend so much time on kicking in my class. If we're going to have decent prearranged kumite and sparring, we need to have decent threats to work with. It takes a little bit of extra time to teach people how to execute an attack not part of their normal kata, but the benefit for the dojo in terms of defensive preparedness is well worth it. All I need is a few flexible head-hunting kickers in the class. Then the whole dojo gets the right attitude adjustments.

- Bill

[gmattson]

I agree wholeheartedly about accurate and real attacking techniques. A bad punch (one missing by a foot or off line by a foot) are impossible to deal with, since in normal fighting, you would simply ignore an attack that was off-target.

Like you, I emphasize a real attack, in order to make the candidate "look good" when his/her technique is performed correctly. (what the test board should be looking for)

Uke who "help" their partners with unrealistic attacks aren't doing them any favors.

We are supposed to be testing the "art" of the fight... the ability to demonstrate technique skill against an attack that simply represents a possible attacking situation, not a response that will inform the test board of that candidate's ultimate ability to fight in a real brawl.