1944 original "signed" Funakoshi Kyohan on Ebay

[Glenn]

Actually it is Funakoshi's signature stamp, but presumably stamped by Funakoshi. Starting price is $3000, for those of you keeping track of the increase in cost of rare karate texts. One thing I like about Jason is that he includes a lot of pictures in his listings.
http://cgi.ebay.com/1944-Karate-do-Kyoh ... 0058657525

[Bill Glasheen]

Wow! It's not even in very good shape, and yet now commanding $5K.

It sure would be nice to have such books digitized for posterity's sake.

- Bill

[cdoucet]

I was thinking about picking up this book. If it wasn't so near xmas, I would probably be alot more tempted if not allready gotten it, just for keeps sake sake.


http://cgi.ebay.com/Uechi-Ryu-OKINAWA-K ... dZViewItem

Chris

[Bill Glasheen]

Chris

I have that set. Mine are in mint condition, as I've never used them. I bought them just because I collect Uechi style books.

FWIW, having more than one brand of these "official" Uechi Ryu books is IMO a really good idea. Why? Because even with the "official" Uechi Ryu books, you see tremendous variety in how techniques are done. For me, it gives me confidence in how I do things, as I make form follow function and my knowledge gained from academic training as well as cross training in other arts.

As an example... The photos in these books are of stunning quality. Many are of important masters, such as the photos of Yonamine doing a wauke. And the photos of Nakahodo posing in Sanchin are to die for. They're stiff, but they are clear and the "stopping" points spot on.

However... Take a look at these pictures.



I do not like the way this man is doing his boshiken. The way he's holding his thumb, all he can do is bash with the thing. This totally negates 50% of the use of this Chinese art, which is supposed to be as much about grabbing, grappling, and gouging as it is about thrusting, striking, and poking. A much, much better picture of a Uechi Ryu boshiken exists in Kanei Uechi's kyohon. The application shown is also questionable. Somebody's going to lose a thumb in a fight to a mouthful of teeth one day if that's what they think this technique is for.

The picture of the lateral hiji zuki above is also a bit strange. It almost appears that the fellow has not completed his technique. And I don't particularly care for the applications shown. Strikes to the latissimus muscle? I don't think so... It ticks me off when I see stuff like this. Are they that uninformed, or are they hiding the good stuff from the gaijin?

In addition, check out all the pictures of people in "Uechi horse stances." Someone who never knew the style would think by looking at all the poses of pictures in horse stances that there was more than one stance being done. Some of the poses are IMO perfectly within the realm of acceptable variation. But one stance in particular is downright wrong, and the editor deserves some ribbing for letting that photo in the book.

I also think that the photography was bad in the sense that most photos are of practitioners in stiff, lifeless poses where no core muscle activity is being used. IMO, this is the kind of reductionist approach to Uechi Ryu that makes the style like decaffeinated coffee. There are more than a few who teach Uechi this way, and they really need to get out of their white belt approach to the style. Any decent athlete worth his salt would look at Uechi practiced this way and recognize immediately that something important was missing.

That being said...

I would buy the set. I won't sell mine. And the variations I see from George's to Alan Dollar's to Uechi Kanei's to this set to Igor's to a few others I have allowed me to get a good feeling for what's out there. It also gives me more confidence that some of us in The States have every reason to feel confident that it is our turn to begin leaving a legacy in the style. That ultimately is the duty of all long term practitioners.

- Bill

[gmattson]

None of us practice "posing" and any Okinawan I've asked to clarify a position, generally will do it differently than what they do when actually performing the movement in a kata.

Why?

We don't perform our kata in snapshot poses. When asked to demonstrate a static pose, we will "look" at ourselves in a mirror and try to come up with a "perfect" but static snapshot of something that wasn't designed to be taken out of context or something that a skilled martial artist spends any time dwelling on.

Books give an "overview" but to "see" whats in a kata, bunkai or cooperative drill, watch the teacher perform.

[Bill Glasheen]

I agree, George.

However... My standards are high. I've worked with a few great photographers in my day. Scott Barrow was once one of my students, and used to do TV commercials (as a sports photographer) for Cannon. Jon Golden - photographer for both newspapers and books - also was a good friend, and clued me into some wonderful books on photography.

It's a challenge we shouldn't shirk just because it's difficult. I agree that the books are only aids. But I think there are some fantastic martial arts books waiting to be published in our style by a few talented artists now practicing their trades in our midst.

And I still stand by my criticism of the pictured boshiken and elbow techniques. I may embarass a few people because they do their techniques the exact same way but... So be it. We need to stir up the dust now and then to understand what we do.

- Bill

[gmattson]

as qualified in the sport as the athlete in order to take accurate pictures.

Traditional Martial arts has not evolved to a point where photographers have reached this level of excellence. And where you are dealing with "Just do it" athletes, who don't dwell on the minute details, mistakes will happen.

The boshiken is a hand position that I've seen demonstrated many ways... mostly based on the amount of hand conditioning, flexibility, finger strength, intended usage and hand configuration (hands are very different).

Tomoyose's hands, when posed in the boshiken, look like they were created for this technique. But if you watch him "use" the boshiken for grabbing an arm, hitting a makiwara, thrusting into a throat and many other "uses" of this technique, you may (as I have) noted that the boshiken can be performed many ways.

[cdoucet]

Its Never been very clear to me what a Properly formed boshiken looks like. I have my variation of it just like everyone else.

If I get some time later on I'll try to take some pictures of my interpertation of it is.

Chris

[Bill Glasheen]

Tomoyose's hands, when posed in the boshiken, look like they were created for this technique.

I know what you mean.

When I first saw the beautiful photo in the Uechi kyohon, I felt the same way about the person doing that technique. His hand looked like it was created for the technique. I cursed at my "normal" hands which I have been told look more built for playing piano than for doing martial arts.

But... Like the Nike slogan implores us to do (Just do it!), I trained my hands with no particular Uechi goal in mind. I used some traditional training (the jars, a kind of pushup that I learned from a pangainoon instructor), as well as some hand and wrist training that I picked up from normal training books. And I kept doing the kata.

And then one day, my hand just "got it." It's not a structural thing (stronger hand) so much as it is a coordination thing. It's like not being able to put your toes in the sokusen position (traditional, with the double bend in the big toe) vs. suddenly understanding how to do it.

The thing I recommend to people which gets them there the quickest is proper jar (kami) training. I can understand where folks who on a regular basis carried these old jars from place to place in the kitchen or a restaurant would be able to do things with their hands that seem obvious to them. The key here is holding the thumb the correct way when grabbing the lip of the jar. I've seen countless folks grab the jars the wrong way. You can hold them the wrong way from now until the cows come home, and the synaptic connections won't be made in your brain.

There's a way to do finger/wrist curls and thumb/reverse-wrist curls using a barbell which will teach you the same thing. But again, you need to have someone show you how.

But if you watch him "use" the boshiken for grabbing an arm, hitting a makiwara, thrusting into a throat and many other "uses" of this technique, you may (as I have) noted that the boshiken can be performed many ways.

Well if you want to be technical about it, even Bruce Siddle's PPCT thumb is a boshiken. Boshi*ken translates literally as thumb fist. So Bruce's own way of holding a thumb to gouge folks falls under the realm of a thumb attack of a sort.

But... There really is a "vanilla" way for doing a Sanchin kata boshiken as there is a "vanilla" way of doing a sokusen. There are variations for both which work. I'm not going to argue with Yonamine Sensei who does a perfectly straight big toe sokusen. It just happens not to be the "vanilla" way of doing it. The latter offers some advantages in terms of shock absorption which protects the articular cartilage in the joints.

The nice thing about the "vanilla" boshiken is that it is the most flexible in terms of interpretations. You can modify it slightly to grab. You can modify it slightly to pluck eyeballs out of their sockets. You can modify it slightly to gouge, strike, etc., etc.

With the boshiken shown above, all you can do is smack something with it. This person appears not to have done any jar training.

- Bill

[Bill Glasheen]

Interesting... I tried Googling "boshiken" to see if I could find a picture of one online which I liked. And wouldn't you know... I found Bruce Siddle's PPCT version of a boshiken under that name. Go figure...

For those of you who have never taken one of Bruce's courses, this is what he uses.



Technically that is a boshi*ken or thumb fist. The name of the picture has it as such.

- Bill

[Stryke]

Hey Bill do you have any experience/seen a sokusen variation when the big to is actually underneath and supported by the second toe ?

any thoughts on it ?

I`m curious to how structurally sound it would be .....

yeah I am actually playing with sokusens now

another variation Ive seen is a shoken type fist with two fingers extended , maybe a good starter for beginners , is very simple to use/execute .

[MikeK]

Marcus,
When starting to use the spearhand I learned to use the index and ring fingers to support the middle finger from below. It's training wheels but it worked.

[Bill Glasheen]

Marcus

I think you can make the toe bracing move work if your toes are that coordinated. I've seen some unusual stuff in my years. I've had students (includling number 1 son) who could ball their toes up in a fist and actually "punch" with their feet. It's like a genetic throwback or something... So I wouldn't absolutely throw something like this out just because it's unorthodox.

The reason why I like the "classic" sokusen as pictured so nicely in Uechi Kanei's kyohon is because the double bend of the big toe gives shock absorption. The soft tissue "give" serves as a low pass filter to the shock of hitting a hard surface such as someone's shin in a collision. Folks who have mastered the "classic" sokusen tell me that when they were doing board breaking demonstrations, that their big toe would go back so far that basically it defaults to a ball-of-foot kick. When you think about that, it's absolutely brilliant. While I can't kick holes in plywood with my sokusen, I have experimented with doing them in the leg press machine. I experience a similar phenomenon of having the big toe go so far back that I'm starting to touch ball-of-foot when the weight gets heavy enough. Beyond that point, then the ball-of-foot - and not a second toe - serves as the tethering and strengthening of the primary movement.

But what does it all mean in real life? I tell people that the sokusen is one of the most practical self-defense manifestations of a front kick. Why? Because 99 time out of 100, you will need to defend yourself with normal street shoes on. And when it comes to street shoes, you want to take advantage of the penetration power of a shoe tip.

So... Whichever way you choose to do a sokusen, make sure it's a way which you can do with any or all of your favorite shoes on. In the end, the shod foot doesn't need a master's level sokusen. Any half-assed variation will do.

- Bill

[Stryke]

Thanks guys , the devls in the details , always love exploring variation

[Stryke]

that their big toe would go back so far that basically it defaults to a ball-of-foot kick. When you think about that, it's absolutely brilliant.

that indeed m,akes sense , I wonder how much range of motion one can gain , fascianting stuff , would be a great trick/tool