very interesting!!!

[gmattson]

Before you make statements like this:

I still beleive it`s all there , with a little assembly required (to quote Bill) , so why cant it be just as good as any other style ? ,why the apologising for it , why do we have uber dans calling it a style that just happens to have some self defence moves in it ?

Please look back at how you and "the boys" chewed on anything Bill or I wrote pertaining to how we trained and taught. Remember how you and your buddies became distressed and agitated over the fact that what we were teaching was contributing to the neutering of Uechi-ryu and how you lectured us on the "correct" way to do Uechi????

Since I wasn't going to change the way I teach and don't have time to engage in this never ending cyber sparring, I simply redefined what we were doing, hoping you and your friends would tired of playing the game of "bashing the "uber dans"!

Well, now you are upset because we are on the record saying "we practice an art that happens to use self defense movements, taught by Kanbun Uechi, Kanei Uechi and Ryuko Tomoyose." This upsets you because now you can't say what we do "won't work" - because by definition, each of us "does it for our own reasons" and "IT ALL WORKS!" i

t must be difficult for you to understand this.

I wish you would make up your mind about how you want the Uechi world to
post and discuss our training methods. We really want you to be happy in your cyber muscle flexing and tantrums.

[Stryke]

Now I`m in trouble for sticking up for Uechi


Ive posted on my methods many times , Im yet to see any of the advanced material your so fond off not discussing .

No tantrums here , just a a good head shake , and some rather sad amusement .

why not pick out the positives ?

Maybe you are neutering Uechi ryu , since you brought it up ? , I surely never have .

good on ya Sensei Mattson .

cant wait for the editing police to move in on this one .

It doesnt upset me because I cant say it doesnt work , It`s just dodging the real discussion of what does work .

but we cant have that anymore becuase you say it doesnt have to work ?



Now I understand your motive , thanks George , sorry I didnt get it earlier , thanks for the answer .

you move away from the martial , you move away from the martial art

[Stryke]

If you read the thread , its about the Art having the martial removed , this is all very on topic .

if you had ulterior motives to your phrasing fine , but I honestly didnt understand the motive , of further removing the efficacy focus of Uechi .

[cxt]

Jim

Yeah, I'd fully agree that "no contact, choreographed" etc says little about fighting skill.

But then again that was no-where near what I saying.

I was more speaking to the notion of pulling random clips off youtube and trying to use them as if they were "proofs" of much of anything.

Besides, such drills may not show much--but they are, on banc done better than many people could do---which tells us at least something.....at least something in context with the post I was commenting on......as an example not many of us are competing at the level of the girls in the first clip.

When you pull stuff out of context with the post they were made about....then pull individual sentences out of context with the paragraph and overall thrust of the post itself.........makes it really hard to respond......since I now have to answer to something that in context is pretty removed from the actual intent/implication of my post....esp at that particular point.

Essentially your infering something I didn't imply.

In fact your inference is about 180 degrees from the overall implication of the post.

[Laird2]

It's predictable on these forums that if a thread contains anything approaching different points of views and it makes it past two pages two cards will be played.



1) The your bashing Uechi card

2) The you’re dissing me card



So we have reached the point were Bill and George now has played the “you’re dissing me card.” It is now time that everyone lays their jokers on the table. Let us get back to the game, no wild cards, If your hand contains Joker #1 or Joker #2 this is the time to play it.



Lets see this were this thread may go setting aside the usual tactics.

Has Uechi been diluted?

Why is there no short range bunkai or training evident?

I've seen the leadership on this page go from "telephone booth fighting to just exercise with martial movements in less than a decade.

Don't know if it's marketing or a change in focus. We can't ask George because he feels picked on. Possibly someone else in the group can tell us what Sensei might have intended when he made these statements about Uechi. I''m confused I think it's an ass kicking system! Uechi rocks!

[Stryke]

lets get back on topic

Interesting article on change of focus , from a sport fighting perspective , but lots of relevant thoughts .

http://www.nononsenseselfdefense.com/evolution.html

[Valkenar]

Uechi is a style, not a person, it's not going to get its feelings hurt if someone insults it. If you like doing Uechi, or get some value out of it, then do Uechi. If you don't like it, or don't see any value in it, then don't do it. Why get bent out of shape if someone seems to be dissing it?

It's been interesting to read the discussion of the history of Uechi style and training methods, but ultimately whether Uechi is lacking for your purposes has everything to do with how you study it and little to do with how it was or wasn't taught in the past. There's more than enough material in the style to adapt to get whatever you're looking for out of it (within reason).

[Stryke]

Agreed 100 %

from the above article posted

Now where things get really scary is with self defense. About 90 percent of the people who claim to teach self defense are, in fact, teaching a further bastardized form of these already sports mutated martial arts. It is additionally corrupted because without understanding the sports influence -- its limitations or purposes -- they are claiming to have stripped away the padding of their martial art style and made it street effective.

They haven't. In many cases, it's not even a case of throwing the baby out with the bathwater, it's far worse. Such people often unwittingly throw out what would work and retain the chaff, simply because they don't understand body mechanics or principles, such as structure, momentum or range. In many cases, both they and their students resort to muscle and flailing and call it self defense.

[Van Canna]

Out of curiosity...how would we define 'Self defense' in this discussion?

[Stryke]

Out of curiosity...how would we define 'Self defense' in this discussion?

In general Van anything that helps you survive .

In context to the physical training , anything that helps you survive a physical altercation .

But I`m done with this thread (at least unless it changes drastically) , thanks to those who contibuted to the substance .

[cxt]

Laird2

"why is there no short range training evident?"

Just guessing, and that is all it is...a couple of guesses. but off the bat 2 things come to mind.

1-Compared to some styles (styles used here as a "general" term) it already is "short range."
So maybe its more or less a question of what and how somebody defines "short range?"

2-Maybe its a case of not everything either was nor is not supposed to be explictly spelled out for the student.
Its not hidden, its just that you can't cover every possible situation and attack and defense---think how "large" a system would have to be individually and specifically lay out every conceiveable encounter and work up a specific response....and whom would possibly be able to consistantly train them all?

And reality being what it is...the second you think you have a utterly comprehensive all encompassing set of "bunkai" somebody, by accident or design comes up with something "new"...or at least something "new" as far as your oh-so-carefully designed system is concernd and now you have a potentially fatal "gap" if you will.

Maybe its better to teach a range of skills that can be applied/adapted to a wide range of situtations as needed than--than specific responses to specific things?...Maybe we are expecting too much specificity from an art that was maybe desgined to be "looser and more flexible" than, and less "concrete" than we think?

I recall some MA guy--whose name I can't recall once saying something like "I show all my students 2 of the corners, if they can't find the 3td point of the triangle, then they are not working very hard."..something like that.

Someone on this site once called martial arts as "some assembly required" (2Green I think...don't know if it was his or he was quoting someone else..could have been Bill..really don't recall..sorry ) seems a perfectly reasoned postion to me.......pretty much everything in life is more of a product of how hard we work and what we as individuals bring to it than an set of "buildt in" attributes.
You can be taught every possible aspect of painting and brush work----won't make you an artist.....mores the pity.

My first karate teacher refused to show us any "offical" bunkai for his kata...he would show us a whole range of "possible" interpretations for any given "move"....his reasoning was if he told us "this is the application" people being people we would start thinking of it as being "the one and only proper application"..after all "sensei told us this was "it."

On the 2nd question "Uechi been diluted?"

I'd have to ask "from what?"

Given that we know very little about what exactly Uechi (and any number of other Okinawans) was learning in China, its kinda hard IMO to establish in the academic sense if anything was "watered down" and where exactly it happend....its entirely possible that if we could go back and ask the teacher of the man/men that trained Uechi's teacher in China he/they would be quite put out at how much his students "diluted" what he taught them.

We just don't know.....and its unlikley that, supposition aside, we will ever know for sure.

Besides, as I see it it is, as mentioned. a largely academic question.

It may be a crude POV, but IMO MA is largely an individual, wholly situational kind of a thing...if it worked when and where you needed it to work then by defination it works...pretty much period............that what you did was not "pure" or was 20% less than theoretically maximally effective is less important than you ending up in one piece.

Like I said the idea that something has maybe, possibly, argueably, debatably been "diluted" at some remote point in time is far less important to me than how effective my training is today....and that I determine by hard sparring, hard partner work, strength training, bagwork, etc.

[Van Canna]

I think the ‘dilution’ as seen by many, including seniors from sister organizations, who may or may not have axes to grind, stems from the basic concept that Uechi has a long history of being a formidable defensive style…

with Kanbun training his students long and hard into the night, and engaging in very close quarters ‘jyu-Kobo’ meaning free attack-defense _ scenarios full out in his small dojo, according to historical accounts flowing from Toyama sensei, one of his direct students.


Then we know about the historical ‘kick ass’ exploits of Kanbun and his students in Wakayama against thugs.

Also people look at the history of Seiyu Shinjio, the tiger of Okinawa, a direct disciple of Kanbun_ and witness his son Kyohide in modern days…in performance and training methodology.

The tendency is to ‘compare’ with that model, and draw conclusions as to who is doing what, why, and when…which elicits personal angst…again …very natural.

Everyone has ideas of what Uechi is and should represent and how one should go about training.

Any criticism is taken to heart because the implication is ‘hey_ you guys really suk…you’ll never get it…your seniors look like kyu ranks…you are as conditioned as a wet noodle’ _ we do the ‘art’ _ you don’t _ you are just a hack…and so on…I am sure we could go on forever…

Take the argument of WC technique vs. the circular skills of Uechi.

Most critics don’t know crap about how a wauke is supposed to work, yet they denigrate it.

The skilled High Dan ranks in Uechi would provide the keys to understanding such a critical component of the system, e.g.,

a successful wa-uke is based on >> change of momentum during different stages of maneuver, timing, contact points, triangulation and changing of stance.

By applying the different concepts, wa-uke is not only a block but also a shut down of the opponent’s offensive platform_ an entry _ a pre-emption_ a ‘seizing’ stoppage and redirection_ grappling_ a spinning and throwing or taking down.

Wa-uke is effective for mid- and close- quarter contact (CQC) fighting.

We see these CQC applications in random bunkai that I and certainly other senseis practice in class.

I find my practice of it extremely effective when my back is against the wall and I must deal with an all out attack. Any straight or hook punches coming in will be swept away with a redirection of the opponent’s momentum into the wall or slammed down hard on his ass.

[gmattson]

a successful wa-uke is based on >> change of momentum during different stages of maneuver, timing, contact points, triangulation and changing of stance.

By applying the different concepts, wa-uke is not only a block but also a shut down of the opponent’s offensive platform_ an entry _ a pre-emption_ a ‘seizing’ stoppage and redirection_ grappling_ a spinning and throwing or taking down.

Wa-uke is effective for mid- and close- quarter contact (CQC) fighting.

We see these CQC applications in random bunkai that I and certainly other senseis practice in class.

I find my practice of it extremely effective when my back is against the wall and I must deal with an all out attack. Any straight or hook punches coming in will be swept away with a redirection of the opponent’s momentum into the wall or slammed down hard on his ass.

Excellent example of Uechi-ryu training and also an excellent example of "following the rules of our forums!"

[JimHawkins]

Yes, I agree TMA has lost some of its mistique, and many alpha males along with it. But that's probably not all bad.

TMA may well have lost some mystique but that's only because it's lost some of what it once was--effectiveness..

I couldn't disagree more, Jim. You are absolutely, 100%, unequivocally wrong here.

The mistique is gone because the scientists came in and debunked the chi crap. That is a good thing. On the very same Discovery special on martial arts, a chi-ster is shown not to be able to KO a skeptic with his no-touch voodoo. Dillman gets on and tries to explain that it has to do with one toe being up and another down, or the tongue not on the roof of the mouth.

Indeed some may have tried to debunk the chi--nevertheless the perception by many fighters and general public over the years is that TMA are ineffective as compared to more conventional fighting methods.. FACT.

"In the old days folks thought one of those kicks would kill you.." GEM

TMA have lost street/ring credibility as fighting arts.. There's the real mystique, no one was ever worried about flaming chi balls or where folks placed their tongue, mystique without performance, isn't...

Perception is reality and the whole basis for this thread is the degradation of said performance/content of these training methods..

I leave you guys to it , I too wish there would be more demonstrated on the short range . Especially with all the obvious tools

Thank you and Bingo... But the silence is deafening as the dissed ones lament..

[JimHawkins]

Jim

Yeah, I'd fully agree that "no contact, choreographed" etc says little about fighting skill.

But then again that was no-where near what I saying.

I was more speaking to the notion of pulling random clips off youtube and trying to use them as if they were "proofs" of much of anything.

Besides, such drills may not show much--but they are, on banc done better than many people could do---which tells us at least something.....at least something in context with the post I was commenting on......as an example not many of us are competing at the level of the girls in the first clip.

When you pull stuff out of context with the post they were made about....then pull individual sentences out of context with the paragraph and overall thrust of the post itself.........makes it really hard to respond......since I now have to answer to something that in context is pretty removed from the actual intent/implication of my post....esp at that particular point.

Essentially your infering something I didn't imply.

In fact your inference is about 180 degrees from the overall implication of the post.

No problem, but I read it that way and to some extent sense much the same thing here.. The term "level" as used is ambiguous...

The post of the clips was consistent with the reference to bunkai, after all it was bunkai..

The point or issue I have with this type of training is that it is non continuous, and singular without flow, it allows folks to delude themselves into thinking something is going to work under realistic conditions--and that is an aside to training this way and it's effects.. The wait and take turns issue, the contact issue, the content issue, the isolation issue, the flow issue, and on and on..

To some this may seem unimportant or overly critical, but to me it glaringly says something else..