What is karate?

[fivedragons]

Or, does karate want to be karate, anymore?

Or, where and why did this stuff come about?

I'm suffering from blue balls, because I KNOW KARATE and I haven't been attacked in a while. I haven't had the chance to impress my girlfriend, earn accolades and the key to the city, rid the world of crime, etc...

So what is it?

There is a movement that appears in many shorin ryu kata and all over the korean world, shotokan, and no one likes to acknowledge that it exists, because it is a block, and it doesn't work. Raise your fist to your opposite ear and bring the arm down diagonally.

I don't know the Japanese name but it is a "downward block."

So why does this movement show up in so many kata, when it doesn't have any meaning. I've never seen it used in a boxing match, etc.. etc.. etc.. name your preferred violent sport or think about all the fist fights you've ever seen. You've probably never seen this movement ever used effectively if at all, and you're not going to demonstrate this movement to your teenage UFC savvy friends as a "high percentage" technique.

This block won't reverse a RNC, or prevent you from being punched in the face repeatedly by the guy who is punching you in the face.

But maybe it will.

If you use the movement, and not whatever bullschit technique you have been conditioned to think of it as.

This movement can be used to fukk someone up, in many ways.

Ancient Chinese secret.

[fivedragons]

And the reason it is a "secret" is that no one really wants to learn how to do violence on the same level as the people who they fantasize as their "attacker", "enemy", "arch-nemesis", whatever separates them in their minds from the amazing bad hoodoo magicians who have power over their minds and bodies.

So what is karate?

[Glenn]

Karate is a form of martial arts in which people who have had years and years of training can, using only their hands and feet, make some of the worst movies in the history of the world

- Dave Barry

[Topos]

Glenn,

Thank you for passing on the Bon Mot of the day:

"Karate is a form of martial arts in which people who have had years and years of training can, using only their hands and feet, make some of the worst movies in the history of the world".

It was a cheery read starting this sunny New England day.


Best.

[hoshin]

Five dragons,
i am not sure where you are going with this thread.
but i would like to point out that i belive the name of the "block" is gedan barai. at least that is the name i remember the goju ryu people using. so they use this movment as well. however it is interesting that the block you referance is the shotokan version.
Anku Itosu created the kata that we now know as shotokan both the Taikyoku and Pinan ( heian) series of kata. this block is all over the place, but what few realise is that these kata were created for elementary school children because the "real karate" kata were considered to intense and dangerous to teach to kids.
i dont know how often this block is done in the older kata like Jion and Kusanku.
i find it fasinating grown men earn black belts based on school children kata.

steve

[MikeK]

The blocks are also in the non-Heian kata. They have little to do with the simplified kata.

Kwanku and Kusanku
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ipG-3JukZk8
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RtQfswoN ... re=related

All of those blocks are also in Jion and most other kata.

In regards to the Pinan/Heian kata being watered down for school kids, most of the techniques in the 5 Heian are found in Kwanku/Kusanku kata. I think what made them acceptable for school kids or beginners were that they were shorter and easier to learn than the rather long Kusanku kata.

I find it fasinating grown men earn black belts based on any kata.

[mhosea]

but what few realise is that these kata were created for elementary school children because the "real karate" kata were considered to intense and dangerous to teach to kids.
i dont know how often this block is done in the older kata like Jion and Kusanku.
i find it fasinating grown men earn black belts based on school children kata.

I think Itosu was teaching the Pinan katas to high school age kids, not elementary school. Later there were two demonstration katas which may have been taught to younger kids, one was developed by Nagamine (and does feature a lot of zenkutsu gedan barai) and the other by Miyagi (Gekisai dai ichi in Goju Ryu). Gekisai dai ichi is an interesting fighting kata, IMO, but Nagamine's Fukyugata Ichi is very basic. Zenkutsu gedan barai is usually explained (comically enough) as a block and shown as such in basic bunkai, but most people I've talked to about it mention things like it being part of a throw, as it always seems to occur in concert with a turn. In Shorin Ryu forums I have often seen people posit that there really isn't such a thing as a "block" in Shorin Ryu, although some disagree and speak of attacking the attacking limb. FWIW, I don't think there are any blocks. Rather, I think this interpretation was emphasized in the spirit of postwar pacifism.

Another interesting "block" is jodan uke, which I think is better understood as a rising forearm strike, either in in-fighting upward towards the neck and chin or in connection with a setup hyper-extending the elbow (which I've seen demonstrated in Shotokan Heian Nidan bunkai). I like to think of the Uechi hajiki uke as a forearm strike. The first moves of Seichin feel much stronger when the body weight is behind these upward forearm movements as if to strike the neck.

[Ted Dinwiddie]

I think when looking at the traditional kihon "blocks" one must remember the whole movement and not just the transition from the middle to the end. There is footwork involved also.

If my memory serves, gedan barai means "downward sweep" or "low-level sweep." The term incorrectly associated with "block" is usually uke.

"Raise your fist to your opposite ear and bring the arm down diagonally" is one part of the technique. The other arm is thrusting a fist downward to the middle past the groin and then pulling back to the corresponding hip. If the stance is zenkutsudachi moving forward, then the rear foot moves up next to the front foot as the arm on the same side sweeps up and the other arm thrusts down. Then that foot steps outward to the front as the arm sweeps downward and the other pulls up and back to the hip. There is a tremendous amount happening here. Many classes have been taught on that sequence alone. It can be simplified into a movement to a "middle position" with feet together and arms extended together with one up and one down followed by movement to an "end position" with one foot out to the front with the arm swept downward until the fist is above the knee and the other foot out to the rear with the arm and fist pulled back to that hip. Middle position is a covering, defensive movement which moves to a penetrating, sweeping, offensive position. It is the movements into and from these two positions where the techniques can be found.

I also think it is important to remember that kihon are training exercises. The thousands of repetitions build a muscle memory. The combat applications are derived from subsets of the entire sequence, though the entire sequence does have it applications.

fwiw

[Bill Glasheen]

Gedan barai does indeed mean lower-level sweep.

The ear-to-extension movement in kata is just training. Kata are meant to help program lines of motion. Applications of these lines of motions generally involve a much smaller movement, or part of the movement.

No, you don't need gedan barai in a boxing ring. It does however come in handy against a front kick. It also works very well as an attack to a tackle or someone shooting in. More importantly, all these techniques make a lot more sense if done with movement. Generally if one is getting off the line of force, then the lower sweep is more about keeping contact and setting up one's own agenda. As such, the untrained eye may never see the element of this lower sweep in a blended or compound movement.

The "sweep" mindset works really well when manipulating an opponent, or turning the corner on them to gain access to their side or back.

- Bill

[fivedragons]

Cool thread

I find it fascinating that so much knowledge is able to be expressed and accessed here.

History, protocol, tactics, strategy...

The thing is, we're all talking about movement. How to do it, when to do it, why we do it, and when not to do it.

You know, it's a "simple" movement, but it can break bones and cause trauma to organs and joints.

When you remove yourself from the boxes that are created by people trying to teach you from their own experience, maybe you'll find a whole new experience.

I think that is what karate is.

Awareness, intention and ability.

Doesn't come with a belt.

[fivedragons]

The next time you're sparring, grab your partners ear and perform a gedan barai, or whatever while executing a 180 degree turn. Try it with the hair. Or maybe you could grab them by the throat, and perform the "childrens" version of the technique, while stomping on their knee. Why not stick your finger in their eye socket and perform a textbook version of the "Gedan barai", or whatever while dancing around and acting like a karate master.

Hey, why don't you hammer fist them in the jaw, or temple, or maybe you could just grab their chin and torque it around before executing a basic elementary school version of karate.

If you happen to have a knife in your hand, you can always slash diagonally at their face, or neck.

School children in Japan usually carried katana, so this movement would be interpreted as a diagonal cut.

[mikemurphy]

when did japanese school children carry around katana? I must have missed something in my Japanese history classes.

mike

[Jason Rees]

... Bokken maybe?
Live steel? Riiiiiiight.

[hoshin]

in know this is replying a little late, but to my comment on the simplification of these kata, i meantioned the pinan kata for children but i feel the relivance is still there because i would assume Itosu also made changes to the advanced "old kata" to reflect the new mind of Okinawa. i know there are a few different renditions of Kusanku and the one normaly taught was Funakoshi's. but i would bet his kata is not the same as Matsumora 's.

point being these simple changes may have a big impact on the application of an action.
it happens in our own Uechi kata as well.
before anyone says "this is the way the old masters meant this action to be done" one should do their due diligence and look back at the history of the that kata.

[fivedragons]

Re: katana, sorry, lame joke.

But there is a point to it.