Bloodthirsty heians.

[HanshiClayton]

I would like to pose a hypothetical question for the group. That is, it is hypothetical until roughly midsummer, 2010.

Suppose you knew the "real" applications of the five heian katas. All of them.

And, suppose those applications were so vicious that they amounted to murder in many cases.

For instance, you don't just take the knife away from the sailor, you cut his throat with it. You don't just kick the miscreant, you lock him down first so he can't escape and then you kick him. These are actions that a court would punish severely.

The problem is that the applications are compelling... a full case of hand grenades... but they are not suitable for presentation to children. How do we handle that?

I feel like the proverbial groundhog who sticks his head up on March first, sees his shadow, and ducks down again for six more weeks. I have struggled all my life to discover the applications of the heians, and now that I have done so, I'm tempted to hide them again.

My solution is to suggest that we substitute "student" applications for the youngsters, and then hold blackbelt seminars where they learn the "real" applications later. This could actually work rather well, giving the blackbelts a "secret" knowledge that distinguishes them from the lower ranks.

[hippocanjump]

I never teach an application to my "regular" students if I know it could get them into trouble later if they apply it. I teach the "student" version of the bunkai - simplified and stripped off of the "bad" moves.

[trosanelli]

Yes, I totally agree with not showing younger students the deadly applications. I reserve this with great success to my adult students. For example, in our children's program, we teach grappling. With the children, we focus on positioning, escapes, hold downs, keep aways, and takedowns. The children love grappling. For free grappling, they attempt in get their partners in positions to win ~ we call them scissors, cross body, top, and back. Once the children reach about 14 yrs old, we transfer them to the adult program where they learn arm bars, chokes, and wrist locks. This transfer always seems to re-excite the student that starts to feel to old for the children's program and they want more.

We make many changes like this in the adult program. It's natural! Another example is that the adults use really weapons that the kid's use the foam one. It makes it a privilege to join.

We teach these differences in kata bunkai too. For example, the press block spear hand in heian sandan, you can teach children it to be a block and counter push to get away from a bully, but an adult, you will teach it as a block and thrust at the neck or gouge with the thumb in the eye. Or... in Heian Sandan, you may teach the stomp, elbow block, backfist to kid's may be stomping the back of the knees so the bully goes to one knee as they run away, but for an adult, it's crush their knee, backfist, reach behind the neck pulling them down into a front choke, knee them twist their neck until they fall to the ground and you stomp them in the groin.

I think you should definitely publish these deadly and not so deadly techniques in your next book. As you wrote about in your last book, somethings are missing because they were not necessary. I think every self defense program needs to teach assertive communication and verbal deescalation if they want their students to stay out of jail. These skills will make you not a victim when your attacker interviews you. Of course, these skills were not necessary for our friends of the Shuri Crucible because shouting warnings at Perry's army would have given them time to prepare. HaHa!

Cheers!

[colinwee]

My 8yo son just joined judo. You know how many techniques he had to perform on his yellow belt grading? 2!!! Of course, they also included rolls and breakfalls, but otherwise, they just do a small handful of techniques again and again and again. It's much better than what I heard his classmate is up to - 1st kyu in Taekwondo, and attitude of knowing he just "can't fail" (that's according to his mom). OMG. Colin

[milmascaras2]

Hello Everyone,
I have to disagree with this one. Children should be taught the applications and their variants from the get go, it makes it harder later on to "re-learn" that which should have become a reflex action. The child should also be made aware of the consequences of his actions.
Thank You

[Andrewp]

Hi....I'm Andrew Payne....haven't introduced myself yet but had to have my say here.

Of course you start feeding children milk before you give them meat. We don't teach them to read Shakespeare....they have no trouble going from primers to higher literature. The reflex action comes from practising the kata....children will go from the block/push technique to the more advanced technique quite quickly.

[PLopresti]

To answer some very poignant questions IMO.

The heian kata were created to be able to provide all the self defense you would ever need. The applications are like math problems or chemistry formulas. When you use the formula and add in the numbers you can have many different answers. However the body only has two arms, two legs, one body and one head so what we can do to those structures is somewhat limited. I can show as many as 16 applications that work for some movements while other I'm limited to about 5 or so. As to teaching these. In my jujutsu classes it's all I teach. Kata bunkai from standing, the clinch, and the ground, we just don't actually do any "kata" formally like we would in a karate class. You see bunkai is simply doing the same movements with an opponent.

For children, as master Itosu and funakoshi intended, he deleted the function and made form the focus. It's easy why. We don't want children to twist joints and strangle each other. I wouldn't want to either. Now what's the age of maturity where someone can safely learn and be able to apply this deadly force? That depends on the individual.

Hopefully my first video on heian shodan will be ready by the end of the summer. And then each heian kata to be recorded over the next 6-9 months until I'm done all five. Or you can come to Atlantic city to learn them first hand

[HanshiClayton]

Pareidolia has its uses. For instance, it helps us hang half a dozen possible applications on a kata gesture.

But the half-a-dozen potential matches are worthless out of context. In my opinion, saying you can show many applications for a gesture is the same as saying "I have no idea what this is." If you know what it is, you show one application.

The set of potential applications for a gesture is a nice menu that might lead to something useful. In Shotokan's Secret, I used application menus side-by-side through a kata to look for adjacent applications that matched up and began to tell a coherent story. You can't identify the "true" application of a gesture except in the context of the lesson plan of the whole kata. This is where most application experts fall flat.

In that context, when you find the "right" historical application, the whole kata snaps into focus as one lesson, usually with a very visible theme. In that moment, the gesture has one, and only one application. Period.

In the modern context, Paul is following the same road in the opposite direction. He is using the Heian katas as a scaffold to teach all kinds of useful martial techniques (many of them floor-fighting techniques). He's taking the old kata and sticking new applications on it to create new themed lessons for people to study. Even though he can demonstrate many applications for a particular gesture, he picks one and says "Learn this one!"

So we create lists of applications as a sort of intermediate step before, looking at the gesture in context of surrounding gestures, we decide which application we want to pin to that move.

[PLopresti]

As mentioned, yes I've been able to expand upon only one application for each movement. I'm beginning to see themes that I'd like to develop as well. For heian shodan I'm using the standing arm bar theme both defensively and offensively. Tom Frobel and I did an entire seminar off the cuff on offensive bunkai. Those videos are lost in space but if I ever get a hold if them I'd reproduce them in a formal matter.

Anyway yes I love the ground work too and just seem to want to go there since my first 25 years of training was only on my feet and I felt quite inept to deal with the grappler. I've remedied that issue btw. But as I see it, the bunkai I learn and teach are just basically physics applied to the human body and very clear to me. That's where I get the multiple applications from. If I use the movement as a lever it goes one way perhaps a wedge then it's another. But again it has a formula that is use and its very effective. So once you understand the principles it's like doing math or chemistry. A2+B2=C2
Easy.