How do you study, learn & teach techniques?

[PeterKa]

Hello everyone!

At the moment we're doing "Jion" and "Kanku Dai" a lot at the Dojo. I had just a little prior contact with Kanku Dai, I couldn't even remember the embusen. Also some techniques in Jion felt strange to me.
So I sat down in the evening and took a look at Karate-Do Kyohan. I learned Bassai Dai that way and I thought this might work again to hopefully grasp the essence.
But again, during my studies (look at the pictures, read Funakoshis advices, think about why the move is that way, ...) I feel/see big gaps between mountains:

• Current WKF/SKF (or whatever organisation manages sports karate) teachings.
• Old black/white videos, as referenced by Kyoshi Clayton
• Karate-Do Kyohan and similar writings by Funakoshi and people at the same time.

"My" Bassai Dai e.g. differs from the WKF-one we learn, but that's fine for me. E.g.: I "overturn" my hips when I do a guyaku uchi uke, as I learned it in Heian Nidan years ago. Nowadays they seem to have the body straight, directly facing to Tori. They make a "block", but at the same time their body is a perfect target for the second hand or a kick.
Also, before the first Kiai (which I also tend to avoid), WKF goes from a Kokutsu-Dachi (backstance) directly into a Zenkutsu-Dachi (frontstance) when "grabbing toris arm".
In Karate-Do Kyohan Funakoshi (or the guy on the picture) does it different. From the Kokutsu-Dachi, he shifts the right foot and goes into Hangetsu Dachi or Sanchin Dachi (I'm not sure here). In the book it's pointed out, that this protects the groin, what makes sense to me. The situation (grabbing) seems to be the perfect distance for hitting the groin with hand, foot or knee.

Okay, back to Kanku Dai...
Of course over the years they changed the Katas to be a better dance. We know that. Some movements, attacks, blocks that make perfect sense when you take what we've learned from Shotokan's Secret and Karate-Do Kyohan and also combine it with a little knowledge of Judo, Wing Chun, ... have been drastically changed. This is absolute proof to me that some of these men
a) never "climbed a different mountain" - they only studied Shotokan and nothing else
b) they had never been into a real fight
c) they not even had "a good sparring", trying techniques that don't get you "Points" at tournaments.

Sorry, got off the track again. Back to Kanku-Dai...
When studying Funakoshi's book I discovered on the pictures, that the Kokutsu-Dachi (Back Stance) is, let's say "in between", the one that Kyoshi Clayton explained to us (that originally it was a reversed Zenkutsu Dachi) and the one that is thaught nowadays. So this proofs to me that Kyoshi Clayton is right once again: another Shotoism. Yes, you will say, we know that. Of course we do.
We know that the modern Backstance is not combat-approved and never will be.
But I find it interesting that you can see in Funakoshis book that there are still "artefacts" of what Funakoshi has learned from his masters. There is still a lot of "grappling" in the book, there's even a chapter on "throwing". The stances are not that deep and the Kiba-Dachi seems more practical as well.

But what are my questions now?
What I would like to know from you is:

How do you study, learn and teach Katas and techniques?

Do you

• do it the half SKF/WKF way? You also prepare for tournaments, etc, but you do self-defense as well and you know that you're doing Shotoisms, but you can see it as two different parts: Sports and Martial Arts.
• you totally do it as Sports Karate as you are involved in tournaments, ...
• You totally do it as _real_ Martial Art. You study techniques to be martial and effective. You do old style Kokutsu Dachi, because done that way it's effective, you do Shuto Uke the old way, because that way it makes sense, etc...

I hope I could clearify what I'd like to know from you. It's a long reading just to get a simple question at the end, but I felt it was necessary for me to explain.
Thank you!

[HanshiClayton]

Hello, Peter. At the Claw of the Dragon we are reinventing Shotokan, finding our way a step at a time. You were close with this:

You totally do it as _real_ Martial Art. You study techniques to be martial and effective. You do old style Kokutsu Dachi, because done that way it's effective, you do Shuto Uke the old way, because that way it makes sense, etc...

I insist that my students invest enough practice in the basic principles of power that their punches, blocks, and especially their strikes (shuto to side of neck, etc.,) develop stunning power. Yes, we do the old-style shuto-uke where both hands swing in the same direction and strike at once. It is extremely powerful and, combined with just a little jujutsu, the opponent flips right over on his back. From there I can roll him on his stomach into an Taiho Jutsu arrest technique, or I can just drop a knee on his collar bone and put him out of the fight.

We barely use kicks at all. Our kicks are all directed to the knees, shins and feet. We practice catching high kicks and rolling them over into devastating figure-4 leg breaking holds. Since it is that easy to destroy a kicker, I just don't let my students practice kicking.

We do no sport or tournament or dance-contest karate at all. Been there, done that; it teaches you all kinds of bad habits that will get you killed on the street. It is practically all bad habits.

However, out of respect for Master Funakoshi and our Okinawan heritage, I do insist that my black-belt candidates learn the first ten standard Shotokan kata (up to Kanku Dai), and that they perform them exactly as portrayed by Ertl and Bendickson in their video series, which is almost identical to the 25 Shoto-kan Kata book by Sugiyama. My policy is that they will know that one, exact version of the katas. If they enroll in some other Shotokan dojo in the future, they will have a traditional base to fall back on.

I teach them, and we practice, the historical applications of the Heians, and we match our Shotokan training with equal amounts of San Ten Jujutsu, which is currently a mix of Hakkoryu Jujutsu, Busoshin Jujutsu, and military combatives. When you know enough jujutsu, many kata gestures suddenly make sense. The students can see this for themselves, which keeps them interested in the kata.

And this:

This is absolute proof to me that some of these men
a) never "climbed a different mountain" - they only studied Shotokan and nothing else
b) they had never been into a real fight
c) they not even had "a good sparring", trying techniques that don't get you "Points" at tournaments.

All I can say is "amen to that."

[PeterKa]

Thank you Kyoshi Clayton!

That's exactly what I would do too if I had to lead my group.
Very motivating words for me. Thank you.

[PLopresti]

Sorry I don't get to post much, but Peter you said

"We know that the modern Backstance is not combat-approved and never will be. "

I would love to show you exactly how this stance is used and why, perhaps you just havent experienced it yet. All of the movements in the Shotokan syllabus no matter how innocuous they may seem are combat effective. The back stance is used for leverage as is the front stance. It would be too long to discuss here but I'm sure Sensei Clayton can assure you if I say it, I can demonstrate it.



Paul Lopresti

[HanshiClayton]

I can attest that Paul is frankly amazing at finding practical uses for arbitrary gestures and body positions. The point about the modern back stance is not that it cannot have any use, but that it was made up in the dance hall and had no currency in historical Okinawa/China/Japan.

It is still possible to drive a screw by hitting it with a hammer, and even though that is wrong, wrong, wrong in every way, I would not want to be the person the screw was being driven into.

On a slightly related subject, perhaps Paul can advise us about karate stances/techniques that we should remove from the system because of the damage they eventually do to our knees/hips and other joints? Too many of my senior friends are limping around with braces on their knees. Karate is supposed to be for your whole life, but that can't happen if you cripple yourself on the way.