Post by jimlukelkc on May 28, 2011 9:51:06 GMT
This is an excerpt from an interview with Steven R Cunningham 6th dan Kodokan judo. You may find it interesting.
The ‘bu’ in embusen is the ‘bu’ in budo or bujutsu; it’s ‘martial’. ‘Embu’ is something martial or military; it reflects some sort of military action. ‘Sen’ is literally the line. So this is the line along which warfare is conducted. The embusen is very important. It would run 90 degrees perpendicular to the battle line on the old battlefield. On the battlefield, people were lined up across the field, maybe a dozen warriors deep or so, and they go charging at one another. Or maybe one line stands in defense and the other line comes charging forward. The idea is to move through the opponent’s battle line to get to the military objective behind. So if you’re trying to storm the castle, they’ll have soldiers lined up maybe a dozen or more deep around the castle as you go charging in, and they’re going to fight you off. But you’ve got to get to the castle. That’s what you’re there for. So you’re penetrating their line, moving perpendicular to the battle line. The embusen tells that story of going through that line of soldiers. The way that you work through a battle line is not by just walking straight through it. If you meet with the person right in front of you and kill him, there’s one right behind him, of course. As you move deeper into this line, there are also people on either side of you. It’s likely that as they see you moving through and moving toward the objective that they’re trying to protect, that they’re going to turn from either side of you and come toward you to try to stop you. So you move into the battle line, and then you have to turn and go back a little bit. You’ve got to address the ones who are rolling in behind you to try to catch you. So you move forward and back, forward and back on the embusen. The embusen reflects this idea of warfare in the old battlefield sense. Having the Randori no Kata, particularly the Nage no Kata, operate on the embusen, is very important. It reflects the combative nature of Judo, and this is even more highlighted by the idea that we’re using entirely randori waza but they’re all being applied to a battlefield situation. It’s very profound, and Kano’s trying to make a point there. Even in what would appear to be the most harmless of kata, he’s putting something that has very important battlefield applications.
The embusen also provides the alignment for this kata. Since you’re moving up and down the kata line, all the techniques can be measured against this line. The attack is made down the kata line and then tori turns and throws. If everything was done right, if the attack was right down the kata line, tori makes the defensive movement and uke is thrown at some angle or other relative to the line. For each technique there is a prescribed angle and position for where uke should land. If uke lands in the wrong place, we know that something’s wrong; either the attack or the defense, or both. But we also can look at where uke lands and determine what went wrong. We can actually diagnose from the landing position who went wrong and in what way. In this way, by including that diagnostic component in the kata, it makes it a complete means for preserving the art. We know how uke has to land and we know what went wrong if he didn’t land where he was supposed to. We’re able to correct the technique until uke and tori each do their parts correctly. Then we know that we’ve preserved the kata in just the way it was intended. If you ignore this diagnostic component, then you’re just throwing, in Nage no Kata, 15 throws. But you’re not doing kata. If you want to do the kata, you have to have this evolution of the attack through uke and tori, and you also have to have the diagnostic and the correction so the form is preserved. Without that it’s not kata.
The ‘bu’ in embusen is the ‘bu’ in budo or bujutsu; it’s ‘martial’. ‘Embu’ is something martial or military; it reflects some sort of military action. ‘Sen’ is literally the line. So this is the line along which warfare is conducted. The embusen is very important. It would run 90 degrees perpendicular to the battle line on the old battlefield. On the battlefield, people were lined up across the field, maybe a dozen warriors deep or so, and they go charging at one another. Or maybe one line stands in defense and the other line comes charging forward. The idea is to move through the opponent’s battle line to get to the military objective behind. So if you’re trying to storm the castle, they’ll have soldiers lined up maybe a dozen or more deep around the castle as you go charging in, and they’re going to fight you off. But you’ve got to get to the castle. That’s what you’re there for. So you’re penetrating their line, moving perpendicular to the battle line. The embusen tells that story of going through that line of soldiers. The way that you work through a battle line is not by just walking straight through it. If you meet with the person right in front of you and kill him, there’s one right behind him, of course. As you move deeper into this line, there are also people on either side of you. It’s likely that as they see you moving through and moving toward the objective that they’re trying to protect, that they’re going to turn from either side of you and come toward you to try to stop you. So you move into the battle line, and then you have to turn and go back a little bit. You’ve got to address the ones who are rolling in behind you to try to catch you. So you move forward and back, forward and back on the embusen. The embusen reflects this idea of warfare in the old battlefield sense. Having the Randori no Kata, particularly the Nage no Kata, operate on the embusen, is very important. It reflects the combative nature of Judo, and this is even more highlighted by the idea that we’re using entirely randori waza but they’re all being applied to a battlefield situation. It’s very profound, and Kano’s trying to make a point there. Even in what would appear to be the most harmless of kata, he’s putting something that has very important battlefield applications.
The embusen also provides the alignment for this kata. Since you’re moving up and down the kata line, all the techniques can be measured against this line. The attack is made down the kata line and then tori turns and throws. If everything was done right, if the attack was right down the kata line, tori makes the defensive movement and uke is thrown at some angle or other relative to the line. For each technique there is a prescribed angle and position for where uke should land. If uke lands in the wrong place, we know that something’s wrong; either the attack or the defense, or both. But we also can look at where uke lands and determine what went wrong. We can actually diagnose from the landing position who went wrong and in what way. In this way, by including that diagnostic component in the kata, it makes it a complete means for preserving the art. We know how uke has to land and we know what went wrong if he didn’t land where he was supposed to. We’re able to correct the technique until uke and tori each do their parts correctly. Then we know that we’ve preserved the kata in just the way it was intended. If you ignore this diagnostic component, then you’re just throwing, in Nage no Kata, 15 throws. But you’re not doing kata. If you want to do the kata, you have to have this evolution of the attack through uke and tori, and you also have to have the diagnostic and the correction so the form is preserved. Without that it’s not kata.