Post by Dod Watt on Jan 10, 2011 20:19:19 GMT
Yokota Sensei and I have been corresponding privately for some considerable time, and I am overjoyed that he has taken time out of his hectic schedule and written an article for our OSS forum.
I would publicly wish to express my sincere thanks, and here's the article.......Is Shotokan lacking circular techniques?
I often hear the comment that Shotokan karate lacks circular movements or techniques. Some claim that other styles such as Goju ryu and Uechi ryu have more of those circular techniques. I hear this not only from the non Shotokan karate practitioners but also from the instructors of Shotokan itself. If the instructors feel that way then it must be true. Or is it really? Before believing this idea we must do some serious investigation.
The most popular attacking technique in Shotokan is “Choku zuki. The Japanese term of this technique means straight punch”. It is very true that a choku zuki punch travels very straight. Your teacher tells you to keep the elbow in and down so that your punch will not make an arc. So, you will say, “See oi-zuki and gyaku-zuki are very popular in Shotokan so our attacking techniques look straight.” You are absolutely correct on one thing. That is the word of “look”. The line of movement of a fist is indeed straight. However, you must consider deeper in the physical mechanism of our body. What goes behind the scene is a combination of the shoulder socket turning and the upper arm makes a circular movement forward as the punch is delivered. So the elbow makes a pendulum swing as you extend your punching arm and that is a circular movement. This mechanism also applies to Yokogeri kekomi. In this kick the kicking foot after being tucked up near the opposite knee will indeed travel (at least supposed to) straight to the target. But the leg/hip mechanism works similar to that of the upper body during a choku zuki. The kicking leg is connected at the various joints, namely ankle, knee and hip. All those joints will allow the rotations of the leg/foot parts.
This is the basic concept of the physiological mechanism of our body. We are all aware that our body is constructed from many sticks (bones) and the joints (knees, elbows, etc) to connect them. This means all the complex body movements we make in our daily like such as walking, shaking hands and eating are made up of boh straight and circular movements of those sticks. Of course, some of the movements are more complex and sophisticated but in general those two componet motions are the basis of our body movements. If this is the case with our normal daily life activities, then it is easily guessed that all the karate techniques require some kind of circular movements of our body. You can review all the “straight” techniques from all punching, kicking and blocking techniques and you will see that all those techniques require some combination of circular movements. In other words, technique movements use the circular movements of our arms (including shoulders area) and legs (including hips area). In addition, there are some added circular movements of the hip rotation (like in gyaku zuki) to the individual techniques. So we can conclude that we indeed have both linear and circular techniques. Then, why do some of us feel our karate is too linear and our moves may be jerky? But before we can fix these “problems”, first we must know the causes. Here I am going to present two facts that result to this “problem”. They are not the only ones but I believe they are the major ones. What are they? One is kime and the other is tournaments.
If you are a hardcore Shotokan practitioner, you would burst out saying, “What’s wrong with kime? You need a kime to knock down an opponent. How could it be a major cause?” I have written an article focused on the effect of wrong kime in the past. I will not go deep in the explanation of this at this time but let me say it to the point. We are tensed too much and making kime too long. We were not taught how to relax and to make a proper kime. So, we look like a car with an over careful driver who puts his feet on both an accelerator and a brake. We just need to let your foot off the brake but it is easier to be said than to be done. To learn how to relax is much more difficult, believe it or not, than to tense. Kanazawa took up Tai Chi to supplement his training so he could be more relaxed. Late Asai took Chi gong (ki training) to train his body more relaxed. It is unfortunately true that out of box Shotokan karate training does not teach sufficiently how to relax and it pays too much attention to “kime” or tension. As a result, our movements tend to look jerky.
The second reason is easier to understand. In a sundome (non contact) tournament, as we know a point is given by a referee. He watches the competitors and he needs to determine if a technique was effective or not. If a competitor throws a good technique but if he hits his opponent and knocks him down, then he gets a warning or even loses a match, even though the technique was indeed effective. He needs to pull back or stop the technique to get a point. Pulling back became so important I hear some practitioners practice more on fast hikite (draw hand) than on how to throw a strong punch. Stopping a technique is inherently not the character of a circular technique thus it is rare to see a shuto uchi or a uraken uchi in a tournament. The circular techniques are very effective in a close fighting situation for two reasons. The technique angle is most effective if a punch or a kick lands at a right (90 degrees) angel and a circular technique works best in a short distance for that particular reason. The other reason is its invisibility of a technique in a short distance fighting. We pointed out that a circular technique is more visible than a linear technique in general so my previous sentence sounds contrary to the earlier statement. Interestingly, in a close distance situation a movement coming from a side gets out of one’s eye sight and as a result it becomes less visible. However, when the opponents get into, so called, a grubbing distance, a referee quickly stops the fight and forces the opponents to separate. This means a competitor loses a chance to use the effective circular techniques. In addition, a round technique like a mawashi uchi or kagi zuki in such a distance will most likely not recognized as a scoring technique by the judges. I have experienced this in my own tournament days. I do not claim this is universal but the judges seem to be fixated on to the linear techniques and most of them do not grant a point to other techniques.
A similar tendency is found in tournament competition of kata. As you must show your movements you need to stop and hold a position for a long time (although a period may be a few seconds, I consider it too long) at several kime positions. If you run through the movements like a series of combination, your kata will not score high. However, a true kata performance should be done in one stroke, so to speak. There should not be any long stops in the middle. It is like a brush writing of kanji sentence. From one kanji to another, the brush must have a connection even though the stroke is not visible. Sometimes you may see a line of small drops of ink from the ending point of one kanji to the beginning of the next one that shows the connection is indeed there. Another thing the kata competitors do is to speed up the techniques thus their movements become linear by eliminating the time taking circular movements. The problem is not entirely the fault of the competitors. They perform to gain the high score from the judges. So if the judges consider such kata as good or excellent then the competitors will continue to do so.
As long as a practitioner participates in a tournament this trend cannot be avoided. So what can we do? Well it all depends on what your purpose is. If you want to win in a tournament then you have to use whatever the techniques you need to win. But if you wish to excel as a martial artist then you need to go beyond the tournament techniques and practice all the techniques that would work in a real fight. A definition of “real fight” needs to be defined and further discussed but I will not do so here in this article due to the lack of space. I just state that it is a fight without any rules and bars.
So do we have to introduce more circular techniques to Shotokan? You have seen the full scope of Shotokan karate by now so hopefully you will answer “No” to this question. But we need to do something to change the current situation. Then, what can we do? It is simple. We only need to use more of those circular techniques we already have. If you look at the techniques of our kata closely you will easily recognize that many of the techniques in them are very circular and beautiful. We also need to learn how to relax more so that we can make our linear movements smoother and more flowing. We should practice all those techniques until you can apply them in your kumite.
I would like to recommend to all those who are serious about martial art karate to consider Asai-ryu Shotokan karate. In Asai-ryu, more emphasis is given to learning how to relax and less on making power. We believe both speed and power will be easily achieved once the total relaxation of the body is obtained. In addition, there are more than 30 Asai-ryu kata created by Master Asai that you can learn. They nicely supplement the standard JKA kata that lack many circular techniques and short stances, particularly nekoashi dachi.
Take a look at Asai kata and see if you like them. Here are URLs for two Asai kata performed by Asai sensei himself.
Suishu: www.youtube.com/watch?v=SvxsNQTsizM
Kakuyoku Nidan: www.youtube.com/watch?v=99E1Y4ZOIjw
As you can see, these kata are based on many circular movements. I am sure you will agree that all the techniques you see here flow very nicely and you see no jerky motions.
We teach these kata in our organization, WJKA. Here is the website of WJKA, www.wjka.org
Yokota Sensei
He has been practicing Shotokan karate over 46 years. Was a member of JKA for 40 years and currently holding a position of Technical Director of WJKA. A series of his articles were featured in Shotokan Karate Magazine. He published a book last year and its title is “Shotokan Myths”, available through Amazon US and UK.
His email address is wjka_americas@yahoo.com. He welcomes the comments from the readers.
I would publicly wish to express my sincere thanks, and here's the article.......Is Shotokan lacking circular techniques?
I often hear the comment that Shotokan karate lacks circular movements or techniques. Some claim that other styles such as Goju ryu and Uechi ryu have more of those circular techniques. I hear this not only from the non Shotokan karate practitioners but also from the instructors of Shotokan itself. If the instructors feel that way then it must be true. Or is it really? Before believing this idea we must do some serious investigation.
The most popular attacking technique in Shotokan is “Choku zuki. The Japanese term of this technique means straight punch”. It is very true that a choku zuki punch travels very straight. Your teacher tells you to keep the elbow in and down so that your punch will not make an arc. So, you will say, “See oi-zuki and gyaku-zuki are very popular in Shotokan so our attacking techniques look straight.” You are absolutely correct on one thing. That is the word of “look”. The line of movement of a fist is indeed straight. However, you must consider deeper in the physical mechanism of our body. What goes behind the scene is a combination of the shoulder socket turning and the upper arm makes a circular movement forward as the punch is delivered. So the elbow makes a pendulum swing as you extend your punching arm and that is a circular movement. This mechanism also applies to Yokogeri kekomi. In this kick the kicking foot after being tucked up near the opposite knee will indeed travel (at least supposed to) straight to the target. But the leg/hip mechanism works similar to that of the upper body during a choku zuki. The kicking leg is connected at the various joints, namely ankle, knee and hip. All those joints will allow the rotations of the leg/foot parts.
This is the basic concept of the physiological mechanism of our body. We are all aware that our body is constructed from many sticks (bones) and the joints (knees, elbows, etc) to connect them. This means all the complex body movements we make in our daily like such as walking, shaking hands and eating are made up of boh straight and circular movements of those sticks. Of course, some of the movements are more complex and sophisticated but in general those two componet motions are the basis of our body movements. If this is the case with our normal daily life activities, then it is easily guessed that all the karate techniques require some kind of circular movements of our body. You can review all the “straight” techniques from all punching, kicking and blocking techniques and you will see that all those techniques require some combination of circular movements. In other words, technique movements use the circular movements of our arms (including shoulders area) and legs (including hips area). In addition, there are some added circular movements of the hip rotation (like in gyaku zuki) to the individual techniques. So we can conclude that we indeed have both linear and circular techniques. Then, why do some of us feel our karate is too linear and our moves may be jerky? But before we can fix these “problems”, first we must know the causes. Here I am going to present two facts that result to this “problem”. They are not the only ones but I believe they are the major ones. What are they? One is kime and the other is tournaments.
If you are a hardcore Shotokan practitioner, you would burst out saying, “What’s wrong with kime? You need a kime to knock down an opponent. How could it be a major cause?” I have written an article focused on the effect of wrong kime in the past. I will not go deep in the explanation of this at this time but let me say it to the point. We are tensed too much and making kime too long. We were not taught how to relax and to make a proper kime. So, we look like a car with an over careful driver who puts his feet on both an accelerator and a brake. We just need to let your foot off the brake but it is easier to be said than to be done. To learn how to relax is much more difficult, believe it or not, than to tense. Kanazawa took up Tai Chi to supplement his training so he could be more relaxed. Late Asai took Chi gong (ki training) to train his body more relaxed. It is unfortunately true that out of box Shotokan karate training does not teach sufficiently how to relax and it pays too much attention to “kime” or tension. As a result, our movements tend to look jerky.
The second reason is easier to understand. In a sundome (non contact) tournament, as we know a point is given by a referee. He watches the competitors and he needs to determine if a technique was effective or not. If a competitor throws a good technique but if he hits his opponent and knocks him down, then he gets a warning or even loses a match, even though the technique was indeed effective. He needs to pull back or stop the technique to get a point. Pulling back became so important I hear some practitioners practice more on fast hikite (draw hand) than on how to throw a strong punch. Stopping a technique is inherently not the character of a circular technique thus it is rare to see a shuto uchi or a uraken uchi in a tournament. The circular techniques are very effective in a close fighting situation for two reasons. The technique angle is most effective if a punch or a kick lands at a right (90 degrees) angel and a circular technique works best in a short distance for that particular reason. The other reason is its invisibility of a technique in a short distance fighting. We pointed out that a circular technique is more visible than a linear technique in general so my previous sentence sounds contrary to the earlier statement. Interestingly, in a close distance situation a movement coming from a side gets out of one’s eye sight and as a result it becomes less visible. However, when the opponents get into, so called, a grubbing distance, a referee quickly stops the fight and forces the opponents to separate. This means a competitor loses a chance to use the effective circular techniques. In addition, a round technique like a mawashi uchi or kagi zuki in such a distance will most likely not recognized as a scoring technique by the judges. I have experienced this in my own tournament days. I do not claim this is universal but the judges seem to be fixated on to the linear techniques and most of them do not grant a point to other techniques.
A similar tendency is found in tournament competition of kata. As you must show your movements you need to stop and hold a position for a long time (although a period may be a few seconds, I consider it too long) at several kime positions. If you run through the movements like a series of combination, your kata will not score high. However, a true kata performance should be done in one stroke, so to speak. There should not be any long stops in the middle. It is like a brush writing of kanji sentence. From one kanji to another, the brush must have a connection even though the stroke is not visible. Sometimes you may see a line of small drops of ink from the ending point of one kanji to the beginning of the next one that shows the connection is indeed there. Another thing the kata competitors do is to speed up the techniques thus their movements become linear by eliminating the time taking circular movements. The problem is not entirely the fault of the competitors. They perform to gain the high score from the judges. So if the judges consider such kata as good or excellent then the competitors will continue to do so.
As long as a practitioner participates in a tournament this trend cannot be avoided. So what can we do? Well it all depends on what your purpose is. If you want to win in a tournament then you have to use whatever the techniques you need to win. But if you wish to excel as a martial artist then you need to go beyond the tournament techniques and practice all the techniques that would work in a real fight. A definition of “real fight” needs to be defined and further discussed but I will not do so here in this article due to the lack of space. I just state that it is a fight without any rules and bars.
So do we have to introduce more circular techniques to Shotokan? You have seen the full scope of Shotokan karate by now so hopefully you will answer “No” to this question. But we need to do something to change the current situation. Then, what can we do? It is simple. We only need to use more of those circular techniques we already have. If you look at the techniques of our kata closely you will easily recognize that many of the techniques in them are very circular and beautiful. We also need to learn how to relax more so that we can make our linear movements smoother and more flowing. We should practice all those techniques until you can apply them in your kumite.
I would like to recommend to all those who are serious about martial art karate to consider Asai-ryu Shotokan karate. In Asai-ryu, more emphasis is given to learning how to relax and less on making power. We believe both speed and power will be easily achieved once the total relaxation of the body is obtained. In addition, there are more than 30 Asai-ryu kata created by Master Asai that you can learn. They nicely supplement the standard JKA kata that lack many circular techniques and short stances, particularly nekoashi dachi.
Take a look at Asai kata and see if you like them. Here are URLs for two Asai kata performed by Asai sensei himself.
Suishu: www.youtube.com/watch?v=SvxsNQTsizM
Kakuyoku Nidan: www.youtube.com/watch?v=99E1Y4ZOIjw
As you can see, these kata are based on many circular movements. I am sure you will agree that all the techniques you see here flow very nicely and you see no jerky motions.
We teach these kata in our organization, WJKA. Here is the website of WJKA, www.wjka.org
Yokota Sensei
He has been practicing Shotokan karate over 46 years. Was a member of JKA for 40 years and currently holding a position of Technical Director of WJKA. A series of his articles were featured in Shotokan Karate Magazine. He published a book last year and its title is “Shotokan Myths”, available through Amazon US and UK.
His email address is wjka_americas@yahoo.com. He welcomes the comments from the readers.