Opening your body, pinan shodan and uraken uchi

[kpettersson]

Hello Wado karate-ka!
Today I was instructor of an outdoor session ( summer in the Nordics ) We did kata Chinto, pinan shodan & sandan and Sanbongumite 1 & 2 ( yes, Suzuki lineage).
I did get some questions about the first movements of pinan shodan. I talked about using the opening up our body as a channel for generating power just as I do when striking uraken uchi. Hip goes the opposite direction of the hand. We ended up training uraken using Wado movement. Any comments? How do you use Ura or Omote of pinan shodan and keisetsu the same in your teaching.
Sorry for any misspelling since English is not my first language.

Sincerely,
Carl Pettersson

[wadoka]

When I teach those first three movements I talk about opening, closing and then opening the body.

[claas]

Hi,

In Pinan shodan I think in the second movement it is important, at least a very long time in the beginning, to stress the directions of the arms and make the form correct. For people who do not have a lot of experience in physical excercise, a downward move and a simultaneous inside block is not easy. Also the stance easily breaks because of the upper body.

I think opening and closing are direct results of correct outer form, of course depending on the kind of opening and closing and likewise depending, how much of the form a person likes to call "outer". :)


I'm not sure if, in a technique such as urakenuchi, a good explanation is that the hip moves to the opposite direction. It is more like an opening of the body, to which of course this pointer can be given to separate it from another kind of uraken. The urakens where this opening happen, aren't 90 degrees to the side and the stance doesn't need to be mahanmi at the moment of impact. That means the punching side of the hip is going at least to some degree forward and so does the uraken too.

If the right hand uraken goes straight to the right, while the hip is in mahanmi going to the left, I think something is misaligned.

[wadoka]

Am slightly confused, but as is the case of forums and lots of writing.

I personally wouldn't associate any hip movement in Pinan Shodan movements 1-2-3. There's a lot going up on top but down below, it's a bit like naihanchi. Come to think of it, that's the first time I have thought of it that way.

In making the jodan tetsui of movement 3, I don't see that as similar to uraken uchi.

In uraken uchi, for me, it is more about the front knee and hip going forward, that gives the impression of counter rotation by virtue of leaving the back hip where it is, in not a rigid manner.