Gary's lone wolf howlin'
Posted: Sun Aug 09, 2015 3:39 am
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Hi Gary,
I am just venting here having spent a hour growing ever more despairing with the human race while reading the nonsense that is “Wado has no bunkai’ on iain Abernethy’s site of a year or two ago. What is nonsensical about it is these people commenting are not practicing Wado ryu and yet they have an opinion about something they know nothing or very little about.
If we are looking at anything to do with Ohtsuka’s Wado ryu then we need to delve into koryu history and philosophy rather than anything Okinawan. What you say about repetition and variation is true about wado ryu also. It’s the Shu Ha Ri principle of embrace the kata, separate from the kata and diverge from the kata but because it is a total body mind and spirit experience it takes a couple of decades or so to get all the bits of a co-ordinated body polished and honed to harvest the process.
The main difference that sets Wado ryu apart is it is the distilled essence of Ohtsuka meijin’s koryu experience in which Okinawan karate’s ‘Karate ni sente nashi’ has no place and no reference point because it is essentially Koryu in which taking and holding sente is invested in its ‘attack’ philosophy which stems from its history of years of tribal warfare, while Karate is an agrarian culture’s self-defensive practice against the civil violence of the times. Neither of course is the better, they are simply different practice for different eras.
O.K. Yes wado borrowed some aspects of Okinawan karate because his vision was to create a new martial art to provide for a peacetime culture that retained the best ( as he saw it) method of capturing and developing the hearts, minds and spirit of the youth of the day in a changing society. In my opinion: what the old guy didn’t want was a replica of Ueshiba’s Aikido where the attack has little integrity and doubtful efficacy also. So, in my opinion, he borrowed enough of their kata and kihon to create a good solid attack force to test the efficacy of koryu answers. This is the ‘pinch of condiments’ that the Ohtsuka family speak of.
Ohtsuka legacy has a few links to various koryu history along the way –before he got to the Okinawan. Most of these would have to be variations on a koryu theme I guess but he (Ohtsuka) was born into a middle class medical family with samurai history so it was certainly his koryu foundations that underpinned his Wado ryu. Takamura Ha Shindo Yoshin ryu notes 300 plus Kei and Gyo kata which are very much part of the difference that sets wado apart from its Okinawan contemporaries plus also calling it karate is the usual Japanese game of obfuscation. There is also a world of difference between the bunkai and kaisetsu practices but the British wado lite brigade have little idea having already buggered up a visionary’s legacy already.
Another big difference is Ohtsuka predicated his wado ryu of peace and harmonising with the nature of the universe within which the notion of ‘kata’ should be infinite and so he founded Wado ryu on Principles rather than technique so all of his technical changes go very deep.. Take his seiza and his reishiki f’rinstance where most ryu will leave access for sword use in their practice Wado ryu deliberately blocks the access by their right knee down first which would trap a sword. Making the bow in a left hand, right hand sequence normal for a quick draw is also nullified by Wado ryu’s two hands simultaneously practice to demonstrate its peaceful intentions. Small differences unless we are talking the difference between placing one’s life on the line in another level of reality. If what we do is proscribed by principles like Wado ryu’s ‘ Irimi, Inasu, Noru and Nagasu - as in the natural flow of a river around things – or the creativity in flowing water then everything is open ended. Gravity is the same, motion is the same and bunkai doesn’t cover it.
To say there is no bunkai in wado ryu is wrong of course, there is bunkai in wado at a very simple level, once we start to explain an enigma like the opening sequence of Kushanku or Naihanchi embusen or Niseishi's mawashiuke it becomes bunkai. However the research and development necessary to enable us to actually shape the physical commentary is really there to complement the Shu Ha Ri bespoke fitting room for wado ryu practitioners.
Gary mate, I am not advocating your return to debate at the bunkai emporium I am just complimenting you on your tenacity . . . and howllng at the moon here..
Ah that's better..!!
oneya
Hi Gary,
I am just venting here having spent a hour growing ever more despairing with the human race while reading the nonsense that is “Wado has no bunkai’ on iain Abernethy’s site of a year or two ago. What is nonsensical about it is these people commenting are not practicing Wado ryu and yet they have an opinion about something they know nothing or very little about.
If we are looking at anything to do with Ohtsuka’s Wado ryu then we need to delve into koryu history and philosophy rather than anything Okinawan. What you say about repetition and variation is true about wado ryu also. It’s the Shu Ha Ri principle of embrace the kata, separate from the kata and diverge from the kata but because it is a total body mind and spirit experience it takes a couple of decades or so to get all the bits of a co-ordinated body polished and honed to harvest the process.
The main difference that sets Wado ryu apart is it is the distilled essence of Ohtsuka meijin’s koryu experience in which Okinawan karate’s ‘Karate ni sente nashi’ has no place and no reference point because it is essentially Koryu in which taking and holding sente is invested in its ‘attack’ philosophy which stems from its history of years of tribal warfare, while Karate is an agrarian culture’s self-defensive practice against the civil violence of the times. Neither of course is the better, they are simply different practice for different eras.
O.K. Yes wado borrowed some aspects of Okinawan karate because his vision was to create a new martial art to provide for a peacetime culture that retained the best ( as he saw it) method of capturing and developing the hearts, minds and spirit of the youth of the day in a changing society. In my opinion: what the old guy didn’t want was a replica of Ueshiba’s Aikido where the attack has little integrity and doubtful efficacy also. So, in my opinion, he borrowed enough of their kata and kihon to create a good solid attack force to test the efficacy of koryu answers. This is the ‘pinch of condiments’ that the Ohtsuka family speak of.
Ohtsuka legacy has a few links to various koryu history along the way –before he got to the Okinawan. Most of these would have to be variations on a koryu theme I guess but he (Ohtsuka) was born into a middle class medical family with samurai history so it was certainly his koryu foundations that underpinned his Wado ryu. Takamura Ha Shindo Yoshin ryu notes 300 plus Kei and Gyo kata which are very much part of the difference that sets wado apart from its Okinawan contemporaries plus also calling it karate is the usual Japanese game of obfuscation. There is also a world of difference between the bunkai and kaisetsu practices but the British wado lite brigade have little idea having already buggered up a visionary’s legacy already.
Another big difference is Ohtsuka predicated his wado ryu of peace and harmonising with the nature of the universe within which the notion of ‘kata’ should be infinite and so he founded Wado ryu on Principles rather than technique so all of his technical changes go very deep.. Take his seiza and his reishiki f’rinstance where most ryu will leave access for sword use in their practice Wado ryu deliberately blocks the access by their right knee down first which would trap a sword. Making the bow in a left hand, right hand sequence normal for a quick draw is also nullified by Wado ryu’s two hands simultaneously practice to demonstrate its peaceful intentions. Small differences unless we are talking the difference between placing one’s life on the line in another level of reality. If what we do is proscribed by principles like Wado ryu’s ‘ Irimi, Inasu, Noru and Nagasu - as in the natural flow of a river around things – or the creativity in flowing water then everything is open ended. Gravity is the same, motion is the same and bunkai doesn’t cover it.
To say there is no bunkai in wado ryu is wrong of course, there is bunkai in wado at a very simple level, once we start to explain an enigma like the opening sequence of Kushanku or Naihanchi embusen or Niseishi's mawashiuke it becomes bunkai. However the research and development necessary to enable us to actually shape the physical commentary is really there to complement the Shu Ha Ri bespoke fitting room for wado ryu practitioners.
Gary mate, I am not advocating your return to debate at the bunkai emporium I am just complimenting you on your tenacity . . . and howllng at the moon here..
Ah that's better..!!
oneya