Karate

Karate and Self Protection from John Titchen

kumite

Learning more Kata to live longer?

This year, like thousands of people, I’ve enjoyed watching National Geographic’s ‘Limitless’ with Chris Hemsworth. In this show Chris looks at his lifestyle and talks to a number of medical specialists about how he might be able to stay healthier for longer through a number of different approaches.

One of the elements the series touches upon is the importance of cognitive health. This is not simply the importance of reducing stress, or of endeavouring to have a happy outlook on life, but finding ways to increase and maintain neuro-plasticity to ensure that the brain continues to function at a high level throughout our lives and during aging.

(Note my PhD is not in any medical related discipline so please excuse any use of laymen’s terms.)

One activity that was mentioned as being studied as a potential route to maintaining good cognitive function was dancing, in particular the activity of learning and rehearsing new combinations of movements.

Dancing is not Kata, although the two have much in common. I would of course argue that if you do not know and cannot actively apply under pressure the movements of your kata against a resisting opponent then you might as well be dancing. That should not be a controversial view given its historical resonance. I also suspect (although I have no data to support this belief) that the understanding of kata movements and the ability to relate them to paired practice may enhance any cognitive benefits of their practice because of the greater connectivity between the movement and other memories of position combined with tactile and visual stimuli recall.

When I began Karate, with Shotokan as my foundation style, as part of my training process I learned as forms many as I could. I would normally learn a kata from a book and/or a Kanazawa video before doing it in class. In this manner I learned and was assessed on the majority of the 27 kata in the Shotokan canon.

Over time my training aims changed and as a Dan grade I have focused on training as few forms as possible. I can see the overlaps, variations, adaptations and redundancies between different forms and choose to maximise my training time and depth of understanding by working on a small number of kata. My emphasis is on drilling and rehearsing useful principles through minimal numbers of techniques rather than collecting more and more of ‘the same’ techniques and kata. I teach my Shotokan students what I consider to be a sensible slimmed down kata syllabus prior to their Dan gradings to ensure a depth of understanding and ability to apply in alive training. After their first Dan grade they are free to train as many kata as they want, I only ask them to undertake the discipline of learning and investigating one new kata per grading to ensure they understand the principles involved.

At present, in my DART Karate classes, I teach my own kata to condense further drills, lessons and technique coathangers on tight embusens that maximise the ability to rehearse a huge amount of material in as few movements as possible. DART students train my two kata, Initiative and Escape, and two widespread old and useful forms: Tekki Shodan and Seisan.

But am I going about this wrong? I’ve been focusing on condensing what we do in regular training for combative effectiveness. I have taught kata as a condensed way of rehearsing important principles and maintaining mobility rather than focusing on it as a longevity tool.

In my own personal practice, in my own dojo, I no longer use kata training as a visualisation tool. I neither focus on an intent for each plane of movement, nor do I shadow box with kata and swim freely through solo rehearsal jumping at ease from combination to combination depending on what I imagine. I can do these, but I don’t really need to as I am using my kata hands on (and watching my students do the same) for the majority of all my classes. When I move through a kata I feel as if I am gliding through a kaleidoscope of options. Without students or an audience, I simply use each kata to move and breathe, to maintain my mobility and balance while focusing on nothing more than the movement, my mind only focused on what I am doing.

But should I learn more kata to improve my neuro-plasticity?

Trawling through research published online it is possible to find studies such as ‘Effects of Dancing on Cognition in Healthy Older adults: a Systematic Review’ , ‘Dance for neuroplasticity: A descriptive systematic review’ , ‘Does dance counteract age-related cognitive and brain declines in middle-aged and older adults? A systematic review’ , and ‘Physical activity for cognitive health promotion: An overview of the underlying neurobiological mechanisms’  which suggest the activity probably will have benefits.

It increasingly seems the consensus that exercise (and in particular exercise that requires a range of movement, variability and cognitive engagement) is going to be beneficial for cognitive health. What is not so clear is whether the adaptation of continuously learning new routines is going to transfer greater benefits than the adaptation and variety of continuously applying existing routines on training partners or of recalling the stimuli of multiple applications while engaged in solo practice.

So the wheel turns once more to the question of how we train and how we use our kata. If your kata is a distinct entity from your kihon or kumite training then there is likely to be greater cognitive benefit in undertaking the challenge of learning and practicing greater numbers of kata, especially if the amount of time you spend responding to varied kumite stimuli decreases as you get older. If your kata already has the pliability and variability of being your primary kumite medium ‘built in’, then you are probably getting proportionally greater cognitive stimulation from rehearsing fewer forms. Regardless of how many kata you train, variability of stimuli and movement is good for neuro-plasticity so it would be good to have a kumite medium that you can engage in regardless of age (I have students aged 11 to 70 free sparring). In similar vein it makes sense that the more ‘open’ and variable the kumite is (striking plus grappling) the greater the cognitive benefits.

So, whichever route you want to take to better health, get out there and train!

 

Spinning Plates

That was really hard!

That phrase, sometimes combined with an expletive, is usually the first thing one of my team says to me after I’ve asked them to teach a full lesson for the first time. Sometimes I’ve given them the chance to plan in advance, on other occasions they’ve just had a moment to look at the group dynamics and ‘go’.

A planned lesson is something I ask all potential Dan grades to do before I’ll put them forward to attempt the physical exam. On other occasions I might ask it because I believe the challenge of teaching will improve their technical ability and understanding. No-one gets thrown in the deep end without some experience; they’ll all have had to teach or supervise some element with a small group within the main class on a number of occasions.

I choose not to teach using line work.

I teach fundamental techniques against pads or partners in armour. For thin-air refinement of stepping, turning and techniques I use Kata. In addition to Kata and pad work Kihon is further reinforced and assessed through static, dynamic and alive Kumite which is taken directly from the Kata I teach. To do this I try to limit how much time I spend in class on ‘solo kata’ because I believe that when you have training partners you should be using them. Solo Kata in class is the teaching and assessment of a training method that I expect Karateka to be working on in their own time.

Students won’t always explain stuff the same way as you…

One of the consequences of teaching without line work is that there are always a lot of different activities taking place. Sometimes everyone is doing pad work or doing sparring at the same time, but due to the kit involved and the broad student age and grade range, no-one is ever going to be doing the same thing or working at the same level. We correct general points before and after a section of class, but in most lessons every student will get individual coaching feedback of some kind. The result of this is that while an instructor might not be training, they are constantly moving round the class talking to participants and demonstrating. It is physically and mentally demanding and an eye-opening experience for those doing it for the first time. They don’t realise how busy the instructor is.

Videoing coaching can help reinforce feedback.

Not everyone likes to teach or train this way. Some people prefer everyone in class to be doing the same thing or at least moving to the same count. That does make life easier for the instructor, it might also help those on the autistic spectrum. Personally, I have always felt that enabling students to set their own pace and explore their own options for the majority of the class allows for better learning opportunities. I was first exposed to this method in the years I trained regularly in Aikido and I chose to drop line work in my classes within a year of developing the Heian Flow System (now Pinan Flow System) in 2004. I don’t use line work in my Shotokan or DART classes.

Students can learn a great deal coaching under supervision.

One thing I do use is the instructor potential of my students. Is a 3rd kyu or 5th kyu going to instruct something as well as the Dan grade supervising them? No. I don’t expect them to. Are they likely to cover enough of the foundations of a drill or combination to enable a grade below them? Yes. If they weren’t they would not have been awarded that higher grade. Teaching may not be for everyone, and it’s certainly not something I’d expect anyone to do all the time, but it does show both student and instructor the scope of their technical knowledge. That is invaluable introspection. The junior grade receiving the instruction is not likely to take away any ‘more’ at their level from teaching by a senior instructor, developmental repetitions are more important than continuous coaching interventions, but the intermediate grade will benefit tremendously from having to teach. That creates a positive development loop.

Whatever the teaching subject area, kumite, kata, or kihon, any student can teach a pair or a few pairs with supervision from one or more Dan grades. You don’t have to change the training method, you can still use line work, you just split up the class into as many or few groups as you choose, for as much or as little of the class as you want, and supervise.

So, if you don’t do it already, perhaps it is time to get your students to spin a few plates.

Progress through practice

When I first started training martial arts, I did so with an inferiority complex.

Most of my physical education experience up to that time was outdoors. Rugby, football, (grass) hockey, athletics and cricket. I didn’t do well at these. I was usually the last or second to last guy to be picked on teams in compulsory sport. In fact, I was so bad that I didn’t even notice that when it came to rare indoor physical education sessions of volleyball, crab football, weight-lifting and gymnastics I actually out-performed many of my sporting peers. The root cause, not spotted until I left school and changed doctors, was that my childhood asthma was very poorly managed and physical education coaches of the time were either not trained or not invested in helping lower ability students progress through that type of medical hurdle.

Beginning training in Karate at the age of seventeen I did so with the automatic perception that I was worse than the students to my left and right. It was a new club so we were all the same grade, but I was certain that everyone else was better.

I took matters into my own hands.

Every evening, before going to sleep, I made sure I worked through all my fixed kihon sets at least ten times on each side. I would also work my fixed kumite sets and my kata. I didn’t have much space so there was a lot of shuffling on the spot.

When the old doors were removed from ‘my’ Squash Court Dojo to be scrapped as part of its renovation, I kept this souvenir.

Personal training outside of class is something I have never dropped. Whether I was only making two classes a week or eleven classes a week, I’ve made time and found space. That may have been training on the spot in a narrow gap between a bed and a wall, walking down to Squash Court 3 at Birmingham University every weekday for a 7-9am session before lectures, or finding an empty space at a Leisure Centre for an hour. I’ve stretched and trained in front of the television, in the kitchen while waiting for a kettle to boil, in hallways waiting for others to get their coats on.

Repetitions count. Static repetitions of martial arts moves may not be ‘as good’ for learning as repetitions that are adapting to the fluid dynamic of paired training, but so long as they are not done to exhaustion and are not hindering recovery from any other training, they will be beneficial.

I’ve not limited my ‘out of class’ training to my martial arts techniques.

I’m lucky to have a well equipped dojo.

I’ve had a few gym memberships over the years, but I’ve generally preferred to see what I can do ‘cheaper’ around my own schedule at home. When I was 21, shortly before I qualified as a fitness instructor, my sister bought me a weights bench and I still have that today even though I’ve changed the types of weight and exercises I use. I’m lucky because I have my own dojo these days where I can set up my bench, keep my free weights and bar, hang my heavy bag and speed ball, attach resistance straps to the bag hook, or use my rowing machine, but I’ve seen others do the same in garages or garden sheds. There are multiple things anyone can do to improve their strength, power or achieve hypertrophy without buying kit, just so long as they can find a space to train.

Students finding space to train and video training at home during lockdown.

You don’t need much space to train. If you have room to do a push up, there’s a lot of different bodyweight exercises you can do in addition to kata or kihon on the spot. Weather permitting you develop explosive power jumping on the spot outdoors. You can improve your VO2 max running up and down stairs (again possibly best in a venue where you aren’t going to wake people or cause cracks in the plaster work).

There is so much you can do outside of class and it actually takes so little time. Micro workouts count. Too often people feel that they have to lump everything together or be in a particular place, placing self-imposed obstacles in their path to greater health. Listen to a podcast or audio reading of a work text while exercising, use the rest breaks between sets to make bullet point notes of the last few minutes (I do this a lot). Watch your favourite show while working out on the spot, listen to your favourite tunes.

Forced online training during lockdowns showed how people could find space to train indoors and outdoors.

You won’t know what you can do until you try. Start small: choose something that is easy to do regularly and then increase either intensity or frequency or both, then add something else. It’s amazing how much supporting exercise we can add into our lives without feeling as if we are ‘losing’ any time. Technically speaking by improving cognitive function and health through exercise we are gaining time.

I hope you enjoy the benefits of personal training as much as I do.

Circling but never landing

I don’t like flow drills.

Wait a moment, haven’t I written 5 books on Flow Drills? The (out of print) Heian Flow System and the four books of the Pinan Flow System?

Yes, I wrote those books. No, they don’t contain Flow Drills, they outline a Flow System.

What’s the difference?

I see a Flow Drill as a fixed sequence of moves, generally performed as a cycle of one person’s actions requiring a fixed response from a partner, sometimes involving the participants swapping roles on a fixed regular basis.

A Flow System by contrast is a training methodology designed to help users flow seamlessly between grappling and striking options in accordance to the dynamics of their sparring. While there may be static ‘fixed’ responses the first time a combination is introduced, extra variables are quickly added so that there really isn’t anything ‘set’ and the open-ended training is only limited by the experience, skill and imagination of the participants. Limiting yourself to only moves in the Heian / Pinan kata (which not all of my Shotokan students do) is hardly setting tight constraints.

So why don’t I like Flow Drills? Why am I so unreasonable?

Flow Drills is a blanket term. In principle I am in favour of any form of training that develops skill sets and attributes. I am in favour of any training exercise that is enjoyable (because people are more likely to show up to do it). I am also wary of anything that has a tendency to lull people into metronome-like behaviour and to become too accustomed to set responses to set stimuli. Like many instructors I am concerned that often people can fall into a distorted focus on becoming fast and proficient at the drill (the set sequence of movements) rather than proficient at using the techniques independently with a working understanding of how and when to use them and how to adapt them.

So like everything in the martial arts, whether flow drills are good or bad depends on their use in the overall structure of training, too much or too little of any training method has the potential for health or harm. If you continuously circle but never land then you are setting yourself up to crash. If a Flow Drill is fixed then it should probably be short. If points in one flow drill match up with points in another then students that know both should actively be encouraged to randomly switch; the more ‘overlaps’ and thus switch points the better because a Flow Drill will instead evolve  into dynamic sparring or even alive sparring (if anything can be done). The more time in class we ‘lock’ students into fixed combinations the more we limit their ability to become skilful in recognising opportunity and proficient in adaptability and improvisation. Those traits must not be sacrificed for rigid training in the name of ‘skill development’.

 

Three things that will revolutionise your karate

1. Treat each demonstration by an instructor as if it is the first time you have ever seen it.

We look, but we fail to see, We listen, but we fail to hear. We observe, but we fail to understand. We’ve all done this and in many respects the longer we’ve been training the easier it is to fall into the trap of not paying attention to a demonstration or teaching point. It’s easy to look at something and say “Oh, I know this” and not give it your full attention, or not look closer to pay attention to the finer details which may be left unsaid.

One of the most difficult challenges I faced when writing my most recent series of application books, the Pinan Flow System, was choosing how to describe and illustrate the actions of the application drills. Next to each picture I had space to write about thirty words. Thirty words and a picture to sum up a little element of an application drill when I could quite easily spend at least a good twenty minutes talking through all the different nuances and underlying principles of that particular element of the drill.

In similar vein when a drill is taught it is usually layered, with different elements being emphasised for the different audiences, and a normal lesson time explanation cannot begin to cover the depth of understanding needed for good practice.

The simple step of assuming you don’t know anything about the demonstration that is taking place in front of you and trying to view it with fresh eyes to always seek extra details will make a huge difference to your karate.

2. Question everything.

I don’t mean sticking up your hand in the middle of the class all the time and asking your instructor for more information. Your instructor is teaching on a tight schedule, they are giving you as much information as they feel you need to know and have to balance the training needs of all the other students. If you need to ask your instructor a question, often it is best to wait until the end of the class; it’s not good manners to interrupt everyone else’s education and training.

If you are given a rationale for a drill or exercise, apply a solid BS filter to it. This will mean that you have to put in time to get the background knowledge to understand whether it is BS or not. The nature of your filter will depend not only upon your knowledge level (and the quality of your source information), but the purpose of your filter; are you looking for optimum training for strength, balance, flexibility, aerobic fitness, competition success (in kumite or kata) or self defence?

A lot of people peddle information that may have passed a BS filter back when they were first being taught, but time and research have since shown to be wrong. They may not be aware what they are teaching is inaccurate or flawed. Other people peddle false information because they’ve never done any real research on the topic and are relying on their imagination, their own very limited experience (which they may not realise is limited simply by being personal) or movies.

Do your own research. How does this work? Why does this work? When should this work? Where does it come from? How can I improve this? What do I need to change to improve?

 

3. Train at home, no matter how little time or space you have.

As an instructor it can be frustrating when you run several classes a week but students only make it to one. What we often fail to realise is how lucky we are to get that student at just that one class. Often on chatting to students I find that they may be out another one or two nights a week pursuing other physical hobbies (such as running, or tennis, or swimming), looking after the children at home on another night while their partner goes out to an activity, acting as a taxi service to children on other nights for their activities, and if they are lucky actually getting to spend one or two evenings a week at home with their partner. All this on top of working throughout the day earning money!

The reality of modern life is that it isn’t easy for many students to come to class more than once a week. The reality of karate is that you need to train regularly to see improvement. The two are not mutually exclusive.

You do not have to train in long sessions to have beneficial karate training.

Every good repetition of a movement counts. That means you can train for 30 seconds standing on one leg or rotating your hips while waiting for the kettle to boil, or a partner to come down the stairs before you go out rather than pacing in front of the TV. You can do a lot in a five minute session, and it is easy to find a five minute or ten minute moment in the day, and probably better for you than sitting down. Anyone can find time for personal training if they want to find time for personal training.

You do not have to break a sweat or change clothing to have beneficial karate training.

You can’t train because you don’t have time to change or shower? That shouldn’t be an issue. You don’t need to break a sweat for good training. Training comes in many forms, and as I’ve written here, often the best form of training is slow movement focusing on precision, good biomechanics and balance. You can sweat when you go to your karate class, or engage in any other form of exercise you practice.

You do not have to have lots of space to have beneficial karate training.

You can achieve a lot standing on the spot. There are lots of different upper body, hip movements and weight transference exercises you can do on the spot. It’s great to have a fair bit of space, but you can easily improve your karate just by standing on the spot.

You do not have to have a training partner to have beneficial karate training.

Paired and multiple person work is obviously a big part of karate, but you do not need company to improve your kihon or kata. If you have a kick bag, speed ball traditional strength tools or a makiwara at home you can work on those. Playing tug of war with reasonably sized dog is a great way to improve your hikite, and you may learn a lot about good biomechanics by observing how your ‘training partner’ utilises its whole body.

Try these three things for just one month and see how your karate improves!

Karate Uke, Blocks, and other Applications

What do we mean by block?

My old concise Oxford Dictionary offers 18 different meanings for ‘block’ as a noun and 6 for it as a verb, a number of which seem suited to the context in which the term is used in the martial arts:

  • an obstruction; anything preventing progress or normal working,
  • a blocking action,
  • put obstacles in the way of,
  • restrict the use of,
  • intercept with one’s body (American football).

It’s not a bad term, but one I suggest is still more limiting than the actual karate uke techniques themselves.

In a lot of martial arts that use Japanese language terminology when two people train together they may be referred to as Tori, the person that successfully ‘does’ the technique, and Uke, the person that receives the technique. For at least the last fourteen years I have used the word ‘receiver’ to translate the word ‘uke’ when it refers to a technique (such as Age Uke, Ude Uke, Uchi Uke) as I feel it allows for the broad range of things that the movements can be than the more commonly used term ‘block’.

When is an uke technique not an uke technique?

Most uke techniques are made up of a number of gross motor movements, often with some fine motor additions at the end. The opinion of what is and what isn’t an uke technique will vary from person to person. How much of the movement, and what part of the movement, has to be done before we can say “I used this uke technique”?

As an example, here are descriptions of two different uke techniques. I recognise that they will be taught differently from style to style and from association to association (and my version may well be viewed as heretical or incorrect by some), but I will describe them as I do them if I were doing Shotokan Karate kihon as Shotokan is one of the karate styles that I teach.

Right Arm Age Uke: the left arm extends palm open and down to the front at head height with the right hand fist closed palm up at the hip. The right hand (fist closed and palm facing upwards) moves diagonally across the body from right to left (outside to inside) to approximately shoulder height, supported by a partial turn of the right hip forward. The right arm then moves a small amount from the inside to the outside while continuing to push upwards, the forearm rotating so that the back of the hand now faces the head and the uppermost surface of the forearm is clear of the top of the head. The elbow of the right arm is lower than the fist and the angle of the forearm is diagonal rather than horizontal. This final movement is supported by a further turn of the right hip forward of the left. The hips turn fluidly throughout the movement and the movement of the right arm should be fluid throughout. As the right arm moves the left hand retracts sharply to the hip, closing to a fist and rotating to a palm up position. This can be done with supporting stepping motions.

Right Arm Ude Uke: the left arm extends palm open and down to the front at head height and the right arm is pulled back level with the head, its elbow at approximately shoulder height with the forearm at a vertical right angle to the upper arm and rotated so that the closed right fist faces away from the head. The right forearm then rotates so that the palm of the closed fist faces forwards and the right elbow drops down and forwards sweeping across the body from the outside towards the inside, supported by the right hip orientating forwards of the left. As the right arm reaches its end point (which would have been the centerline of the chest had the hips not turned) the forearm rotates so that the palm of the closed fist faces towards the practitioner. As the right arm moves the left hand retracts sharply to the hip, closing to a fist and rotating to a palm up position. This can be done with supporting stepping motions.

In basic training and in kata the prior extension of the ‘non blocking’ arm is common to the majority of uke techniques. As such if I just do that I would not describe myself as having done an uke technique, I see it as a setup movement, albeit a very important one in a lot of practical applications (as is its retraction). From a personal standpoint if I just do the diagonal upwards movement in one direction described in my version of Age Uke, whether the outside to inside part or the inside to outside reversal, I would not say “I have done Age Uke”, but if I did both I would describe it as an Age Uke. In similar vein although many years ago I was taught in Jiyu Kumite to move and rotate my arm a few inches from its kamae position from the outside to the inside and that movement was also ‘Ude Uke’, for me (and this is an opinion not a fact) it does not utilise enough of the movement to go by that name and I see it purely as a closed hand parry. As such I wouldn’t call an open or closed handed high outside to inside parry Gedan Barai, though if it is then followed by the arm sliding along and across the parried limb to strike the attacker with a hammerfist I would. If the same following outward movement went upwards rather than downwards then I would not be adverse to describing it as an Age Uke.

Flinching, parrying, swatting, patting, diverting and slipping and uke techniques

There are a number of different reactions we make to attacks. The tongue in cheek descriptor I use for the different umbrella aspects that govern the actions or reactions of the ‘defender’ is the FEAR of the defender: their focus, experience, attitude and reaction time – all measured or competing against the EASE of the attack (environment, attitude, speed and entry angle). In broad terms though what we do in response to an attack will depend upon whether or when we see it, how long we have to react to it and how much experience we have dealing with it along with what we’ve trained to do.

The fastest most natural proactive things we can do in response to an attack we have not pre-empted are simple gross motor actions. Patting or parrying from one side to the other, pushing up or swatting down, or slipping straight under. These are all natural movements that most people will do if they have enough time unless confused by being specifically told to do something else. Where training comes in is that a trained person will

  • spot the telegraphs of the attack sooner and begin to make appropriate movements,
  • have improved reaction time from regular exposure to the stimuli,
  • have superior supporting biomechanics to ensure a greater likelihood of success,
  • have a superior ability to follow (or convert) their swat/parry/push/pat/slip with an appropriate ‘shutting down’ movement or combination.

Depending on the style (and the student) there are often points in training (particularly in the first few years) where an untrained person will avoid being struck with greater success and ease than a trained person because they are carrying less mental baggage about what they should be doing in support of the movement and that is particularly true if a person is trying to utilise a ‘complete’ uke technique in the manner I described above (with Age Uke and Ude Uke as examples) against an unpredictable attack at speed.

While flinching is a natural movement (and can to a degree biomechanically overlap with some of the examples given above) it differs from them in that it is an unconscious reflexive response. We all flinch, but we do so unconsciously when we do not have time to access a conscious response to protect ourselves. How we flinch will depend on how far away the stimuli is when we spot it, how fast it is, where it is headed, and the position of our hands and arms at the time. If you spot a punch heading towards your face at the last minute and your hands are down by your waist, they may begin to come up as if to cover the head, and the spinal reflex will kick in turning you down and away, and the face will scrunch and the eyes shut, but you will still get hit. If your hands were already in front of your face then your arms would probably have covered the head and you wouldn’t have been hit. If there were more time the arms (or the nearest arm) would have extended to push the threat away. If there were more time than that then you would most likely have accessed a conscious response and your unconscious brain would not have taken over. We cannot modify the flinch. We can reduce its likelihood through training and learning to spot and act on telegraphs earlier. We can also (if we’re sensible) practice recovering from flinch-like positions so that if we do flinch we are immediately able to respond rather than fall victim to follow up attacks.

Karate uke and applications

Uke can be used and trained for a number of different purposes, some of which are more effective in different environments and under different degrees of pressure than others. So far as I’m concerned whether an application of an uke is right or wrong comes down to the Ronseal test: does it do what it says on the tin?

Stepping backwards with a full Age Uke and Ude Uke (as described above) against a prearranged long-range straight punching torso or chin attack at speed works. I can’t question that, I’ve seen it done hundreds of times and I’ve done it hundreds of times. I’ve not seen it work in other environments, and I’ve seen it fail in other environments, but that doesn’t matter if that’s not your training intention. If you can reliably apply it to do what you want it to do then it passes the Ronseal test for you.

Uke make up the majority of karate kata techniques. It is my opinion (and this isn’t a new view by any means, it has been common in the karate world for a very long time) that they were not designed to be used against karate (or other MA) attacks in the manner in which they are generally trained in a number of karate systems, though that does not detract from their ability in such to bestow a number of positive combative and fitness benefits in the process.

I view uke techniques as ‘receiver’ techniques, they receive the other person’s attack. This means that they deflect, they intercept, they strike (potentially pre-emptively), they unbalance, they manipulate, they trap and they can even control.

In his ten precepts Anko Itosu wrote of Karate as being designed to defend oneself against a ruffian rather than engaging in challenge matches. As such in my own training I have chosen to orientate my study and application of uke techniques towards habitual acts of violence (HAOV). The recreation of HAOV in training and in the simulation of force on force individual and multiple person realistic self defence scenarios is something for which I am probably better known internationally than my karate articles and books. I consider myself very fortunate to have had a number of highly experienced martial artists from a broad range of martial arts disciplines as well as LEOs, military and security personnel, watch or participate in the training that I have run in this regard and endorse it. The applications I teach for uke techniques stem from the observations of what happens (and what works) in this form of training in addition to over a decade of the study of violent crime and associated supporting disciplines. Photographs for clarity of explanation in books and articles will illustrate my applications in a very static form (because they are for people learning the drills), but they are designed to be trained in the manner I describe here with progressive resistance, speed and unpredictability. Ultimately I believe in their effectiveness for self defence and would like to see those who learn them try them in situations such as illustrated in my training in the following video.

 

I’ve previously discussed the case for elements of grappling in karate in Volume Two of the Pinan Flow System and I know that the conclusions I drew there are not unique. Karate is not purely a striking approach, nor is it purely a grappling approach, it is an approach that is orientated predominantly towards striking and striking is its preferred approach. To do this effectively against HAOV by necessity it contains techniques that are designed to navigate and extricate from the common ‘non percussive’ elements of fighting (such as grabbing and pulling, holding, barging, tackling attempted leg take downs etc) in order to strike, flee or control. In self defence situations the vast majority of conflict occurs at extremely close range and grabbing, clinching, pushing, barging and tackling are extremely common responses – even (and especially) amongst highly trained martial artists who have focused their training on maintaining distance. Long range stepping and attacking tend to occur most often when chasing a retreating person that has not been held, or on joining ‘another’ struggle to help a friend after dealing with an aggressor in a multiple person situation.

In my scenario simulations various patterns of behaviour emerge. I’m not referring to the HAOV of the role-playing aggressors, or the adrenal reactions of the surprised trainees who suddenly find themselves attacked while trying to defuse an argument, but in the patterns that successful counter tactics form.   As part of the training the scenarios are videoed and the footage examined frame by frame to give feedback. What is consistently visible in the footage is that successful navigation and extraction of participants from the close quarter fighting comes through movements and stances that more closely resemble the strategies that are shown in karate kata, even amongst those participants who have no martial arts experience. In fact if I were to edit out the attacker from the video so that it appeared as if the defender were fighting thin air, then the resulting movements would look more akin to a kata than anything else seen in the martial arts. Those that have specifically trained to use the kata against HAOV on a regular basis do exceptionally well in such scenario training by using the kata practically. This pattern of both striking and ‘grappling’ (or anti-grappling if you prefer) on the part of both attacker and defender, and the resulting kata mirror, makes a further convincing case for both the need and presence of grappling and throwing in karate kata.

One of the most noticeable elements of karate kata is the relative paucity of ‘obvious’ striking techniques. In terms of overall quantity the majority of the kata are made up of uke receiving techniques combined with hikite pulling motions (and in some systems preparatory extended arm thrusting motions), then we have ‘obvious’ open and close handed thrusting / punching / striking motions and finally we have the emphasised kneeing or kicking techniques.

The idea that uke techniques are only ‘blocks’ and that their predominance in kata reflects the defensive nature of karate should be rejected for a number of reasons. Firstly, deflecting and blocking attacks is a largely instinctive action that does not require specialised movement, though as I outlined above training to deflect and parry attacks is not a waste of time. If you observe anyone shielding themselves against a committed attack outside of set prearranged sparring combinations, you will see them cover, parry, slap, duck or flinch (or any combination of those), and any time you see anything resembling part of a fixed uke technique it will be because the uke technique itself mimics natural movement. Secondly the best form of defence is offence, and that principle has been enshrined in martial writings across many cultures for centuries. A committed attack is not stopped by continuous deflection but by pattern disrupting behaviour that forces reaction and reorientation. Thirdly it is unlikely to be a coincidence that uke techniques function extremely well as striking, unbalancing, trapping and limb (and head) manipulation movements in stand up grappling. Finally it is incongruous that the majority of the movements being drilled in kata should be devoted to anything other than navigating the most common problems posed by violent incidents.

The requirement of good training to address the most common problems takes us back to the weighting of movements in the kata. When I look at the footage of the skilled and unskilled martial artists working to extricate themselves from close quarter force on force violent confrontations in the hundreds of scenario training simulations that I have run (whether on their own against a single assailant, against a group, or part of the chaos of multiple groups of people in an argument that has escalated to physical violence) the weighting of techniques and time is as follows in order of frequency:

  • moving and manipulating others to gain a position from which to strike, control or escape (predominantly extracting oneself from multiple punches, grabs, high tackles and clinches),
  • striking with the forearms, elbows or hands,
  • kneeing,
  • kicking with the foot.

This distribution of movement mirrors the emphasis on techniques in the majority of karate kata, especially with the ability of most uke techniques to function as short close range strikes (often using the forearm) as well as stand up grappling (or grappling avoidance and escape) movements.

My approach to and interpretation of the application of uke techniques is neither new nor unique, and it is not the only valid approach. From my perspective though it is one that is underwritten by textual evidence from past generations of karateka and their antecedents, is orientated towards the purpose of karate as described by Anko Itosu, fits the uncomfortable realities of civilian self defence (as shown by CCTV footage, years of hospital emergency room data, decades of consistent violent crime surveys and reports, and accompanying psychological and physiological research into human behaviour), and is supported by the fact that entire uke techniques and indeed entire kata sequences can be applied realistically under pressure with other techniques (from the same kata) acting as effective redundancies in the event of less than optimal performance. A few photos in isolation (and possibly out of context without explanation) or a short video of a single application cannot convey its holistic integrity, appropriateness or effectiveness.   If you really want to understand or judge my approach then you need to train with me.