TKD@CMU

So I’ve written before about the feeling of using English as my second Karate language. Well, here are the top culprits. I only speak Karate Japanese (like restaurant Spanish or opera Italian) with a little Sushi Japanese mixed in, but there are some concepts which are much better (and more succinctly) explained with Japanese words. In no particular order:

1. Bunkai
   1. The application of a kata
2. Oyo
   1. The advanced application of a kata, includes a throw
3. Zanchin
   1. Watchfulness/awareness. Say you’re in a fight. You know the guy down. Bad zanchin is turning your back on her to  walk away. Good zanchin is keeping her in your line of sight until you are safely sure she is not getting up.
4. Kime
   1. Intent. No matter how fast the combination, no matter how hurried your mind, if every move does not have kime, you are not doing Shito-Ryu right. Kime is the pause between punches in the first diagonal move of Jeon; its the definition of the technique practiced in tachikata dai son; its what gets your punches scored in a kumite match.
5. Skidome
   1. This is a block. In this block, you take your extended arm and lower your elbow until your fist is even with your shoulder (where an uchi uke (inward block) or yoko uke (outward block) leave it). This is a block to a chudan (belly) punch. It is seen in Pinan (Heian for Shotokan people) Shodan when you first turn to the back of the room.
6. Sanchin dachi
   1. Place one foot forward. Place your back foot with big toe hips width away from your front heel. Kick out the heel of your back foot and bend yuor knees. Twisting against the floor straighten your knees so you feel tension in yor thighs. This protects well against groin kicks.
7. Zenkuts dachi
   1. Long Front stance. Feet hip width apart, back foot two hip widths behind front foot. Weight forward until front knee is over  your big toe. I have discovered so many different kinds of front stances I desperately want to use the Japanese word just to distinguish my style’s from others’.
8. Block Types (Rolling Rocks Hate Tenacious Kittens)
   1. Rysui
   2. Raka
   3. Hangeki waza
   4. Tenin
   5. Kushin
      1. Maybe I’ll explain these later.
9. Kata
   1. A formal sequence of movements which teach responses to attacks, new moves and self-discipline.
10. Kumite
    1. Refereed, controlled and disciplined fighting. Just saying fighting can lead to many kinds of confusion. In most cases a scoring technique stops the match until the referee has awarded points.

There are three problems I keep on coming upon with these words: 1) their English equivalents have style specific variations (6-7, 10) they sound way to spiritual/mushy-gushy in English (3 and 4), 3) their English translations need too many words to be effective (1-2, 4-7). I find it is much easier for me to use the Japanese words so I know I am saying exactly what I mean, rather than a rough translation that my students will find confusion or will misinterpret. Anyway, I love Shito-Ryu!

Post by Jessica Dickinson Goodman

Hey All,

Today we mostly went over rolls and falls. As all martial artists I’ve met try not to brain themselves on the floor, it if important for all levels of people to know how to break a fall. We three started today with basic forward rolls across our new mats, then Nicole (with her Mixed Martial Arts, Taekwondo and Hapkido experience) decided that, since it was her day to teach, we wold work on some obstacle rolling. We piled up mats on top of our other mats and jumped and rolled over them. Then we tried for more height, then more distance. The general value of this kind of training is it forces us blackbelts to think outside of our normal routine rolls to bring in other situations. We won’t always have a clear and open space to fight in, and having confidence in our abilities to fall and roll safely in a variety of circumstances is beneficial. We then worked on falling after throws–remarkable similar to rolling after clearing an obstacle. We did some throws which everyone knows by different names (hirigosh and ogosh I have learned both in Karate (the first is the throw used for the Oyo Bunkai for Kosokundai) and some take-downs which were surprisingly style specific. We ended the class with some non-martial arts related exercises, which have more to do with wanting to be fit than traditional Shito-Ryu Karate Do or Taekwondo. It was a good practice and tons of fun!

Post by Jessica Dickinson Goodman

Hey all,

So one of the joys of having a joint-style dojo/studio (other than trying to thinking Japanese/Korean and speak in English) is finding the similarities between styles. We’re not talking “oh look, we punch the same!” or “wow, we both have front kicks!” we’re talking full katas/forms which are more similar in structure and content than different. It grows more and more obvious that there are strong links between Taekwondo and Shito-Ryu Karate Do. Here is a list of katas/forms which we have in common:

Shito-Ryu Name:

Ji-on

Taekwondo Name:

Ji-an

Shito-Ryu Name:

Bassai-dai

Taekwondo Name:

Bat-se-dai

It might actually be harder to think in Japanese and write in English that thinking in Japanese and speaking in English. I’ll add more and also YouTube videos as I get them!

Post by Jessica Dickinson Goodman