Newsgroups: rec.martial-arts
From: bburgar@cix.compulink.co.uk (Bill Burgar)
Subject: Shotokan Misconceptions - replies.
Reply-To: bburgar@cix.compulink.co.uk
Date: Thu, 13 Aug 1992 17:42:21 +0000



>it is undeniable (I think) that the average overall level of muscle
tension
>is *much* higher in the practice and application of some arts than
in others,
>and I perceive that this is *one* of the things that makes 'hard'
and 'soft'
>distinct.
...
>So, based on these observations, I partly dispute the contention
sometimes made
>that certain hard arts, like JKA-style karate, are actually soft
once you
>become good with them.  However, I'd certainly admit that the
tensions they
>use do become of shorter duration and more focused, as befits the
theory
>of 'kime,' making the locking of muscles much less noticable in very
>advanced people like Enoeda, Okazaki, Kanazawa, et al..


Thanks Todd, just what I was trying to say only better. Kime
is the limiting factor as to how soft a style can get. I think,
as you point out, the duration of the kime is the important part.


>My instructor, Mori sensei, has a reputation even among Shotokan
>people for encouraging the so-called "Bum on the floor" stances.
>Actually, I've more often seen them called "Balls on the floor"


Yikes! sounds painful :-)


>stances, but we want to avoid sexist terms that assume that all MAs
>are male, don't we ;-)?  He also encourages, in early training, the
>straightening of the back leg in the front stance.  He justifies
these
>practices as building a base for later training in what Mr.  Burgar
>apparently would consider the "proper" Shotokan style.  It seems to
me
>that his opinion is that, without this early "wrong" training to
build
>the leg muscles and the habit of going into a strong (i.e., deep)
>stance and keeping the back leg straight in that stance, it will be
>difficult or impossible to do the techniques "properly" later on
(with
>the deep stance and straightening the leg only at the point of kime,
>as Mr. Burgar says).  Thus, the techniques will not be as strong or
as
>focused as they would be with the "wrong" training initially. 
Perhaps
>Enoeda sensei disagrees; I know that, in the seminars (week-long
>"camps") I've had with him, he stressed traditional low stances a
>lot less and raw speed a lot more than Mori sensei.  Both, however,
>stressed not being too tight and too "hard", at least from shodan
>level onward.


Thank you Steve, I think that you may well be
right that it is a necessary part of early training
to have very low stances. I sometimes forget that
the first 6 or 7 years of my own training were in
*very* deep stances.


The depth of stance that each instructor encourages,
I suspect, may depend on when the instructor left the
JKA instructors class to go out and teach. The earlier
generation (Enoeda, Kanazawa etc) all seem to encourage
low stances. Whereas the later generation (Osaka,
Kawasoe, etc) place far less empahsis on low stances -
the straight back leg being almost totally absent from
these later instructors teaching.


I suspect that Nakayama originally taught the deep stances
and later changed slightly to higher "more shapely" stances.
Yoshitaka's influence early on and Nakayama's own later???


I would be grateful if you could give me some details
about Mori Sensei (I'm afraid I know very little about him),
when did he leave Japan, when did he start teaching etc.
This would help to establish if my theory is correct.


I suspect that if Nakayama stopped teaching low stances to
beginners (I have a friend who has been training in Japan
for a long time who says beginners are not taught very
low stances) he may have considered that they were not
necessary. 


We have been teaching "non-low" stances for about 4 years
now so the beginners who started at the beginning of this
era are now reaching 1st Dan. I personally think that their
stances are too high, and hence their kime not so strong
so perhaps they could have benefitted from a few years of
low stances. However, they do move much more smoothly and
alot faster. Swings and roundabouts, I guess. There must
be a happy medium somewhere.


Bill Burgar.


PS Sorry about my use of the word "wrong", what I meant
of course was "different" :-)


PSS Sorry about the two previous posts. Their front ends
appear to have been chopped off. The one about the George
Dillman videos said "NO, ..." and sounded like the I had
seen the videos and I was saying "No they are no good".
What it meant to say was "No, I haven't seen them yet,
but would like to".
Newsgroups: rec.martial-arts