May 27, 2025 • 38 mins
Grab a seat in the dojo for Great Karate Myths: Debunking the Legends—it’s Question Time! Our listeners dropped six awesome questions via socials, and we’re ready to kick them into high gear. Is the Sanchin Kata stance any good for armed fights if it flops in a street brawl? Are drunk pub brawlers scarier than knife-wielding pros? Why’s kata training cool for weapons but not bare knuckles? Plus, we’re spilling the tea on why katas take forever to master, how many you really need, and whether YouTube can teach you the moves. Our rotating crew of martial arts nerds brings the facts with a side of laughs, breaking down your questions with zero fluff. Tune in for a fun, no-holds-barred dive into karate’s wildest myths!
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:05):
Welcome to Great Karate Myths Debunking the Legends, the podcast
that slices through the tangled web of martial arts mythology
to unearth the radiant truth of Karati's legacy. In today's episode,
we're diving into the anigmatic questions you've sent firear socials,
unraveling the secrets behind the dojo's most during terms. Prepared
(00:26):
to be enlightened, Let's begin the journey. So the first question,
how can you justify the idea that a sanchin kata stance,
which you argue is ineffective for unarmed self defense in
(00:47):
a cage or street scenario due to its limitations, would
somehow be effective in armed conflict.
Speaker 2 (00:57):
Who's going first? Dan? You are? Thanks Tom? That was
really simple. I vote about this in the myth in
the Great Kararati Myth. It's in a very simple way
of putting this Dif, for instance, you pick up you
pick up a stick or a sword, that's a good example. Sword.
You are confined by what the sword can do, and
(01:21):
your two hands are gripping it so you can swing
it and poke with it, and you can, but you
can't do everything that you could do if you're unarmed.
So obviously, if you're unarmed, you can run, bundle, jump,
do sort of rugby tackles, you can do all. You've
got lots of freedom. You've got two hands that can
work separately and independently as well as together. So it
(01:44):
doesn't mean that you're only going to do strangles and chokes,
but you're free to use your hands separately if you're
grasping a sword or even a pair of sigh, which
still restricks to the type of moon that you are
using a weapon I gained. We can find to a
process or the training regime, or the way that you've
(02:06):
been taught to manipulate or use those weapons, and indeed
the way that you do, and that doesn't exhibit the
same freedom that you would have if you don't have
any weapons. So the number of changes and things available changes.
What I mean by changes things you can do in
(02:26):
if you're not holding anything encumbered by.
Speaker 3 (02:29):
A weapon as well as you know the fact that
obviously you know it's a tool and it's dangerous and useful,
but you're encumbered by it, you have to stick to
its limitations. If you don't have one, you don't have
those limitations. That's that's really that was really what was
meant and what has been described ad nauseum in our
(02:51):
publications and our classes and our thinking. So of course,
any kind of military weapons drill, for you know, an
M four platform rifle or all the amazing stuff you
see in the American military, or any of the rifle drills,
they don't you know, not going to be applicable there
with no weapon, with no rifle. So that's why globally,
(03:12):
if you like any cultural race, creed or whatever, people,
they don't have CATA for unarmed fighting. What you will
find is wrestling. That's ubiquitous, it's global.
Speaker 2 (03:27):
You'll find, you know, find wrestling and grappling, But you
won't find people organizing these things into into solo choreograph
sequences of movement. You won't find that. You'll only find
that we're actually the root of that is in weapons training,
with the exception of no Hanchen, which is another topic
(03:48):
just following on from that, with the sandshin in preserved
in the Waichi root. When you're making the stance and
the structure and the shapes and the movements, that the
question is is what you're trying to do and with
the sigh. And as we've mentioned before, it's to trap
and then pin and strike, and so to trap with
(04:10):
using the two hooks on the side of the on
the site and produce leveray and you need to use
your whole body because you're trying to really restrict someone
in what they're doing, and that involves using the whole body.
So you know, it's something that's worth experimenting with. If
you trap someone's arm and turn your feet out as
(04:32):
wide as you can see how much leverage you can produce.
Not a lot, but there's an optimal way of doing it.
And when you haven't got someone to train with, you
want in some way reproduce that tension, that whole body effort,
and so creating tension in the legs by gripping with
(04:52):
the toes is a training mechanism to represent what it
would be like if you're pressing on someone, or to
create that whole body effort so that your practice is
as close as it possibly can be to producing the
leverage and pressure that you would need to pin a
limb in order to strike it. I don't think the
(05:13):
sandchin is fighting with the sie. It's a training you know,
it's training modules so and it's encouraging and it's cultivating
good habits using your whole body, being able to pin
with one arm and keep strong pressure on there while
you strike with the other. So you're two limbs with
independent actions, which Nathan's talked a lot about before, and
(05:35):
all of those good quality habits that you'd need. So
it's not that we think that the Sanshine stance is applicable.
Is going to work as per sanchine with a pair
of sire, but not without the sire. You're not going
to produce a perfect Sanshine stance anyway. And it's a
training mechanism to reproduce that using your whole body behind,
(05:59):
using your whole body directed into that leverage and creating
that pressure. So it is training more than anything. And
then you apply those skills as needed.
Speaker 1 (06:10):
Yeah, and that whole body effort is like pushing your
heels straight down to the ground as hard as you
can when you're performing a bench press, and that role
of your leg drive in helping press the weight.
Speaker 2 (06:21):
Can I just pay one more thing in Actually, it
just reminded me of something when we're talking about using
a pair of sie in the context that we are.
We're talking about policing as well, so it's a vastly
different context than a brawl or having a scrap, so
we're not talking about that, and so that changes things
(06:43):
as well, So it restricts what you can do. So
there's a limitation or about another boundary there within the
context as well. Well.
Speaker 4 (06:53):
I asked the.
Speaker 2 (06:53):
YouTube short two days ago in which the person who
produced it insinuated to the idea of the categories or
the practice of training or technical application was to maximize
damage and injure the person and it will hurt them basically,
and you know, damage to them, harm them. That's completely
(07:15):
wrong in my view. It's not using the names, so
I can say that it's that's a position of ignorance
that the whole civil policing tradition and approach was to
deal as humanely insensibly but yet practically with civil and
other disorder, and not to kill people main people and
(07:37):
gouge their eyes out and rubbished like that. It was
really to control the situation in the same way that
any reasonable policing globally will set out to do the
same thing. So it's not a you're not trying to
in damage people and injure them. You're trying to control
a situation of conflict or civil unrest, you know. And
(07:57):
it's not warfare. You're not shooting them and stabbing them
and chopping them and killing them. You're just simply policing.
And as we know any police force that if a
police force governs with brutality, it won't last five minutes.
It will be superseded, it'll be kicked out of office,
that the whole regime will be changed. You know, We've
(08:18):
seen this time and time again over centuries. So the
policing has to be humane, it has to be just,
and it has to be proportional. And that's really what
we're looking at, for example, with the night hanship, which
we've discussed to a great extent and will continue to do.
Good evidence for that as in the three forms preserved
(08:40):
in the way she view the sanchin, Sasan, and sansari,
and that they don't have any stabbing actions towards the
eyes or there's no groin kicks, there's none of that
kind of stuff. It's that the strikes all follow the
same pattern of to trap, press or pin and then
strike limbs. And that's the height of the movements, and
(09:03):
they're very very specific, and they and and they're consistent
throughout as well. It would be quite easy to adapt
those forms and strike the face, but they don't do that,
and that's what we've inherited. It's kind of there's some
embodied evidence in that the experience of doing it as well.
(09:24):
There's an embodied ethic in that practice as well, but
there is a reasonableness to it. Yeah, as Nation described.
Speaker 1 (09:32):
They sort of moves on to the next question. So
do you genuinely believe that a skilled armed assailant potentially
wielding a blade is less dangerous than an untrained drunk
in a pub.
Speaker 2 (09:46):
I don't think there's this. It's the fantasy of the
untrained person as well, that there's somehow less less you know,
less dangerous. No one has to be trained to be
devastating to fight. That's you know, that's an urban myth.
So well, and yeah, are we that naive? We think no,
(10:08):
of course not. Someone that's armed is extremely dangerous as
someone with a blade is. You know, your life's at risk,
but your life's at risk in at broad too trained
or untrained.
Speaker 1 (10:19):
Why do you consider CATA training valid for weapons based conflict,
but not for empty hand fighting. When you suggest that
unarmed combat is more varied than armed encounters, well if
unarmed is more varied, there's too many things to record
in a kata. You'd spend you know, hours going through
(10:40):
it to cover all your bases. When you use a
pair of side, there's a limited number of things that
you can do, and so there are things about using
a pair of side that need repetition, so gripping, flipping them,
and certain types of movements require repetition and practice get
(11:00):
to get good at them. And so that's why it's
worth you would need to You couldn't just take a
pair of sighte and have the hand strength and the dexterity.
You need to cultivate that skill and that's where catter
is useful for that. But for an unarmed for a fight,
there's so many things that can happen. How could you
possibly record it? In a real fight, the fight or
(11:22):
flight mechanism kicks in, there's just there's no structure to
that is really just you know what's the word, just
doing anything? Are they to get out of the situation,
to get the person off them or whatever. So I
don't think there's a structure to that at all.
Speaker 4 (11:37):
I think it's just shere adrenaline and beer and and
just brutality. Really anything structured about that at all, not
from the things I've seen anyway.
Speaker 2 (11:50):
Well, I think the use of weapons brings its own
restrictions and limitations. So, as I said earlier, if you
pick up a sword, you've got two hands, a two
handed brick for example on a sword, which completely restricts
and limits the range and type of movement. Yes that
there are eight basic cutting directions, that's true, but your
(12:15):
movement is limited and restricted by the technical aspects of
using that weapon. No such thing exists. When a person
is unarmed that they're very unpredictable. They could bundle, charge, push, shove, grab,
you know, headlock, punch, you know kick. They've got so
many you know, independent limb options, so you know, four
(12:38):
limbs and a potential Headbut the combination plur or combinations
can't easily be catalogued. And that's what makes that quite
different and quite unique. Night Hanson is an exceptional catter
in the sense that it can catalog unarmed movement, but
basically for one reason that it's done. It occurs in
(13:02):
a situation where the arrest store controls the arrestes limbs
which have become crossed and entangled. Therefore, the form reflects
in a similar way, it reflects what is demonstrated and recorded,
for instance in the Waichi weapon form or the sanchan
(13:24):
san san su. It's a controlled situation. The limbs aren't
wildly free. They can't do anything because they have already
been controlled, and those limbs are crossed, they are tied
up in a way that makes it possible to catalog
the changes, the possibilities, the resistance, and how that the
(13:46):
arrest these responses can be dealt with. And that's that's
quite different from trying to do unarmed stuff, when there's
for instance, a gap or a distance between an attacker
and a defender. And so the night hunting is unique
in the sense that it deals with the situation where
the limbs are controlled, which limits the number of possibilities
(14:09):
for the arrest ee. The idea of like of training
a solo catter, and then you apply it. You have
to have lots and lots of experience in the function
to feedback into the solo catter. You can't just practice
flipping the sign and walking round around and it's not
very useful. You actually have to practice pressing, trapping someone's
(14:31):
limb and really having to hold it as they resist.
Want that feeling of resistance and experience of a struggle
to feed back into your solo training. And then when
you're in the stance and you're creating that frame to
press and to trap, then you've got all that useful
struggle to create that kind of internalized tension. That is
(14:54):
a representation of the function and something for you to
do when you have haven't got someone to work with,
it doesn't exist. I must do the solo catter. If
you've got someone to work with, you work with another person.
You know, you want that resisting body, that person to
work with who's going to struggle and give you a
hard time as well, so that you can develop your skill.
(15:16):
It's not well, I do the solo catter and then
we work together. You do the solo catter when you
haven't got someone there. So it's a different attitude. It's
not that the cata takes precedent over everything and must
be done no matter what. It's it's there as a
representation of the function when you haven't got someone to
work with, and that and that's and I think that's
(15:37):
a different approach as well to because I remember in
my own karate classes you would do the cutter and
then you'd do some buonkei, or some might as well
have just done loads of the struggle bit and then
feed that experience back in later. So the way she
sensed really needs that, You really need that experience of
interacting with someone who's not playing along, not playing ball,
(16:00):
giving you a bit of a hard time or a
lot of it, you know, a really hard time, and
then you get you just very quickly use your whole body.
So if someone's really barging you or really really resisting you,
you're going to have to use your whole body to
trap those limbs with the sigh and to hold them
in place where you deliver the shop. And when you're
(16:21):
striking the limb, if they're really struggling, you're going to
have to work. It's quite a skill. And so therefore
the kata really really becomes very very useful when you
haven't got training partners as a representation of that until
you until you get to do with another person again.
But also it's quite important to consider that the cutter
(16:44):
would facilitate a training school. It would facilitate a drill system.
For obviously, you're only need to kick your recruits coming
if you're policing, so you'd have an annual intake or
however whatever the period of but intake, you'd have to
have an intake and they would have to be trained,
and the KATA would be a drill system a way
(17:08):
to do that within a particular school or a structure,
a teaching structure and academy for example, And that I
think is also what the CATA represent. Uh. But I
would also say that it's interesting that I had an
interesting communication with a very old friend, a very experienced
(17:28):
Karactica and who's who's as time is similar, time served
is similar to my own, and he's been a friend
for for most of my adult life. And we had
a conversation around the so called Bubishi, which I don't
want to publicize because it's not something I'm fond of.
But it was published by Tutle, and I had a
(17:51):
conversation with my editor regarding that text without discussing the author,
because I have the same publisher with Turtle as the
that particular author. The discussion is about this being a
foundation of karate. But it's not because it's it's not
you know, taking people to the ground with bassami cross
(18:12):
leg is an app sort of strange sort of tricks.
That's what it is. It's not wanted to integrate it.
But it's a collection of tricks. Basically. Any claims that
that's in any way the foundation of karate, you're spurious.
It is not the foundation of karate. They are a
collection of tricks, the village boxing type. Actually they actually
(18:36):
come from tragile, the Chinese wrestling, which originally is actually
in Mongolia. They are much closer to that, and they're
one on one sort of almost contest. They're presented as
a self defense and things that you could do in
a self defense situation. But to go to the ground,
particularly in a crowded situation where where the person that
(18:58):
you're up against could have allies or colleagues, is really undesirable.
We've spoken about that in the past. Not a situation
you want to be in. It's much more of a
contest situation, a duel where you could apply something like that.
But it's it's basically almost catch can wrestling. It's not
really it's very little to do with the structure of
(19:20):
kata of forms that originally in gun Thu unfar and
later would be in karate kata nothing at all to
do with that. So any claim that this bubishi is
some sort of is the origin of karate, it's quite
as I said earlier, spurious. It's false and there's nothing
to do. The kata structure is completely different from a
(19:43):
collection of tricks that actually uncontained even in a kata
or a form, and that approach has nothing to do
with karate as we have it today. But those forms
that they're embodied manuals and you know, and that's what
they are. They've contained the information that you need to
do the job. You enrich those manuals through your own
(20:06):
experience and interactions with people and the applied function obviously,
but we can't do that now because we don't use
cipher policing, for example. But they're to be improvised upon.
It's not that this is how it would take place
in the world.
Speaker 5 (20:21):
Necessarily.
Speaker 2 (20:23):
There's sets of skills that you train, and you keep
the physical qualities well trained as well, and with resisting
people that are resisting and giving you a hard time,
and then you improvise with it well, that's what it
boils down to. It's not specific like go out, A
does this and then B responds like this. It's to
(20:44):
be played around with.
Speaker 1 (20:45):
Why does it take so many years to master a kata?
Speaker 5 (20:50):
I think it's an old myth. I don't think it
takes very long. I mean, you know, there's this idea
of mastery again, as if it's the mastery is something
special or or you know, it implies something, you know.
I think I don't think that. I think it's a
load of rubbish, to be honest. I think you can
(21:11):
do the kata, if you can you apply the function,
could you apply it? I think if there is such
a thing as mastery, I think that's what it would be.
I don't think a person is then a master because
they've got to learn all these kata and all the
rest of it. But it's got to learning the function
of the form. And how long does that take? Well,
it depends how much you practice.
Speaker 2 (21:32):
It's not like you've got to you know, if you
if you train seven days a week for six months, you'd.
Speaker 5 (21:38):
Be really good. But you'd be really good at tennis
or judo or football if you trained like that. It's
not that kata is anything, there's nothing that sets it
apart from anything else that makes it particularly special. And
so kata and the function, you know, how long does
it take? Well, how how much do you want to
(21:59):
practice more work at it? So I think that's that's
what mastery of cator, if there is such a thing, is.
Speaker 2 (22:07):
Well, I think that's it very succinctly. You hit the
nail right on the head. It's the ability to you
apply the techniques, not do the solo choreography. That's that's
so some people who do catter at break neck speed
as though there's some votes and going crazy damaging rate
(22:29):
of knots. But I think what that readdressed this. We've
been on seminars all over the world and saying that.
The other way I always put it is if you
went to a tennis coach and who said, how long
will it take to you know, learn how to play tennis?
It will take twenty years you be too old? Yeah,
(22:55):
what or occupation A you're going to go along with?
That takes twenty years? You know it. The reason that
karat is hidden behind net is because there's been there's
been such a confusion about what the catter do. So
then they're at all the master withholding these secrets to
make sure that the student is worthy of it. Shouldn't
(23:17):
take twenty years. If it takes twenty years, for instance,
to learn to play tennis or golf, then the instructors
will grow.
Speaker 1 (23:26):
It.
Speaker 2 (23:26):
Doesn't he improve you for those twenty years or you know,
reached a peak.
Speaker 5 (23:30):
So maybe you know.
Speaker 2 (23:31):
A championship, a champion tennis player, maybe they started playing
tennis at a six or eight twenty years later at
twenty eight peak. That's fine, but no, we don't need
twenty years, twenty years to learn how to swim, play
tennis or play growth. No, no, no, something's wrong if
(23:52):
it takes twenty years.
Speaker 5 (23:54):
It is something that's peculiar in martial arts as well,
isn't it the idea of a master, because you don't
get kind of world champion golfers referring to themselves as masters,
or you know, Premier league football players referring to themselves
as football masters. And we got this funny thing in
martial arts, so we have to all they're a master.
(24:18):
As you can probably tell, I'm not keen on that
kind of thing, but I think you know we're laughing.
But I think that gets in the way. I think
that stuff really really gets in the way because I
think the main drive in CATA studies should be towards function,
and I think the idea of mastering the solo form
or mar you know, anything that's performative is it gets
(24:41):
in the way and it obscures. Actually, what we should
really be talking about is what do these movements do
and how do I perform them efficiently in a way
that reflects their functional usage, rather than trying to look
good or before you performative you know, practice that gets
(25:02):
a score or a grade or something like that. I
don't think any of that's useful. But that's only my view.
So yeah, I'm not criticizing people who do catacompetitions or
anything like that because that's their own that's their own gig,
and that's you know, where they've taken their their karate.
Speaker 1 (25:20):
But yeah, I've got quite biased.
Speaker 2 (25:24):
I've got a very close dear friend who I was
just having a chat with the other day who and
is right. The first time I went to watch his club,
the one that he started, and it was it was
terrific to watch because what I saw beautiful, clean lines,
very clearly defined techniques and you could you could come
(25:47):
to a decision based on the criteria within that environment,
whether the whether it was right or wrong or accurate
if the if the foot was placed in the right
place and the technique was executed crisply and with precision,
not too fast, not too slow. So the way that
he's taught most of his career has a very clear
(26:07):
set of parameters that you can evaluate. And with that
type of approach, which I always found quite admirable, it's
it's very clear what's trying to what the person is
trying to achieve, and it takes on a kind of
an aesthetic aesthetics of its own in terms of it's
almost like gymnastics. And in that sense, as Tom said,
(26:33):
the person is choosing how they're going to use the kata.
Not everyone's going to try and use it through and
not everyone's going to be interested in in having a
punch if we can use that British. So it's a
free it's a free world when it comes to the cata. Fortunately,
whereas for years it wasn't. It was locked down in
(26:55):
fear of superstition and foolishness, quite frankly, and it has
hits and low points. But I think that the criteria
for the use of the kata, it generally will be
set by the so called style or group that the
cata finds itself in. Yeah, which is which is the
(27:15):
norm these days.
Speaker 1 (27:17):
How many kata should you master?
Speaker 5 (27:19):
As many as you want, because it doesn't doesn't really
mean anything. As many as you can endure, Yeah, that's
a great as many as you can enjoy. The cultural relics,
the antique forms they've got No, they've got no function
in modern society because the contexts that that they were
(27:41):
originally developed in have technologies moved it on. So we
don't need to sigh or by the fly swords or
ton fur or bows for policing or war or skirmishing
or anything like that now. So it's about how much
pleasure can you take, how many can you enjoy? I
would say, yeah, it's what follow your own interests, really,
(28:05):
but go after the original functions. Don't go up for
you know, don't chase after the you know, don't become
a bunk collector. And enjoy the arts for what they
what they really were. And I think it's it falls
in line with things like fencing or the European the
movement and European martial arts of people working out what
those manuals were for and working out and then they're
(28:28):
playing with it. And I think that's what the antique
cutter should be. We should be doing with them now,
is playing with them and enjoying them, preserving them for
what they you know, for the brilliance that they were.
They're of their time, and they're you know, they're amazing,
absolutely amazing, and the real pleasure to enjoy and practice.
Speaker 2 (28:48):
Tom's had the first bite at that, and it's got
to be and and the correct answer, if there is
a correct answer. I was inspired by the stuff that
drove me on years ago. There were some of the
legends and Maggie chojan Sense saying that, and Nicosi Sense
(29:11):
saying that a great expert would not know more than
three to five KTA. So I thought, well, in a
modern life where they're not we're not training to be
palace guard guards were using a bow staff. We're not
training for policing unless we are police officers, in which case,
as Tom has already said, we've got modern equipment, you know,
(29:34):
tasers and spray and so on. So but I still
stick to the three, but for a different reason. How
we structured it in Kodoro is to which is our
particular approach is to have basically three kta that can
all be the techniques of which can be applied spontaneously
(29:55):
through the medium of pushing hands. So the reason we
became Cordou was in fact not just a random naming,
but it was some reverence to the kodak Judo of
Krno Sense. And what Karno Sense he did was create
a sparring method for jiu jitsu, and that spying method
became known as rendori, which is, you know, the grip
(30:19):
on the lapel and the sleeve as it usually is
in judo as a prelude to judo play. Similarly, within
the Ku we have a form of renduri, but we
refer to it as pushing hands. There are many other names,
listening hands, speaking hands, and so on, that we've stuck
to pushing hands, which is our preliminary randori in which
(30:40):
we can maneuver the limbs around using fairly sticky, heavy
forces and then allow the techniques to occur. More than
three catter in that environment would be to saturate it
and create a problem that we became aware of very
very early on. And that problem is if you're going
(31:01):
to use kato with another person in a in a
sort of a give and take formats, which pushing in
hands is too many techniques can produce muscle confusion, duplication,
and can elit to confusion. So you know, you don't
need twenty different ways of doing the same thing. That
(31:25):
doesn't mean that you can only do one. But when
we looked at this, and I'm sure there'll be some
scientifically minded people who may disagree with what I'm just
about to say. If Tom mentioned fencing, if you look
at everything from fencing football, there are you know, look
at the great soccer players. I don't I don't brother
(31:46):
with names. I don't want to sort of do any favoritism,
but my son had one very skillful favorite player. All
the great soccer players, basically they all kick and head
and shoulder a ball a soccer ball, and there are
only so many physically, unless we're doing exhibitions that you
can do that in a soccer match. And it's the
same with fencing and with tennis it's the same. There
(32:08):
are a limited number of strikes and backspin editions and
four hands and backhands and overheads that you can make.
It always comes down to around twenty something early twenties.
I'm not saying that's a golden rule. I'm not trying
to rediscover the golden mean or or or the Fubernacti
(32:30):
series or something. But what I am saying is there
a limited number. So we have found that generally in
an interactive practice between two people than three catters usually enough.
Tom's got access to some other very interesting kata which
are more standalone and have very specific functions in terms
(32:52):
of guarding the palace the Srury Royal Palace in or Canala,
for example. Although evidence is a bit scanned, we know
that similar took place and originated in China. But these
are very specific palace guarding functions which are not designed
to be and don't translate easily into as far as
(33:14):
I'm aware, Tom might know differently, but they won't translate
into an interactive two person practice in the same way
that the pushing hands can and griposcopes in a rocker
and n hansin locks.
Speaker 5 (33:32):
A bit of those antique forms I don't think included
randori or sparring methods, so it's very difficult to do
anything like that with them. Now, can you learn cata
from a video? Does the video of what the function is?
If it doesn't, then do what you like. It's kind
of when people say that you can't learn it from
(33:53):
a video or something like that, it speaks to that
there's something inherently secret or hidden or some spec transmission
that can only take place with your master in the
room and you've done all the rituals and paid the money,
and then you can get there, get the gold and
then all the rest of it. You know, you can
learn the movements of a cat from a video, no problem,
(34:15):
and if the functions well enough explained, you could probably
have a bloody good go at it. I don't think
that it's putting catta on a pedestal. They're not that special.
They're brilliant, but they're not that special. It's not like
a hidden code or something like that. There's no Da
Vinci code of kata. The antique forms have very clear functions,
(34:36):
and you know, if you recorded it all in a video,
I'm sure you know you could do pretty well. You
might want to. I always think instruction's helpful, but yeah,
in terms of oh you couldn't do it from a
video because there's so the secrets or the pressure points
or the che isn't transmitted. Then I think, yeah, whatever, Well, yeah, okay,
(34:59):
you can. I'm sure you can learn ballroom dancing from
from videos. If you know any old days, they used
to do weird things like send you a footwork chart,
you know, to put to spread out on the floor
to give you the steps.
Speaker 2 (35:16):
You know, So yeah, sure you can. Well, it's always
best to learn directly from somebody if it's at all possible.
But the beauty of having the Internet and videos and
so on is that you can it can be seen globally,
which which which is? That's quite that does change the dynamic.
The thing about a video is you can't ask it.
(35:36):
You can't ask you a question. It's a bit like
the difference between computer banking, which is fine for your
every day transaction but occasionally cover the old fashioned But
the phone banking is really handy when you've got some
questions and questions that you can't fuck on the website,
questions specific to you and your account. But you know,
really the phone banking is great for talking to somebody. Again,
(36:00):
you can ask a question which you can't really do
with a video or raw pan of the footwork. Always
remember the old Jackie chan I think it was the
Snake and Eagles shadow and the master left him the
footprints and for him for.
Speaker 5 (36:16):
Him to follow.
Speaker 2 (36:17):
Yeah, yeah, great, it was fantastic, what terrific film. But
this is pure fantasy. But he learned all the dodgers
and ducks and you know the footwork and the crane
gap stance, you know. Yeah, that's great for films. Better
to have a present possible, you get the guidance from
(36:37):
the present teacher and those that went to university know
or if you are about to go to university, if
you're fortunate enough or unfortunate enough, depending on your perspective,
you can go to lectures that most of the studies
is actually done on your own point.
Speaker 5 (36:57):
Thank you, Jence.
Speaker 1 (36:57):
That's all the time we have for today. Well, that's
all the time we have for today on great Karate Myths.
For those karate enthusiasts out there, we hope you enjoyed
this episode. Remember, whether you're a seasoned black belt or
just starting your karate journey, there are always myths and
misconceptions to be debunked. If you liked what you heard,
(37:20):
be sure to like, subscribe, or follow Great Karate Myths
Debunking the Legends wherever you get your podcasts. We love
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touch with us at www dot cooderu dot com. Thanks
(37:46):
for listening, train hard, stay curious, and we'll see you
next time on Great Karate Myths Debunking the Legends
Welcome to Great Karate Myths Debunking the Legends, the podcast
that slices through the tangled web of martial arts mythology
to unearth the radiant truth of Karati's legacy. In today's episode,
we're diving into the anigmatic questions you've sent firear socials,
unraveling the secrets behind the dojo's most during terms. Prepared
(00:26):
to be enlightened, Let's begin the journey. So the first question,
how can you justify the idea that a sanchin kata stance,
which you argue is ineffective for unarmed self defense in
(00:47):
a cage or street scenario due to its limitations, would
somehow be effective in armed conflict.
Speaker 2 (00:57):
Who's going first? Dan? You are? Thanks Tom? That was
really simple. I vote about this in the myth in
the Great Kararati Myth. It's in a very simple way
of putting this Dif, for instance, you pick up you
pick up a stick or a sword, that's a good example. Sword.
You are confined by what the sword can do, and
(01:21):
your two hands are gripping it so you can swing
it and poke with it, and you can, but you
can't do everything that you could do if you're unarmed.
So obviously, if you're unarmed, you can run, bundle, jump,
do sort of rugby tackles, you can do all. You've
got lots of freedom. You've got two hands that can
work separately and independently as well as together. So it
(01:44):
doesn't mean that you're only going to do strangles and chokes,
but you're free to use your hands separately if you're
grasping a sword or even a pair of sigh, which
still restricks to the type of moon that you are
using a weapon I gained. We can find to a
process or the training regime, or the way that you've
(02:06):
been taught to manipulate or use those weapons, and indeed
the way that you do, and that doesn't exhibit the
same freedom that you would have if you don't have
any weapons. So the number of changes and things available changes.
What I mean by changes things you can do in
(02:26):
if you're not holding anything encumbered by.
Speaker 3 (02:29):
A weapon as well as you know the fact that
obviously you know it's a tool and it's dangerous and useful,
but you're encumbered by it, you have to stick to
its limitations. If you don't have one, you don't have
those limitations. That's that's really that was really what was
meant and what has been described ad nauseum in our
(02:51):
publications and our classes and our thinking. So of course,
any kind of military weapons drill, for you know, an
M four platform rifle or all the amazing stuff you
see in the American military, or any of the rifle drills,
they don't you know, not going to be applicable there
with no weapon, with no rifle. So that's why globally,
(03:12):
if you like any cultural race, creed or whatever, people,
they don't have CATA for unarmed fighting. What you will
find is wrestling. That's ubiquitous, it's global.
Speaker 2 (03:27):
You'll find, you know, find wrestling and grappling, But you
won't find people organizing these things into into solo choreograph
sequences of movement. You won't find that. You'll only find
that we're actually the root of that is in weapons training,
with the exception of no Hanchen, which is another topic
(03:48):
just following on from that, with the sandshin in preserved
in the Waichi root. When you're making the stance and
the structure and the shapes and the movements, that the
question is is what you're trying to do and with
the sigh. And as we've mentioned before, it's to trap
and then pin and strike, and so to trap with
(04:10):
using the two hooks on the side of the on
the site and produce leveray and you need to use
your whole body because you're trying to really restrict someone
in what they're doing, and that involves using the whole body.
So you know, it's something that's worth experimenting with. If
you trap someone's arm and turn your feet out as
(04:32):
wide as you can see how much leverage you can produce.
Not a lot, but there's an optimal way of doing it.
And when you haven't got someone to train with, you
want in some way reproduce that tension, that whole body effort,
and so creating tension in the legs by gripping with
(04:52):
the toes is a training mechanism to represent what it
would be like if you're pressing on someone, or to
create that whole body effort so that your practice is
as close as it possibly can be to producing the
leverage and pressure that you would need to pin a
limb in order to strike it. I don't think the
(05:13):
sandchin is fighting with the sie. It's a training you know,
it's training modules so and it's encouraging and it's cultivating
good habits using your whole body, being able to pin
with one arm and keep strong pressure on there while
you strike with the other. So you're two limbs with
independent actions, which Nathan's talked a lot about before, and
(05:35):
all of those good quality habits that you'd need. So
it's not that we think that the Sanshine stance is applicable.
Is going to work as per sanchine with a pair
of sire, but not without the sire. You're not going
to produce a perfect Sanshine stance anyway. And it's a
training mechanism to reproduce that using your whole body behind,
(05:59):
using your whole body directed into that leverage and creating
that pressure. So it is training more than anything. And
then you apply those skills as needed.
Speaker 1 (06:10):
Yeah, and that whole body effort is like pushing your
heels straight down to the ground as hard as you
can when you're performing a bench press, and that role
of your leg drive in helping press the weight.
Speaker 2 (06:21):
Can I just pay one more thing in Actually, it
just reminded me of something when we're talking about using
a pair of sie in the context that we are.
We're talking about policing as well, so it's a vastly
different context than a brawl or having a scrap, so
we're not talking about that, and so that changes things
(06:43):
as well, So it restricts what you can do. So
there's a limitation or about another boundary there within the
context as well. Well.
Speaker 4 (06:53):
I asked the.
Speaker 2 (06:53):
YouTube short two days ago in which the person who
produced it insinuated to the idea of the categories or
the practice of training or technical application was to maximize
damage and injure the person and it will hurt them basically,
and you know, damage to them, harm them. That's completely
(07:15):
wrong in my view. It's not using the names, so
I can say that it's that's a position of ignorance
that the whole civil policing tradition and approach was to
deal as humanely insensibly but yet practically with civil and
other disorder, and not to kill people main people and
(07:37):
gouge their eyes out and rubbished like that. It was
really to control the situation in the same way that
any reasonable policing globally will set out to do the
same thing. So it's not a you're not trying to
in damage people and injure them. You're trying to control
a situation of conflict or civil unrest, you know. And
(07:57):
it's not warfare. You're not shooting them and stabbing them
and chopping them and killing them. You're just simply policing.
And as we know any police force that if a
police force governs with brutality, it won't last five minutes.
It will be superseded, it'll be kicked out of office,
that the whole regime will be changed. You know, We've
(08:18):
seen this time and time again over centuries. So the
policing has to be humane, it has to be just,
and it has to be proportional. And that's really what
we're looking at, for example, with the night hanship, which
we've discussed to a great extent and will continue to do.
Good evidence for that as in the three forms preserved
(08:40):
in the way she view the sanchin, Sasan, and sansari,
and that they don't have any stabbing actions towards the
eyes or there's no groin kicks, there's none of that
kind of stuff. It's that the strikes all follow the
same pattern of to trap, press or pin and then
strike limbs. And that's the height of the movements, and
(09:03):
they're very very specific, and they and and they're consistent
throughout as well. It would be quite easy to adapt
those forms and strike the face, but they don't do that,
and that's what we've inherited. It's kind of there's some
embodied evidence in that the experience of doing it as well.
(09:24):
There's an embodied ethic in that practice as well, but
there is a reasonableness to it. Yeah, as Nation described.
Speaker 1 (09:32):
They sort of moves on to the next question. So
do you genuinely believe that a skilled armed assailant potentially
wielding a blade is less dangerous than an untrained drunk
in a pub.
Speaker 2 (09:46):
I don't think there's this. It's the fantasy of the
untrained person as well, that there's somehow less less you know,
less dangerous. No one has to be trained to be
devastating to fight. That's you know, that's an urban myth.
So well, and yeah, are we that naive? We think no,
(10:08):
of course not. Someone that's armed is extremely dangerous as
someone with a blade is. You know, your life's at risk,
but your life's at risk in at broad too trained
or untrained.
Speaker 1 (10:19):
Why do you consider CATA training valid for weapons based conflict,
but not for empty hand fighting. When you suggest that
unarmed combat is more varied than armed encounters, well if
unarmed is more varied, there's too many things to record
in a kata. You'd spend you know, hours going through
(10:40):
it to cover all your bases. When you use a
pair of side, there's a limited number of things that
you can do, and so there are things about using
a pair of side that need repetition, so gripping, flipping them,
and certain types of movements require repetition and practice get
(11:00):
to get good at them. And so that's why it's
worth you would need to You couldn't just take a
pair of sighte and have the hand strength and the dexterity.
You need to cultivate that skill and that's where catter
is useful for that. But for an unarmed for a fight,
there's so many things that can happen. How could you
possibly record it? In a real fight, the fight or
(11:22):
flight mechanism kicks in, there's just there's no structure to
that is really just you know what's the word, just
doing anything? Are they to get out of the situation,
to get the person off them or whatever. So I
don't think there's a structure to that at all.
Speaker 4 (11:37):
I think it's just shere adrenaline and beer and and
just brutality. Really anything structured about that at all, not
from the things I've seen anyway.
Speaker 2 (11:50):
Well, I think the use of weapons brings its own
restrictions and limitations. So, as I said earlier, if you
pick up a sword, you've got two hands, a two
handed brick for example on a sword, which completely restricts
and limits the range and type of movement. Yes that
there are eight basic cutting directions, that's true, but your
(12:15):
movement is limited and restricted by the technical aspects of
using that weapon. No such thing exists. When a person
is unarmed that they're very unpredictable. They could bundle, charge, push, shove, grab,
you know, headlock, punch, you know kick. They've got so
many you know, independent limb options, so you know, four
(12:38):
limbs and a potential Headbut the combination plur or combinations
can't easily be catalogued. And that's what makes that quite
different and quite unique. Night Hanson is an exceptional catter
in the sense that it can catalog unarmed movement, but
basically for one reason that it's done. It occurs in
(13:02):
a situation where the arrest store controls the arrestes limbs
which have become crossed and entangled. Therefore, the form reflects
in a similar way, it reflects what is demonstrated and recorded,
for instance in the Waichi weapon form or the sanchan
(13:24):
san san su. It's a controlled situation. The limbs aren't
wildly free. They can't do anything because they have already
been controlled, and those limbs are crossed, they are tied
up in a way that makes it possible to catalog
the changes, the possibilities, the resistance, and how that the
(13:46):
arrest these responses can be dealt with. And that's that's
quite different from trying to do unarmed stuff, when there's
for instance, a gap or a distance between an attacker
and a defender. And so the night hunting is unique
in the sense that it deals with the situation where
the limbs are controlled, which limits the number of possibilities
(14:09):
for the arrest ee. The idea of like of training
a solo catter, and then you apply it. You have
to have lots and lots of experience in the function
to feedback into the solo catter. You can't just practice
flipping the sign and walking round around and it's not
very useful. You actually have to practice pressing, trapping someone's
(14:31):
limb and really having to hold it as they resist.
Want that feeling of resistance and experience of a struggle
to feed back into your solo training. And then when
you're in the stance and you're creating that frame to
press and to trap, then you've got all that useful
struggle to create that kind of internalized tension. That is
(14:54):
a representation of the function and something for you to
do when you have haven't got someone to work with,
it doesn't exist. I must do the solo catter. If
you've got someone to work with, you work with another person.
You know, you want that resisting body, that person to
work with who's going to struggle and give you a
hard time as well, so that you can develop your skill.
(15:16):
It's not well, I do the solo catter and then
we work together. You do the solo catter when you
haven't got someone there. So it's a different attitude. It's
not that the cata takes precedent over everything and must
be done no matter what. It's it's there as a
representation of the function when you haven't got someone to
work with, and that and that's and I think that's
(15:37):
a different approach as well to because I remember in
my own karate classes you would do the cutter and
then you'd do some buonkei, or some might as well
have just done loads of the struggle bit and then
feed that experience back in later. So the way she
sensed really needs that, You really need that experience of
interacting with someone who's not playing along, not playing ball,
(16:00):
giving you a bit of a hard time or a
lot of it, you know, a really hard time, and
then you get you just very quickly use your whole body.
So if someone's really barging you or really really resisting you,
you're going to have to use your whole body to
trap those limbs with the sigh and to hold them
in place where you deliver the shop. And when you're
(16:21):
striking the limb, if they're really struggling, you're going to
have to work. It's quite a skill. And so therefore
the kata really really becomes very very useful when you
haven't got training partners as a representation of that until
you until you get to do with another person again.
But also it's quite important to consider that the cutter
(16:44):
would facilitate a training school. It would facilitate a drill system.
For obviously, you're only need to kick your recruits coming
if you're policing, so you'd have an annual intake or
however whatever the period of but intake, you'd have to
have an intake and they would have to be trained,
and the KATA would be a drill system a way
(17:08):
to do that within a particular school or a structure,
a teaching structure and academy for example, And that I
think is also what the CATA represent. Uh. But I
would also say that it's interesting that I had an
interesting communication with a very old friend, a very experienced
(17:28):
Karactica and who's who's as time is similar, time served
is similar to my own, and he's been a friend
for for most of my adult life. And we had
a conversation around the so called Bubishi, which I don't
want to publicize because it's not something I'm fond of.
But it was published by Tutle, and I had a
(17:51):
conversation with my editor regarding that text without discussing the author,
because I have the same publisher with Turtle as the
that particular author. The discussion is about this being a
foundation of karate. But it's not because it's it's not
you know, taking people to the ground with bassami cross
(18:12):
leg is an app sort of strange sort of tricks.
That's what it is. It's not wanted to integrate it.
But it's a collection of tricks. Basically. Any claims that
that's in any way the foundation of karate, you're spurious.
It is not the foundation of karate. They are a
collection of tricks, the village boxing type. Actually they actually
(18:36):
come from tragile, the Chinese wrestling, which originally is actually
in Mongolia. They are much closer to that, and they're
one on one sort of almost contest. They're presented as
a self defense and things that you could do in
a self defense situation. But to go to the ground,
particularly in a crowded situation where where the person that
(18:58):
you're up against could have allies or colleagues, is really undesirable.
We've spoken about that in the past. Not a situation
you want to be in. It's much more of a
contest situation, a duel where you could apply something like that.
But it's it's basically almost catch can wrestling. It's not
really it's very little to do with the structure of
(19:20):
kata of forms that originally in gun Thu unfar and
later would be in karate kata nothing at all to
do with that. So any claim that this bubishi is
some sort of is the origin of karate, it's quite
as I said earlier, spurious. It's false and there's nothing
to do. The kata structure is completely different from a
(19:43):
collection of tricks that actually uncontained even in a kata
or a form, and that approach has nothing to do
with karate as we have it today. But those forms
that they're embodied manuals and you know, and that's what
they are. They've contained the information that you need to
do the job. You enrich those manuals through your own
(20:06):
experience and interactions with people and the applied function obviously,
but we can't do that now because we don't use
cipher policing, for example. But they're to be improvised upon.
It's not that this is how it would take place
in the world.
Speaker 5 (20:21):
Necessarily.
Speaker 2 (20:23):
There's sets of skills that you train, and you keep
the physical qualities well trained as well, and with resisting
people that are resisting and giving you a hard time,
and then you improvise with it well, that's what it
boils down to. It's not specific like go out, A
does this and then B responds like this. It's to
(20:44):
be played around with.
Speaker 1 (20:45):
Why does it take so many years to master a kata?
Speaker 5 (20:50):
I think it's an old myth. I don't think it
takes very long. I mean, you know, there's this idea
of mastery again, as if it's the mastery is something
special or or you know, it implies something, you know.
I think I don't think that. I think it's a
load of rubbish, to be honest. I think you can
(21:11):
do the kata, if you can you apply the function,
could you apply it? I think if there is such
a thing as mastery, I think that's what it would be.
I don't think a person is then a master because
they've got to learn all these kata and all the
rest of it. But it's got to learning the function
of the form. And how long does that take? Well,
it depends how much you practice.
Speaker 2 (21:32):
It's not like you've got to you know, if you
if you train seven days a week for six months, you'd.
Speaker 5 (21:38):
Be really good. But you'd be really good at tennis
or judo or football if you trained like that. It's
not that kata is anything, there's nothing that sets it
apart from anything else that makes it particularly special. And
so kata and the function, you know, how long does
it take? Well, how how much do you want to
(21:59):
practice more work at it? So I think that's that's
what mastery of cator, if there is such a thing, is.
Speaker 2 (22:07):
Well, I think that's it very succinctly. You hit the
nail right on the head. It's the ability to you
apply the techniques, not do the solo choreography. That's that's
so some people who do catter at break neck speed
as though there's some votes and going crazy damaging rate
(22:29):
of knots. But I think what that readdressed this. We've
been on seminars all over the world and saying that.
The other way I always put it is if you
went to a tennis coach and who said, how long
will it take to you know, learn how to play tennis?
It will take twenty years you be too old? Yeah,
(22:55):
what or occupation A you're going to go along with?
That takes twenty years? You know it. The reason that
karat is hidden behind net is because there's been there's
been such a confusion about what the catter do. So
then they're at all the master withholding these secrets to
make sure that the student is worthy of it. Shouldn't
(23:17):
take twenty years. If it takes twenty years, for instance,
to learn to play tennis or golf, then the instructors
will grow.
Speaker 1 (23:26):
It.
Speaker 2 (23:26):
Doesn't he improve you for those twenty years or you know,
reached a peak.
Speaker 5 (23:30):
So maybe you know.
Speaker 2 (23:31):
A championship, a champion tennis player, maybe they started playing
tennis at a six or eight twenty years later at
twenty eight peak. That's fine, but no, we don't need
twenty years, twenty years to learn how to swim, play
tennis or play growth. No, no, no, something's wrong if
(23:52):
it takes twenty years.
Speaker 5 (23:54):
It is something that's peculiar in martial arts as well,
isn't it the idea of a master, because you don't
get kind of world champion golfers referring to themselves as masters,
or you know, Premier league football players referring to themselves
as football masters. And we got this funny thing in
martial arts, so we have to all they're a master.
(24:18):
As you can probably tell, I'm not keen on that
kind of thing, but I think you know we're laughing.
But I think that gets in the way. I think
that stuff really really gets in the way because I
think the main drive in CATA studies should be towards function,
and I think the idea of mastering the solo form
or mar you know, anything that's performative is it gets
(24:41):
in the way and it obscures. Actually, what we should
really be talking about is what do these movements do
and how do I perform them efficiently in a way
that reflects their functional usage, rather than trying to look
good or before you performative you know, practice that gets
(25:02):
a score or a grade or something like that. I
don't think any of that's useful. But that's only my view.
So yeah, I'm not criticizing people who do catacompetitions or
anything like that because that's their own that's their own gig,
and that's you know, where they've taken their their karate.
Speaker 1 (25:20):
But yeah, I've got quite biased.
Speaker 2 (25:24):
I've got a very close dear friend who I was
just having a chat with the other day who and
is right. The first time I went to watch his club,
the one that he started, and it was it was
terrific to watch because what I saw beautiful, clean lines,
very clearly defined techniques and you could you could come
(25:47):
to a decision based on the criteria within that environment,
whether the whether it was right or wrong or accurate
if the if the foot was placed in the right
place and the technique was executed crisply and with precision,
not too fast, not too slow. So the way that
he's taught most of his career has a very clear
(26:07):
set of parameters that you can evaluate. And with that
type of approach, which I always found quite admirable, it's
it's very clear what's trying to what the person is
trying to achieve, and it takes on a kind of
an aesthetic aesthetics of its own in terms of it's
almost like gymnastics. And in that sense, as Tom said,
(26:33):
the person is choosing how they're going to use the kata.
Not everyone's going to try and use it through and
not everyone's going to be interested in in having a
punch if we can use that British. So it's a
free it's a free world when it comes to the cata. Fortunately,
whereas for years it wasn't. It was locked down in
(26:55):
fear of superstition and foolishness, quite frankly, and it has
hits and low points. But I think that the criteria
for the use of the kata, it generally will be
set by the so called style or group that the
cata finds itself in. Yeah, which is which is the
(27:15):
norm these days.
Speaker 1 (27:17):
How many kata should you master?
Speaker 5 (27:19):
As many as you want, because it doesn't doesn't really
mean anything. As many as you can endure, Yeah, that's
a great as many as you can enjoy. The cultural relics,
the antique forms they've got No, they've got no function
in modern society because the contexts that that they were
(27:41):
originally developed in have technologies moved it on. So we
don't need to sigh or by the fly swords or
ton fur or bows for policing or war or skirmishing
or anything like that now. So it's about how much
pleasure can you take, how many can you enjoy? I
would say, yeah, it's what follow your own interests, really,
(28:05):
but go after the original functions. Don't go up for
you know, don't chase after the you know, don't become
a bunk collector. And enjoy the arts for what they
what they really were. And I think it's it falls
in line with things like fencing or the European the
movement and European martial arts of people working out what
those manuals were for and working out and then they're
(28:28):
playing with it. And I think that's what the antique
cutter should be. We should be doing with them now,
is playing with them and enjoying them, preserving them for
what they you know, for the brilliance that they were.
They're of their time, and they're you know, they're amazing,
absolutely amazing, and the real pleasure to enjoy and practice.
Speaker 2 (28:48):
Tom's had the first bite at that, and it's got
to be and and the correct answer, if there is
a correct answer. I was inspired by the stuff that
drove me on years ago. There were some of the
legends and Maggie chojan Sense saying that, and Nicosi Sense
(29:11):
saying that a great expert would not know more than
three to five KTA. So I thought, well, in a
modern life where they're not we're not training to be
palace guard guards were using a bow staff. We're not
training for policing unless we are police officers, in which case,
as Tom has already said, we've got modern equipment, you know,
(29:34):
tasers and spray and so on. So but I still
stick to the three, but for a different reason. How
we structured it in Kodoro is to which is our
particular approach is to have basically three kta that can
all be the techniques of which can be applied spontaneously
(29:55):
through the medium of pushing hands. So the reason we
became Cordou was in fact not just a random naming,
but it was some reverence to the kodak Judo of
Krno Sense. And what Karno Sense he did was create
a sparring method for jiu jitsu, and that spying method
became known as rendori, which is, you know, the grip
(30:19):
on the lapel and the sleeve as it usually is
in judo as a prelude to judo play. Similarly, within
the Ku we have a form of renduri, but we
refer to it as pushing hands. There are many other names,
listening hands, speaking hands, and so on, that we've stuck
to pushing hands, which is our preliminary randori in which
(30:40):
we can maneuver the limbs around using fairly sticky, heavy
forces and then allow the techniques to occur. More than
three catter in that environment would be to saturate it
and create a problem that we became aware of very
very early on. And that problem is if you're going
(31:01):
to use kato with another person in a in a
sort of a give and take formats, which pushing in
hands is too many techniques can produce muscle confusion, duplication,
and can elit to confusion. So you know, you don't
need twenty different ways of doing the same thing. That
(31:25):
doesn't mean that you can only do one. But when
we looked at this, and I'm sure there'll be some
scientifically minded people who may disagree with what I'm just
about to say. If Tom mentioned fencing, if you look
at everything from fencing football, there are you know, look
at the great soccer players. I don't I don't brother
(31:46):
with names. I don't want to sort of do any favoritism,
but my son had one very skillful favorite player. All
the great soccer players, basically they all kick and head
and shoulder a ball a soccer ball, and there are
only so many physically, unless we're doing exhibitions that you
can do that in a soccer match. And it's the
same with fencing and with tennis it's the same. There
(32:08):
are a limited number of strikes and backspin editions and
four hands and backhands and overheads that you can make.
It always comes down to around twenty something early twenties.
I'm not saying that's a golden rule. I'm not trying
to rediscover the golden mean or or or the Fubernacti
(32:30):
series or something. But what I am saying is there
a limited number. So we have found that generally in
an interactive practice between two people than three catters usually enough.
Tom's got access to some other very interesting kata which
are more standalone and have very specific functions in terms
(32:52):
of guarding the palace the Srury Royal Palace in or Canala,
for example. Although evidence is a bit scanned, we know
that similar took place and originated in China. But these
are very specific palace guarding functions which are not designed
to be and don't translate easily into as far as
(33:14):
I'm aware, Tom might know differently, but they won't translate
into an interactive two person practice in the same way
that the pushing hands can and griposcopes in a rocker
and n hansin locks.
Speaker 5 (33:32):
A bit of those antique forms I don't think included
randori or sparring methods, so it's very difficult to do
anything like that with them. Now, can you learn cata
from a video? Does the video of what the function is?
If it doesn't, then do what you like. It's kind
of when people say that you can't learn it from
(33:53):
a video or something like that, it speaks to that
there's something inherently secret or hidden or some spec transmission
that can only take place with your master in the
room and you've done all the rituals and paid the money,
and then you can get there, get the gold and
then all the rest of it. You know, you can
learn the movements of a cat from a video, no problem,
(34:15):
and if the functions well enough explained, you could probably
have a bloody good go at it. I don't think
that it's putting catta on a pedestal. They're not that special.
They're brilliant, but they're not that special. It's not like
a hidden code or something like that. There's no Da
Vinci code of kata. The antique forms have very clear functions,
(34:36):
and you know, if you recorded it all in a video,
I'm sure you know you could do pretty well. You
might want to. I always think instruction's helpful, but yeah,
in terms of oh you couldn't do it from a
video because there's so the secrets or the pressure points
or the che isn't transmitted. Then I think, yeah, whatever, Well, yeah, okay,
(34:59):
you can. I'm sure you can learn ballroom dancing from
from videos. If you know any old days, they used
to do weird things like send you a footwork chart,
you know, to put to spread out on the floor
to give you the steps.
Speaker 2 (35:16):
You know, So yeah, sure you can. Well, it's always
best to learn directly from somebody if it's at all possible.
But the beauty of having the Internet and videos and
so on is that you can it can be seen globally,
which which which is? That's quite that does change the dynamic.
The thing about a video is you can't ask it.
(35:36):
You can't ask you a question. It's a bit like
the difference between computer banking, which is fine for your
every day transaction but occasionally cover the old fashioned But
the phone banking is really handy when you've got some
questions and questions that you can't fuck on the website,
questions specific to you and your account. But you know,
really the phone banking is great for talking to somebody. Again,
(36:00):
you can ask a question which you can't really do
with a video or raw pan of the footwork. Always
remember the old Jackie chan I think it was the
Snake and Eagles shadow and the master left him the
footprints and for him for.
Speaker 5 (36:16):
Him to follow.
Speaker 2 (36:17):
Yeah, yeah, great, it was fantastic, what terrific film. But
this is pure fantasy. But he learned all the dodgers
and ducks and you know the footwork and the crane
gap stance, you know. Yeah, that's great for films. Better
to have a present possible, you get the guidance from
(36:37):
the present teacher and those that went to university know
or if you are about to go to university, if
you're fortunate enough or unfortunate enough, depending on your perspective,
you can go to lectures that most of the studies
is actually done on your own point.
Speaker 5 (36:57):
Thank you, Jence.
Speaker 1 (36:57):
That's all the time we have for today. Well, that's
all the time we have for today on great Karate Myths.
For those karate enthusiasts out there, we hope you enjoyed
this episode. Remember, whether you're a seasoned black belt or
just starting your karate journey, there are always myths and
misconceptions to be debunked. If you liked what you heard,
(37:20):
be sure to like, subscribe, or follow Great Karate Myths
Debunking the Legends wherever you get your podcasts. We love
to hear from our listeners, so leave a comment below
and let us know what karate myths you'd like us
to tackle next. And hey, if you're interested in booking
a seminar or finding a local karate class, get in
touch with us at www dot cooderu dot com. Thanks
(37:46):
for listening, train hard, stay curious, and we'll see you
next time on Great Karate Myths Debunking the Legends
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