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Wastelander
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Bunkai Concept: Turning Kicks Turn Opponents

Hello, everyone!

This week's Waza Wednesday does illustrate a technique, but more to the point, it illustrates a bunkai concept--that being the idea that turning in kata can be seen as turning the opponent, and how that turning sets up techniques.

Iain Abernethy
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Nice video! This concept forms a huge part of my own take on bunkai too. The way I would phrase it is that “the angle in the kata illustrates the angle you are attacking the enemy from; it is not the angle the enemy is attacking you from.” Aside from working incredibly well and being common sense (how else can you record the relative position in a kata), it is also recorded explicitly in the writings of Kenwa Mabuni.

In the illustrated examples in the video, it is the enemy who is turned. They are solid examples of this angle concept. And, at the risk of stating the obvious, the same angles can be reached by the karateka moving too. The kata does care how you get to the angle, it just cares that you do get to the angle. Therefore, if a movement in kata is at 90-degrees from the previous position (and we have ruled out the associated footwork being part of the method) then the kata is telling us that we need to attack the enemy from the side either by moving the enemy there, moving ourselves there, or a mix of the two. The kata cannot possibly know what is best in any given circumstance, nor can it know what the exact circumstance will even be, so it tells us to get to the angle and then the illustrated method is good to go. Such an important pillar of understanding kata in my view and these are great illustrations of it.

All the best,

Iain

Les Bubka
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Hi Wastelander Thanks for sharing, we are using same cocept in our dojo, very nice video. I have to say I really like your dojo :)

karate10
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I see pinan nidan,yondan bunkai and others in this technique...Wonderful presentation. I subscribe to your video library on YouTube Wastelander.....Good stuff.

Regards; Gerald.

Wastelander
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Iain Abernethy wrote:

Nice video! This concept forms a huge part of my own take on bunkai too. The way I would phrase it is that “the angle in the kata illustrates the angle you are attacking the enemy from; it is not the angle the enemy is attacking you from.” Aside from working incredibly well and being common sense (how else can you record the relative position in a kata), it is also recorded explicitly in the writings of Kenwa Mabuni.

In the illustrated examples in the video, it is the enemy who is turned. They are solid examples of this angle concept. And, at the risk of stating the obvious, the same angles can be reached by the karateka moving too. The kata does care how you get to the angle, it just cares that you do get to the angle. Therefore, if a movement in kata is at 90-degrees from the previous position (and we have ruled out the associated footwork being part of the method) then the kata is telling us that we need to attack the enemy from the side either by moving the enemy there, moving ourselves there, or a mix of the two. The kata cannot possibly know what is best in any given circumstance, nor can it know what the exact circumstance will even be, so it tells us to get to the angle and then the illustrated method is good to go. Such an important pillar of understanding kata in my view and these are great illustrations of it.

All the best,

Iain

Thanks, Iain! It's amazing how many people don't seem to be aware of Mabuni's statements--or how many simply disagree, for some reason--on the topic of angles in kata. This is something that shows up frequently in kata, our applications, and even our Waza Wednesday videos, but we don't always point out the underlying concept, so I wanted to put out a video where that was the focus. I actually recorded 7 kata samples that include this idea, to go in the video, but gave up at that point, and didn't include them all because it got to be too much :P. My preference with turns in kata tends to be to move the opponent, in some fashion, whether that be throwing them, locking them, or forcibly moving them to another position. Steps to the side or angles, on the other hand, are the ones I tend to see as the karateka changing their position, rather than the position of their opponent. Of course, both of these things work both ways--it's just a matter of preference.

Leszek.B wrote:

Hi Wastelander Thanks for sharing, we are using same cocept in our dojo, very nice video. I have to say I really like your dojo :)

Thanks, Les! I really did get lucky with finding this dojo :)

karate10 wrote:

I see pinan nidan,yondan bunkai and others in this technique...Wonderful presentation. I subscribe to your video library on YouTube Wastelander.....Good stuff.

Regards; Gerald.

Thanks, Gerald! This concept shows up frequently in kata--so frequently, actually, that as I mention in my reply to Iain, above, I recorded 7 examples before giving up on the idea for this video.