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colby
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Karate Nerd in China

Did anybody see this on YouTube? I found it really interesting from a martial and cultural perspective. Also there is just so much mind candy in those episodes showcasing the ancestors of several karate kata. So I figured it might be an interesting topic to talk about. I posted the last entry below because that's the one I think has the most meat on it in terms of karate, enjoy.

Zach Zinn
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I read Patrick McCarthy and some less known names early on, like early and late 90's on these subjects, including a few Bubish versions. So, all this information is not new to me, it's also not new for Karate practitioners to make these sorts of pilgrimages, it's been going on for a while. What -is- new is the availablity of good, well-produced and narrated video of people doing so. These are quite a bit more entertaining than the drier, more scholarly approach that existed previously. It's cool to see someone who is doing this more as a Karate practitioner than as an academic.

This set of videos was very entertaining, Jesse asks good questions and keeps it interesting.

I personally think that even Naha-te styles (usually claimed to be newer and supposeduly "more Chinese") are sufficiently "Okninawanized" to be their own thing. You can see that some of the Chinese styles are cousins, but it pretty much ends there, there are some sizable differences along with the similarities. The observation Jesse makes about mutiple bunkai for one technique vs one bunkai having multiple individual expressions is interesting and worth thinking about, but I am not sure it is unqiuely Okinawan or Chinese. We have a tendency to say "In Karate it's done like this but in Kung Fu..." truthfully though, things are done all kinds of different ways in Karate. The conversation with his friend about how langauge affects transmission of martial arts was very valuable.

colby
colby's picture

Right? Especially when they were talking about why that could be a reason for the difference in length between Chinese kata and okinawan kata. And I really felt like his bunkai realization may be something worth exploring more and played with a kata and see how that would feel.

Also incense shop boxing looks really cool, so does dog boxing. I would totally do some dog boxing. And then old master doing cool kung fu movements with a cigarette in his hand was hilarious.

what do you think about the suggestion to use your ass more?

Zach Zinn
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Yes the incense shop boxing thing was cool, and new information too, had no idea about southern Shaolin going underground or any of that.

Kiwikarateka
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colby wrote:

Also incense shop boxing looks really cool, so does dog boxing. I would totally do some dog boxing.



Being a Goju guy I'm very interested in seeing what the Chinese original (if it's original and not just a case similar naming) of Superinpei is (along with the other forms).

Dog boxing is also quite interesting but, having seen some videos of it in action (partner drills/demos), I'm not as impressed as I hoped I would have been. It didn't seem to feature many standing throws or many submissions, and most of the techniques use dives or rolls to takedown the opponent or push them away, which seems tricky to pull off and a bit dangerous nowadays given that modern cities are paved with concrete and asphalt.

That said I'm sure what has been shown is just a small portion of the system, absence of evidence is not evidence of absence, and since there is such little footage online, I'm sure many more techniques exist in the art. I don't want to decry the whole art based off of a few videos on the internet.

If anything it looks cool and quite fun.

Some videos:

 

 

 

colby wrote:

what do you think about the suggestion to use your ass more?

Using the butt is something we teach at our dojo (in kata like Seiyunchin) but I don't think we don't really talk about it for stances in general and we definitely don't relay it the same way that Jessie did. It got me thinking but, I haven't been to the dojo since I saw the video; will play around with it tonight.