Working the edges in multiple randori

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Patrick Parker
www.mokurendojo.com

A Kitoryu rendition of Koshiki no Kata

That surface that they are on... It looks like concrete!  ouch!


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Patrick Parker
www.mokurendojo.com

Strategy in multiple randori?

When doing multiple-opponent randori, say against 3 or 4 or 5 opponents, what are your favorite strategies?  Do you prefer to try to work around the edges or to scatter the opponents out and work the center?  Do you try to take out the biggest/toughest opponent or the smallest/fastest first?  What have you found that works for you?

[Photo courtesy of Act, Don't Think]

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Patrick Parker
www.mokurendojo.com

The third level of knowledge

I mentioned in an earlier post that Koshiki no Kata illustrates two levels of knowledge - Omote (superficial) and Ura (profound).  But actually there is a third level of knowledge that is illustrated in the kata - a set of techniques or behaviors that is assumed to exist before Omote can happen.  Uke's attacking actions.

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Throughout Koshiki no Kata, uke attacks using a handful of actions that must have been commonplace on the feudal battlefields that spawned jujitsu schools such as Kito Ryu...

• hipthrows similar to tsurigoshi - bodily lifting an opponent and smashing them to the ground
• grabbing for an opponent's weapon if yours is broken or lost
• reaching/grasping/thrusting at the opponent's exposed face or throat
• an arm-locking shoulder/hip throw or scooping throw - again bodily lifting and dropping the opponent
• pushing the opponent facefirst into the mud
• trying to bodily bear the opponent down or tackle him
• rear bearhug pinning the opponent's arms so your buddies can dispatch him.

If you were tasked with training a bunch of noobies a handful of tricks that might save them (or at least make them more effective) in the event they were disarmed on the battlefield, the above would be a pretty good short list. 

If you were to design a school of jujitsu with different levels of attainment, then the above would make a pretty good first level of skills, followed by common counters to the above (Omote) and perhaps a third level of advanced flow and understanding (Ura).

So, the knowledge underlying Koshiki is actually divided into three levels - The above pre-requisites for uke, the Omote, and the Ura.

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Patrick Parker

www.mokurendojo.com

Interesting aiki

This is a dramatically different mode of practice than what we usually play with, but interesting.  Good lessons here...

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Patrick Parker
www.mokurendojo.com

Embodiment of integrity and dignity

Integrity literally means to hold together.  As a virtue, it suggests that your beliefs and your behaviors remain the same over time - that you do not vacillate or try to put on a different face in different circumstances. What does that have to do with Koshiki no Kata?

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Koshiki no Kata is intended to be performed with solemnity and dignity, but how to be solemn and dignified is pretty much left up to the practitioners because it can't be taught or affected. Do you pretend to be a Samurai and feign disdain for your uke who is obviously beneath you?  Do you move extra-slowly, refusing to break your upright posture?  What do you do to make your kata look dignified?

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Well, if you have integrity, then you do absolutely nothing special.  If you already have a deep personal dignity then all you have to do is let it shine through the kata.  You don't have to put on a new face or affect some different behavior to pretend to be dignified because you already are.  Perhaps that is part of why this is considered such an advanced kata - it just takes a goodly part of a lifetime to develop that sort of stable, mature self-image.

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If you have to try to act like some old, dead, Japanese murderer in order to feign dignity then you lack integrity.

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Watch the Yamashita demonstration of Koshiki no Kata again and notice how naturally they walk and stand and move.  Nothing is affected in their behavior.  They are just being Koshiki.  That is both dignity and integrity.

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Patrick Parker

www.mokurendojo.com

Precision in Koshiki no Kata

Some years back, Tsunako Miyake did an invitational seminar on Koshiki no Kata in Texas. The folks that were invited were yondan and above, so I didn't get to go since I was Sandan at the time. But LF Wilkinson, the Thoughtful Sensei of the Aikibudokan did get to attend Miyake's seminar and he had some great comments on my previous post.

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Regarding the specificity of corrections and the precision of technical specifications for Koshiki no Kata, he writes...

... When [Tsunako Miyake] taught this to us years ago she was very specific in some of her corrections, less so in others. I think that the corrections were for those areas in each of us that had too much slack (while each person's "other" areas were already tight enough and needed little to no correction). For my uke and I her specifics were ...

**to him - more body/less arm ... meaning he was thinking with his arms and not his center and she continually corrected the placement of his body relative to mine (hip to hip, chest to shoulder, etc.) and where his feet went. Since his center was in the wrong position relative to uke, he was resorting to his arms to catch the slack and force the waza. So foot position is important and cannot be sloppy. 

**to me - the only correction I received was "squat, more lower" and upon my stating that "Sensei, I do not understand" ... she commented that I walked too upright/high and too smooth "like Aikido player ... must walk like Judo-man" and those comments didn't stop until I was walking not in a squat but in a lumbering, low-center saunter of sorts with my head straight up (Aikido-man rooted to earth, as-it-were). 

Once I got it right she said, "ah good, now you look like an uchimata man" which blew me away because my first judo teacher said exactly the same thing and had me specialize in it (so what came 1st ... the walk or the throw?? I dunno, probably my walk since I was tagged with that when I was only a green belt). 

So in my case, everything was pretty much in line with what was needed except my center initially was too high and that she wanted me to lower my center (even on the approach before tori & uke ever engaged) in order to get UNDER uke's center for each throw. 

Unlike Judo .... this kata requires (with a few exceptions) tori's center to be lower then uke's as both are wearing armor and uke cannot have his center lifted to "roll" over tori's center (and tori cannot effectively use his arms). Without trying to recount all three days and the corrections she made to the group and to the judo people (who had their own set of issues) she was VERY specific about certain areas such as where the foot went and where tori stood and placed himself relative to uke. 

Other items such as precisely where tori placed his hand (on uke's shoulder for example) on some of the sacrifices was less precise leading Lynn and I to the conclusion that in a kata of this level some items must be critically precise in order to express the underlying principle for each waza while other items are less critical .... likely because the "more" critical items assist the pure form of the principle while the "less" critical items have much less effect on the pure form of the principle and therefore have less of a change of "queering" the pure form if a hand or foot is slightly off on inch one way or the other.

I would offer that Koshiki MUST be VERY precise .... just not in the way we would see with a 1st tier Yudansha kata (1st tier being Shodan thru Yondan). I think that precision is precision ... it's just that the precision required for a Shodan is not the same as needed for a kata of this level and the ability to tell what parts must be exact and what parts can have a little slack here and there is what sets the shodan apart from the hachidan.

I highlighted that last part myself - pretty outstanding I think.

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Patrick Parker 

www.mokurendojo.com

Old Spice Karate

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Patrick Parker
www.mokurendojo.com

Poetry in motion

I mentioned the apparent variability around the technical standard of Koshiki no Kata in a previous post, and I have posted several old videos of the giants (Kano, Yamashita, et al.) demonstrating different understandings of the exercise. A commentator left me a message suggesting that all the "vagueness" in Koshiki no Kata would disappear when the powers-that-be manage to publish standards for Koshiki no Kata for world-level competition.  I agree that likely will happen, but I don't think it will be a good thing.

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See, whereas Nagenokata and Katamenokata are more like elementary-school copy-work or learning to play scales, Koshiki no Kata is more like poetry or jazz.  Koshiki is a whole different sort of kata - one that will not well bear rigorous technical specification.

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Even the names of the movements in the kata are poetic instead of being descriptive.  In Koshiki no kata you do not do techniques, so much as you physically embody ideas like "Dreaming," and "Water Flowing," and "Willow Snow."

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Patrick Parker

www.mokurendojo.com

Very old Koshiki no kata film

I love this instantiation of Koshiki no Kata.  You can see that the tori does not merely know the moves, but he embodies the principles.  Some of these techniques flow so well that they are startling - especially the throw at 1:35!  This is a film to study!

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Patrick Parker
www.mokurendojo.com

Koshiki no kata is like a family reunion

Koshiki no kata has a different sort of feel to it than the lower-level kata in judo.  Not exactly less precise-feeling, but perhaps vague might be the right word for how I feel about Koshiki.  The lower-level kata such as Nagenokata and Goshin Jutsu (if that one is even a kata at all) have more of a technically defined, rigorous feel to them.  Sort of a, "Put your foot right here and do exactly this with your arm..." sort of feel.

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Sure, Koshiki has technical standards, but they seem to have greater flexibility within the standard than do the lower kata.  Greater allowance for different masters to express these techniques and principles their own way.

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I suppose part of this is that you can't really stand on the sideline watching a couple of red belts in judo doing this kata and then tell them, "No, you put your foot wrong there, and you should have pulled more like this..."  By the time you get to the point in your judo career that you should be working on Koshiki no Kata, you've pretty much already figured out how to do all the principles expressed in this kata. 

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Learning and practicing Koshiki no Kata should be more like getting reaquainted with a bunch of old friends than learning new principles and techniques.

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Patrick Parker

www.mokurendojo.com

Koshiki - omote and ura

Some basic comments on the form and structure of Koshiki no Kata...

• Koshiki no kata is composed of two groups of techniques.  The first set is named Omote, suggesting that it is preliminary or superficial knowledge.  The second set is named Ura, suggesting that it exemplifies more profound understanding of the principles of the kata.  So, basically the kata progresses from superficial toward profound.
• Omote is composed of seven pairs of techniques.  Each pair explores similar or same attack conditions but uke either resists or modifies the attack to determine which of each pair comes to pass.
• Ura is composed of seven techniques that are done rapidly and continuously.

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Patrick Parker 

www.mokurendojo.com

On loan from the Kito Ryu

Jigoro Kano adopted Koshiki no kata from the old Kito school of jujitsu.  In fact, an alternate name for this kata that you will hear occasionally is Kitoryu no kata (The kata of the Kitoryu).  By studying Koshiki no kata you can get a decent idea of what those old, dead Kito guys must have been thinking about.

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First, the name they chose for their school (Kito) means something along the lines of "rise and fall," or since I almost always prefer looser, more westernized translations, I call it "waxing and waning."  See, the most distinctive philosophical principle of the old Kito school seems to have been that everything is always waxing and waning.  

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Our strength rises and falls.  Our enemy's strength rises and falls.  What seems strong in one sense is weak from another point of view. If you can figure out how to survive the ride until your strength is waxing and your enemy's strength is waning, then you will crash over him like a wave.

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You can mainly see this idea represented in the kata in the first section (omote).  The first section is composed of matched pairs of techniques which mostly start the same way, but reach a branch in the stream where they either flow one way or the other.  

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Take the first technique pair, for instance.  Uke attempts something along the lines of tsurigoshi and tori disrups uke's balance backward.  Tori and uke stumble backward several steps until uke is toppled backward (technique #1) or uke resists and changes the flow of the technique (technique #2).

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Patrick Parker 

www.mokurendojo.com

Koshiki no kata month

As part of my regular posting this year on the Mokuren Dojo blog, I intend to do a month-long focus on a single kata or traditional exercise.  This month I will start with Koshiki no Kata - probably one of the least known or practiced kata in the judo repertoire, but also one of the ones deepest in principle.  

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By no means do I write this as any sort of authoritative knowledge, but I do have a month's worth of observations that I can make about this set of exercises.

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So, with that, I leave you with this old video of Kano and Yamashita performing excerpts of Koshiki no Kata - Judo's "Forms Antique."

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Patrick Parker
www.mokurendojo.com