I'm currently in school to be a physical therapist assistant (i will prob graduate this time next year). Although I'm not familiar with that specific disease, it is a general rule of thumb for most conditions of that nature (multiplesclerosis being an exception) being as independent as possible (especially to the stubborn point) is the best thing a person can do. I'm glad to hear that training helps you so much, the practice of traditional martial arts is best suited towards the maximum self-improvement of people (at least I feel it is in the modern day). As you become more comfortable with isshinryu, and you begin to understand the strategy that is common of the isshinryu mindset, you will learn to adapt that mindset to yourself to get the most out of it. And i don't mean you can't do this move or that move, I mean identifying what you could most readily apply in a self defense situation. Could you use your walker to help trip an opponent or attack his knees? Should you train some self defenses for while you are on your back should you ever end up on the ground in an altercation? Do you feel more comfortable throwing a punch to someone's solar plexus, or a spear to their throat? Your determination will see to it that you can do it all, but once you can do it all, start adapting or modifying to what you can do best, this is what all great karateka do. For example, I don't feel comfortable kicking someone in the groin for self defense as I believe that willpower and adrenaline can overcome that pain, but groin kicks are a mainstay in the self defense mindset of isshinryu. To modify it to my needs, for self defenses, I more often kick the knees, because pain aside, if I dislocate the joint, i immoblize them, regardless of how much pain they can take. If i do attack the groin, I grab and rip at it, since that is a pain far worse than just a snap kick. Another example is that I knew a black belt that had a hard time getting enough fist tension to maximize their punches, so in most self defense practicing, they opt to use palm strikes instead as they can generate more power with them (i'm the opposite, my palm strikes are weak while my punches are exceptional). I'm glad to hear that you enjoy your training, and I look forward to hearing about your progress over the times to come. In the meanwhile, have some fun, start analyzing the techniques and self defenses you know, how would u modify them to apply them on the street? or make up some self defenses that you feel would be most effective for yourself. The key is to choose techniques that are easily applicable, that's a big part of isshinryu, it is an easily applied style, which helps it gain maximum efficiency for minimum effort. As you become really good and comfortable with this, start thinking of it along the lines of kata. How would you modify such and such move from such and such kata, or how is a self defense that you found effective similiar to moves in kata, how is that self defense different? Give this stuff a try, and let me know how it works for you, most people, it can increase a student's rate of progress so much at times that it is hard to believe.
The thing with groin strikes is they can be expected. the funny thing is, what if its a girl? An eunuch? or a guy wearing a cup? I agree with the kee strikes. I prefer disabling my attacker at least long enough for me to get away. On my walker, i can throw side, round, and mule kicks; but theres a bar in the way of my front kicks. I can give this modifying thing a shot, ut how do i do it? I don't really have friends in real life that have a martial arts passion as deep as ours and willing to practice with me. Except my sensei, who has other classes to teach.In fact, i dont know many people at all, not even martial artists. But i enjoy talking on here.
The modification thing starts in your mind. Imagine a self defense scenario and play it through in your mind. Imagine a specific attack from an opponent and imagine the many specific defenses YOU COULD use, narrowing down to 3 or 4 of them. Then, when you can get a partner to practice with (they need not be as passionate as you, just a person who will go through the attacking motion is fine, lol), practice those 3 or 4 you narrowed down to to see what really works best for you. You can even bring back a self defense idea that you thought wouldn't work at first to find it works better than the rest. Once you are a green or blue belt (whatever is your first intermediate rank), get your sensei to go over a few of the ones that you've really focused in on as being effective. Not only might he be able to help with them, it shows him other ways you have been practicing. (you don't have to wait till your an intermediate btw, just that's a reasonable time to have a couple of these moves down pretty good).
Well, at any given time with my training, I'm concentrating on one of the following things (in no particular order): taekwondo forms (i've learned all the forms through 1st degree black belt in a short time, so I'm having to practice them all very often right now to bring them to the level I'd like to be at and getting a more 2nd nature feeling with the movements). also, TKD forms are performed much more relaxed, and I'm trying to do that. isshinryu forms (i don't have to practice these as often because i am so familiar with them). The increased kicking ability from TKD has aided my isshinryu forms, and the differences between the styles has helped me hone in on what makes isshinryu unique, but i really don't want the TKD to integrate into how i do my forms (with the exception of some higher kicks in chinto kata). I am focusing on slow pacing to increase my precision, maximum snap and crispness possible on my techniques, and making sure to look before i turn when i do these forms weapons/weapons forms - as it stands now, i'm a very slight bit rusty with urashi bo (2nd bo form) and a lil bit more rusty with bo shishi no kun (bo form 3), but my bo technique is still very precise, fast, and powerful. My basic sai and tonfa technique is not at the same level. So I am practicing my bo such that I can maintain current proficiency with tokimine no kun without getting any rustier in the other forms. Meanwhile, my main weapons focus is on getting my sai and tonfa basic technique to a proficiency at least close to what my bo staff proficiency is. This means a little over 1/4 of my weapons training is with my bo right now, with the rest going to my sai and tonfa forms. Once more comfortable in this respect, I will shift my weapons focus to relearning the bo-sai kumite and regaining my previous familiarity with my 2nd and 3rd bo forms. attack power- although i want to increase the power in my techniques, right now i'm trying to make the power more consistent. i have this with my punches, palm strikes, and elbows, but i don't have the consistency in my attack power with all of my kicks. therefore, i often have a partner hold a kicking shield and focus on kicking with hopes of getting top power every hit. this is mostly applied to my roundhouse kick, front thrust kick, side kick variations, and the spin back side kick. On the note of upper body techniques though, there is a very interesting thread here in the karate forum on "double hip" technique, and i'm toying with that some now too to try and get a feel for it. speed/agility- the two TKD black belts i do most of my training with now aren't quite as fast with hand techniques as me, but they more than make up for it with a much greater gap in kicking speed. Therefore, my goal is to increase my kicking and fighting speed to close that gap some. As it stands, when doing basic drills, I can kick with close to their speed and close to their height, but in sparring, I am not yet comfortable enough kicking at those speeds and heights to carry it over as effectively. Its not so much I need to acquire the speed, its that i need to become effective at applying the speed to my kicks. also, in this same realm, i am focusing on bouncing on the balls of my feet more while fighting, being able to change direction faster and read my opponent's movement better, also i am trying to fight more in a circle than linearly. to practice the overall kicking speed, i kick shields like i do for power, but i focus more on being as relaxed and loose as possible, which does help increase my overall speed. for the rest of this speed work, i train it via certain sparring drills (dodging drills are great for this) and free sparring. when doing this while free sparring, i am making a concious effort to fight more relaxed, to kick more rather than relying on my hands so much, and to try and move in a circle as i block and counter. Also, I am currently trying to become more proficient at the jumping spin back side kick. I find this kick is best to practice with a partner holding a shield. A heavy bag is so hard to yield that it makes learning this kick difficult. I can do this kick proficiently, but only 1/2 to 2/3 the time i attempt to on my good side, and only about 1/3 of the time on my bad side. So, I need to get more comfortable with this kick so that i can execute it well at least 95% of the time. That's 6 different training goals that are constantly in play. I don't address everyone of these every night i train, but rather, when i train, depending on what i'm in the mood for, i focus in on 2 or 3 of those goals for the night of training. Most of the time, i train my taekwondo forms more than my isshinryu forms since i'm less familiar with them and therefore, want to bring them up to speed (for example, most nights i train forms, i will do all of my TKD forms, but only 2 or 3 isshinryu forms). I am focusing slightly more on speed/agility than power right now as i feel that with where i am now, progress with speed/agility will reward me more than progress with attack power. 2 months ago, i was more power focused than speed focused because i felt myself making a lot of progress in that endeavor, which i did. The nice thing about having this many goals is that it keeps the training moving forward and interesting. A lot of things, progress will jump in leaps and bounds, then start to slow or even halt some. When my progress starts to really slow down a lot with one of these goals, I cut back the training to just enough to maintain the progress i just made, and then focus the other training time to a goal that is progressing rapidly. This way, I AM ALWAYS IMPROVING. And that makes my training much more productive and enjoyable. Within the next few months, I will probably cut back on some of these goals to start doing more work on self defense training and trick kicks (i was starting to get really into trick kicks but had to stop when i sprained my ankle in may). Happy training.
Sounds like you're working pretty hard with your goals. I'd like to do the same, but I'm quite sure what needs fixing yet. Todays class was a biit laid back. We worked on my katas. And then last bit of the hour, we talked aboout Master tatsuo. I brought up that he was deeply spiritual, as you said. Sensei said, "Deeply spiritual, but he wasn't Christian." So the subject goes to the isshinryu patch and Tatsuo's vision. Megami is a water god, which is how he was not a Christian. We know there is only one God, and Megami is a pagan thing. that is why sensei doesnt wear the patch and recommended that i didnt either. Sorry for rambling. though i'd share.
That's a lot of interesting points brought up, which i'm sure made it a valuable discussion. Unfortunately, its very messy territory sometimes when discussing the patch and/or master shimabuku's spiritual side. In both cases, there is conflicting information. Therefore, i offer you a challenge. Start visiting numerous isshinryu sites on the internet (its easiest to just find them using google), and start reading as much as you can about master shimabuku's life and read as much as you can about the origins and meaning of the megami as well. Then, I want you to try and answer the following questions. Most of these answers, just one answer is fine, but on some of them, i want you to try and give me two different answers (because some aspects of isshinryu history have two very different sides). By the way, if you have an excessively difficult time trying to answer any of these questions, just let me know and i'll send some links. So, without further ado, here are the challenge questions: 1. What was master shimabuku's name at birth? 2. What was the main source of master shimabuku's spiritual side? At what point in his life did he first begin his study with it, and with who did he study it? 3. What is the kenpo gokui? Where did it come from? 4. What are the origins of the megami and the isshinryu patch? There are two very different answers to this question. 5. Who designed the original isshinryu patch? 6. Give me at least one another name for the megami. (this other name can come from any isshinryu following). Have fun researching the answers to those questions, I hope that you'll get to see some of the differing information of isshinryu. Also, understand, as a student, first and foremost, you should follow the information as it is taught at your dojo. This is meant to help broaden your horizons and build on, not contradict what your sensei teaches you. For example, my isshinryu dojo normally calls megami by a similiar but different name, and when working with students in that dojo, i tell them the history that my lineage teaches about megami. Enjoy!
Btw, you don't have to answer all the questions in a single post. You can post after finding the answers to just one or two of them. That way, we're not all left here in suspense along the way ;p.
But i like to hang people in the noose of suspense. So far, i have: 1. What was master shimabuku's name at birth? a. His Okinawan name was Kana, but his japanese name was Shinkichi. b. he was given a girls name to "fool the evil spirits". 6. Give me at least one other name for megami. a. Kamisama
Most impressive on the kamisama answer, that is one of the least heard names for the megami (i had actually forgotten about that one, i'd only come across it once or twice when studying for my brown belt test). if of interest to you, two other names for the megami are mizu-gami (the one used at my isshinryu school) and go ju shin sama (that may be spelled wrong). As you research the different histories of the isshinryu patch, it should help clarify some of the differences between these names for the megami, as the different names can be traced back to the different histories. (that may also be a useful hint for finding different histories of the patch).
Also, of note to anyone reading, neither shinkichi (the okinawan name) nor kana (the japanese name) are the girl's name master shimabuku had as an infant. the custom was that the child could be given their proper name after a certain age, and shinkichi/kana were the names given at that certain age. I do not know what girl's name master shimabuku was given as a baby, nor have I ever seen a source that has even bothered addressing what the name was. It is most likely that no one knows what this name is since the name was discarded when shimabuku was of proper age to receive his name of shinkichi. Bonus question for any takers: at what age did master shimabuku change his name to tatsuo?
*double checks two sources* actually yes, good save! i'm really starting to have fun with this challenge, its making me do some of the most reading i've done in a few years to clarify details.
3. What is the kenpo gokui? Where did it come from? -“Secrets of the Fist Way”. It reportedly came from Master shimabuku’s Gojuryu teacher, Chojun Miyagi. It was taken from Bubishi’s “8 Poems of the Fist” and was also an important factor of the development of isshinryu. -originally, it was “Article 13: 8 Precepts of Quanfa” from the Bubishi, which Miyagi describes as the Bible of Karate. It states: 1. A person's heart is the same as heaven and earth. 2. The blood circulating is similar to the moon and sun. 3. The manner of drinking and spitting is either hard or soft. 4. A person's unbalance is the same as a weight. 5. The body should be able to change direction at any time. 6. The time to strike is when the opportunity presents itself. 7. The eye must see all sides. 8. The ear must listen in all directions.
5. Who designed the original isshinryu patch? -Most sources say the original patch was designed by Arsenio J. Advincula
Number 5 is correct. Here is a link to help with number 2. http://www.msisshinryu.com/articles/aja/tatsuos-96th/
