Let’s look at techniques, and then Thursday I’ll give you blow by blow of techniques.
Karate teaches you to chamber or “Yoi” techniques before you do them. No kidding, you lose points in a Shotokan belt test if you don’t chamber properly. In the Heian katas, there’s a “Yoi” position that some sensei call “cup and saucer” – a vertical fist held over an inverted fist.
You need to chamber your punch at the waist, palm up. Your arm slides in a linear fashion towards the target, and the wrist turns in a snapping motion to a palm-down position just before impact. More experienced Karateka who’ve generated a lot of speed have to start the snap as soon as the fist leaves the hip. Isshin Ryu keeps the punch straight up and down, and does not torque the wrist.
knife hand (Shuto) is done by placing the palm of your hand almost touching the opposite side of your neck (right arm, left side of neck). The arm is swung forward, and the hand snapped at impact. Trained and conditioned hands can shear bones in two with this technique. Shotokan usually practices this technique in pairs – disable the attacking arm, disable the opponent.
Back fist is like a whip, and the rapid retraction of the arm actually does more kinetic damage – If I leave my arm at impact the termination of the kinetic force is my hand. If I snap the back fist into a target then withdraw the technique even faster than hitting it, I left the kinetic energy at the spot of impact, and it develops beyond the impact area. The effect is something like the shock wave generated by a bullet as it pierces the body.
The spear hand is a frightful weapon. You have to think in terms of pain what this does to an abdomen. The arm is relaxed to generate speed, and strikes at the abdomen or windpipe rapidly. All of the tension is in the flat hand. The term I’m going to use is stretching and ripping tissue.
Blocks may seem unimportant – but torque is applied to blocks as well. Inside block is done by holding your fist (palm towards opponent) by your temple, then SNAPPING the arm and wrist forward. The end result is your forearm bones cutting into the meat of the opponent’s punch. The effect at full power is roughly that of your arm going dead.
The outside block is done twisting the arm in, and around. If you catch the punch in time, it deadens the arm. If you’re a second too late, you trap the person in an arm bar.
High rising blocks feature a snapping motion as well.
Kicks (geri) are chambered in Karate usually at the knee, or by bringing your heel up. There are two kinds of kicks – snapping (keage) and thrusting (kekomi). Karate has front (Mae), back (ushiro), side (yoko), crescent (Mikazuki), jumping (Tobi), and roundhouse (Mawashi). There’s also the Nami-ashi (wave kick), but this one is mostly done to avoid ashe-barai (leg sweep). You’re more likely to use ashi-barai. Spinning kicks get the prefix “Gyaku” added to them – so gyaku kekomi is a spinning side kick.
Shotokan used to have some absolutely brutal moves in the 80’s – if you’re able to grab a punch, you simply used mikazuki-geri (crescent kick) against the elbow. That kind of move is not often taught anymore.
Kizami-geri is often taught – continuous kicking. That’s a mid-level kick transitioning to a second, higher or lower kick. But I got good at tobi-mikazukigeri, double jump crescent kicks.
To my knowledge, nobody in Shotokan is doing these. gotta be careful – Really easy to miss and clock someone across the jaw with that kick. if you do, they’re going to need their jaw wired together. The speed of tobi-mikazukigeri yanks you off the floor and up about three feet higher in the air – you’re kicking DOWN onto their jaw. If you weigh 170, that means you’ve got probably about 250 lbs of pressure coming down on a bone that breaks with 8 pounds.
My goal was eventually to get gyaku (reverse) added to that kick, but I never could. Oh well. That would have been spectacular!
bear paw, tiger claw, crane beak, one knuckle – there’s dozens of hand strikes in Karate. The Karateka most of the time is just going to use a straight punch or reverse punch.
There are some unusual body positions in some Shotokan kata. I used to specialize in taking the crane position (suru ashi-dachi) in Gankaku when I’d spar – my opponents got very frustrated because suddenly I just wasn’t there. you stand in regular hanmi, and when they kick, you retract into suru ashi dachi, and snap back out on gyaku-zuki (reverse punch). I remember Okazaki looking pleased and surprised that someone did that in kumite (sparring).
There’s a reason you learn these moves in kata!
As you can see, there’s also a reason you should plan on your protagonist to take 3-5 years to reach first degree black belt, and another three to reach second degree. If it takes you a while to learn the Japanese names, how long will it take you to learn the technique? I think you can see why I was able to progress so quickly in Shotokan – I snuck ahead and learned the advanced kata long before my class did, and was utilizing the advanced techniques at the six month mark!
Please don’t try to use me as the basis for your protagonist – making Nidan (second degree) at the 30 month mark in Shotokan karate is the strong exception, not the rule – and I doubt they’d do it today. I wanted to match CW Nichol’s in getting first degree in 24 months – I beat him by six months (to my surprise) and second degree at 30 months was not something I’d anticipated. I think it surprised my instructors I did it, too. There’s probably only about another 50 people world wide who’ve done that in Japanese Karate, and almost all of them happened in the 70’s or 80’s.
If you’re looking to use Uechi Ryu, try Authentic Karate Training Center in Peabody, Mass – they have a youtube page, and the videos are really good quality explanations. If you watch enough Uechi Ryu video, you quickly pick up on this style not being for the faint of heart. No kidding, the higher ranks used to get hit in the throat in training to condition them to absorbing blows that would kill most people. If you decide to have your antagonist learn Uechi Ryu, then your protagonist has to be fast to avoid having his eyes jabbed – boy, those guys are GOOD at it!
Next time I’ll conclude this series by explaining how a class runs.
