The Harder They Fall

We used to do push-ups on our knuckles in karate class, a practice of which I do not have fond memories of. It didn't matter where I trained, the knuckle push-up was a time-honored staple. I think from a physiological perspective aligning one's wrist vertically (as opposed to hands flat on the floor) is better for the sake of the wrist joint. I've done my fair share of push-ups, I've had no aversion to hard training in the past, but pressing knuckles into a hardwood floor can be trying. The idea is that it conditions the fist for sparring, but I'm skeptical. Routines that include focus mitts and the heavy bag are more practical and sensible. 

 

A traditional karate dojo has a hardwood floor. Isshinryu's founder, Shimabuku, had an outdoor training area that was surrounded by a brick wall that supposedly had shards of glass glued to the tops to dissuade the local Okinawan youth from climbing atop to peer in. Photos from that time reveal what looks like a concrete floor. Years later, Angi Uezu built a dojo with a concrete slab that had springs underneath, presumably to absorb shocks from jumping and landing. Great for the spine, I guess. Not so much if you land on your head.

In combat sports such as karate, tae kwon do and amateur boxing (some organizations), head gear is mandatory. The head gear is primarily designed to protect the user, not from getting hit in the face, but from falling. I've seen boxing matches where professionals (who don't wear head gear) get knocked out on their feet, then fare worse from landing  on their heads. I cracked a wisdom tooth at a tournament years ago when I was dropped with a side kick onto the hard gym floor of a local high school. This despite wearing head gear and a mouth piece, the latter of which is designed to keep the jaw from breaking, while no consideration is shown for the dentition.

There is a circuit of underground fight clubs such as King Of The Streets where combatants fight on a hard surface, no-holds-barred. Illegal and absolutely insane. Street fights can turn fatal when someone falls and hits their head on the pavement. 

 

Head trauma from years of boxing, kickboxing, MMA, and other sports have shown that dementia, Parkinson's Disease, and other neurological disorders associated with CTE (chronic traumatic encephalopathy) can manifest themselves, typically long after retirement.  

Whatever style you practice, do it on mats if you can. When sparring, move your head and protect yourself at all times. Loving your art shouldn't mean you have to pay for it later.

In Memoriam: Angi Uezu (1935-2024)

While I was researching traditional karate in anticipation of writing a post, I stumbled upon the sad news that Master Angi Uezu of Isshinryu karate passed away a few days ago at age 89. Uezu Sensei was the son-in-law of Tatsuo Shimabuku, the founder of Isshinryu. Originally studying to be an accountant, he began training under Shimabuku starting around 1955. It was about this period that Marines stationed on Okinawa began their training in Isshinryu in accordance with a contract that the US military had with Shimabuku, paying him 300 USD per month. Despite suffering a stroke a while back, Uezu rehabilitated himself enough to return to karate training and teaching. Somewhere I have a collection of VHS cassettes from the 1980s featuring the master's rendition of kata and their applications that are truly awe inspiring. They were my cheat sheets when I couldn't get to the dojo.

It's just as well I didn't post my response to this well-written piece by Tim Shaw on defining traditional karate; there's not much I could add anyway. Though Isshinryu is considered a style of traditional karate here in the US, it is a recently created system that is considered a "maverick" style on Okinawa. Although I never met him, Uezu Sensei was one of Isshinryu's finest exponents. I would also like to direct those interested to a video uploaded by longtime instructor, Michael Calandra, who delves into the master's life and his influence on Isshinryu karate.

Deconstructing Seisan

 

Here's a fine demonstration of Seisan, the first kata taught in Isshinryu karate. Seisan is not unique to Isshinryu, but is an ancient form found in many systems of karate. Kata is typically practiced as a solo form, but eventually the student is taught how to deconstruct the kata itself (bunkai) and how to apply the self-defense moves within (oyo). Later upon testing, students are asked to show (with a partner) sections of various kata and their proper application. Here we see this particular kata in its entirety in a theoretical matchup versus multiple assailants. The guttural breathing you hear adds power to the technique.

The master featured in the video (the defender at the center) is Arcenio Advincula. He trained directly under the founder of Isshinryu karate, Tatsuo Shimabuku, during his US military hitch on Okinawa starting in 1958. Years ago I took a workshop given by Advincula-sensei that was attended by at least two dozen Isshinryu karate teachers and students on Long Island. One of my instructors got into a rather heated exchange with the master over a stupid technical issue that did not end well for the former. Pro tip: never argue with a Marine giving a karate demonstration.

Faking To Win

In those days, when Japanese stylists threw a kick they never faked or feinted — the kick went straight to the target. They were not accustomed to someone faking a kick to one area and landing it elsewhere.

— Chuck Norris on sport-karate strategy, c. 1967.*

In Wansu kata, the fourth karate form taught in Isshinryu, at some point the defender executes an uppercut immediately followed by a front kick. I have been told that Shimabuku referred to this maneuver as "bullshit", i.e., the uppercut is just a fake setup for the real damage inflictor, in this case the front kick. A very similar strategy can be found in the Kusanku kata: backfist to the face while simultaneously executing a foward-leg front kick. Check out the image below of Ed McGrath attempting this very trick for his black belt test against his instructor Don Nagle in 1959:

McGrath paid for his efforts with a broken nose, but he did earn his shodan in Isshinryu. In MMA there's something called a "Superman Punch" that involves the player faking a jump kick followed by an airborne punch to the face. Although less "fake-ish", another variation of this has the attacker catapulting off the side of the cage to deliver the flying haymaker:

In karate, a faked front kick (or foot sweep) followed by a round kick to the head works well, speaking from experience. Fakes or feints should be used sparingly and look realistic enough to elicit a response; once the opponent has committed to reacting to the faux move, the live technique can then be delivered. To sell the fake technique requires speed, timing, range/distance (ma-ai), and being able to read the opponent.

* Chuck Norris 1989. The Secret of Inner Strength: My Story. Charter Books.

Iron Fist Training

Let me state that this is not a tutorial on how to develop manos de piedra - "hands of stone" - which is the famous moniker of prizefighter Roberto Duran. My use of a provocative title may be misleading. For the record I don't subscribe to the idea that hands can be conditioned into something akin to an anvil . Hands did not evolve to break open body parts and certain traditional training methods to toughen them can wreak havoc. Actually, this post was inspired by an impromptu sparring session I had this past weekend (my first in quite a while) that resulted in the first two knuckles on my left hand to swell to frightening proportions. I wore cotton hand-guards that leave the fingers exposed, and while my striking force was left in reserve for the most part, apparently, that wasn't good enough. This is really the result of chronic damage from years of sparring. (Note to readers: When you feel pain from an activity, stopping said activity is advised.) A colleague told me I should perform pushups on my knuckles to avert future injury. Another suggested training on a more time-honored method: The makiwara. I don't think so to either one.

A grandmaster of Matsubayashi-ryu once told me that any respectable dojo should have a makiwara on the premises. A makiwara is a wooden striking post designed to develop punching prowess and accuracy, not to put callouses on knuckles. Karateka that have knuckles that look like they're jacked on steriods may look impressive and could be held as a perverse badge of honor. Ego trips like this can go either way as one Okinawan karate historian tells:

Arakaki's father often warned him about making large black callouses on his knuckles. One reason was that, as his father was a merchant, customers would, on seeing the swollen and deformed hands, be easily frightened away. Another reason was that local ruffians would often try to pick fights on the pseudo-karate-ka who flouted such grotesque trophies. 'After practice on the makiwara,' Arakaki told me, 'it is a good idea to wash one's hands in salt water (or urine) and then alcohol; if the skin is cut, always carefully sterilise the affected area.'¹

There's a market that offers a wide range of liniments with names like "Iron Hit Wine" and "Tiger Balm" that, while pricey at roughly $20 for a 2 oz. dose, provides a more sanitary method of treatment than urine. Once during an Isshinryu karate demonstration held for US marines on Okinawa, Tatsuo Shimabuku cut his hand while driving a spike through a slab of wood. There was no liniment or any first-aid handy, so in a pinch he applied some dirt to the wound to stop the bleeding.

I've never trained on a makiwara, which is supposedly of Chinese origin, not Okinawan as many believe.² Indeed, the Chinese method of "Iron Bone Hand" training, developed as a method for maiming and killing, appears in Article 20 of the Bubishi stating:

The Iron Bone Hand technique can only be developed through relentless training. After thrusting the bare hand into a container filled with hot sand on a daily basis for many weeks, the fingers gradually become conditioned enough to initiate the secondary stage of training. After thrusting the bare hand into a container filled with gravel on a daily basis for many weeks, the fingers will become even more conditioned so that the final stage of conditioning can be initiated. The final stage of conditioning requires one to thrust the bare hand into a container of even larger stones. This special kind of conditioning will lead to hand deformity and the loss of one's fingernails. Alternative training methods often include thrusting the bare hand into bundles of wrapped bamboo in an effort to condition the fingers for lethal stabbing and poking.³

There's a tenet of unknown origin that advises to "attack soft tissue with a hard-surface hand-strike, and a hard area with a soft-surface hand-strike." Hammerfist, shuto (blade-hand), and palm-heel use the fleshier part of the hand that tend to be less injurious than a closed-fist if your target area is someone's head. In boxing, heavy hitters occasionally break their hands delivering the KO punch, this in spite of wrapping their hands in plenty of gauze and donning 10 or 12 oz. gloves. You'll also never see a boxer hit any kind of a bag without gloves. And some karate men, such as Isshinryu's Angi Uezu, have been known to doggedly hit that makiwara bare-handed. Somebody's wrong here.



1. Mark Bishop 1999. Okinawan Karate: Teachers, styles and secret techniques. Tuttle Publishing.
2. Ibid.
3. Patrick McCarthy 1995. The Bible of Karate: Bubishi. Tuttle Publishing.

The Isshinryu Front-Kick: Varieties, Chambering and Distance

The front-kick is the most basic kick taught in karate, tae kwon do, or just about any striking style in martial arts. To execute, the knee is pulled up to waist-level (chambered) while the shin hangs down. The leg is then straightened to strike the intended target. Novices are taught to kick the midsection, but other targets include the shin, thigh, groin, or even head. In tournaments, Chuck Norris would fake a front kick to the gut, retract, then snap it to up the head for an easy point. Most practitioners either aren't that quick (or flexible), or prefer other kicks that are less detectable such as roundhouse, hook, crescent, and spin-around-back.

Sensei Victor Smith has a nice article on the front-kicking techniques of Tatsuo Shimabuku (the founder of Isshinryu karate). Some old video clips of the master (c. 1960) are posted featuring the mae geri (front kick) from the Isshinryu kata canon. As Smith-san notes:

If we have been observing his [Shimabuku's] technique,

1. First he raises his thigh parallel to the floor.
2. Once the leg is chambered parallel to the floor, the leg kicks out and returns in a hinging motion, front front kick or rear front kick.

This kicking method means the foot strikes out from the chamber and not slingshoting out as the leg/knee rises.

It gives less time for the opponent to recognize the kick is coming. That also means there is less time to try and catch the leg.

His remark "less time to recognize the kick is coming" raised my eyebrow at first. If I see my opponent has his leg chambered of course he is going to kick me, was my initial thinking. But from a chambered leg (with the shin held at 90-degrees) I have no idea which kick is coming. A chambered leg could be the prelude to one of the following:

• Front kick
• Roundhouse kick
• Hook kick
• Side kick

A "slingshot" style kick could be a telegraph if you're really sharp. Don Nagle, who trained under Shimabuku in the late 50s, supposedly could block a kick as it was rising from the floor with his forward foot! Now that's a neat trick. Personally, I'm too reflex challenged to pull this kind of move off. I've never seen anyone even attempt this. Attempts at catching kicks I've seen plenty, usually among beginners. In some dojo I've trained in catching an incoming kick is seen as taboo, even though (or maybe because) MMA players do it all the time. The time-honored way is to slip the kick (ideal) or block it with your arm. (The latter is widely taught in karate. Disclaimer: bad idea.) At any rate, I believe that chambering most kicks is good practice. As a last resort the raising knee could be delivered as a hiza-tsui (knee-strike) if your attacker manages to close the distance.

The last video in the blog shows a very brief clip of the master performing what appears to be an application from the kata Sunsu, his creation and a form particular to Isshinryu karate. It is a front thrust kick (as opposed to the snapping variety) in defense of a double-arm grab. (The image above illustrates present-day exponents demonstrating this.)* In this scenario ma'ai or striking distance is minimal between you and the attacker. In this manner, the thrust "kick" is performed more like a push-off.

Generally, the front thrust kick is a very different animal from the more widely taught front snap kick in traditional karate. A front snap kick utilizes mostly the vastus medialis portion of the quadriceps muscle and requires a quick recoil, striking with the ball of the foot (If you're wearing footwear as most folks do when out and about, the ball-of-the-foot application becomes moot, but I digress.). A front thrust kick is akin to kicking down a door; you're really driving more with your hips and striking with your heel. Thrust kicks have more knockdown power than snap kicks. A staple in Muay Thai kickboxing, the front thrust kick has been favored among the Japanese military for use in combative self-defense.^†

The front kick, a basic technique that is relatively easy to execute, has viable self-defense applications and variations that shouldn't be given short shrift in lieu of so-called flashier kicks.

* This particular bunkai of Sunsu is how it was originally taught to me by a high ranking instructor who trained on Okinawa. I believe it's the correct way. Since then I've visited a number of schools through the years seeing other things applied. It seems everyone has their own version of Isshinryu.

^† Donn Draeger 1974. Modern Bujutsu and Budo. [p. 75-76] Wheatherhill, Inc.

Isshinryu's Heritage Called Into Question

In a recent Classical Fighting Arts magazine (Vol. 2, No. 23) an article was written from the viewpoint that Isshinryu founder Tatsuo Shimabuku never trained under the Okinawan masters he claims to have had. (I haven't seen the article; I've learned about this mostly from online forums. My understanding is that the article was penned by David Chambers, the magazine's publisher. Other sources say the author is unknown.) Classical Fighting Arts is a respected periodical, which, on the surface, makes this piece on Isshinryu and Shimabuku difficult to dismiss.

This story reminds me of Donn Draeger's section in Modern Bujutsu & Budo on the Japanese martial art of Shorinji Kempo. Its founder, So Doshin (b. Nakano Michiomi, 1911) claims that the transmission of the art was bequeathed upon him by a Chinese master of I-ho-chuan, a style of Shaolin boxing.

Draeger begs to differ:

While Nakano's claim to be a disciple of Wen is plausible given the hectic conditions of those times, history refutes his claim that in 1936 he was honored by the aged Wen and named the twenty-first leader of the Shaolin tradition, and therefore he is "the only true successor to the Shorinji [Shaolin-ssu] tradition." This false claim greatly detracts from Nakamo's integrity, for no Chinese, historian or wu shu authority has ever heard of him in this role. So it must be assumed that Nakamo's claim is but a fabrication made to enhance his personal prestige and position of his Shorinji system in Japan.

I don't know if Draeger's fact-checking skills were ever challenged by the Shorinji community. So Doshin (Nakano) was alive and well at the time of Draeger's writing, unlike the CFA article on Shimabuku, who died in 1975. However, Shimabuku, who is credited in Isshinryu lore as being a "leading practitioner of Goju on Okinawa" and cites his formitive training with Chojun Miyagi, the famous founder of Goju-ryu karate, is apparently never mentioned in Goju-ryu history, or by any of his Goju contemporaries. In his formation of Isshinryu, Shimabuku did take the kata Seiuchin and Sanchin from Goju-ryu, as well as the text the Kenpo Gokui (The Eight Precepts of The Fist).

Okinawa is not a big place as it approximates the size of about two US counties. Shimabuku's assertion that he trained under the likes of Chotoku Kyan, Choki Motobu and Miyagi does not seem far fetched. While he never recounted his experiences with these individuals (nor do any photos exist with him in their presence), I find it unlikely that Shimabuku would have a need to pad his resume with falsehoods. To impress whom? Most of his first students were US Marines stationed on Okinawa. Isshinryu karate was and is not a very popular style there, and as one longtime instructor speculated may be in its death throes on the island. None of this really matters to the essence of the art here or abroad where it still flourishes. For Isshinryu, the way is in the training, not to be found in gossip, slander, or a scandalous history lesson.

Karate or Karate-Kobudo?

Recently I found myself training at a Matsubayashi Shorin-ryu school working indigenous Okinawan weapons: kobudo. The chief instructor asked me to advance with my bo (staff) while paired up with another trainee, so I instinctively stepped forward using a cross-stepping kosa-dachi. I'm told Shorin-ryu stylists don't (or quite rarely) utilize this stepping scheme into their bo training so this sparked some counterpoint on the matter.

The next topic of discussion was much broader: As karateka why should we even bother with kobudo?

Given the vast catalogue of karate techniques one must master there seems to be little time left available for Okinawan weapons training. Kobudo is a martial art unto itself, not something that needs to be hyphenated with karate, a practical form of self-defense. Okinawan karate by default includes kobudo, for the most part; Japanese styles such as Shotokan do not officially incorporate any weapons into its syllabus.

When Tatsuo Shimabuku was codifying Isshinryu karate in the late 50s he began his training in kobudo arts with the eminent weapons master Taira Shinken. Thus Isshinryu karate and kobudo was born. Whether Shimabuku did this keep up with his Okinawan contemporaries who were doing the same (possibly more for cultural than practical reasons) or to distance his new "maverick" style from mainland Japanese stylists who had renounced weapons training is unclear. At any rate, Isshinryu karate that does not include kobudo is not Isshinryu the art, strictly speaking.

An Isshinryu instructor I know with a long list of credentials holds the rank of 5th dan in Matayoshi kobudo, a system that includes sai, tonfa, bo, eaku, kama, nunchaku and some other weapons I'm not familiar with. The principles and methodology taught in the Matayoshi system are somewhat different from Isshinryu kobudo. In Ufuchiku kobujutsu a total of twenty-five weapons are taught. Now that's quite a catalogue. Certainly it takes considerable time to become adept at handling a single weapon, let alone two dozen. The point being is that if you're training in karate and it includes kobudo, something is going to get short shrift -- and it probably won't be the karate.

The Fast Track to High Rank

Someone I know just received their black belt in Brazilian jiu-jitsu. It took him ten years, and I'm told this is the typical amount of time it takes in this style. Most martial arts as practiced in the US take about half that time to achieve the coveted black belt. Perhaps BJJ has higher standards or their people want to disassociate with those of the McDojo variety that award black belts at breakneck speed.

There seems to be some controversy over the length of time it should take to get to black belt. (A word to the wise: it's not a good idea to ask "how long will it take to get a black belt" at a traditional school.) Isshinryu karate's Angi Uezu says it takes, on average, about two-and-a-half years on Okinawa. In the All-Japan Karate Federation (formerly, the Zen Nippon Karatedo Renmei), three years is recommended to achieve shodan (1st degree black belt).* It took Chuck Norris fifteen months, kickboxing great Joe Lewis seven months and Isshinryu legend Don Nagle six months to get their black belts while training in Korea or Okinawa during a US military hitch.


Isshinryu's founder, Tatsuo Shimabuku, would grant dan level ranks to certain US servicemen who trained under him rather quickly, knowing it would be years before he would see them again. The Karate Questions and Answers blog has more to say about this. Elsewhere, a Marine who trained under the master in the late fifties recounts that

It took six or seven months to make green belt, and a couple more to make black. He [Shimabuku] didn't give a certificate to Americans until they left Okinawa. At first he gave low grades, but the students persisted until he began to give high grades for a minimum time. One American was given an eighth dan (black belt rank) after only two and a half years in isshin-ryu, while another made seventh dan after one and a half years. To justify such ranks, Shimabuku would say "You'll rate it in 15 or 20 years." He gave higher grades because he thought most Americans would not be returning to Okinawa...

Nevertheless, when the Americans returned to the United States from Okinawa, most did not wait 15 or 20 years, but proclaimed their high grades immediately.

When speaking of the duration of white belt to black belt the only relevance is actual training time in the dojo. One source cites that at least 1000 hours of instruction is required for promotion to 1st dan black belt.^† If you train 1 - 1.5 hours per class three times a week, that works out to about five years. Norris, who first took up judo in the Air Force and then switched to tang soo do (a cognate of tae kwon do) while stationed in Korea, would train up to thirty hours per week, about double of what most Americans train in a month. Initially, he didn't even think about getting a black belt. Apparently, he figured out something very important: It's the journey, not the destination, that counts.


* Richard Kim 1974. The Weaponless Warriors. Ohara Publications, Incorporated.
^† Jennifer Lawler 1996. The Martial Arts Encyclopedia. Masters Press.

The Female Warrior: Archetypes and Stereotypes

Occasionally I'll get a question about the Isshinryu symbol, the mizugami (water goddess). One version is that the founder, Tatsuo Shimabuku, had a lucid dream about the said deity encountering an evil presence and warding it off with a ring of fire, but with peaceful intentions. Shimabuku's water goddess, a Shinto entity, was probably inspired in part by the androgynous Shiva, the Hindu Destroyer. But the Isshinryu Mizugami is decidedly female and presides over water; femininity and water both being aspects of yin, a Daoist concept pertaining to creativeness, intuition and other ethereal manifestations of the psyche which correlates to the right hemisphere of the human brain. Yin/female also pertains to yielding, mysticism and darkness, the subtle aspects of the martial arts. While female combatants lack the less-subtle size and strength attributes of their male counterparts, their presence in the martial arts and even the military have a long history worldwide.

Recently the US Defense Department announced that women would be permitted in dangerous jobs closer to the front lines. Political conservatives such as Rick Santorum feel that a man's position on the battlefield would be compromised with the presence of women. In traditional cultures women have been held as the "weaker sex", treated like chattel, and expected to be submissive -- hardly the stuff of warriors. The French Christian Joan of Arc and Greek mythology's Athena are exceptions which have provided inspiration for TV heroines such as Xena: Warrior Princess.


Television has provided some characters that depict the alpha female as less strapping than Xena and much closer to cheesecake. The Avengers' Mrs. Peel and one of the Charlie's Angels had some sort of quasi background in the martial arts. When I was in junior high school a wave of kung fu flicks and Asian martial artists were making their way to the US that included one Lady Whirlwind ("Queen of the Deep Thrust") that caught my attention. It was a great era for martial arts movie posters with double-entendre. These days it's the likes of MMA's Gina Corano that now grace the silver screen, blending feminine beauty with real-life martial arts credentials.

Don't Quit Your Day Job

Somebody I know wants to open a karate school and devote himself to it full time. He says he's done plenty of research and introspection on the matter and believes he's up to the task. A lot of uncertainty here, I tell my friend, as the state of the economy and the current lack of popularity of traditional martial arts would be potential obstacles. Martial arts clubs come and go frequently, even when times are good.

I will say that the ones that do endure seem to be run by people that are doing it exclusively, full time. Maybe that's the secret.

I'll share another "secret" with you. If you want to stay in the martial arts game for the long haul you must consider teaching.

But is becoming a professional martial arts teacher an advisable career choice?

The average salary for a martial arts instructor where I live is at present $40K/yr. Now if you started at something like that it wouldn't be too bad. The cost of living is murder in Greater New York; forty grand won't get you too far here. Subsidizing your income with something else sounds like the ticket, but like I said, it's the full timers that seem to have the most success. One local guy who runs an American kenpo school has been at the same site for twenty-two years! That's extraordinary. He has a huge place with hundreds of students. Again, teaching martial arts is all he does.

When Tatsuo Shimabuku was commissioned by the US government to teach karate to Marines in the fifties he was paid $300/mo. for his services. Prior to that he was a farmer, but even after he got his teaching gig he still maintained a fortune telling business that he ran on the opposite side of his dojo under his real name, Shinkichi. Somebody who trained with him on Okinawa told me his fortune telling services were in high demand as his predictions were 97 percent accurate. Shimabuku's contemporaries must have seen him as a sell-out for teaching US servicemen karate for money (in due time many of them followed suit anyway) but Shimabuku correctly predicted he would be laughing all the way to the bank.

Getting Wasted

Isshinryu karate founder Shimabuku used to say "All bottles are good." This is supposedly a reference to different styles or techniques found in the martial arts. Students tend to embellish and over-interpret everything the master says. Who knows, maybe he was just talking about various types of booze.

Speaking of alcohol, I've always been curious about Zui quan - the Drunken style. The story is that some kung fu guy gets hammered one night and spontaneously creates a new style via inebriation.

Here's a clip featuring a Drunken practitioner (in black) going up against somebody from Kyokushin karate. Kyokushin is a rough and tumble full-contact style. Zui quan attempts to use a convoluted, desynchronized approach to fighting.



Now you could argue that the Drunken guy is a poor exponent, that perhaps Zui quan relies more on its forms or that it has other aims besides combat effectiveness. But this Drunken fighter basically has no game plan that allows him to score anything at all or even ward off the efforts of the Kyokushin man. All bottles are good, but they're clearly not the same.

Some Thoughts About 'My Style'

I'm the last person who will tout Isshinryu karate as a superior method of practical self-defense over others. As I have said here more than once, the style one learns is only as good as the quality of instruction. The following is a short list of some of the stock selling points of Isshinryu:

• Techniques adhere to natural body movements.


• Vertical punches are favored over rotating or "corkscrew" punches as the former are considered to be stronger, faster and more injurious to the receiver.


• Strikes are almost always delivered in a snapping (as opposed to a thrusting or pushing) fashion for the same reasons as above.

These are the major features and realize - especially if the reader is an Isshinryu person - this list is hardly exhaustive. You can find this info anywhere online or hanging on the wall of most Isshinryu dojo. These tenets have existed in Okinawan karate in various guises dating back to about the eighteenth century, but the founder, Tatsuo Shimabuku, considered these particular ones paramount to his system.

Here's another list of items that sets Isshinryu karate aside from some of the other styles of "traditional" karate. These things are rarely mentioned, let alone advertised like the ones found on the first list:

• There are a total of eight karate kata (pre-arranged forms) in the system. No empty-handed forms are taught after black belt, only weapons (kobudo), of which there are seven. This is a major departure from most karate styles that require students to learn literally dozens of forms, many of which are pinan (beginner) kata, none of which appear in Isshinryu.


• Isshinryu does not endeavor to perfect the trainee's character or make her/him a good role model or citizen, per se. No lofty aims aside from prevailing in an unpleasant and possibly horrific altercation are sought.


• Isshinryu techniques are not set in stone, but subject to innovation as needed. Shimabuku, taking a line from The Eight Precepts of The Fist ("Adapt to changing conditions"), sought to advance his art through effective modifications as the opportunities presented themselves.

I like the idea that there are only fifteen kata in Isshinryu. That's still an enormous catalogue of techniques. There's an old saying that it takes a lifetime to master a single kata. One style of Okinawan karate has over fifty forms in its kata canon. Somebody's wrong here, big time. At least Isshinryu found a middle ground.

None of this is an attempt to one-up another's karate style. Shimabuku would tell his students "All bottles are good; there is no 'best' bottle", a metaphor to express that there may be differences found in karate, but each serves their purpose in their own way.

Tell It To The Marines

The US Marines. The few and the proud. And what better icon than the Corps to infuse the ideologies of karate with? If you think about it, there are some striking similarities between Marine Corps life and certain aspects of karatedo: rank, title, warfare, elitism, etc.. It's ironic that the island that was so ravaged during the Pacific War (about half of Okinawa's population was wiped out) would later have its inhabitants teach the hitherto secrets of karate to the very forces that nearly destroyed them only a decade earlier. It took three months for the Allied powers to capture the tiny Okinawa in 1945, an island barely the size of two US counties. By the 1950s some of her indigenous karate masters began instructing American military in the art of self defense. At this point, karate was just a word. There was also a great deal of mystery and cynicism at the time regarding Asians, and in particular, the martial arts. When one young recruit wrote home to tell his fiancee that he was taking karate as part of his military hitch on Okinawa, his girl freaked. "Stop taking that stuff, it'll turn you into a killer!"

The time was right for Okinawans to teach karate to US troops. The mid-to-late 50s was a period of rare peace in American history. The martial ways tend to thrive during peacetime in many cultures because of its philosophical core values. American boys growing up during the 40s listened with rapt awe and admiration to the great battles that were waged for the sake of global freedom and justice. World War II was strongly depicted as the epic fight of good vs. evil. War is full of glamor and romance to the dreamy macho neophyte. So what is a young recruit to do during otherwise boring and unglamorous peacetime? Enter the martial arts.

Tatsuo Shimabuku was one of a handful of karate instructors contracted by the US government to teach Marines stationed on Okinawa. Okinawan sensei, most of them diminutive in stature, must have had their work cut out for them when they first started instructing these young bucks. At 5'2, 125 pounds, Shimabuku was hardly an imposing physical presence to the average 18 - 21 year old American Marine. More than once, karate's effectiveness was put to the test because some jarhead thought he could one-up the master. For Shimabuku, many techniques had to be instantly adjusted and modified to work with trainees that were nearly a foot taller than himself. All in a day's work, as he was compensated for his services with three-hundred American dollars per month starting in 1955. One could only imagine how that figure would translate into today's economy. Teaching karate to the Marines - not a bad gig for the retired farmer who survived one of the bloodiest battles in history.

Different Ways, Same Path

The martial arts. There are few areas of interest available that offer such rich and diverse subject matter. This is one of the reasons I love writing about them, but ironically, this can become a pitfall. It's easy to delve into related areas such as psychology, ethics, and even esoterica and get so far removed from the original topic of the martial arts that they are no longer being addressed. A case in point is the problem of accurately defining what the martial arts are. The soaring popularity of tai chi and mixed martial arts (MMA) fighting contests, for example, make it clear that certain disciplines that are given the generic label of "martial arts" are neither martial nor artistic. Internal styles such as tai chi tend to draw a pacifistic following that want nothing to do with combative fighting methods or racking up a collection of tournament trophies. Equally, an MMA fighter has little or no interest in meditation, chi, or adopting a canon of philosophical tenets in accordance with bushido. The modern martial arts, as I see it, have as much to do with the ways of fighting as they do with certain concepts unrelated to fighting. Bujutsu (martial arts) and budo (the martial path) are two sides of the same coin. The problem arises when exponents from these camps see as what they do as being exclusive, and lines are drawn.

A similar schism that exists in the martial arts concerns the time-honored traditional ways versus the eclectic schools of mixed-martial arts. An Isshinryu karate school I once visited had a sign up that read "We Teach Traditional Karate". Isshinryu was systemized in the 1950s. Can something that's been around for just half a century be categorized as "traditional"? Actually, its founder, Shimabuku, wanted to do away with the stagnation of tradition in creating a progressive style of karate. The advent of mixed-martial arts were influenced by Asian combative systems and are seen as something new. Yet the ancient Greeks had developed a combative sport called pankration that documents training methods and techniques that bear a striking similarity to the current mixed-martial arts methods that are in vogue today.

The more things change, the more they stay the same.

The Gift

Ed McGrath had only wanted one thing. It was his goal when he first started training in Isshinryu karate: to make it to brown belt. Brown belts, apparently, stood out as the most determined and spirited fighters in the dojo he trained at. Eventually he did achieve the rank of ikkyu (brown belt). He had been training at that level for some time when one day after finishing a round of basics, the chief instructor, Don Nagle, had everyone sit down. McGrath and another student were told to get up and were motioned to the center of the deck.

Hajime!

One by one he was made to fight every student in the school. The year was 1959, and during karate's formitive years in the States, kumite was rough-and-tumble. Punches and kicks were rarely pulled, and knockouts were common. It should come as no surprise then that karate's ultimate rite of passage - the black belt test - was a brutal affair. After over twenty grueling matches, Ed McGrath was promomted to shodan (1st degree black belt). Master Nagle presented him with his own obi (belt) - the same one given to him a few years earlier by his sensei - Isshinryu's founder, Tatsuo Shimabuku.

Ed McGrath eventually opened his own school, and in time gave away his black belt to one of his own senior students. Through the years, Don Nagle's original obi was passed down through one generation after another of dedicated students, each one realizing its significance. When Master Nagle passed away in 1999, the last student to receive this belt returned it to the Nagle family.

In any act of giving or self-sacrifice we somehow gain something. I've never expected anything in return for all the belts I've given away. But I still have my original black belt and white belt. During his final days, Jigoro Kano - judo's illustrious founder and progenitor of the colored belt ranking system, asked to be buried with his white belt. "You can have my black belt; wear it proudly", he told one of his students. "Where I'm going, we're all white belts anyway."

...we have only what we (can) give. - Carl Jung

The Natural

Chuck Norris once remarked that he preferred to coach a student with shortcomings in ability, as opposed to the trainee who is inherently talented. Some are more inclined to do martial arts than others, and this is true with all endeavors. On the average, it takes five to seven years to achieve a black belt in most systems, but there are those who can do it in considerably less time. Norris tested for black belt after a year, but it should be pointed out that his tang soo do sessions lasted five hours and were held six days per week. Paying dues through arduous training is part of the martial way. Woody Allen's rule that "80 percent of success is just showing up" really applies to just about anything one wishes to pursue. Sometimes discipline is just being able to arrive at the dojo.

Should someone be allowed to move up through the ranks quicker than the next person just because they're more naturally inclined? The idea of having a novice around who gets techniques down pat on the first try, and can whip most of the people in the school (regardless of rank) doesn't always go over big. Don Nagle, as a white belt stationed on Okinawa during his US military stint, routinely razed local black belts in kumite. This gave tremendous credibility to his teacher and the maverick style of Isshinryu, but truth be told, Nagle probably would have excelled in any karate style.

There's no guarantee that innate ability will carry you far in the martial arts. The opposite is also true: Perceived liabilities cannot hold anyone back. We all have talents and special abilities that are meant to be realized and shared. Even if we're not the best at what we do, we each have a distinct way of expressing that which makes us unique. But being prodigious at something usually comes at a cost. Nagle's sensei, Shimabuku, advised him to stop visiting other dojos to issue challenge matches. He wasn't welcome there anymore.