The Way of Least Resistance

Introduction One of the most commonly heard criticisms of karate that I hear among internal martial artists relates to the humble rising block. You’d think that such a common, garden-variety technique that is so demonstrably effective would be common to all traditional martial arts. And to some extent it is. However there is a school of thought in some internal arts schools that would suggest otherwise. It is an approach that seems, at first glance, to be highly persuasive. But despite its kernel of truth, I believe the criticism ultimately comprises flawed dogma. Let us examine the criticism in detail: Criticisms of the karate rising block In karate the basic age/jodan uke is performed by facing your attack “head-on”. My emphasis on “basic” is important – I shall explain why later. The second thing to note about the karate rising block is that the forearm rises first, followed by the shoulder girdle (I discuss the basic karate technique in this article). It is this second p...

My good friend Zach Zinn asked the following question on the Tradtional Fighting Arts Forum : "Do you think maybe age-uke is just Goju's hiki-uke done higher than normally seen? I find myself performing it more like hiki-uke most of the time and it works fine, and since age-uke is notably absent from every koryu Goju kata, it makes me wonder what is being said by it's presence in the first kata usually taught." I think the age uke and hike uke are very different in their basic form, but they do approach each other when applied... Age uke is a basic rendering of haiwan nagashi uke - the block one sees with the simultaneous upper block and punch as is found in long fist, taiji, bagua, xingyi etc. The key difference between this block and the age uke is that the body turns (at least to some extent) to let the attacker's momentum be deflected sideways, not just directly up. This is the case even with pao quan from xingyi (where the " simultaneous " punch is...

Like most other karateka, practitioners of goju ryu faithfully practise the standard age uke (rising block) during basics training. They will apply it in ippon kumite (one-step sparring), "find" it in kata bunkai (application analysis) and desperately try to apply it in sparring. But is it really a goju technique? What karateka call "age uke" is really a basic shorin technique. The only kata in which it is found are the 2 gekisai forms, developed and introduced by Miyagi in the early 1940s as basic kata for school children. Prior to that one wonders whether it was even practised in goju dojos... This question has lately led me on a journey to discover whether goju ryu has its "own" rising block. What did goju/naha te practitioners use for defences to head height attacks before age uke was incorporated into the syllabus? As summarised in the video below, I feel that the answer is to be found in goju's famous "mawashi uke" or roundhouse bl...