...Kyusho or Kata?
OK so which came first... ?
The egg or embryonic (Kyusho) must come first to multiply into many celled organisms (Kata).
Forms or Katas were developed around the knowledge or discovery of the weaker anatomical structures, functions and possibilities. And the following "Styles" were created from this base knowledge. This is where most (even upper level) Kyusho people get it confused.
Trying to force a universal and natural knowledge into a man made tool is not the efficient or natural method… developing the tool around the natural laws, structures and physical ability or limitations is.
It more logical to see that the targets (or goals) came first, then the postures or procedures to access them and then the patterns of all ideas were linked into the forms or Kata. Who would spend their valuable allotted life time into creating random moves of the body, then spending more of that time figuring out waht they could do with them? It is far more natural and efficient to develop a movement to access, utilize or leverage upon the goal. - Do not put Kyusho in your Kata, the Kata must evolve around your understanding of Kyusho.
If you take a specific action, posture or series of movements (the chicken or development of many cells into a complex structure) and work to place Kyusho into them, yes it will enhance the actions (in theory until actually applied), but you have limited yourself to that reality until you have thought up (or someone else thought up for you to copy), another scenario. Another way to look at this is if an instructor teaches you a Bunkai, you are not realizing your potential... you are merely mimicking the actions of theirs and a sure recipe for failure under stress of attack because it is not your natural tendency (physical, mental or spiritual). The more unnatural and complex the action, the more probability for failure under test.
By learning a target or several targets, working the correct angles and dynamics via spontaneous and stress oriented training you are developing a singularity of infinite possibility (the egg or the original entity). So then when you do "YOUR" Kata, your natural methods, tendencies and capabilities will come to life automatically as the actions you have already performed and "felt", come to life. This is a crucial factor in Kata that many miss.
Most perform the Kata and try to invent actions or scenarios to make it plausible or give a meaning to that practiced action... the instructor then forces the student to remember this via much practice again ingraining a foreign aspect into their way. But instead if you train a target correctly, placed yourself under stressful single and or multiple attack learning to access that target, you have felt the actually concussion of your weapon into that target, felt the other give way and have done this many times... then when you do a Kata and that move that your natural body actions has developed for itself and felt in actuality it will become a reality even in real attack.
You may also consider if we are trying to uncover a body of deeper knowledge from the past, we need to work with the actions created in the past for that realization... not create or re-create our own. So we look at the original documents of that knowledge of the human anatomy from many "Styles" and see a common singular (Egg) core and then the evolutionary (Chicken) process will unfold.... it is the Egg (Kyusho) that was first.
The simple begets the complex, the complex hides the simple.
-ep
Being taught a bunkai application IMHO is a road in, and more about learning and mimicking a technique as one is engaged on the path of learning. In itself, offer practical solutions but shouldn’t be seen by any learner as the end goal, but more a stepping stone to becoming a master at your skill.
The underlying and supporting theme I am appreciating here is about first learning technique, then ascending to operating from principles to have more freedom, choices and ultimately…control.
Cybernetics states that “The unit within the system with the most behavioural responses available to it controls the system.”
Yes it is a road sir, but it also can become a labyrinth that is difficult to impossible for most to escape.
If you start with the premise of first understanding the anatomy with it’s strengths and weaknesses, you will be forever free of set paradigm. By first learning the actions of another it reduces the mental creativity of self and if learned for long periods, almost impossible to escape.
First learning adapting to any spontaneous presentation will allow a continual and open way forward… also just my opinion… but realized in experience.
PS: Ephemeralization, a term coined by R. Buckminster Fuller, is the ability of technological advancement to do “more and more with less and less until eventually you can do everything with nothing”.
What usually happens in the educational process is that the faculties are dulled, overloaded, stuffed and paralyzed so that by the time most people are mature they have lost their innate capabilities.
We are called to be architects of the future, not its victims.
R. Buckminster Fuller
I like that thinking…both yours and that of Mr Fuller!
Your reply comments to your blogs are often full of more gems than the original post!
Thanks for that!
And yes I agree with you. Kata was a man made practice to achieve many functions, e.g., a memory aid, a teaching tool, a method of hiding a system of knowledge that could be practiced and passed on in a discriminant way.
Yet, in consideration of this, the kata like any model has a limitation and that limitation is it’s own model. Kata as a model sets its own boundaries of what it contains and doesn’t contain, can do and can’t do as a body of knowledge and foundation of practice.
That is all in how it is practiced… when I created the Kyusho curriculum, it was a complete separation and devoid of Kata.
When I finished and looked back at the first 9 levels, I saw all was actions from Nai Han Chi… go figure.
SO was it the Kata that was developed first or was it the Targeting… I also have over 20 other Katas I work daily… so what was my natural development actually mimicked only one of them… because it jived with my instinct and natural actions.
The Kyusho found my Kata, I did not select it and no one selected it for me… Just my experience.
But I did find that by allowing others to move naturally for themselves as opposed to having them work techniques from an outside source, the learning curve went down substantially, they picked up the targeting and ability with Kyusho much faster… this has since been refined several steps as well, but all natural and 100% organic!
So get the targeting down primary, then (if kata is part of your practice), allow for instinct and actions to put the kyusho in the kata?
Dean understanding the strengths, weaknesses in both yourself and the opponent (in Kyusho through anatomical weakness),this is primary.
First one should be trained in mobile target acquisition, then increase the stress levels, then realize what they can do most readily through their natural body actions and responses.
Once they understand what weapons, actions, targets they are most acclimated to, they need to apply them and feel the body collapse from them.
When the actual feeling is embedded (they should also feel it t gain the inner man, but a subject fora later discussion), then they will also feel it each time they make that move, even in the air as when the do their Kata, thus Kyusho is not put in their Kata, their Kata comes alive with Kyusho (or they put the Kata in Kyusho).