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OYO
Beyond
bunkai
As with all
martial arts, the art of Shotokan Karate is based on
certain underlying fundamentals.
These
fundamentals are themselves the "backbone" of
Shotokan Karate and they include a wide variety of
stances, blocks, strikes, and kicks, just to name a few.
When used in
conjunction with each other and properly combined with
balance, posture, speed, and timing, these fundamentals
give an experienced student a seemingly endless array of
defensive and offensive combinations to choose from.
Because it is
upon these fundamentals that everything else in Shotokan
Karate is based, very little flexibility is permitted in
their specific performance or placement, especially when
they are employed in the various kata taught within the
Shotokan syllabus.
It is when a
student learns to apply a kata's pre-determined defensive
and offensive movements against a specific partner that
the kata's true nature is revealed and a method of
training known as bunkai is born.
Bunkai can be
described as "the physical demonstration, of a
practical application, for each of the various techniques
and movements that are required to be performed within an
individual kata".
The importance
of bunkai can not be stressed enough, since it is through
this method of training that students are afforded the
opportunity to learn to apply their fundamental
techniques against a pre-planned attack while still
within the confines of a controlled and friendly
environment. The presence of a person in place of thin
air, however, will add a whole new dimension to a
student's training, often as not causing them in the
early stages to loose their focus and at the same time
undermining their self-confidence.
For these
reasons and many others most junior ranks never delve to
deeply into bunkai, and in failing to do so they deprive
themselves of the many skills that this type of training
instils.
For those
adventuresome senior students, however, who have
established a firm foothold on the concept of bunkai as
required for all twenty-six katas, there is another path
they can seek to walk that goes one step further.
This is the
exploration of "oyo".
"Oyo"
in turn can best be described as "going beyond
bunkai".
By that I mean a
student demonstrating the bunkai for a specific kata is
somewhat limited. Since in most cases their applications
will be based as we already know on a specific series of
movements done in a pre-described order. This then forces
the student to deal with the assumption that there are
multiple attackers, in which case they are usually
limited to one block, one attack or one combination for
each movement of the kata, before having to turn and deal
with the next attacker.
Bunkai therefore
allows the student to demonstrate the proper flow of the
kata but usually nothing further.
In oyo, however,
the student is free to treat each individual attack as a
one on one fight, which by necessity will need to be
taken to an ultimate and definitive end. Thus oyo goes
one step beyond bunkai by following through with
techniques and applications that might be more practical
in a one on one situation where there was no need to
continue on in a pre-specified pattern.
It is this
freedom to "choose what comes next" and "just
how far you take it" that allows the student to deal
with an individual attacker in a way that feels "most
natural" for them when given no preconceived
restrictions. It is then the type and the severity of
each situation that dictates what fundamentals are
selected and how firmly they are applied.
Where as in
bunkai you go from one attacker to the next with the
lingering prospect that the attacker you just dealt with
may not be "out of action". Oyo on the other
hand puts an end to that possibility by finishing what
was started in a manner that in no uncertain terms
renders any further action by the attacker highly
unlikely.
So practice your
kata well, learn to understand where bunkai fits into
your training, and when you want to explore a little more
deeply try giving oyo a go. You may be surprised at that
you discover on the next rung of the karate ladder.
"Karate ni
sente nashi" - "there is no first strike in
karate" a good defence, however, is another matter
altogether.
- Remember
- Doing
what feels natural to you is the
- difference
between thinking and reacting.
-
- Part
the clouds - see the way.
-
- "The
objective of karate-do is to contribute to the evolution
- of
the human spirit through physical and mental training."
- Sensei
Peter Lindsay
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