There was a friendship between the founder of Taikiken and of Kyokushin Karate that blossomed into much cross training between the best fighters of both groups, which had an additional effect.
The documentary is below. Enjoy.
Sometimes, I’m surprised that some long-time Tai Chi practitioners still struggle to understand how to decipher Tai Chi postures for practical applications. They often wonder how a specific movement in the form can be used in actual combat. Some postures appear more frequently in books and videos for application demonstrations, perhaps because they seem more straightforward or are considered iconic signatures of Tai Chi. Regardless of the exact posture, the applications shown in most books and videos tend to be quite rudimentary and superficial.
I believe most martial arts-oriented Tai Chi practitioners focus on push hands as their primary combat practice over the years. Many teachers don’t emphasize specific application practice in their curriculums. They might demonstrate an application here and there, especially if asked about a particular posture, but even teachers who are skilled in using Tai Chi for real combat often don’t incorporate application practice into their regular classes.
However, I don’t point out this as a criticism. In fact, I do have respect for many teachers who don’t believe in regular applications practice. Usually, and how you commonly see applications practiced and demonstrated, both practice and demonstration misses the mark of how Tai Chi really works. Even in classical Tai Chi books by famous masters, applications mostly only show a brief idea of how a posture could be used, and does not really reflect how the same master would actually use Tai Chi in a real situation.
So there might be reasons, but I am still puzzled about how the practical knowledge of applications even amongst senior long-time practitioners sometimes seems quite limited. Because, in my own opinion and experience, if you understand how Tai Chi is actually used in fighting and self-defense situations, you should be able to easily interpret any Tai Chi movement or posture into a vast amount of applications.
Tai Chi forms are highly compact. Performed as a continuous, flowing movement where different postures seamlessly blend into one another, it can be difficult to discern where one posture begins or ends – and even harder to grasp where one “application” starts or stops. Beginners, in particular, often struggle to interpret the movements. They might be accustomed to watching other martial arts styles or traditional forms (kata), which feature more distinct, segmented movements. As a result, they may find it hard to understand why and how Tai Chi has been designed in such a fluid way.
While Tai Chi is compact, its very compactness and flow introduce a level of simplification. I’m not referring to ‘simplified Tai Chi’ variations, but rather to the form itself, which conceals and distills certain movements. Why is this the case? This philosophy of simplification is rooted in the tradition of Chinese aesthetics and arts. While I won’t go into too many examples, Chinese calligraphy provides the most obvious parallel. In calligraphy, there are various writing and painting styles, not only for different occasions but also to represent the skill level of the artist, from beginner to master.
A friend asked me to contrast seitei systems and koryu systems in Japanese budo, and their relative benefits and drawbacks. “Seitei” are standardized systems, generally practiced by large organizations that intend to create a common standard for rank testing and competitions. “Koryu” are classical systems, generally defined as having been founded prior to the end of the Tokugawa Shogunate in 1868. Seitei are used by organizations that can be global in reach, such as the International Judo Federation, the International Kendo Federation and the International Naginata Federation. Koryu are generally small groups ranging from fewer than 10 people, to a few hundred or a thousand.
The advantages of standardized training systems are straightforward. Everyone knows what is expected. The syllabus and the path to promotion are clearly defined. Since it is standardized, you know that anywhere you go in the organization, people will be doing the same thing in the same way, and that your experience and rank will be respected. Because the decisions about rank are made by the organization, you should be able to clearly see and define differences between ranks. If you run into a personality issue in one dojo, it is not difficult to move to another dojo training the same curriculum. The biggest benefit is that there are many people pushing against each other to improve, so there is a great deal of experimentation in how to teach things, and successful techniques are shared widely, making the teaching ever more effective. A similar benefit for the art is that people are naturally competitive, comparing themselves to others in the organization and finding more ways that they can improve. Actual competition deserves its own essay.
Koryu is the antithesis of a standardized practice. There have been thousands of koryu throughout history, and there may be a couple of hundred that remain today. They each have their own prescribed kata, and the variety is amazing. Not just unarmed combat, sword arts and naginata (similar to a glaive), but somewhere in the syllabus of one of these koryu you’re likely to find methods for fighting with nearly anything that was recorded as being a weapon in Japanese history. Koryu are personal rather than organizational. Koryu’s strength is actually this lack of standardization. The kata are there, but they are not carved in stone, or even really printed on paper. Koryu grow and evolve as their practitioners explore new ideas and pathways. Different groups doing koryu of the same origin are free to go in different directions. This flexibility and adaptability mean that healthy koryu never stop evolving. It is much easier for a koryu to modify or add to its syllabus than it is for a large organization where everything is codified and overseen by committees that have to come to agreement about how things will be done. Koryu can adapt quickly to changes in the world around them.
Large,
standardized, organizations are large, standardized, organizations.
This means that they come with all the baggage of any large
bureaucracy. There are internal politics and petty fights to satisfy
petty egos. They tend to be rigid and have difficulty with change,
even when the path they’re on is clearly heading off a cliff. All
that standardization that makes it possible for people to freely
train with each other also tends to drive things down narrower and
narrower roads. The effort to match the ideal of the standardized
kata often means that anything that strays from that limited model is
deemed “wrong”. This makes cross-training difficult because you
will be criticized for anything that bleeds through from other
systems, styles, or schools into the standardized set. I find this a
particular issue because I sincerely believe that martial arts whose
practitioners don’t cross-train are doomed to fade and die in
weakness and irrelevancy. Cross
training
in
martial arts isn’t optional. It’s necessary.
Frequent contributor Jonathan Bluestein as a close friend of Master Kernspecht and gave a eulogy at his funeral, which is below.
A guest post by Mr Bluestein on the Wing Chun of Master Kernspecht may be found here.
... The design of Japanese garments was not primitive or ‘quaint’, and so it is with the keikogi; which ironically was a compromise between western fashion and Japanese practicality.
The man responsible – Judo’s Kano Jigoro.
Some time between 1882 and 1889 Kano made a design decision to standardise a practical training uniform for judoka. This was based on three main reasons:
1 Universality, regardless of cost.
Kendo already had training gear; students and schoolkids, who wanted to train, were having to access the armour, hakama, shinai etc, and lug it around, it all came at a price. The Keikogi for judo was deliberately light enough (as was feasible) to just bundle up and launder as needed.
However, there was a wider influence that came from the western ideas of fashion and clothing that were entering Japan at the time.
The predominant white colour was not symbolic, it was just the natural colour of the cotton (and perhaps a useful motivator to keep it clean?)
The uniform made everyone the same; it was supposed to eliminate any hint of status. Over time, master Kano himself wore the same keikogi as even his lowest students.
2 Reputation and forging a brand identity.
This was all part of modernisation. Kano was a progressive and a universalist, he understood how the rest of the world was operating in the fields of sports and physical culture. In the west, teams had identifying kit, standard in colour and design; it made a statement about who they are and what they meant. It still goes on today.
Walk into any sports centre and you can usually see how people are dressed tells you what they are there for. (All those white uniforms; must be some form of karate?)
3 Safety and technical convenience.
There were all manner of design considerations that meant the judo keikogi was going to support the intentions of the practice of the art/sport and make life easier for the practitioner. To explain this in detail it’s worth taking some parts of the uniform to pieces and look at their component parts.
The jacket.
Historically, this was based upon a long-existing outer garment worn as part of standard dress for anyone from farmers to Japanese firefighters; this was the Hanten/Uwagi.
Kendo guys had already developed a robust cotton version, one held together tidily with ties. These ties would just not work in judo, as the rough and tumble would just tear them off; but karate people kept them, and just changed the position to the side vents (and still they get ripped off).
In judo, the collar and lapel were designed as one continuous piece. This part of the jacket became crucial and enhanced performance and intention (grips on collar and lapel). These lapels were deliberately thick and multi-stitched.
There are surviving examples of jackets belonging to Kano (kept in a museum) and one of his top students, Saigo Shiro, these have amazingly robust lapels, almost like a rope. ...
...
Why did karate go in the same direction?
It’s obviously really; judo as being at the vanguard of progressive cultural thinking was the model for others to follow. If karate wanted to be accepted in the Japanese constellation of institutional Budo it needed to adopt the image of modernisation to be able to present itself to the outside world; and it worked.
Early pictures of Okinawan karate showed them basically training in their pants; rather like Chinese Gung Fu stylists from the earlier era were just in their street clothes (monks were different). The underwear-clad Okinawans needed to get with the picture and modernise if they were to be taken seriously.
The karate keikogi was allowed to be of lighter cotton, not needing to suffer the push, pull and tug of judo. And then came the sash, the obi, the belt.
My name is Jonathan Bluestein. I am an Israeli Jew, and an interdisciplinary scholar. My main areas of expertise are in the fields of Traditional Martial Arts, Traditional Chinese Medicine and Chinese Philosophy. I am also versed in various other areas of study, such as Middle Eastern and World History, Jungian Personality Psychology and Law. The exciting and fascinating subject of Chinese Astrology, interfaces quite well with my other areas of study. Thus, in the year 2024, I embarked on a mission to learn more about it, via meticulous research. As I have often done with my prior learning ventures, I have found that writing about a thing makes for a splendid way to become intimately familiar with it. This book before you here, presents with the fruits of those efforts. The tome which is in your possession, is a work-in-progress. I have intentionally and happily made it available for anyone to copy, share and distribute freely, as long as changes are not made. Newer versions of this work, shall be released periodically. Over time, I hope to include in it, dedicated chapters for a total of 60 years of astrological analysis and interpretation. Why 60 years, you might ask? That question shall be answered clearly and succinctly, in the next chapter. This book is neither an experiment in fortune-telling, nor an instrument for gaining material or spiritual advantages. It is a deep and captivating exploration of how Chinese Astrology can be used as a practical medium for the betterment of people’s everyday lives.Iwould like to thank fellow scholar and Chinese Astrology expert, Gregory David Done, for his fine work in this field. I have often been inspired by his writings and insights, and this is reflected in the text before you here.
Anything written by either of these authors is worth reading.
An excerpt is below. The full post may be read here.
The short treatise, translated into English, was on the nature of budō. It was written by a very senior exponent of classical koryu. I knew him. He was among the most erudite—and physically talented—budōka I’ve ever encountered. I have paid attention to every word he’s said and written. He made the point in the essay, one that was an overview of some of his opinions and beliefs, that in the end the ultimate goal of all traditional budō was to “establish peace.”
The notion is hardly unique, of course. We read it, we hear in the dōjō similar sentiments all the time. Curious about it though, I found the same essay online in the original Japanese. The same line in Japanese used the word junjo (順序) for what was translated as “peace.” Which is not at all the same thing. Junjo means “to put things in order.” And that, to paraphrase Robert Frost, makes all the difference.
The concept of peace is perhaps one of the more ubiquitous we encounter in discussing traditional Japanese arts. The etymologically inclined have broken down the kanji for “bu” (武) into two radicals that demonstrate how it actually means “to stop a spear,” implying that peace is indeed the righteous, lofty, and true goal of these cultural enterprises. Budō, the “Way of Martial Art,” we are reliably informed by dozens of writers on the subject, is really the Way of Peace. Martial arts writing and advertising is loaded, of course, with all manner of references to the ideal “peaceful warrior.” We are reminded again and again that the “true warrior” never has to draw his sword and that the greatest actualization of budō is in generating a kind of halcyon social order where conflict never arises or is addressed in a deeply humanitarian way.
Nor is budō alone among Japan’s pre-modern arts in this emphasis. The 45th headmaster of the Ikenobo school of flower arranging, Sen’ei Ikenobo, made a presentation a few years ago at the United Nations, a demonstration entitled “Peace Through Floral Expression.”
The previous headmaster of the Urasenke school of tea adopted the expression “peacefulness in a bowl of tea” as both a kind of personal motto and a statement of commission for his students worldwide. Of the four cardinal virtues of chadō, the first in fact, is wa, which is sometimes translated as “harmony,” but also as “peace.”
It is worthwhile in contemplating this phenomenon to consider a study done some years ago, an in-depth look at the motivations of chajin—practitioners of the tea ceremony. Both Western and Japanese students were interviewed. Both groups enthusiastically emphasized the idea of peacefulness and harmony as a primary reason they were involved and absorbed in the art.
Later, the researcher returned and dug a bit deeper. Exactly what, he wanted to know, do you mean by “peace?” Here, there was a marked contrast. Western students overwhelming described the peacefulness of the tea ceremony as the mental state they achieved within themselves. They felt more centred and calm, more able to deal with life’s stresses from a balanced connexion within, more apt to live with a placid sense of self. The process of chadō was, in part at least, a ritual of meditation for them, deeply personal and self-actualized. The Japanese students, however, explained that by “peace” they were referring to establishing and maintaining a sense of order within the group. They did not perceive it as a self-centred idea but rather as the foundation of a mutually beneficial matrix of others.
Same word, two largely different meanings. There should be a clue here for the serious practitioner of any traditional Japanese art. The reality is that “peace” does not readily translate as a concept nor are the implications of the word universal. This is particularly true in the case of Japanese culture.
The Art of Manliness blog as some thoughts on this. An excerpt is below. The full post may be read here.
When it comes to keeping your New Year’s resolutions, you probably think you know the secret to success.
Whether you’ve resolved to lose weight, eat better, use your time more effectively, or even to amor fati, you’ve simply got to get more disciplined.
Right?
Certainly, discipline plays a crucial role in making any mindset or behavioral change. We’ve said as much ourselves.
But the exact nature of this need for discipline is frequently misunderstood.
When most of us think of changing our lives, we think we need to become a more disciplined person. To increase our level of discipline permanently, indefinitely.
The problems with this idea, however, are two-fold, and partly account for why so few people are able to keep their resolutions longer than a few weeks.
First, it’s incredibly difficult to permanently increase your level of discipline, which is a disposition that seems to be semi-fixed and innate. Just as our weight has a default “set point” that it wants to return to despite effort to put on or take off pounds, our discipline seems to have a set point which it wants to snap back to as well. That doesn’t mean discipline can’t be developed and enhanced in strength, it’s just an extremely arduous task in which change is measured incrementally rather than by large leaps and bounds.
Second, living a more disciplined life, forever, is an incredibly daunting prospect — both practically and psychologically.
Trying to permanently live at a higher level of discipline is like running a long-distance race of indeterminate length. When your legs ache and you feel like you can’t go on, you call out to those on the sidelines, “How much further to the finish?” To which they reply, “We don’t know. A long ways though. Just keep going.” The idea of continuing on at the same pace seems impossible, and with no end in sight, all your motivation drains away and you throw in the towel.
Below, he is demonstrating Irimi Nage. Enjoy.
So I am now approaching the one-year boundary to taking my 7th dan
grading in Iaido and achieving Level 10 Paladin status (with a +8 vorpal
blade to boot). Naturally this means I now have to focus on the
important things in life to prepare:
But we are imperfect people. There was an article on Thoughts on Tai Chi regarding how we imperfect people can progress through our imperfect practice. An excerpt is below. The full post may be read here.
So, what about Tai Chi? What is the value of imperfection, and how can you apply these ideas? First of all, some traditional Tai Chi teachers argue that striving for perfection while practicing Tai Chi creates more obstacles than it does improvements. I agree with this, especially when it comes to trying to perfect every detail.
Focusing too much on the “perfection” of the final posture in each movement, trying to replicate your teacher’s exact appearance, or obsessing over how things should look points to a shallow mindset and indicates that the person is focusing on the wrong things.
Instead, your focus should be internal. You should aim to feel and become aware of your movements and internal state. Your mind-body connection is what truly matters for developing internal awareness. You will be able to sense where your movements have “gaps” and “weaknesses,” but what you feel won’t always directly impact the visual appearance of the form. Developing smoothness and balance in the movements certainly will, but again, these real qualities are brought forward by focusing on the internal state and maintaining awareness in each moment – not by external corrections of the form.
Another aspect of focusing too much on imperfection is that it can make your Tai Chi feel “double weighted” or “double heavy.” In Tai Chi Chuan, it is crucial to separate Yin and Yang. But what does this mean in practical terms? It means that one side of the body leads, while the other follows. One side is “weak” or empty, while the other is “strong” or full.
This separation should also influence your focus and awareness of movement and posture. If you try to balance everything equally or maintain the same focus on both sides, you will block yourself. Your movements will become forced, and you will prevent yourself from moving smoothly and freely.
In fact, we could say that a certain imperfection in the balance between the two sides of the body creates smoothness and freedom in movement. Because of this aspect of practice, it becomes easier to let your body make decisions by itself and move more naturally, as it wants. This is also what the masters refer to when they speak of developing “natural movements”—something impossible if you try to force yourself and your movements.
This article explores five distinct types of Jin (trained force) used in Tai Chi Chuan’s striking methods. While Tai Chi Chuan includes the concept of the “five fists,” referring to the five punching techniques in the traditional Yang-style long form, the actual repertoire of striking methods within the art is far more extensive. Here, however, we will not focus on these “five fists” but rather on five unique qualities or flavors of Jin, which operate independently of specific striking techniques.
Toward the end of the article, I will delve deeper into the nature of Jin, its underlying principles, and share insights into my personal approach to developing and applying it.
In Tai Chi, the term jin is commonly used and often translated as “energy.” However, in my opinion, “refined strength” is a more accurate and appropriate translation. When discussing attacking power, the term fajin is frequently used. This is a general term encompassing various types of power based on the principle of storing and releasing energy. Most often, fajin refers either to a quick, explosive release of power or a whole-body shaking movement, which can produce a notably powerful and impactful expression.
In general, when discussing striking in Tai Chi, the focus is more on differentiating various types of “refined strength” (jin) rather than specific punching or striking techniques. These different qualities of jin can be applied across a wide range of striking methods, using different hand shapes, fist forms, or even the elbow or shoulder. This versatility allows practitioners to adapt the same refined strength to diverse techniques and applications.
However, the terminology for different types of striking jin – “energy” or refined strength – in Tai Chi Chuan varies greatly across styles, lineages, and individual teachers. There is no universal standard. Some teachers emphasize only the general term fajin, while others use a wide range of terms to describe distinct qualities of power. These qualities reflect differences in mechanics, body structure, and movement organization, highlighting the depth and variety within Tai Chi’s approach to striking.
Through my study, reading, and practical experience, I have concluded that there are five basic types of jin used for striking power in Tai Chi Chuan. To clarify, although the different names of each jin is explained by various teachers and authors, the concept of “five jins” is not something I have encountered in any specific text or tradition, nor do I know if others use the same categorization. This is simply my own way of summarizing the most common terms that various teachers from different styles use to describe their striking methods.
After studying a wide range of texts, both historical and contemporary, I have identified the five most commonly mentioned types of jin as described by various masters and teachers. These five terms encapsulate the most essential types of power developed in Taijiquan. The five types of jin are:
I am prompted to revisit this topic after viewing this video of Tada Hiroshi, a remarkable 94 year old aikido instructor. For those who like order, you are in trouble. I will live up to my promise of ‘casual’ – this will go all over the place. I’ve got no final point to arrive at–this essay is more like a jazz improv on a basic theme, the latter of which might have been insipid to begin with.
Tada explicitly states that the idea of using this as a training tool
came to him when he found this (or a similar) length of wood in his
garden, a scrap left over from his gardener trimming posts to prop up
trees. He doesn’t reference any other inspiration. Clearly, he is using
it to contribute to the away he does aikido, yet one more training tool.
If we just look at the bang, the Chinese name for the thick short-stick training tool, it would be easy to claim that Tada Hiroshi obviously derived his training implement from traditional Chinese practice. Even if this is true, Tada is clearly doing something very different from Feng Zhiqiang and Chen Yu. The latter two men clearly show exemplars of 六合 (Six Coordinations): the first three being a balancing of forces throughout the body (wrist & ankle, elbow & knee, hips and shoulders) and the latter being jin (intent-driven, whole body coordinated movement, utilizing gravity & ground forces), qi (a method of expressing power through the use of trained connective tissue and no rigid, localized tension in the muscles, cultivated through specific exercises that incorporate the breath) and tanden (the use of the midsection of the body – not “one point” – to distribute the force of the body through the limbs in perfect measure – imagine the tanden as the head of a “quintipus” – with the arms of this imaginary beast extending through the four limbs and the head). This way of using the body is sometimes referred to as Heaven-Earth-Man, although this term is also used to describe a myriad of other ideas. At any rate, if this subject is of interest, particularly regarding its relevance to Japanese martial arts, then, (ahem), I have a book for you. (with translation in French and a new versions in German and Portuguese pending in 2025).
Tada is doing something different. Quite admirable, but different. Tada has always been an athlete, with a body that, even as a young man, reminds one of whalebone: flexibly stiff is the best I can describe it. He is known to have run for miles, and done thousands of suburi with a bokuto, and rigorous chanting/breathing exercises in the Ichiukai, a spartan method of training that combined misogi no kokyū-hō (a Shintō-derived chanting practice) and Zen-style meditation. Its main focus seems to be overcoming human frailty and lack of will: the spirit dominates the body. Tada also trained in Nakamura Tempu’s Shin Shin Toitsu. Nakamura was a bigger-than-life character, with more than a bit of Baron Münchhausen in his personality. The dubious aspects of his own autobiography aside, he was one of the first to bring concepts of yoga to Japan, before orthodox systems were accessible, and he developed a very effective method of breathing for health that influenced the famous aikidō instructor, Tohei Koichi as well as Tada Hiroshi. A comparison of the way Tohei and Tada moved, however, will quickly show that they incorporated the lessons of Nakamura and the Ichiukai (which Tohei also studied) in quite different ways.
Tohei had the ability to relax his massive body so that, in essence, it was as if, at every moment in a technique the point of contact on his partner received him as if a large sack of potatoes dropped onto that locale. Tada is, exactly like he does with the “neri-bō,” twisting his limbs and twisting you. I never took ukemi from Tohei, but I did from several of his leading followers. And I did take a fair amount of ukemi from Tada, and I can testify from personal experience that my descriptions in this paragraph are accurate. Tohei scratched the surface of what I described earlier as Six Coordinations – in particular, his development of certain aspects of qi (ki in Japanese); Tada used the same methodology to become a magnificent athlete, still moving very well at the age of 94.
As I described in several chapters in Hidden In Plain Sight, the influence of Chinese martial arts principles upon the 17th century development of Japanese arts is undeniable. I won’t rewrite that history here, but suffice it to say that those principles became embedded in Japanese martial systems. However, no Chinese system of martial arts was transmitted, and the principles that were received (in partial fashion), were then adapted to the needs of various Japanese martial arts. The best metaphor is that the original teachings, such as they were, were digested and “in-corporated,” becoming something quite different from the original as the centuries passed. By the 19th century, there was lip-service paid within some Japanese arts of Chinese influence, but for the most part, no one could delineate exactly what was passed on. [The major exception was Akiyama Yoshin-ryū), which preserved a set of training exercises, called nairiki no gyō (“internal power exercises”) that they explicitly assert were derived from Chinese training methods].
At the inception of the 20th century, the Japanese were largely ignorant of Chinese martial arts (not military arts, per se – remember, the Chinese and Japanese went to war in 1895, and there were any number of subsequent skirmishes before full-scale war again broke out with the Japanese attack first in Manchuria and then China itself in the 1930’s. During hand-to-hand combat, Japanese troops certainly got the experience of facing Chinese “big knife” sabres]. Kano Jigoro, the founder of jūdō, in one essay, wrote that the main distinguishing factor between the two countries’ martial arts is that Japanese martial arts focused on two-person training, whereas Chinese martial arts were almost exclusively solo training. It is unclear to me (or anyone) if Kano knew more, and he was trying to brush aside Chinese martial arts as being insignificant, or if his knowledge at the time was this sketchy. At any rate, some knowledge of Chinese arts seeped into Japan. According to Andrea Falk, in Li Tianji’s, The Skill of Xingyiquan, “In 1914, a teacher from his (Li Cunyi) associate, Hao Enguang, was the first to introduce xingyi boxing abroad, into Japan.” [So many questions!!!: Did he just do a demonstration as part of some kind of cultural exchange, or did he have students? Wouldn’t it be a delightful twist of history were we able to find a guest list with some significant Japanese martial artists among his students, who then “stole his technique!”].
The diffusion of information about Chinese martial arts into Japan was patchy. Ueshiba Morihei, the famous teacher of aikidō, deeply resented his students practicing jūdō after hours, and yelled that them to stop practicing Shina martial arts. [A couple of layers here – he’s actually referring to the fact that jūdō is derived from Yoshin-ryū and Kitō-ryū, the two jūjutsu systems that most prominently have accounts of Chinese principles incorporated at their origin. Furthermore, Ueshiba, an arch nationalist, used a racist term (there is no argument about this) to refer to China]. Nonetheless, Ueshiba had some contact with Chinese martial arts: In 1936, he visited Takeda Hiroshi in Beijing, Takeda being a well-known Japanese student of tongbeiquan and he is known to have seen some Chinese martial arts during his visits to the colonialist Japanese-run Kenkoku University in the early 1940’s. [NOTE: rather than revive a dead-horse to flog yet again, these visits occurred several decades after Ueshiba had studied Daitō-ryū and consolidated his own version of that martial art, and there is not one scintilla of evidence of any change Ueshiba made in his methodology due to his visits to China].
Sawai Ken’ichi studied tachengquan (AKA Yiquan) in Beijing and brought back his adapted version of this art after the end of World War II. [NOTE: He shared the same instructor, Wang Xiangzhai, as Wang Shujin (to be discussed below). Wang was far more well-rounded, having achieved expertise in xingyiquan, baguazhang and the Nanjing Synthesis form of taijiquan. Both Sawai and Wang taught students on the ground of Meiji Shrine at roughly the same time, and friends of mine, who studied with Wang, said that Sawai would occasionally wander over and berate Wang for wasting time on “all that flowery crap; you should just do Yiquan,” and Wang would laugh and continue doing things as he chose.]
He followed up with another post, which includes some videos. An excerpt is below. The full post may be read here.
We looked at the military rake (kumade) last month, so now it’s time to see how it fared after the long centuries of war came to an end. Perhaps it was its utility that doomed it in the field of war – It didn’t have much mystique or status as a weapon, did not seem particularly attached to any social or military group (unlike the masakari or long handled axe, for example, which was long associated with yamabushi), and without anywhere to realise its use as a weapon, people forgot how useful it could be, and little more is seen or heard of it…as such.
While it doesn’t seem that the kumade made the transition as a weapon into the relatively peaceful Edo period, several weapons were used in civil defense/law enforcement that involved entangling and immobilizing an opponent. These were the triad of sasumata, sodegarami and tsukubo (there are several alternative names, but these are the most common – the fork, the sleeve entangler and the push pole. Matsura Seizan, for example, calls them the sasumata, hineri and shumoku). They were categorized as implements or tools rather than weapons, but their array of short spikes, partly to deter grabbing, would have been capable of causing significant damage, as well as helping to catch and entangle clothing. If you get the chance to see them close up, there is no doubt that you wouldn’t want the business end of any of them near you.
In their use, they could very well have replicated the hooking functions of the rake, and perhaps they were more suitable for use against unarmoured opponents. There doesn’t seem to be much in the way of techniques for these implements that have been passed down, though there are several videos online of people using them in more or less plausible ways.
I would think that anyone reasonably well-versed in the use of pole arms (and jujutsu, perhaps, given their use for restraint) could come up with similar techniques.
These were not the only tools used to subdue unruly lawbreakers. Anyone who has seen the classic film, Daisatsujin Orochi, starring Ichikawa Raizo, will surely remember the scene where the lone swordsman is confronted by a crowd of constables who attempt to capture him using ropes, doors two-wheeled wooden wagons and ladders (as well was some of the more usual implements just visible in the bottom of the frame below. (This is well worth watching in any case – one of my favourite Japanese movies. it's English title is The Betrayal).
Though this
approach may seem to be a relic of the past, a modern iteration of the
sasumata is still a common piece of equipment in schools (and police
stations) in Japan (and also in China apparently – I saw one in evidence
in a news report about one of the recent mass stabbing incidents) and
has occasionally been deployed successfully. It offers the ability to
hold off a knife wielding attacker while remaining at a safe distance.
Techniques have been designed to give it more flexibility in use, and it
looks as if it could, indeed, be quite effective, especially if it is
part of a coordinated effort involving several people.
Japanese actor Keita Arai helps you to make the correct choice in the following video. Enjoy.
