As a result of his excellent post, which I've posted an excerpt here; The Budo Bum recently published a guest post by Tobin Threadgill, who is a senior practitioner of Shindo Yoshin-Ryu. An excerpt from the guest post is below. The full post may be read here.
---
I am honored to share this essay by Tobin Threadgill Sensei of Takamura Ha Shindo Yoshin Ryu, written in reaction to my essay Budo Isn’t Finished. I deeply appreciate him allowing me to share this here. P.B.
by Tobin Threadgill
Transmission of knowledge in a koryu budo can be challenging. No headmaster can transmit 100% of what they know. The headmaster must competently address this resulting vacuum of knowledge, or the compounding loss can cripple a koryu budo ryuha in only several generations.
The subject of evolution in koryu was a frequently discussed topic with my teacher, Takamura Yukiyoshi sensei. He believed a thorough understanding of this subject was necessary so that a koryu budo tradition would not degenerate into what he described as “empty or pretty dancing”. When I hear an uninitiated individual discuss the topic of koryu, I am often struck by their lack of context and/or familiarity with what they are observing. The most glaring misunderstanding is related to the purpose and function of kata. I assume that this misinterpretation is partially related to exposure to the solo kata (enrengata) performed in Okinawan Karate and its progeny. In Japanese, there are two different kanji characters both pronounced in kata. The differences are subtle, but the one used in Okinawan karate (型) implies something finished like a mold, pattern, or standard. The one used in most koryu budo, also pronounced gyo (形), implies something more subtle, like form, model, or configuration. In the context of koryu budo, kata (gyo) are repositories of knowledge in a different manner than that of Okinawan Karate. It must be understood that koryu budo kata do not necessarily represent actual fighting. They do not always have to be realistic because they are frequently vessels that contain, preserve, and give context to genri and riai (tactics, principles, and combat theory). Many observers outside koryu simply fixate on the particular movements they observe in the execution of a kata without any grasp of the purpose underlying the movements. It’s like an outside observer watching a boxer use a speed bag and then announcing that such training is pointless because such punching would never be practical. They simply don’t understand the what’s or why’s of what they are observing.
No comments:
Post a Comment