Yoshukai Karate Nunchaku kata : YOSHU

Yoshukai Karate en Tchequie

Le 5 Mai dernier, je suis arrive a BRNO en Tchequie apres un voyage de 14 heure en voiture, train, metro, avion et bus ! 

Le but de ma visite la-bas etait d'aider au lancement d'un dojo de Karate Yoshukai. 

J'ai passe un excellent week-end dans une belle ville, en compagnie de gens charmants et tres motives par le Karate. Comme c'etait un long week end, nous avons pu nous entrainer dans une salle habituellement convoitee par d'autres groupes. 7 heures de Karate en 2 jours, Un bel effort.

Nous nous sommes concentres sur les  kihon, kata de base, Ippon Kumite, et quelques conseils de bases sur les methodes d'enseignement. Et puis, pour le plaisir, un peu de Kobudo de niveau superieur avec Sai tai Bo...

 

Charish et Jason Rainwater ont commence a enseigner le Karate Yoshukai de Katsuoh Yamamoto a Brno. Nous mettons tout en place avec la World Yoshukai Karate Kobudo Organization aux Etats Unis. et le dojo devrait ouvrir officiellement cet ete en Tchequie.

Ils se rendront au Camp d'ete Yoshukai de Eufaula en juin prochain et a leur retour nous organiserons la suite des evenements pour cette annee.

TENSHO DAI

Tensho Dai, a tonfa kata, was created by Master Yuki Koda (1944- 1997) the late head of US Yoshukai Karate.

Tonfa were originally handles used to turn the top stone of a traditional Okinawan rice grinder.

Okinawan Rice grinder with its Tonfa wooden handle

Here the kata is demonstrated by Shihan Mike Lilley at the World Yoshukai Karate &  Kobudo organization summer camp in Eufaula, Alabama, USA on June 17, 2017.

 Enjoy and practice...

Henri Plée Hanshi

The Father of European Karate Henri Plée Hanshi left us on August 19, 2014.

Henri Plée Hanshi was one of the rare Westerners to hold the rank of 10th dan karate masters. 

Born in Arras, France on 24 May 1923, he started his martial career with French Savate, Ju Jutsu, and Fencing. His studies were interrupted by World War II in 1940.

After the war, he learned Judo in Paris under Mikonosuke Kawaishi. He was the 96th French black belt and is now ranked 5th dan at Judo.

In 1946, he returned to French Savate, also known as French kickboxing, and trained and sparred with some of the best French fighters such as Rigal, Pierre Plasait, Cayron, and Pierre Baruzy. Despite quality of this training he was still feeling the need to go stronger and deeper, and was looking for something else.

In 1953, he discovered aikido, karate and kobudo with Minoru Mochizuki. This was the start of his karate career.

Minoru Mochizuki Hanshi

In 1955 he founded his dojo where he taught the four pillars of Japanese Martial Arts : Karate, Judo, Aikido, and Kendo. Henri Plée Hanshi instructed many black belts who, at a later stage, became the foundation of the European karate institutions, and are today some of the highest ranking karate masters in Europe. 

From 200 karate practitioners in 1961, Henry Plée's efforts have led today to more than 200,000 practitioners in France. The French government considers him as one of the greatest international experts in Martial Arts, and knighted him with the French Ordre national du Mérite in 2008.

Ranks

Karate

• 10th dan, Hanshi Karate in Japan, by Tsuneyoshi Ogura in 1987
• 8th dan, in France by the Fédération Française de Karaté - FFKAMA in 1975.
• 5th dan, Renshi Karate in Japan, by Chojiro Tani.
• 1st, 2nd, 3rd dan, karate in France, by Minoru Mochizuki.

Judo

• 5th dan, Judo.

Aikido

• 3rd dan, Aikido, by Masamichi Noro.
• 2nd dan, Aikikai Hombu Aikido, by Tadashi Abe.
• 1st dan, Yoseikan Aikido, by Minoru Mochizuki.

Kendo

• 1st dan, Kendo, by Minoru Mochizuki.

Bōjutsu

• 1st dan, Bo-Jutsu, by Minoru Mochizuki.
 

Henri Plée Hanshi 1923 - 2014.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Handcrafted Kobudo Weapons

Just a word to inform you of a new source for quality kobudo Weapons. 

Mr Sean O'Toole - who is teaching Kaicho Toyama's class while he is recovering from his illness - is now offering remarkably well done BO and NUNCHAKU.

Mr O'Toole's weapons are available in different kinds of woods : Oak, Mahogany, Cypress, Hickory.

These weapons are extremely well done. They are very beautiful and have a very nice feeling.  his BO have different sections : Round, Octagonal, Hexagonal, Octagonal to Square... 

The NUNCHAKU are corded with parachute cord and he can also make them to your specifications.

In a near future, he is going to make TONFA and BOKEN.

Mr O'Toole can be reached at otoole@edmisten.com

Choun no Kun kata

Kaicho Mike Culbreth is teaching the first part of the Choun no Kun Bo kata to a group of Black Belts. 

Taped at the World Yoshukai Karate Kobudo Karate Headquarters in Dothan, Alabama on January 15, 2014. 

The BO (KUN in Okinawan language) is a 6 foot wooden staff.

The Bo kata taught in Yoshukai Kobudo are 

• Bo kata shodan, 
• Bo kata Nidan, 
• Bo kata Sandan, 
• Choun no Kun, and 
• Choun no Kun Dai.

Bo kata Shodan, Nidan and Sandan were created by the late Sensei Koda to teach the basics of Bo to beginner students (before black belt). They essentially are selected parts of Choun no Kun . 

Tonfa Kata

A great demonstration of Tonfa Kata, with Bunkai (Bunkai are actual applications of a kata's moves. There may be several possible bunkai for the same move.

I particularly enjoyed the attack to the wrist (Kote) of the attacker. We often tend to attack body or head, and these are all very legitimate targets, but they are not always easy to reach from a safe position. Here, the teacher attacks the wrist from a very safe position, he controls the distance (Maai). 

A broken or badly bruised wrist will seriously decrease the chances your opponent has to hurt you, and in attacking it, you also exhibit restraint in your defense. 

We should become very proficient at our arts, so that we can defend ourselves without inflicting too much damage to our opponent. If your goal is to crush him no matter how serious was the attack, you don't need to learn Martial Arts, buy a gun, and learn how to use it. 

There is more to Martial Arts than destroying an opponent.

Christmas dinner.

As I was reading a post about Choki Motobu in the excellent Blog Karate by Jesse, it reminded me of a story I heard from my Ju Jitsu Master Roland Hernaez.

It happened I think in the early 80′s. A group of French Martial Art Masters (Ju Jitsu, Karate, Aikijitsu, Kobudo…) were gathered in a small bar-restaurant in a small town of the suburbs of Paris for a traditional Christmas dinner.

The dining area of the restaurant was a separate room in the back where people could eat away from the crowd and noise of the bar. This is a pretty standard sort of arrangement in that sort of establishment.  

So there were probably 8 or 10 masters there having a good time together, sharing some good food and drinking good wine.  Some of these people, such as M. Hernaez were nice and peaceful persons.  Some of them were not. Some of them were experienced in street or combat fighting and/or had served during the terrible independence wars of Indochine (Vietnam) or Algeria, and had little opportunities to practice their self defense abilities. Also remember, they were not drinking iced tea. 

All of these men were in their 50′s or 60′s, and looked like regular guys. They could have been a group of employees working in the same office, gathered there to enjoy a traditional Christmas Dinner, as the French love to do. 

A group of bikers had entered the bar and ordered  their drinks. They realized there was a group of old men eating in the back, and decided to have a little fun at their expense and to scare them a little.

It was not a brilliant idea, but of course, who said you needed a 120 IQ to join the Holly Fraternity of the Rueil Malmaison Bikers ???

They entered the back room. 

Very shortly, most of them were on the ground , with various injuries. The cops - called by the bar owner - arrived too late to prevent the incident. They handcuffed some bikers to take them to the local jail, while they let the other ones  leave for the hospital on stretchers. They took the deposition of the old men, and left.

The masters ordered their coffee...

Kobudo works (Kyokushinkai and the Rolling Stones.)

In 1976 the Rolling Stones, who had been banned from playing in France for several years were finally allowed to come back. With 2 of my best friends, we got tickets for the Concert in Nice on the French Riviera. 

We arrived early in the stadium where the concert was to happen. The crowd was composed mostly of young men and women in their late teens or early 20's, nice crowd gathered to listen to their favorite band. You could smell the smoke of marijuana, nothing outrageous. 

2 bands played before the Stones, I suppose they were good, but they were not the ones we were interested in. My friends, my cousin Isabelle and I were sitting on the ground, probably no more than 50 feet from the stage, a little to the right, a good spot.

Bikers showed up, pushed away a group of youngsters sitting close to the stage. They were  quite provocative, and scared most of the kids around them. I looked around and realized there were quite a bit of these Hells Angels scattered all around the stadium. This was not friendly. Bad vibrations... Dressed in black leather outfit, some of them apparently drunk, and aggressive. People were scared. 

One guy dressed in white came to the front of the stage, and politely asked the Angels to leave the vicinity of the stage, quit being rude and leave the kids alone. Nothing happened. 

The white guy came back several times to politely ask the Angels to leave. They laughed, drank more beer, and stayed. He told them the Stones were not going to play if they'd stay so close to the stage,  that they should scatter in the whole stadium so the concert could happen peacefully. They did not move.
This standoff lasted 30 to 45 minutes.

Then rather quickly the front of the stage, 5 to 6 feet above the ground, got populated by numerous guys coming from back stage. Big guys, little guys, they were not threatening, not wearing any particular outfit, but strangely enough, they all were holding their hands in their back.

The polite and patient little white guy asked the Angels one more times to leave. By now, they had been drinking more beer, and they laughed. 

Suddenly, all the guys who had gathered to the front of the stage jumped down and ran toward the first group of 15 to 20 Angels sitting in front of the Stage. I do not know if you are familiar with Asterix, the famous Gaul hero of a famous French comic book series. When Asterix and the Gauls tribe attack the Roman legions, they are like a wedge splitting it. Resistance is futile....

Well that is what happened then. Turns out that these guys had their hands in their back to hide staffs and Nunchakus. And they now were using them, bloodily. I had never seen nunchakus used for fighting purpose before. I realized how efficient they can be. 

Big guys were using Bo staffs, little one nunchakus. They did not try to be nice, they basically wiped the Angels out of the Stadium. Those who tried to escape into the bleachers, they ran behind them, caught them, beat them up badly, then pulled them by their hair or feet all the way to the gates. They cleaned up the stadium of each and every Angels and beat them up, all of them, male, female. It was brutal and bloody.

I was not practicing any martial arts back then, I had quit Judo in 1973 to concentrate on my studies in High School. I really had no clue about what happened. I learned years later, that the people organizing the concert had contracted the security to the local  Kyokushinkai Karate Dojo.

20 minutes later Keith Richards stumbled onto the stage and unleashed Honky Tonk Women...

Kobudo works...

And one may wonder... What should have they done ? What can you do, what should you do on the brink of danger ? Do you wait for the  attack to be initiated by your opponent, or do you consider he already attacked you ?  I believe the situation was handled very properly by the little white guy. The Angels were given all opportunities to leave, they chose not to. Then, the action was very violent. Clearly, it did not have to be as bloody as it was. For what I saw, every Angels got seriously beaten up and blood was drawn from each one of them. They could have been expelled with less physical damage, but then, they might have been able to come back the next day (There were concerts for 3 nights in a row).