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.

Mugen and Yosei no Sai : Yoshukai only Kata

Yoshukai Karate has numerous open hand and weapon kata.

There are however 2 Kata that are purely Yoshukai.

MUGEN  - 無限 - means Endless, or Infinity. This open hand Kata was created by our Grandmaster Katsuoh Yamamoto.

YOSEI NO SAI was created by Sensei Hiroyuki Koda (1944-1997). 

"Yosei" has 2 meanings. One is "Ocean". But "Yosei" is also an other way to read Sensei Koda's first name "Hiroyuki". 

So that "Yosei no Sai" means "Sai of the Ocean", and it also means "Hiroyuki's Sai".(Sensei Koda's Sai)

This was explained to me by Sensei Hiroaki Toyama at the Yoshukai Winter Camp in 2011.


(And Mugen is also my Dog's name...)

The Value of Traditional Kata

During the last edition of the Yoshukai Tournament in Dothan on October 30, 2010. I was watching a weapons kata competition. 2 black belt were opposed in that group. One competed with a traditional sai kata - Yosei no Sai, one competed with a non traditional Sword Kata.

The traditional Sai kata was that : Traditional. There needs to be nothing flashy about fighting. If you watch the video of Yamamoto and Koda Sensei performing Sai tai Bo, you will see nothing fancy, but sharp and short moves right to the point. Basically if you are in front of  someone who masters all the moves of Yosei no Sai, it is going to be very difficult to reach them unless you own a a gun.

The Sword Kata was very fancy, a mixture of Iaido and twirling baton, that flashy sword was everywhere, flashing in everybody's eyes. Yes, it was impressive to the untrained eye. jumps, multiple drawings, loud kiai... But practically, anyone with 2 to 3 years of traditional kendo or kenjutsu training could have cut in the middle of this dance with a mere boken (Wooden sword) or Jo (short wooden staff)  and whacked senseless the competitor on the head. 

Nevertheless, this last competitor, even after being unable to properly perform noto (slide the blade back in its sheath) won the trophy.

After all these years, even if I should have gotten used to this kind of things, that just made me angry. I still can't accept mediocrity. The problem is not in the competitor, but in the judges who let such fallacy go on. Here we had 5 judges supposedly highly competent in their own style of Martial Art, and they graded a flashy dance without any martial value above a well executed traditional form. If these persons are not able to see the actual fighting value of a traditional kata properly executed, versus a non traditional routine poorly done, maybe they should not be judging in a Karate Tournament. 

Chris Wheeles performed the Sai Kata in Dothan. He just opened his own Dojo in Gulf Shore, AL. If you wish to practice good and traditional Karate, give him a try.

Sai tai Bo Video - Yamamoto Sensei.

For everybody's enjoyment, an old video footage of our Yoshukai Karate Grand Master Katsuoh YAMAMOTO performing Sai tai Bo in the 2 roles, first with the Bo, then with the Sais.

For those of you familiar with the Kata, some waza are a little different than the way we perform them today, also they are not performed in the same order. However, look at the speed and accuracy. Rikki Hitatsu - Strive for excellence...

Thanks to Mike Culbreth Sensei - WYKKO Kukaicho  - for letting me scan some of his videos archives and find these clips. I will soon post more original Yoshukai Karate Videos, some of them featuring our Grand Master again, prepare to be amazed !

OSU