Sunday, September 30, 2012

The Nest



Well, after nearly a quarter century of training under the man, Taika is gone.  What to do.  If you look back at what made Taika so great, as if we could somehow quantify it, I believe one of the things was that he was pushed out of the nest at some point.  He trained with Uhugushiku Tan Mei and Wakinaguri Tan Mei, both of which died.  He was forced to do some growing on his own.  He did train with other people, learning from them as they learned from him, but as many great instructors do he learned by training and teaching. 
I've had a couple of months to reflect now.  I miss the man dearly and think of him most every day.  I go to his gravesite to check on the progress of the grass growing there, and help tend it for his family.  Seems quite odd all the RyuTe® seeds he sewed in my head and then there I am literally sewing seeds at his grave to make a nice green lawn.  I go there for my healing process.  But my old teacher, coach, father, and friend isn't there to coach me anymore, in RyuTe® or in my personal dealings in life.  That doesn't mean he cannot still give me inspiration and knowledge.  Over the passing of time since his departure, I realize that he gave me nearly 25 years of knowledge that I have accrued in various books, videos, seminar notes, class notes, and other various documents.  He himself received a scroll from one of his instructors prior to his death and analyzed it from the 1950's all the way up to his death in 2012.  Taika was constantly improving his own skills, pushing his own boundaries.  Taika never forgot his instructors and continually strove all the way up to his last breath to train, even in the hospital.

In all these documents I have accumulated, whether paper or digital media of some sort, I have accumulated somewhat of a RyuTe® Bible if you will.  In the last three months I have been reviewing my notes and videos.  There is so much content there, I doubt that I can really study it all in my lifetime.  Perhaps I can pass it on to my students and let them continue to carry this torch when someday I depart (hopefully not for quite some time).  The truly remarkable man has passed from this earth, but his knowledge remains in the brains, bodies, documents and videos of his students that carry on.  Though we have been pushed from the nest, perhaps this will help us grow as it did him.

/chirp chirp

And hopefully not splat on the sidewalk....just saying.

Culturally Inept



One of the things (one of a million my peers would say) that drives me absolutely nuts is the absolutely incorrect cultural items placed in students heads over the years in the general budo realm.  When I first started training in Taika's system, I was consumed with learning everything.  That included all the little bits of culture that came with it.  Over the years I amassed quite a huge book and magazine collection which anyone dropping by the dojo would see.  I studied these, and spent time studying Japanese in college and Uchinaaguchi a little on my own.   I cannot say that I am an expert at any of it, but I do believe the knowledge I gained over the years help give me a perspective into the world of Taika.  We'd have several cultural discussions over the years, and because I had a basic grasp of certain topics, I'd get a little more cultural candy from Taika which I'll cherish for the rest of my life.

Osu

Now I'm not going to say that everyone should consume their lives with such, but what I am going to say is that you either learn it, or don't pretend to know it.  One common thing that I hear is "Osu!!!" yelled out by people that don't understand what it means, or when it is permissible to use.  I won't go into great detail as someone else did a great job of covering it on their blog below.  But recently, when Taika was sick and even after his passing "Osu!!!" kept turning up on his facebook page and the RyuTe® facebook page.  This is not appropriate.  Learn it or abandon it.

                http://www.24fightingchickens.com/2005/08/29/appropriate-usage-of-osu/

Tuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu-ite

WARNING - OVER SIMPLIFIED LANGUAGE CONTENT

One of the therapeutic things about blog is just the venting.  So that's what I'm doing.  In my head the whole world is listening and agreeing and I feel better.  In reality, a handful of people read it and maybe one or two agree.  But since I live in my head, I win...
First off, TUITE is actually 1/2 Okinawan and 1/2 Japanese.  That being said, it is truly a Taika made up word.  Tony has blogged about that enough that I won't go into it, but I will go into how Okinawan and Japanese words are pronounced. 

A
I
U
E
O
If you put together the column vs row in this incomplete chart, you make up all the basic sounds of the Japanese Language.  (Note: The Ryukyu dialect is actually simpler as they have less vowels.)  This is extremely simplified and incomplete, as there are more than what is listed but you get a general idea.

K
Ka
Ki
Ku
Ke
Ko
S
Sa
Shi
Su
Se
So
T
Ta
Chi
Tsu
Te
To
N
Na
Ni
Nu
Ne
No

This is a basic phonetic sound type language.  Each sound has one way to be pronounced.  A is pronounced like the AH sound in father.  Notice I didn't say AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH as in surprise and alarm, back of the throat (Monty Python reference).  Each sound is short.  Unlike in English, the A doesn't have a bazillion ways to pronounce it.  (Ex: Sagging, Father, park)  There can be only one (Highlander reference).

To lengthen a sound there are a couple different things that happen with the characters.  Either a lengthening mark is added to make the vowel long, another character to double it, or a couple other little options.

Tu·i·te is three syllables and most people get that count right.

What we end up hearing is people trying to put the emphasis on the fact that there is an "I" in there and they pronounce it as Tuuuu·i·te by lengthening the Tu.  This is not correct.  The three syllables are ALL short.  The Tui should just be barely detectable as being 2 syllables.  When you elongate the Tuuuuuuuu to emphasize the "I" then it is too long.  With both syllables short, it 'almost' sounds like T'wi rather than Tuuuui and that is why servicemen would giggle when Taika would pronounce it the original fully Okinawan way, Tuidi which sounds like Tweety as in Tweety Bird.  So keep it short.  It is more like T'wite if I was to Engrishize it.

Many do the same thing with the word Ryu.  They were probably explained at one point that Ryu is actually putting together or Ri and Yu.  So what we end up hearing is Riiiiiiyu as in Riiiiiyu  Kiiiiiiyu Island or Riiiiiiyu Te.  Again, the Ri and yu that make up Ryu is more like R'yu, very subtle.  Don't lengthen it.

Karate vs Karati

Well, technically our style is Okinawan and they would of said Di or Ti.  You hear a lot of people that don't train in the art call it Karati or Karaty in Engrish.  I've actually heard Karateka (people training in the art) correct people saying it is pronounced Kara TE.  Well, it all depends.  Before Japan took over the Ryukyu Islands, the people there had their own language which also used Chinese characters and also had a lot of similarities.  BUT, they didn't use the 'E' sound.  So words that had that sound in Japanese were pronounced with "I".  So for our style, Ti or Di would be more correct.  If this was a Japanese style of Karate (which actually came from Okinawa to begin with) they would say TE.  So why all the confusion?  Well, when the U.S. occupied Japan and Okinawa, some servicemen came back with Karati and other came back with Karate.  These same people either studied from a Sinsei or a Sensei.  Incidentally Sensei (Japanese spelling/pronunciation) is actually 4 syllables.  Se·n·se·i.  BUT, you don't pronounce it Saayyyyyyyyn Saaaaaaaaaaay like some people do either.

/rant off

あ-   I feel better. (hint, that is how you'd do a LONG 'A'.

RyuTe® Wheel



RyuTe® Wheel
A few months ago in class, a relatively new student asked the inevitable question about Tuite.  How do you use it when they don't grab or push?  I started to blog a bit about it but alas, life got crazy and the last few months have been quite chaotic for myself and others.  Today I started going back through some notes on blog topics and this was one of them.

As we start teaching new students basic fundamental techniques of tuite, kyusho, atemi...they typically don't see the correlation between the three.  As they start out, they learn what each of these tools are.  I liken it to shop class back in Junior High.  We would get shown a tool, explained how it worked, get some practice with it, and form a basic understanding.  We would do some little technique and make something, useless just by itself.  Later we would learn another tool, and go through the same process.  Eventually we'd have a series of tools (saw, sander, planer, drill), which led us to a series of pieces, which we put together with maybe another tool (glue) and now we had a candle holder. 

I sometimes use the RyuTe® Mon as an illustrating point to new students.  If you look at the Mon, which is our Gi Patch, and on many things from shirts to certificates, it has Tuite Jitsu and Kyusho Jitsu on the outside of the circle.  I tell my students it is like a wheel of techniques.  One tool flows into another.  What I mean by this is that, you may start with Tuite on a push, and then roll onto Kyusho.  So a person pushes and you catch their hand, as you tweak their wrist and they buckle to their knees, you switch to a neck strike.  They continue to the ground from this stun, then you pin them again with Tuite.  The reverse can also be applied.  You have a person punch, their hand is not open, it is in a tight fist.  They have not grabbed you, nor do they have a loose, open or bent wrist.  Students seem to think that Tuite is now impossible.  It is far from impossible, you just need to make the hand loose, open or bent.  If one tool isn't working, use another.......Kyusho or Atemi.  A good nerve strike on the forearm will get just enough of a bend or opening of the hand to slide into Tuite.  

There are a lot of people in the martial community who are naive enough to believe that Tuite is a useless art because you can never catch a hand.  I have used Tuite so much in my job that I would go as far as saying that it is not only possible, it has been my number one tool at work for over two decades.  It is, however, not viable as taught your first day in class.  The way we teach it is slow and unrealistic AT FIRST so that you learn how it works.  The shop teacher doesn't hand you a cunk of wood and point at the power button on the band saw with his 7th grade students on day one.  Not unless he has some obscure finger fetish and keeps a drawer full of them.  He explains how the machine works, the safety of it, and sets up a bunch of rules and protocols to teach his students safely.  Eventually, with time and training they can use the tool safely and with other tools.

Tuite works.

Kyusho works.

And like pancake and syrup, they are much better together.