Time Machine Not Needed

A Quarter of a Century.  That is a long time for most of us.  For Taika it was just a small portion of his training time.  As we approach the 2 year mark of Taika's death, I hear more and more people talking about returning to the old ways.  There are varying definitions I hear of 'old ways' and I'm not quite sure why people are heading down this path.  I know, some things are 'comfortable' as you grew proficient in them years ago.  I believe that is one reason many people quit Taika's art over the years.  It never got easy because Taika kept evolving. Some things Taika disposed of as he got older were Bogu Kumite and Makiwara.  I've ranted, er blogged, about these in the past so I won't re-rant on those.  I will address other things Taika got away from.  High kicks.  He never, in the last fifteen or more years kicked above his belt and didn't allow us to do so in class.  He felt that the highest point you should be kicking is the hip.  Yes, your opponent may be a lot taller than you, but in that case you should be kicking just above his knee on the inside (Femoral Nerve), the outside (Common Peroneal Nerve), the tendon just below the knee, or the calf (Tibial Nerve).  There are other targets below the waist he commonly struck but never above with the foot and he didn't let us.  He also began taking these out of the kata.  I know his kicks were high back when he was on Okinawa and when he first came here but keep in mind he was teaching mainly Bogu crazed G.I.'s.  The popular part of the art on the island for the servicemen as well as those in the states was the tournament fighting, which had rules about kicking below the belt.  AND remember, that was the 1950's to 1960's.  That is TWO decades or more.  That was not where Taika left his art.  Towards the very end of Kusanku is a spot where many styles, and even us 25 or more years ago, did a double jump kick.  Taika would say, in recent years, "This stupid training!"  In the years before his death he would have us slide the back leg up to meet the front leg, then kick with the right.  He said, this back leg was a hidden step.  It had much better real world value than trying to jump up high in the air.  I for one, will not be returning to the world of nostalgia and jumping up high in the air to kick someone at head height.  Taika always said he would kick a person in the head, only after dropping them to the ground with another technique.  These high kicks he considered stupid and dangerous to the kicker. Videos:  Taika's first known film was a 1968 video filmed during his very short Kansas visit.  A 16mm camera filmed him going through the 12 basic kata and a version of what most of us call Exercise 1.  The last production series of videos was the 14 tape series known as Classic Okinawan Arts, filmed between 1990-1991.  These tapes are now 23 or more years old.  THAT IS THE QUARTER CENTURY I SPEAK OF.  Prior to Tasshi Jim Logue's death, Jim   attempted to get Taika's permission to release the 1968 video on DVD.  Taika didn't want this released while he was alive.  He felt that the 42 year old video was NOT something he wanted people emulating.  Further, he didn't want the then 23 year old Classic Okinawan Arts videos digitized and sold.  Many things had changed in the basic kata forms shown in these videos, and the 'advanced' kata in these videos were nothing like what he was showing as 'timing'.  He did not want people using these videos as his standard as he had evolved past these.  His fear was that people would de-evolve.  His art, unlike many others, was constantly changing.  He constantly evolved and got better.  Though the 23 year old videos and the 45 year old videos are wonderful historical snapshots in time, they are NOT what Taika left us with. A small smattering of things in these videos Taika no longer believed in; ·       Stances o   Horse Stance §  Heels are out, unlike in any of these videos. §  Not as wide now as it was then.  o   Forward Stance §  Heels are out now, unlike in any of the videos. §  Back leg was almost straight, now more flex o   Crossover - The crossover of the feet was with ankle high, now with ankle almost flat on the ground. ·       Head Position o   In Naihanchi Kata, for example, the head turns used to be as far left or right   as possible.  Now, they are just a 1/2-1" in either direction.  Just enough to pick up the extra peripheral view. ·       Chambered Hand o   The hand chambered before a punch does not come completely to your side because it makes the shoulder tight and moves the fist more into the opponent's visual range. ·       Kicks o   No high kicks That was just a few things off the top of my head.  Taika moved on, shouldn't we? When I hear people say things like, "We've got to return to this" or "We need to standardize that" I get nervous.  Taika was always moving forward.  We should not be returning back.  Though the thousands of videos out there are great historical references, we must not go backwards in our training.  We must continue to move forward.  Taika would not want us to go back in time nor stagnate in this one.  If I want to go back in time, I can go back to those that left the association 10, 20, 30 years ago and train with them.  That's not what he wanted.  That's not what I want.  Move along, and stop the stupid training, as Taika would say.