7 Questions to Enhance Your Bunkai
Without bunkai (applications), kata is little more than pre-arranged dancing. The hands can be flowing in exciting and vibrant ways but if we never discover the meaning of the motion then our time would be much better spent hitting a heavy bag or sparring.
Bunkai is the key to developing useful and effective techniques preserved for us by those individuals who developed and tested them in fierce, life protection situations. Over the course of time much of the true meaning of these movements has either been lost or purposefully disguised. If your desire is to unlock some of the skills of our predecessors, you'll need to know the right questions in order to find the best answers.
The following are seven things to ask yourself that might illuminate your kata in a different (and hopefully productive) way. These are in no particular order and are not prescriptive. Use some when you can and invent others.
1. Can I change the angle in which I address my opponent?
Many times during bunkai we assume that an opponent is coming straight from the front or from the sides, and that we must stay directly in front of them and try to defend. What happens if you cut a 45 degree angle during your technique? What if turning from left to right allowed you to arc around the same opponent instead of addressing a new one?
2. What came just before and what is coming right after?
When we learn kata, it generally occurs in a set cadence. Step1 - block up. Step2 - block down. Step3 - punch kiai! That being the case, our mind generally sections itself off in those little boxes. It is our job to look at what is occurring right before our current technique and right after and how the body moves from one to the next. Stringing techniques together makes for a more devastating outcome to your opponent.
3. Am I utilizing all of the technique or just the end piece?
Techniques are often more dynamic than we give them credit for. Take for example the knife hand block. When we perform a knife hand block we generally step somewhere, prep the block, and then shoot the block out. The block itself is what we use to defend against an attack, but what about all the stuff that came before it? Can't we use that too? Can't the body shift be used to off-balance or attack our opponent, and can't the prep be used to either defend or attack?
4. Can I condense the number of opponents I have to face to get through my applications?
If you find yourself going through a dozen bad guys for your bunkai you may be too segmented. In order to mentally escape from a tricky technique we often dismiss the current bad guy and invite a new one in from a different direction. Worse yet, if we are using two hands at once and don't really know what's going on we might invite two bad guys to attack us at once from different directions. Multiple opponent training is valuable, but kata is not suggesting that GuyA is likely to kick low while GuyB punches from behind. Those scenarios are too unlikely and miss the real intent of what's happening. Condense the number of opponents as much as possible.
5. Are my opponents behaving naturally and with likely techniques, or am I forcing them into increasingly unlikely scenarios?
Patrick McCarthy Sensei developed the acronym HAPV, or habitual acts of physical violence. The point of HAPV is to keep focused on the techniques you are most likely to encounter. Furthermore, the longer you make the string of actions done by your uke the more unlikely an actual attacker will follow that pattern. Therefore, when performing bunkai, we want our opponents acting as naturally as possible. If the opponent has to punch, step back punch, step back punch, step back block up and receive your strike, you've asked your uke to behave in a way they never would in real life.
6. Have I affected my opponent in a way that makes more technique work?
Let's say you manage to block your opponent (so far so good). You then put them in a wrist lock or arm bar in order to control them. That progression seems very effective, especially after years of training, and generally works in the dojo. However, if you've ever come across a live opponent who is experiencing adrenaline dump you'll know that manipulating that arm is extremely difficult. Your attempts to bar or lock it will be met with iron resistance and counter punches to your face. Always be sure to negatively affect your opponent as soon as possible, then go into more technique.
7. What is the emotional content of my encounter?
What kind of scenario is your kata taking place in? Is it a school yard pushing match? Is it a life or death home invasion? The emotional environment you place yourself in is going to alter your bunkai dramatically. Your technique may need to restrain or it may need to kill.
Mental Gymnastics
With all of these questions/problems/complications we have to address the concept of simplicity. In a real life altercation, your simplest and most effective techniques will be the ones that help you. Thinking about responses in the heat of the moment will keep you one step behind your opponent.
Why then bother with all of this business about bunkai? Shouldn't we simply practice a series of basic, effective techniques and avoid the mental gymnastics?
The short term answer is yes. For the first 5-6 years of your training you need to become "brilliant at the basics", as Bill Hayes Sensei would say. Without a rock solid foundation and instinctual integration of your style's stances, punches, and basic techniques nothing else can be built firmly. However, once you do achieve that level of proficiency, you acquire the privilege of exploring your art even deeper and improving the way you go about your business.
Simple techniques practiced a certain way seem like the best option until you learn how to improve them. That doesn't necessarily mean complicate them. Instead the goal is to find ways to improve your angle, distance, timing, striking locations, and technique progression in order to enhance what's already been built. This style of study leads to an understanding of tichiki, or "what the hand is doing", which can be used extemporaneously with great percentage of success.
Bo Sparring Tip – How to Use Variable Acceleration
Speed is undoubtedly a desirable attribute for any martial artist. The ability to move your mass quickly from point A to point B allows you more opportunity for effective and powerful striking. However, if speed were the only needed quality in order to be a skilled martial artist every energetic 20 year old would be a 10th Dan Grandmaster. how is that 60 year old experts can take these youngsters to task time after time?
One of their 'secrets' is variable acceleration.
Let's say a hypothetical person knows how to strike very quickly, but only really knows how to fight at his/her top speed. Sure this person may experience occasional success, especially against unskilled opponents, but crafty fighters will tune into their timing and figure them out in short order. Then, despite their raw speed, they will become predictable and easier to defeat.
If, however, that same person knew when to appear slow and when to truly be fast, he/she would add a layer of depth to their fighting. They would have captured the basic component of variable acceleration.
Knowing when and how to accelerate into an opponent is one of the hallmarks of outstanding fighters. But one arena in which this strategy seems to be neglected is kobudo. I have found that many weapon users slip into 'clubbing' mode as soon as they get an implement in their hand, and lose all the subtlety of their empty handed arts. Check out this video as I explain how to add some variable acceleration into rokushaku bo fighting:
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At first applying this concept to kobudo can be tricky because things seem to happen very quickly and dangerously. If you are a student of kendo you are acutely aware of how fast a strike can come in. But even kendo players pretend at being slow or vulnerable by creating various suki (gaps) in order to entice actions, which they can deflect and then explode into their opponent. Over time you gain a sense of how weapons can be used, and what tactics will keep you safe. you can then begin to add more complexity into your combatives, including variable acceleration.
There are times when a flurry of activity is appropriate, but then there are other times when a calm mind combined with one blindingly accelerated punch/kick/strike will do the trick. In the realm of weapons, this is particularly so as age and physical capacity are evened out by the unforgiving result of a single weapon strike.
Age Appropriate Training
Over the weekend I had a chance to train with Bill Hayes Sensei, and as usual my brain was quickly overheated. I try my best to retain more and more, but it is certainly an ongoing endeavor.
One of the things he covered was the idea of training for longevity and realizing how your martial arts have to adapt over time. Hayes Sensei is in his 60s, and his instructor Eizo Shimabukuro is in his 80s. It is no freak accident that they are both in excellent condition and can still train regularly.
Maintaining longevity in the martial arts is a complex endeavor. It is a combination of stress reduction, persistent physical activity, proper diet and nutrient intake, and making sound choices on how to push your body. A lot of "normal" training is designed for individuals in the mid-part of their lives (20-50 or so). But a man/woman of 70 should not press their bodies the same way as a 20 year old (and the same is true for a child of 9 or 10).
Youth Training
When considering training children, one of the top priorities has to be how the training methods will ultimately affect their physical development.
I've never been a big supporter of object breaking as part of a child's training regiment. The bones are still developing and the muscles are not properly conditioned for that kind of impact. Repeated hard contact can make for severe problems later on, and could even lead to fractures and slight bone deformities (in rare cases). Children have to be introduced to contact gradually, utilizing soft materials at first and padded materials for years as they grow up.
Another example of traditional training for young students involves stances. Deep, wide stances are perfect for developing leg muscles and improving balance. By practicing elongated stances combined with large movements the body increases it's range of motion and can be used in ways both understandable and suitable for children.
From there concepts can be refined, shortened, and improved after the body is put on the right developmental track.
Adult Training
Once relative adulthood is reached, training can begin its maximum intensity. Power generation becomes extremely important, and people often engage in practices such as body hardening, weight lifting, hojo undo, speed training, etc etc. This is because the body is at its peak potential for physical exertion.
Ironically, even though the body is able to take surprising amounts of abuse at this stage, it is important to set good habits here. If you allow yourself to over-indulge in body hardening, abusive full contact fighting, and snapping techniques with stress on the joints, you can set your body down a path of degradation.
Mature Training
Training into mature years requires adaptation and thought, even if you've successfully integrated into a "style".
An excellent example given by Hayes Sensei involves sanchin kata. During sanchin we often see an intense tension and breath throughout the kata. This helps build muscular endurance and strength. it also teaches the practitioner how to use breath and increase power/energy in certain parts of the body. However, if a person continues to train with that same vigor as they get older, it can actually lead to heart, muscular, and cardiovascular problems.
A skilled, mature practitioner of sanchin will adapt the tension so as to maintain the health benefits while avoiding the physical risks. This is a complex process, and should only be done under qualified instruction.
Another example is the use of the makiwara (or breaking and hard-object-hitting in general). Even though makiwara training can help a person learn how to transmit power and develop excellent conditioning for striking, constant pounding on the hands and the conjoined meridians can slowly wear down a person's health. Depending on which meridian is being abused, the internal health of the person can be degraded as well as the immediate joints and ligaments in the limbs.
Mature training also speaks to stance work, height of kicks, and other matters.
It is important to realize that when you see a skilled practitioner doing kojin kata (old man's kata), it should not be because their body can no longer handle "real training", but because they've refined their technique and have made wise choices on how to make their training appropriate for them.
Being able to identify the difference between kojin kata and a person who has simply lost skill is an important ability to develop.
