DOJO STORIES SENSEI Gerardo Balves

DOJO STORIES

Sensei Gerardo Balves

DOJO STORIES ON KO CHI SHIN: GOING BACK TO THE ROOTS, A QUESTION OF IDENTITY….

It is impossible for me to think about interpreting the Path that I follow, if I do not know elements that help me to value what the great Masters did to give life to our art. Long, but at the same time enlightening reading that aims to shed light (to those who want to be enlightened, of course), to an already very dark panorama. As the saying goes: ¨...knowledge does not take up space...¨ What is a Ryu?... (Occasionally I already commented on it, but it is always good to refresh the memory) The easy answer is to translate it as "style", as a certain way of doing something. Certainly "style" is a good definition of Ryu. But upon further reflection, Ryu attached to a martial arts system encompasses much more than a "style" or way of doing things. Not all martial arts were alike, there are many differences in all BUDO. This is the wonder of Asian (especially Japanese) fighting arts. There are lots of variations. You might think that there may be very few ways in which one's body can be used as weapons to take down an enemy, considering that our human physiology is much the same, but Asian fighting arts have developed to take advantage of the subtle variations studying basic concepts. It is this subtlety that is the hallmark of a Ryu or Ryuha, but I am getting ahead of myself. First of all, the term Ryu in Japanese comes from the pronunciation of Chinese characters or nogare as an alternative reading and it means "flowing and/or flowing". In Japan, when Ryu is attached to a word as part of an art school or as in our case of martial arts, it means a particular system of art development. Thus, we have ShorinRyu karate, or the Young Forest "system" of karate, the Shinto Kashima-ryu, or "school" centered on the Kashima Shinto shrine, the Sogetsu-ryu of ikebana, or arrangement system. of Sogetsu flowers, and so on. In many traditional Japanese arts that began in what can be crudely correlated to medieval times, the founder of the style experienced what amounts to a divine revelation. These experts had already developed a vast repertoire of technical knowledge through a study of martial methods and through actual experience on the battlefield. But having exhausted and reached the limits of their technical knowledge, they consciously underwent shugyo, a rigorous training that tested their mind, body and spirit. Often enacted in the far reaches of sacred ground, such as a Shinto shrine or Buddhist temple, or in a hidden religious haven, in the desert or on top of a mountain. Shugyo is understood as the breach through the surface layer of the physical world, laying bare the secrets of the spiritual universe. Like the intensity of Zen training, after exhausting the usual avenues of consciousness, the shugyo martial arts candidate attains new and enlightening insight. After this period of intense training, prayer, and some form of fasting and/or abstention, a vision appears to the founder which would give him the key to his true mastery of the art. Often a single phrase or a very rudimentary technique(s) is considered the revelation that will unlock all the methods the founder would later develop. As such, the revelation will be the "tenshin shoden", or the knowledge bestowed by the Heavens, or muso; the knowledge acquired thanks to a heavenly dream. Something that has definitely been completely distorted in our days giving way to a purely commercial or marketing issue far from those mystical beginnings... The knowledge, therefore, was purely divine when it passed from the gods to the first generation. If you want to keep it as a divinely inspired system, then you always have to go back to this person, the founder. Therefore, the term Ryu, or nogare, is a flow back to the sources of the style, which was divinely inspired. There is a difference in conceptualization here, one that a modern (current) man must understand. Much of modern intellectual thought posits that we are moving toward an ever better and more wonderful future, unless you are existentialist, nihilist, or just plain depressed. As a society, we may not necessarily believe in the glorious Christian doomsday, but instead tend to think of knowledge and history as linear. But for many Asian cultures, time may not necessarily be linear. It can repeat a circle or a kind of spiral, in which the centuries repeat themselves endlessly, just like the way monsoon rains fall every year on the rice fields of Southeast Asia. Some years it rained some years are plentiful, other years are dry, but time seems to be a repeating spiral. This spiral pattern was cut by the Buddha, who ended the repeating chain of reincarnation with his enlightenment. Since his time, however, Buddhist philosophy has held that we have entered an age called mappo, or a time when the wisdom of the

ancients was declining. Thus, the future, therefore, is not necessarily better than the past. At mappo, recent innovations can't be better than the original teachings. Everything after Buddha is slightly less than Buddha. To the Japanese, and to some extent the Chinese, especially when in the midst of a civil war, the world certainly looked like it was headed for destruction. The concept of decay and entropy has an impact on what a Ryu is. Unless it can be claimed that a pure current is followed from the source, the direct transmission (jikiden) of the methods and concepts of the founder, who received divine guidance, will say that your martial practices today are a degeneration. Therefore, innovation for the sake of "modernizing" or updating the Ryu is considered a downgrade. That is the reason why a Ryu strives to maintain its defined characteristics, just as they were postulated by its founder. For example, I can put Higa Yuchoku Sensei as an example for what corresponds to me, who having received knowledge of the Naha te on the one hand and on the other being a student of Chibana Chosin (Kobayashi) of the Shorin Ryu on the other, defined his Kyudokan school as a continuation of the Ti of Matsumura sensei (probable founder of the Ryu), even more than that of Itosu Sensei. Thus marking a return to the original interpretation of Ti. This is not to say that the classical martial arts Ryu are immutable, like a museum piece. Using the analogy of a spring fed by various currents, if the waters of the river stop, it stagnates and becomes a well. The river must "flow through time. Each Ryu leader, who is supposed to receive direct transmission, has the prerogative to redefine the Ryu teachings, as long as he remains faithful to the inherent philosophical and technical foundations." Thus, Shimizu Takaji, one of the greatest exponents of Shinto Muso-Ryujo in the 20th century, was able to develop Kihon techniques (basic exercises) to enhance the modern instruction of students without losing the personal art inspired by the vision of Muso Gonnosuke while meditating on top of Mount Homan. Shimizu systematized various movements common to many kata and developed a series of basic techniques that help training; with this he did not alter the movements of the katas themselves. I return to the example of the school to which I belong so as not to fall into the intrinsic ignorance of the absolute and thus be able to express that this school (Kyudokan Kobayashi) has in itself the concept of circularity and the definitive technique that it gave ' Bushi Matsumura” to his Ryu. While other lines stemming from the same Ryu have a different system of kata that goes back to other Chinese systems that went in other directions. The original kata remain relatively unchanged, but due to exchanges with other Ryu and revelations discovered in the ordinary course of training, teachers and higher level students are encouraged to craft various Kihons to enhance the training of future students. This overlapping of techniques, in my opinion, if done clearly and for good reasons, is a good encouragement to keep the purpose of Ryu alive. Nothing is being invented, it is only being given an extension to the criteria for better learning. Depending on the School, different classifications of such complements are used, one term is Gaiden ('foreign' learning, that is, techniques developed outside the vision of the founder himself). You can see how, therefore, a typical classic Ryu is different from a modern “Do”. The official kata were crafted by committees of human beings, whose efforts are in tune with the modernist trend that things can always be improved with time and human ingenuity. Even in Karate-do as a modern system, it is clearly seen that while maintaining the natural variations of Ryu, it tries to develop a basic standardization with the implementation of new forms created for this purpose, such as the Pinan katas (Heian ). A Ryuha is a faction of a faction, that is, it is a variation of a Ryu created by one of his outstanding disciples. The disciple has not completely broken with the teachings of Ryu, but has developed a variant that is markedly different from the original line, but retains the basic characteristics of Ryu. This Ryuha then, it becomes a different lineage than the original line, a tributary, if you will. This can be considered in popular understanding as a School, it follows the original Ryu, but has variants attached to it. STYLE AND PATH (RYU AND DO) Because of the huge differences between newly developed systems, karate-do as a modern art retains within itself its Ryu systems. Thus, while a school like Shito-ryu may have the Kushanku kata, it is different from a Shotokan Kanku, which will be different from a Shorin-Ryu Kushanku. Judo, as a form of "do" that is neither more nor less than a "modern" type of martial art and that emphasizes the development of the mind, body and spirit over self-defense or combat methods, but that it's just judo. You can have a Kodokan style of judo, a Japanese college style, an Olympic style, but because all of these are lumped together, there is no Ryu in judo. Judo is so malleable in technique, and so reasonable in its scientific use of competition-oriented grappling methods, that it continues to grow and innovate in its technical complexity. In fact, it is really difficult to innovate and create something "completely new under the sun". Most martial artists in this day and age are simply not capable of such originality. The same in kendo. Kendo is even older than judo as a "modern" form organized by committee, resurrected by modern artists for sporting and philosophical purposes. While there may be Ryu in kenjutsu, in kendo there is only kendo, and the particular variations of the teachers. Aikido originally began as a consolidation of techniques compiled by Ueshiba Morihei from various ryu, but this modern form has since fissured and separated, and as it can be seen, has 'factionalized' into legitimately different groups of so-called ryu. But in general, one can still see a similar tone linking a Tomikistyle practitioner, for example, a Yoshinkanstyle practitioner, to an Aikikai-style practitioner; all of which are markedly different from Daito-ryu, for example. Iaidō is an interesting art; Zen Nihon Seitei Gata are the standardized forms to which most of the practitioners of Iaidō adhere, and which are above the different Ryu of existing iai. This does not happen with the current fashion in martial arts (called mix martial arts) established in the USA or Europe, which encompass the mixture of techniques, thinking that if they put all the systems together, better techniques will be obtained due to the sum of their parts... a traditionalist like me, however, what I see is only a hodgepodge that, without denying its effectiveness, does not find cost-benefit principles beyond the show that it provides in the best Roman circus style. A matter of points of view, since the richness of a Ryu's technique means that life may not be enough for us to master it in its entirety, with which adding more does not complement it, but rather distorts it... Always remembering that the effectiveness It will have the individual as its fundamental element, this will definitely be the unbalancing factor and who should be able to achieve the best result with the minimum effort. In sport, innovation is good. Olympic Judo, for example, is constantly modified by the influence of other forms of hand-to-hand fighting, which are incorporated within the framework of competition rules and regulations of the "randori" type. Karate-do has benefited

(although there will be those of us who believe that it has also suffered) with the exchange of methods in open tournaments between markedly different exponents; Korean style practitioners can learn hand techniques from Okinawan style practitioners, Japanese style practitioners can learn kicking techniques from Korean style practitioners, etc. When done properly, such cross fertilization is good for the growth of modern forms. It is usually disastrous, however, when some enlightened ones with only a cursory understanding of the techniques try to mix and match different methods to create their own "innovative" style, instantly "classic", which usually ends up on the deck. from some martial arts magazine and then vanishes when the next fad excites the reading audience. It is a bit more complex when this innovation comes from within a Ryu koryu or classical and ancient martial system. Remember that a Ryu is the flow from a source. If you innovate too much, the Ryu's link to its origins is severed. You can also change it so much that it is unrecognizable as a particular style. Unfortunately today that is observed very often... We can see with increasing and sad frequency that the contemporary "Great Masters" denigrate the classical styles, but nevertheless maintain they have all the paraphernalia of classic Asian martial arts, including the black belt, training suit, and (above all) the redundancy of titles and nominations for oriental sound and performance. Something markedly hypocritical if you look closely. A classic Ryu ceases to be a classic if the innovation makes it totally unrecognizable. Those with a more practical approach may argue that the maintenance of classical forms is irrelevant in this day and age. They argue that learning the skill of fighting with classical kobudo weapons and that it was the perfect complement to the warrior is meaningless in this day and age, claiming that their way is better. This generally means that they are teaching a combination of “street useful” items but with unrelated techniques, perhaps using modern props such as bicycle chains, fighting knives, etc. Of course this is not to my taste, in my own elitist opinion, I think that such strange thoughts out of logic, attack the real reason why "Ryu" has survived in time. The fact of having been theorized and extracted from contemporary practical situations does not replace it. Classic "Ryu" is timeless, not punctual. The Ryu barely changes, it flows, no longer from the present, but from the past to the present, and into the future, no matter what it may hold. This, in an age when fleeting fame is measured in minutes, if not seconds, is an encouraging thought. REVIEW OF THE MOST IMPORTANT RYU WITHOUT ENTERING SPECIFICALLY INTO SCHOOLS, WHICH WOULD MAKE IT ENDLESS: There are currently more than three hundred different Karate Ryu, most of them in Japan, which gives an idea of the complexity of naming them all, therefore, I will only do it with the best known or those that have given rise to other Ryu or Ryu Ha. This large number of ways of practicing Karate is due to the different ways of interpreting the techniques or the personality of the founding masters. In this case the best known in ALPHABETICAL ORDER: CHITO-RYU Style created in Japan in 1946 by Tsuyoshi Chitose (1898-1984). One of his students is Masami Tsuroka who is the father of Canadian Karate. Contains elements of Shuri te and Naha te. Chitose had trained with Miyagi and Mabuni. Miyagi was the first to introduce Karate in Japan, followed by Funakoshi. CHOBU-SHORIN-RYU Middle Pine Forest School. Okinawan style founded in 1947 by Zenryo Shimabukuro (1904-1969). This style is also called Seibun Ryu. His current representative is Katsuhide Kochi, in 1955 he created his own dojo where he teaches a Kata created by his father, the ARAN-NO-KATA. GOJU-RYU Okinawan style founded in 1930 by Chojun Miyagi (1888-1953). It is one of the best known and most widespread styles in the world. There are currently three branches, the Okinawa Goju-Ryu, the Nihon Goju-kai, and the American branch of the U.S. Gojukai. The Okinawan branch gives rise to the SHODOKAN by Seiko Higa, the MEIBUKAN by Meitoku Yagi, the JUNDOKAN created by Eiichi Miyazato, and the SHOREIKAN by Seikichi Toguchi. The Japanese branch is represented by Gogen Yamaguchi. This master entered the legend of Karate, where he wrote his name in gold letters. A very famous student of his was Masutatsu Oyama, founder of the Kyokushinkai. In 1980 Masafumi Suzuki creates a new branch in Japanese Goju-Ryu, the SEIBUKAN (the sacred martial temple GENSEI-RYU Created in Okinawa by Seiken Sukumine. It is the school that seeks to find the profound reason for karate-do. Shurite style. ISSHIN-RYU One Heart School. Okinawan style created by Tatsuo Shimabuku in the 1950s. His son Kiichiro Shimabuko is the current grandmaster. He has 8 barehand kata and 7 Kobudo kata. Those of bare hand are: Chinto, Kushanku, Naihanchi, Sanchin, Seiunchin (Seienchin), Sesan, Unsu and Wanshu. ISHIMINE-RYU Okinawan style created by Shinei Kaneshima. A student of a teacher named Ishimine. It has three kata: Kamate-sanchin, Naihanchi and Passai. KOBAYASHI-RYU It was created in 1929 by Chosin Chibana, in the city of Shuri (he is the heir to Itosu – Matsumura –Sakugawa). This name in Japanese is Shorin ryu or small forest. Various schools stem from the style, such as: Higa Yuchoku's Kyudokan, Miyahira Katsuya's Shidokan, Nakama Chozo's Shobukan, and Shugoro Nakazato's Shorinkan.KUSHIN-RYU Created in 1937 by Kensei Kinjo (Chibana's student and Chibana's fifth graduate as ninth dan), in Osaka. A disciple of his Shintaro Yoshizato introduces the style in Okinawa in 1960.KOJO-RYU Created in Okinawa. It is a family creation, the founder of the tradition was Kojo-Uekata. He studies different forms of fighting in China, when he returns to Okinawa he continues to teach Chinese Kenpo. He possesses six barehanded kata: Haku-ryu (white dragon), Hakko (white tiger), Hako-Tsuro (white heron), Ten (heaven), Ku, Chi (earth) and two weapon kata. KOEIKAN-RYU Created in 1952 by Eizo Onishi it means temple of honor. Characteristics are respect for honor, courage, humility, self-discipline, etc. The Kata are from Naha te and Shuri te. Practice full contact combat, but with safety protections. KYOKUSHINKAI KAN “School of the ultimate truth”. It is one of the hardest styles of Japanese karate. Created in the 1950s by Matsutatsu Oyama, Korean by birth but Japanese by adoption. Countless are the branches detached from this trunk after the disappearance of Oyama Sensei... It is estimated that about 70. MATSUBYASHI-RYU Pine forest school. Created in 1947 by Shoshin Nagamine. Many kata are found in this style in their original Tomari-te form. Upon the death of the natural successor Takayoshi Nagamine, son of the founder, the style suffered several fractures. MUSHINDO-RYU Created by Ryusho Otomo in Okinawa in 1950. He studied Uechi-Ryu and Pangai-Noon, the Chinese boxing ancestor of Uechi-Ryu. REMBUKAI Association for the training of martial arts. It was founded in 1940 in Tokyo and was originally called Kanbukan (Korean martial

arts training ground). The founder was a Korean school teacher named Geka Yung. In 1949 this teacher returns to Korea. Another teacher was Hiroyasu Tamae born in 1906. He was a student of Shiroma Gukusuma. He also trains Chinese Kempo in Beijing, in Okinawa the Naha te and the Bo. This teacher is the one who has had the most influence on the development of Rembukai. In 1945 two young men, Norio Nakamura 4th dan in Kempo and 2nd dan in Judo, and Minuro Okamoto began studying at the Kanbukan and became leaders of the Rembukai. RYU-KYU-SHORIN-RYU Created in Okinawa by Seijin Inamine, Ryusho Goya, Kojun Nakishi, Hiroshi Shinya, and Soko Toguchi. They were students of the founder of SHIMABUKU SHORIN RYU. RYUEI-RYU Created in Okinawa by Nakaima Kenko (1911-1990). It also teaches the handling of all traditional Okinawan weapons. A disciple of Nakaima is the famous Sakumoto Tsuguo. SHINDO-SHIZEN-RYU Created in 1934 in Japan by Yasuhiro Konishi. Disciple of Funakoshi and Choki Motobu. SHIROMA SHITO-RYU Created in Okinawa by Shiroma Shinpan. Characteristics of Naha-te and Shurite. The katas of the style are the 5 Pinan, 3 Naihanchi, Kushanku Dai and Sho, Sanchin and Chinto. SHITO-RYU Created by Kenwa Mabuni in 1934. Receives teaching from Anko Itosu for Shuri te and Kanryo Higaonna for Naha te. From the Shuri you get the speed, the shuto uke and the kakete, from the Naha you get the power, the strength of the tanden, the specific bodybuilding. The Sanchin kata is very representative of this school. This style comprises three aspects: Shin, Gi, Tai (the heart, the technique, the body). A fair balance must be sought between these three aspects. The most important feature of the style is fidelity to the original forms. You work with weapons, starting from the basis that if you know how to handle them, it is easier to defend yourself against them. This style was divided into several groups, the most representative are: Kenei Mabuni group, Eiji Ogasahara group, Tani group (Tani-HaShito-Ryu or Shukokai), Tsuneyoshi Ogura group (Genbukai), Teruo Hayashi group (Hayashi-Ha- Shito-Ryu) and the Seishin-kai (Motobu-Ha-Shito-Ryu). SHUKOKAI-RYU Created in 1948 in Japan by Chojiro Tani. Disciple of Kenwa Mabuni. Also called Tani-Ha-Shito-Ryu. SHOBAYASHI-RYU Created in Okinawa by Kyan Chotoku. Chotoku's main students were: Nakazato Joen founder of Shorinji-Ryu, Shimabuku Tatsuo founder of Isshin-Ryu, Nagamine Shoshin founder of Matsubayashi Ryu and Shimabuku Eizo founder of Shimabuku Shorin-Ryu. SHORINJI-RYU KENKOKAN Created by Kori Hisataka in 1946. They created the Koshiki karate, they fight with protections on the chest and on the head, hands without gloves. SHOTOKAI Created by Egami Shigeru Sensei upon breaking away from Shotokan. He is considered the heir to Funakoshi's karate. He says that JKA karate moves in the opposite direction from the master's teachings. He does not accept the competition, he says that it goes against the spirit of karate-do. His practice generates a work of strength and tension against what Funakoshi practiced, who, for example, gave the tsuki in decontraction. Master Egami says: "if the body is limited, your spirit can go further". The postures are very low, total relaxation, you have to act naturally. The Kata are the same as in Shotokan, the flowing chains, without interruption. The teacher dies in 1981. SHOTOKAN Shotokan is the designation for Funakoshi's dojo. It is the most widespread style. It was popularized by Funakoshi's son Yoshitaka. Great masters have passed through Shotokan before creating their own styles, Otsuka (Wado-Ryu), Egami (Shotokai), Oyama (Kyokushinkai). A style with great internal conflicts, some students followed Funakoshi (Egami, Kamata, Obata) and others his son who was more in favor of the physical and sports line, this line is headed by Nakayama, considered the father of Shotokan. Currently the JKA has instructors in the four corners of the world. The J.K.A. (Japan Karate Association) has numerous divisions, but the most important is SKIF, directed by Hirokazu Kanazawa. This teacher has introduced Tai-Chi in Shotokan, has returned to the sources of art, is interested in other styles such as Shorin-Ryu. SHORIN-RYU Supposedly created by Sokon "Bushi" Matsumura, officially nominated as such by Chibana Choshin, it was the first style of Tode or Karate Jutsu as such. It has three main branches: Sakunai Hayashi-Ryu, Kobayashi-Ryu, and Matsubayashi-Ryu. SHORINJI-RYU Founded by Joen Nakazato in 1952. MATSUMURA SEITO KARATE Created in Okinawa by Hohan Soken. Later it gave rise to what is now known as Shorin Ryu Kenshinkan of Sensei Kise Fusei. TOZAN-RYU Founded by Shinsuke Kaneshima. UECHI-RYU Created by Kambun Uechi between 1942 and 1945. It is inspired by the Chinese Pan Gai Non style (natural heir Kanei Uechi) inspired in turn by tiger, crane and dragon boxing, it never uses a closed hand. Kambun Uechi only taught three kata: Sanchin, Seisan and Sanseiryu. His son Kanei creates new bunkai and introduces other kata. The current kata are: Sanchin, Kanshiwa, Kanshu, Sochin, Sesan, Seiryu, Kanchin and Sanseryu. WADO-RYU Founded by Hironori Otsuka. It is created from Shotokan, to which Ju-Jitsu techniques were added. It is the school of the path of peace. His symbol is the dove, the universal symbol of peace. It is a fluid, aesthetic style, whose movements respect the natural possibilities of the body. The notion of dodging predominates, which he does in three ways: Nagasu (inhale like water), Inasu (let go) and Noru (roll up). For some it is a Ju-Jitsu with some Karate, for others it is a mixture of the two creating a separate martial art. The truth is that today it is a very widespread style, especially in Japanese universities.

Gerard Balves 7th Dan Kobayashi-ryu Kyudokan Coordinator of the International Group of Dojos Kyudo Mugen Kyudokan https://www.facebook.com/gerardo.balves