“Pinan Shodan!” We all chorused together.
“Ichi” Sensei had a way of counting in Japanese, using the inflection in his voice that spurred us into the right ‘character’ of movement. It couldn’t be done in English. Japanese has the inflection at the end of each word that mirrors the focus or ‘kime’ in a technique. Sensei also had the way of elongating the count when he wanted a slow kata movement. It was a real skill. His count and voice would tell us exactly what he wanted from us in sound.
Sometimes it would be ‘urgent’ when he wanted a quick sharp movement and sometimes quiet, soft and elongated for a slower ‘half speed’ movement when working on the skill.
“Zitch!” the seventh movement was pivoting on the left foot, looking over the right shoulder with a right hand inner to outer block at head height and a mid level front kick in the same direction, turning to the left with a knife hand block.
“Rick! You’ve moved off line there. The whole sequence should be performed on the spot. In fact, your centre should still be in the same place that it was at the start of the kata.”
“Sensei, can you tell me what the bunkai to that move is?” Rick looked puzzled.
“Exsqueeze me? The bunkai to it? What do you think bunkai means? Now it was sensei’s turn to look puzzled.
“Bunkai… Rick said hesitantly…. You know… application…”
“Aaaahhhhhh…. Everyone… sit down…” We knew a more ‘in depth’ explanation was on it’s way.
“Who knows about the trinity of kata? Sensei looked around and no one answered, after a respectful wait he decided to answer.
“Bunkai means to ‘break down and explore’. Ohyo which translates as ‘application’ may result from that exploration, but that is not what ‘bunkai’ is.”
“Yeah but isn’t that just a play on words said Rick, as long as you get the fighting techniques from kata, surely that’s all that counts.”
“Have patience Rick, follow what I’m saying, this is vitally important.”
The trinity of kata is as follows, first there is medicinal, we bring yogic health to the mind and body, through good posture, breathing, relaxation, intention and awareness. Secondly there is the ‘heiho’ which is the strategy of mind and body, the skill of technique, zanshin awareness, control of distance, timing and developing a responsive aware and powerful mind. Thirdly, there is peacekeeping, the ability to apply the other two to re-establish a state of peace and harmony and where disharmony exists. This may involve just your presence, words, a restraint, a knockout or even death, but the martial artist has prepared himself for any eventuality.
The three aspects form a trinity, they are inextricably linked.”
“Yeah but what about if people only want to fight and aren’t interested in the other aspects?”
“Then the examination of the legacy passed down to us is wasted. All three are necessary, even for the student that is only interested in fighting, because how can you fight if you’re not healthy in body and mind? How can you fight without strategy and technique? The aggressive idiots are easy to deal with if you are fit, healthy, trained in technique and imbued with the wisdom of the masters.”
“How do we employ ‘bunkai’ to this sequence then?”
“We look at the postural alignment, the positioning, the breathing, the ability of the mind to perceive 3 dimensionally, bear in mind that you’ve dealt with opponents to your left and right and now with a simple pivot on the left foot, what was back and front is now side to side. The obvious attack will come from the rear and that is why you pivot and make it from your right, a simple skilful manoeuvre will take out his knee and neck enabling you to throw him into the opponent that was in front. You have a variety of applications available to you depending on the severity of the situation. By using the principles from the core system, the application depends on the skill and strategic training you’ve gained from the other two aspects of your karate training.
And of course, nothing works without you having studied the basic skills, philosophies and ethos of your art.”
“So basically we’re practising how to throw one opponent into another?”
“No. We’re practising the posture, breathing and awareness to develop our health. The skills and strategies of controlling people in all 4 directions, we are working on the likelihood of what order they might attack in and why. The skill of dealing with them whatever order they attack and one possible outcome of that is that you may end up throwing one person into another.
That is bunkai. Can you see the mistake of making a quantum leap assuming that just one possible outcome is the sequence in its entirety?”
“What you’re saying is that we have the trinity and if we can see it, then bunkai becomes much more than just application, if we focus on the ohyo, then we miss the essential 90% of karate training that makes the applications work?”
“Exactly. But it’s much more than that. Those that focus on the application do not become complete warriors. Kata has an underlying genius in that the way that it’s constructed means that the sequences are not just fighting. Each consecutive movement is designed to enhance the learning skill of the moves before and after. Then the whole sequence makes a complete learning experience. Often repeated movements are from different directions and angles – so you have the same technique and principles being explored from different ways. Then different kata have different stories, different skills, systems, history… the collection of kata that you practice to make the ‘style’ becomes your mnemonic for remembering so many different aspects.”
“Can you repeat that trinity again Sensei?”
“Yes, burn it into your brain….
- Mental and physical health.
- Mental and physical skill and strategy.
- Peacekeeping.
That is karate.”