Great post.



Sure he does, it's just internalized, more compact, performed with varied initiatives, and has a lot of mistakes he's able to smooth over and respond to because it's not to script. Hatsumi always talks about the importance of throwing away form, but you need a form to throw away first...

The kū element. No?

Funny how few people seem to notice that Hatsumi hasn't used any of the Classical material in his own movement in years.

Interesting, I haven't trained in Japan since 1992 so admittedly I haven't seen any of the movements that may have evolved since that time. However, prior to that I never saw any modern movements other than the grab punch techniques from shizen (which I might add I used effectively). So what kind of modern stuff has been incorporated? I take it it's what I have read elsewhere as what is being referred to Hatsumi Ryu (not sure if that is just a nickname or not!).

Hatsumi always talks about the importance of throwing away form, but you need a form to throw away first...

The funny thing is, I've read plenty about different application of godai etc but I never experienced it in Japan (I trained mostly with one shihan). To be honest, we just did techniques. Each year we trained techniques from a different ryu, the philosophical stuff and godai etc were never mentioned at all. I was fluent in Japanese at the time and the dojo I trained at was unusual in that most of the students were Japanese so I would have known if there was any discussion of the esoteric stuff (during my time there). Other than practicing the godai as a kata there was no mention of it being anything more than principals of movement. Those same movements were used in the taijutsu of various techniques, but that was as deep as it went. Maybe things were different in Hatsumi's classes but then again there are a very high number of foreigners there too which leads to a very different dynamic. I only attended a few classes at the hombu, the atmosphere wasn't for me at all.

Vlad, I'm not quite sure what you're talking about. Are you referring to the godai as in the elemental "feeling" and stuff around movements of the sanshin no kata? If you didn't experience anything like that, might be because that was all some extrapolation of Stephen Hayes' back in the day (see: http://www.budoseek.net/vbulletin/content.php?171).

When I started in ~2002 it was communicated as a set of purely physical exercises, the names just a system of counting. In reference to Hatsumi's movement, I'm just talking about internalized as in "deeply-ingrained," the shrinking of timing and distance, adaptability, etc.