"Some birds can't be caged. Their colors are just too bright."
--Barack Obama, after watching the videos I'm about to share with you.
Hola amigos! I know it's been a while since I rapped at ya, but some things are worth coming back from the dead for.
Longtime BS members may recall that in years past I've posted several unbelievably epic threads about my brief but (obviously) traumatizing tenure at a karate dojo so bad, it may very well be the worst school ever featured on Bullshido. This was a school with no pads, no mats, no bags, no sparring, nothing but cold tile floor and three mirrors. We did zero live drilling and the techniques were so bad they ranged from the impractical to the surreal to the stuff Ricky-Oh would find over the top. My sensei, an ostensibly experienced martial artist of over 30 years' experience, taught me wonderfully street-ready things like how to punch someone in the foot, strike the bicep with the webbing of the hand, gouge out the femoral artery with a toenail, and stab my foe with his own broken clavicle. And now, dear friends, seven years after I last set foot in the dojo, I discovered Sensei Radunz has created a Youtube page. Let the magic unfold.
I'm sorry to say little of the AAA stuff is online. He never shows how to grab someone by the ribcage and hurl them like Hulk Hogan, for instance. But there's enough quality material to give you a pretty good look at just what the bottom of the abyss looks like.
YouTube- Isshin-ryu Basic #14
Two things are immediately noteworthy: First, how sparse the dojo is. See those five feet of mats and the makiwara? That's new. It's also literally all the dojo has in terms of training equipment. Second, notice how this is as close as Isshin-Ryu gets to throwing a real hook. Yes, those weird flailing lead-with-the-chest punches are supposed to be hooks. There's also a special treat around the 2:30 mark that I wouldn't dare spoil for you.
YouTube- Isshin-ryu Basic #15
Isshin Ryu has 15 upper body basic techniques that are supposed to represent the bare fundamentals of fighting. The early ones are mostly slight variations on generic karate punches and blocks, but the later get weirdly specific. In this case, the first few minutes are him trying to show you how to escape a rear bear hug by giving them a rear naked choke instead.
But then he does something else. In my Isshin Ryu chronicles I mentioned how our school had a weird, Pokemon-like fetish for "collecting" new applications (Bunkai) for existing movements. The idea was the fundamental motions of any kata/basic technique were so holy, so pure, they could be used in virtually any instance for a thousand different applications. Punch? Kick? Armbar? All can be countered by throwing any Isshin Ryu technique given the right application.
The principle of using Bunkai to invent new moves lead to a lot of the worst stuff I saw in class, and now, for the first time, we've caught this madness on camera. The best stuff is around the five minute mark, when he shows you how to properly punch the trapezius off a psuedo-arm drag.
YouTube- Isshin-ryu 13th Basic Exercise
Similar deal, only this one is with double karate chops to the biceps, skull, forearms, and at one point what I can only describe as an attempt to destroy his uke with a massive pincher attack.
YouTube- Isshin-ryu Kata Wansu Dump
"The Wansu Dump" is an infamous Isshin Ryu takedown whereby tori high-blocks uke's punch, steps in to grab his obi, and then vaguely lifts him over his head and hurls him across the room like an angry Joe Biden. In this case Sensei tried to play the part of pragmatic mediator and implied that maybe possibly not that anyone's wrong or anything but it might not be entirely 100% accurate to pick a full grown man over your head using only your arms. What you really do is just sort of grab him just wherever man and throw him.
The first few minutes are just bullshit about circles, but things really pick up around 4:30. That's when we learn how to block a punch and simultaneously subtly rub his arm in just the right way to yank his posture down, palm strike him in the ribs with zero hip rotation while his other hand remains awkwardly chambered, then vaguely underhook his arm while your grab the gi behind his shoulders and walk in a circle until his impossibly terrible posture caves in on itself and falls to the side.
There are 31 videos on SenseiRadunz's Youtube page, and while a lot of them are just dull kata videos, there's a lot more gold to be found.
http://www.youtube.com/user/SenseiRadunz#p/a
--Barack Obama, after watching the videos I'm about to share with you.
Hola amigos! I know it's been a while since I rapped at ya, but some things are worth coming back from the dead for.
Longtime BS members may recall that in years past I've posted several unbelievably epic threads about my brief but (obviously) traumatizing tenure at a karate dojo so bad, it may very well be the worst school ever featured on Bullshido. This was a school with no pads, no mats, no bags, no sparring, nothing but cold tile floor and three mirrors. We did zero live drilling and the techniques were so bad they ranged from the impractical to the surreal to the stuff Ricky-Oh would find over the top. My sensei, an ostensibly experienced martial artist of over 30 years' experience, taught me wonderfully street-ready things like how to punch someone in the foot, strike the bicep with the webbing of the hand, gouge out the femoral artery with a toenail, and stab my foe with his own broken clavicle. And now, dear friends, seven years after I last set foot in the dojo, I discovered Sensei Radunz has created a Youtube page. Let the magic unfold.
I'm sorry to say little of the AAA stuff is online. He never shows how to grab someone by the ribcage and hurl them like Hulk Hogan, for instance. But there's enough quality material to give you a pretty good look at just what the bottom of the abyss looks like.
YouTube- Isshin-ryu Basic #14
Two things are immediately noteworthy: First, how sparse the dojo is. See those five feet of mats and the makiwara? That's new. It's also literally all the dojo has in terms of training equipment. Second, notice how this is as close as Isshin-Ryu gets to throwing a real hook. Yes, those weird flailing lead-with-the-chest punches are supposed to be hooks. There's also a special treat around the 2:30 mark that I wouldn't dare spoil for you.
YouTube- Isshin-ryu Basic #15
Isshin Ryu has 15 upper body basic techniques that are supposed to represent the bare fundamentals of fighting. The early ones are mostly slight variations on generic karate punches and blocks, but the later get weirdly specific. In this case, the first few minutes are him trying to show you how to escape a rear bear hug by giving them a rear naked choke instead.
But then he does something else. In my Isshin Ryu chronicles I mentioned how our school had a weird, Pokemon-like fetish for "collecting" new applications (Bunkai) for existing movements. The idea was the fundamental motions of any kata/basic technique were so holy, so pure, they could be used in virtually any instance for a thousand different applications. Punch? Kick? Armbar? All can be countered by throwing any Isshin Ryu technique given the right application.
The principle of using Bunkai to invent new moves lead to a lot of the worst stuff I saw in class, and now, for the first time, we've caught this madness on camera. The best stuff is around the five minute mark, when he shows you how to properly punch the trapezius off a psuedo-arm drag.
YouTube- Isshin-ryu 13th Basic Exercise
Similar deal, only this one is with double karate chops to the biceps, skull, forearms, and at one point what I can only describe as an attempt to destroy his uke with a massive pincher attack.
YouTube- Isshin-ryu Kata Wansu Dump
"The Wansu Dump" is an infamous Isshin Ryu takedown whereby tori high-blocks uke's punch, steps in to grab his obi, and then vaguely lifts him over his head and hurls him across the room like an angry Joe Biden. In this case Sensei tried to play the part of pragmatic mediator and implied that maybe possibly not that anyone's wrong or anything but it might not be entirely 100% accurate to pick a full grown man over your head using only your arms. What you really do is just sort of grab him just wherever man and throw him.
The first few minutes are just bullshit about circles, but things really pick up around 4:30. That's when we learn how to block a punch and simultaneously subtly rub his arm in just the right way to yank his posture down, palm strike him in the ribs with zero hip rotation while his other hand remains awkwardly chambered, then vaguely underhook his arm while your grab the gi behind his shoulders and walk in a circle until his impossibly terrible posture caves in on itself and falls to the side.
There are 31 videos on SenseiRadunz's Youtube page, and while a lot of them are just dull kata videos, there's a lot more gold to be found.
http://www.youtube.com/user/SenseiRadunz#p/a
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