And are in a ton of kata, older books, etc 🙂

BTW, I just found myself singing a ditty to the tune of "Thine be the glory" but with the words "Choki Motobu, likes to grab you by the nuts." Not sure I can make a whole song.

The individual sections that make up the kata definitely were. Some kata can be done as full flow drills, but I don’t think that was their intent. Kata is a “stitching together” of numerous two-person methods done solo.

There are lots of “karates” these days … with many claiming theirs is the only true karate. In my case, I think they are al valid if they are meeting the stated goals of the karateka … BUT I do get a lot of karateka claiming “that’s not karate” whenever I do something historical that they are not personally familiar with.

We can definitely play with the ides Motobu shows, and I am sure that would be something he would encourage. However, Motobu describes the method as shown: “My opponent tries to strike my face with his left fist, but I stop the attack with my right hand. At this time, the opponent attempts to strike my body with his right fist [one of my adaptations being to make them both head height]. My right hand, which stopped the opponent’s left-hand attack will quicky move to stop his attack. Then, my left fist will strike to the face.” Aside from my changing of the second punch to head height, the method shown is exactly as Motobu describes. In this case, he is not being “sticky” with the first punch as the block does quickly move off to stop the second attack. All the best, Iain

@@practicalkatabunkai Thanks for the reply and the details! As one who started with longer range arts and then treid Jiujitsu for a few years, I've been trying to delve into that middle ground where strikes and standing grappling can occur. I think Motobu had a really good understanding of this so I greatly appreciate you sharing :)

As mentioned in the video, I think you can do either. Motobu is palm down, as I am, in his book. I love shovel hooks, but in this case, from this position, I prefer palm down as the knuckles are more prominent, the wrist is still nicely aligned, the shift generates a ton of power, and there is need to keep the heel down for stability / tactical purposes, which means lifting the heel to drive up is off the table. While I don’t agree with Motobu on this point, he was very against “floating foot” (lifting the heel), so I also like to teach his methods in line with his thinking. We do plenty of heel lifting elsewhere in training though.

@@practicalkatabunkai I used to be very torn on the lifted heel as well! I was originally trained to always have the heel down, but saw how much power a boxer (or my Kenpo practicing friend) could generate. Now I think I'm more in Motobu's camp, but this could be due to aging. I've found I can generate more power now with the heel down and better structure through the pelvis, back, and shoulders. I think of heel up as throwing a punch almost like a baseball, whereas the heel down is like making the opponent run into a statue (the second appealing more to my less explosive older self haha)

Always boggles my mind how people think a martial art that old never developed past straight strikes lol

They also don't know that a good puch to the kidneys will stand you bolt upright and trying to bend backwards.

In places and I know this is dicussed later in the series. If memory serves, I discuss it around drill 6 and during the anti-gripping drills.

It was! All better now :-)

@practicalkatabunkai glad to hear that , keep up the great work , osu !

Full breakdowns of both Nidan and Sandan in my app. There are also some overviews here on KZbin! Thanks for the intrest!

@practicalkatabunkai thank you. I didn't know of an app. I will look into that!