TOM HILLS DOJO - Goju Karate - Saifa Bunkai - Side Head Chancery Slam down from hook punch attack

Tom shows a Side Head Chancery Slam down from hook punch attack - this can be interpreted as a Bunkai (application) from Saifa Kata, (first move). Tom is assisted by Simon Tasker - blue belt - vigerously practising his roll outs.

Tom Hill is the Chief Instructor of Goju.co.uk. Tom is 60 years old in 2011 and has been training 38 years. This is one of many clips on the Channel.

The club has been established over 34 years. Formal 2 hour training on Monday & Thursday evenings and informal training on Sunday mornings.

Tom Hill has written 2 books: The Art of Self Defence (Amazon) & Belief & Emotion (apple ibooks).

Tom has also produced a DVD with many of the clips shown on it. See our website: www.goju.co.uk.

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[gojukarate100]

i love this grappling technique. very good. i do goju but do you think the grappling and striking techniques from the traditional goju system are as effective for self defense as a modern martial art like american kenpo, jeet kune do,krav maga,that were designed especially for modern defense situations?

[TOMHILLSVISION]

@gojukarate100 I also love this technique and have done it for many years in all its variations. Goju has not been messed about with too much as have modern styles. The old warriors were doing it for real - life and death not a contest and the old Bunkai reflected this, with contest or modern style no one gets really hurt or killed. I often have to tone down the old Bunkai and use good control to avoid serious injury to my students. Old Goju Bunkai was serious - life and death. Regards Tom

[TOMHILLSVISION]

@elenchus Much of Goju has 'white crane' influence so perhaps that is where there is much common ground. 'Go ken ki' hard fist saint (roughly translated) was present in Okinawa at the time of Miyagi and the founding of the system and he was a white crane stylist. regards tom

[TOMHILLSVISION]

@elenchus Hi Thanks for all your comments very interesting. Keep up your inquirey into the roots of the Kata. From our understanding Saifa is a vey old Chinese Kata and it certainly feels that way - it has a distinctive 'flavour'. At the end of the day all Martial Arts have common ground and its good that we can come together in our common practise. Kind regards tom.

[elenchus]

@TOMHILLSVISION This last part seems a bit unlikely as we Americans and Japanese have our roots in the father, Minoru, and the Europeans have their roots in his son, so their style is much more karate-esque than our own. If, however, these movements are in many styles of traditional mainland JMA, then the more striking conclusion would be that naha-te itself, and perhaps the Chinese since apparently Saifa is very old, got the techniques from mainland Japan. That would be a fascinating finding.

[elenchus]

@TOMHILLSVISION I wonder if it's unique to the Yoseikan system. Our founder, Minoru Mochizuki, mastered virtually every non-Chinese (Chinese stuff was pretty taboo in Japan at the time) martial art in the world, although officially he learned Shotokan from Funakoshi. Perhaps Funakoshi knew those kata, or perhaps he learned naha-te somewhere on the way. His son was much more interested in karate, so perhaps these tai sabaki come from his son.

[elenchus]

@TOMHILLSVISION In aiki-jujutsu, we have no solo kata, so technically speaking, it's all bunkai. Thus, I've had to isolate all the movements from both judo and aikido (traditional jujutsu generally) and practice them solo systematically to try and make connections with the kata I've learned over the last couple of years. There are only so many ways to deal with an attack, but the similarity between the bunkai in saifa and the basic tai sabaki in yoseikan is absolutely striking.

[elenchus]

@TOMHILLSVISION what's very interesting to me is that not only is the footwork borderline identical, even the atemi are nearly identical. Instead of an uraken (in our Saifa, at least) we have a more traditional backfist as our atemi in nagashi, and in hiraki/crane stance, to the inside, we parry with one arm, chop/guard to the collarbone with the outside arm and use mei geri to the groin.

[elenchus]

@TOMHILLSVISION I can't seem to find many on youtube. This is mainly because our terminology is the aiki-jujutsu terminology, before Ueshiba (or his successors, I'm not sure which) changed it post-WW2. But I do have a website that shows the tai sabaki footwork, if not the basic atemi. Opening three techniques in Saifa use what we call (soto) nagashi, and the crane stance is what we call (uchi) hiraki. I'll send the link to your inbox.

[TOMHILLSVISION]

@elenchus I very much agree about the opening of saifa as being a moveing lesson in Tai Subaki (ultimate body evasion) and you are correct about the other Bunkai. We do at least 6 Bunkai from every move in the Kata (a big big job) this video was about just one move, but as I grew up wrestling as a kid, this particular move in saifa was obvious to me straight away long before I knew any other bunkai. A chancery was always my self defence winner when I got into foolish combat as a kid. regards tom