The Okuden of Takeshin Sôgô Budô

The Principles of Advanced Budo The Okuden of Takeshin Sogo Budo Tony Annesi

first edition © 1994 Tony Annesi current version © 1996, 2005 BUSHIDO-KAI

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Principles of Advanced Budô

Tony Annesi

THE PRINCIPLES OF ADVANCED BUDO, The Okuden of Takeshin Sogo Budo © 1994 by Tony Annesi. © 1996, 2005 by BUSHIDO-KAI. All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews. For information address BUSHIDO-KAI PRODUCTIONS, 300 Eliot St. #369, Ashland, Massachusetts [ 01721 ] usA. Cover design by Tony Annesi Cover photo by Wade Munson (Ukemi: Kevin Scully) Photos accompanying text by Malcom Lorente Library of Congress Catalog Annesi, Tony Principles of advanced budo, the 1. martial arts 2. non-fiction I. Title.

The Okuden of Takeshin Sôgô Budô

P.A.B. The Principles of Advanced Budo The Okuden of Takeshin Sogo Budo

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Principles of Advanced Budô

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CONTENTS PART 1: PRINCIPLES and the TEACHING METHOD...7 1. PRINCIPLE DISCOVERED...9 2. TECHNIQUE vs. FORM vs. PRINCIPLES...15 3. ORGANIZATIONAL CHALLENGE...19 Takeshin Kuden...21 Takeshin Okuden...23 4. REVEALING THE SECRETS...29

PART 2: KUDEN TO OKUDEN...33 1. 2. 3. 4. 5.

ALIGNMENT...34 ALLOW...42 ATTACK DETAIL...46 ATTITUDE...50 AVOID DIRECT CONFLICT / INDIRECTNESS...58 6. CONFORM / CONTOUR...72 7. CONNECTION...78 8. CONTEXT...84 9. CONTINUITY...90 10. CONTROL CIRCULARITY...94 11. CONTROL VISION...112 12. HIDDEN IN THE OPEN...116 13. IN/YO...126

The Okuden of Takeshin Sôgô Budô

14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21.

KUZUSHI DETAIL...140 MINIMIZE...144 PREPARE...148 RELAX...152 SENSITIVITY...158 SKELETAL LOCKING...164 TRANSMUTATION...170 WEIGHT CONTROL...180

PART 3: UNCATEGORIZED CONCEPTS...195 1. 2. 3. 4. 5.

Methods of Power...196 Principles of Reception...200 Principles of Kicking...202 Principles of Training...206 Universal Principles...208

PART 4: GUIDING PRINCIPLES...211 An Integration of the 21 Kuden...214 A Final Note...215 INDEX to the Kuden and Okuden...217 About the Author...223

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Principles of Advanced Budô

Tony Annesi

The Okuden of Takeshin Sôgô Budô

I PRINCIPLES and the TEACHING METHOD

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Principles of Advanced Budô

Tony Annesi

The Okuden of Takeshin Sôgô Budô

Principle Discovered

I had just returned from studying in South Carolina under Shihan Albert C. Church, Jr., Soke (family head) of the Kamishin-ryu martial arts. My little dojo, Bushido-kai, in Framingham, Massachusetts was still being put together in segments whenever I had a little extra cash. In 1974 the economy was not exactly terrific. I was earning a whopping $125 a week and had little extra to spare. The “tatami” (it hardly deserved the name) was constructed of plywood fastened to 2x4’s resting on auto tires. The surface of the mat was a pastiche of tufted tumbling mats of a 1950s vintage. We had purchased them, used, from a refitter. There was no canvas mat cover. Objectively, the dojo was a little depressing: second floor, not the best side of the tracks, banged up, and incomplete. I was excited nevertheless. I would get to work on some of the hundreds of techniques and variations Shihan Church (and one of his students, Jerry Peppler) had taught me and I would get to teach them to my students.

Principle Discovered

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Principles of Advanced Budô

Tony Annesi

I sported a new hakama my girlfriend had made for me: royal blue, perhaps a little too bright for traditional Japanese sensibilities but not terribly garish, either. Shihan Church had promoted me to nidan (second degree black belt) in Kamishin-ryu Aiki-ju-jutsu and urged me to study diligently that which I had learned in my short stay with him. “You won’t remember half of what you’ve learned here, but understand the principles. After a while everything will start coming to you.” The first thing I did was convert our promotional requirements to manual form. We were then using two lists for the kyu ranks called Shodan Waza and Kata no Shodan. I realized that some of the techniques were duplicates of others done against slightly different attacks. Ude Otosu Odori (Arm Drop Dance), for example, was nearly identical to Mune Otosu Odori (Chest Drop Dance) except the first was done against an sleeve grab and the second against a lapel grab. I categorized these together because they required the same types of skills to perform. I fashioned three thin manuals for my students and sent them to Shihan Church for approval. To my surprise, my instructor not only liked them, not only made no substantive corrections, but also wanted my manuals to be the style’s official handbooks. In the manuals I had noted various places where I was supplementing instruction in Kamishin waza with previously learned Judo or Aikido techniques. I labeled these clearly as Bushido-kai Supplementary Techniques. Later, when I reworked the manuals into an eight-volume set (this took me ten years), these supplementary techniques, originally intended to show henka (variations), merged nicely into the requirements. I had these eight new manuals approved by Shihan Church as they were produced. Working on the manuals allowed me to understand how the techniques fell together and forced me to set a teaching method for each waza. I explained to my students that any technique could expand into many variations. As important as the techniques themselves were the principles that made them work. I made a list of ten principles we identified as we studied each technique. I wish I had them now. It would be entertaining to see how simple those principles must have been. They included things like Off-balancing, The Straight Line Principle, Distraction, etc. The students were thrilled with the idea of learning principles from one technique that could be applied to other waza. However, it quickly became apparent that even with just ten principles, an aiki technique that included a set-up, an application, and a follow-up could produce a long list of component principles to study. I reduced my list of principles to five, each with two subunits. This was still maddening. Either all five or ten principles would find their way into many of the movements we were using or, on occasion, other heretofor undiscoverded principles would pop up.

The Okuden of Takeshin Sôgô Budô

Principle Discovered

I reasoned that it would be impossible to start listing 13, 27, or 39 principles and expect to identify them in each waza. Some students were already intellectualizing about techniques rather than practicing them! Paralysis by analysis. Practice being more important to the Japanese martial arts than discussion, I opted to drop the teaching-by-principle method. Fifteen years later, Soke Don Angier of Yanagi Ryu visited my dojo, now moved to neighboring Ashland. We had corresponded off and on since the '70s and talked on the phone since the early '80s, but I had not yet met the man. In 1981, a year after Shihan Church passed away, I traveled to Los Angeles to hitch up with another old correspondent, the late Bernie Weiss (Shotokan) and planned to take a side trip to meet Soke Angier in his Lynwood, California dojo. I could not get in touch with him. I found out later he had been working away from home that month and had not received my initial letter in time to respond. Now, in 1984, I was pleased that we would finally meet. Our phone conversations had been so interesting! In 1954, Soke Angier inherited his art from Kenji YOSHIDA (the son of Kotaru YOSHIDA) who “adopted” Angier under the name of Kensaburo YOSHIDA (I use capitalization for Asian surnames to avoid confusion). Sensei Angier is one of the few legitimate inheritors of a traditional Asian art in the United States. Angier took the uncategorized teachings of his instructor and studied them in depth, breaking down each movement and referring to Gray’s Anatomy to check which muscles, bones, etc. were being effected. He emerged from this study with a masterful knowledge of technique and a set of principles. He was kind enough to introduce them to me. I was shocked that someone else had not only taught by principles but was still teaching from a list of fifty principles (and adding to the list whenever some new refinement was isolated). I immediately realized that functioning by principle was what I was missing. When I did an aiki movement correctly, it adhered to certain principles even if I had changed technique to adapt to the specific opponent. Learning techniques by emulating Shihan Church (who was 4 inches shorter than I) or Mitsunari KANAI (Cambridge, Massachusetts Aikido Shihan) who was 5 inches shorter than I, or even Soke Angier (who was 6 inches shorter than I) would mean emulating a format that might be imprecise for my specific physique. Principles allowed me to adjust my waza properly and go beyond mere trial and error in studying or testing my repertoire. I spent a decade understanding the various principles and applying them to karate as well as aiki. One of my Judo students, Arthur Sennott, went about the task of applying the principles to Judo waza and kata. Then, in the early '90s I met, separately, a master of Chinese arts and a kempo master, both of whom also taught, albeit quite differently, by principle. Although their

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principles were stated differently and their emphases were totally unlike, both supported the idea of learning concepts that could be applied to waza. Along with my aiki and karate, I had been teaching an in-house art we called Seiken Budo (Combined Fist Martial Way). I felt that the principles taught by other arts could better help me appreciate the combined material of Seiken Budo. The name “Seiken” was adapted from Shihan Church’s Seiken Award which recognized students who had reintegrated the hard and soft aspect of the Kamishin arts. According to Shihan Church, his art descended, as so many Asian arts do, from the Shaolin Temple, or more accurately, from one of the Shaolin Temples. Its origin was in the late 1300’s in a style called Pa Ming Ch’uan (Eight Ram’s Head Fist), a specific amalgam of the five animal styles (tiger, leopard, crane, snake, dragon) which Shaolin is famous for. Its specific headmaster can be traced with certainty only as far back as 1679 to Honan Province and a man named Yon Ho CHIN. Chin is considered the “modern” founder of the style that came to be known as Shaolin-szu Tang Su Dao Pa Ming Ch’uan. He passed away in 1751 handing the leadership to his son Lee Ho CHIN who resided in Cheiang Province. From three centuries in China, the leadership passed to one of Chin’s students, a Korean named Lee Chi KOOH. This headmaster settled in Ingei City, central Korea and mixed his art with his native Tae Kyon. Here the art was called So Rim Sa Churl Kwon Do Tang Soo Do, substituting the Korean Churl Kwon (iron fist) for the ram’s head. Next in succession was his son Kin Chi KOOH of Yong Dong Po, Korea. Kooh had studied Japanized Korean arts (during the Japanese occupation) and in his later years traveled to Japan for cancer therapy. It was there in Mishima-shi, Shizuoka-ken that Kooh met Al Church, an American serviceman who already had an extensive martial arts background. Dr. Albert C. Church, Jr. had studied an offshoot of Daito-ryu (called Dai Yoshin Ryu) as a boy under Sagaru YAKOHTO, a student of Sokaku TAKEDA. As a young man Church had studied Motobu-ha Shito-ryu Karate to the level of fifth dan. Church was also ranked in Judo. Eager to vary his already diverse training, Church studied under Kooh a method itself varied in its techniques. Had he not been an accomplished martial artist, it would have been quite difficult to master the variety of methods employed by the style. There were elements of hard Shaolin that looked like Japanese karate, other elements that looked more Okinawan, circular techniques with a Chinese brand on them similar to kempo, and of course, Kooh’s own Chinese-Korean kicking skills. A grappling element contained Chin-na techniques which looked at times like hard ju-jutsu and at times like soft aiki. Weapons were also included. When

The Okuden of Takeshin Sôgô Budô

Principle Discovered

Church’s tour of duty ended in 1962, he returned to his home in Charleston, South Carolina. In 1967, his former instructor, aware of his own imminent death, called Church back to Japan. With the presentation of a 30-foot long scroll of successorship, Kooh passed the nearly 600-year-old style on to Dr. Church. In order to teach this widely varied art effectively, Church divided his style into ryugi (substyles) to allow them to develop separately for ten years. Then, in 1979, Church formally recombined the arts, now named Shorinji Tetsu Kenpo (Shaolin Temple Iron Fist Way). It is this spirit of recombination that Church wanted to encourage with the Seiken Award. My own Seiken Budo started as a variation of Shorinji Tetsu Kenpo, incorporating my own background arts. Master Church passed away in 1980. From 1984 to 1988, I served as soke-dai (inheritor designate) of the Kamishin arts but resigned from the position to avoid a conflict in managerial styles with its new headmistress, Shihan Church’s wife, Catherine O. Church. This left me free to adjust my Seiken Budo as I saw fit. I immediately applied the principles I had used in aiki, karate, Judo, and other arts to this study. Seiken Budo gave me an opportunity to create waza based on principles rather than applying principles to waza. I discovered that most of what I “created” had previously been created in other styles. I had not intentionally put together a pastiche of styles and renamed it; rather, I had started with principles and recreated techniques that others, unknown to me, had developed first. Principles had lead me to understand the movements and emphases of dozens more martial arts than I had studied personally. But organizing a group of specific principles used differently in hard and soft arts was still a challenge. This book is an attempt to address that challenge.

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Principles of Advanced Budô

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The Okuden of Takeshin Sôgô Budô

Technique vs. Form vs. Principle There are three main methods of learning martial arts: by accumulating technique, by analyzing form, and by understanding principles. They are not mutually exclusive, but most styles emphasize one over the other.

Learning by Accumulating Technique In most martial schools, traditional or otherwise, the art is taught by technique. "Learn four technical requirements and you are a yellow belt. Learn six more and you are an orange belt." In these schools, the curriculum has become the art itself. Technique is necessary, of course, but I consider it a way to express examples of the art in action. If technique were the art itself then, after 100 techniques or 2000 techniques, one would have mastered the art. Given henka (variations) for each technique, perhaps the total number would be 10,000 or 100,000. A technique-oriented student could never master an art so vast.

Technique vs. Form vs. Principle

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