One
question, which is often asked, is “why we practice chudan tsukiwaza (middle
level punching techniques) so much. Well, there are two reasons: one is for
training and the other is for self-defence application. However, before I
outline these I want to state something that many people teach and
astonishingly seem to believe.
1. Here is a typical, and incorrect,
understanding about why chudan tsukiwaza are practiced so much: “The advantage
of punching chudan is that the torso is a larger target and is less mobile than
the head. Furthermore, a chudan level technique has greater range than a jodan
tsuki for all the obvious reasons. In sum, chudan punches score more ‘points’;
hence, they are practiced more”. －This is 100% SPORTS KARATE.
Well,
firstly, I’m not denying that chudan punches aren’t great for winning
competitions. I won many matches, and was New Zealand National Champion many times, by often employing chudan tsukiwaza. Nevertheless, and
needless to say, competition karate is just ‘a testing ground for ones karate’
and certainly ‘not the origin of technique nor the purpose of the art’.
2. So why so much chudan in our traditional training? I will briefly
outline both purposes, as said above—one for training and one for application…
Firstly,
for TRAINING: We practice/train chudan-waza for ‘centralization’; that is,
everything starts from the center and, furthermore, it is from this point that
variations/deviations can most easily be made. Another way to think of it is
that “chudan is the marker point for the extremes of height variations (which
constitute ‘jodan’ and ‘gedan’)”.
Mid-level
tsukiwaza essentially allows us to optimally train both vertical and horizontal
tai no shinshuku of the torso—combining the use of the seika-tanden and opening
and folding of the seichusen, which underpins the use of the back muscles in
relation to the chest muscles.
Secondly,
for APPLICATION: Before I go into this point, I’ll need to address two points.
Firstly, context. This is an area which many karateka overlook or disregard;
however, it largely establishes the training approach and, directly pertaining
to that, optimal effectiveness with one’s karate outside of the dojo.
A. Context—civilian unarmed self defence:
Without
wasting any time, the context of karate is ‘civilian empty-handed self-defence’;
that is, when understood correctly—at least in the case of Shotokan—“…karate is
not for the battlefield, mutually agreed street fights/duals, nor for competitive
fighting.”
The
fact is that warfare and duals primarily involved weapons for thousands of
years. Blades for stabbing, clubs for hitting, arrows for shooting and, in more
recent centuries, weapons firing bullets, explosives, etcetera. In all cases,
when the weapon(s) is/are gone, or the ammunition is out, unarmed martial arts are the
last resort… In other words, and please excuse my language, it’s the “oh shit”
moment for ‘warriors’. Unarmed combat is the literally the final option.
Karate
is not an art for warriors or professional fighter’s—and it never has
been—rather, it is a martial art ‘for the average person’ who needs reliable
skills to repel an attack on the street. Clearly, this is different from people training to enter K1 kickboxing, cage fighting events, and the boxing ring. This
is why, when karateka enter such events they need to cross train in competitive
fighting arts such as boxing, judo, college wrestling, Muay Thai etcetera.
Ultimately,
Funakoshi Sensei completely disagreed with tournament karate and, likewise, his
motto was “Karatedo ni sente nashi” (there is no first attack in karatedo).
Nonetheless, he also said that karate, by itself, is enough for 'complete self-defence';
accordingly, let’s now generically look at oyo (application): to understand 'why' this is the case.
B. How to apply karate?
So
now I have explained the correct context of karate, Master Funakoshi’s words
should make more sense; moreover, they unambiguously tell us two key points
about the use/application of karate techniques. The first point is that karate
is applied in response to an attack—which again highlights 'personal protection' as opposed to a dual context (or the battlefield). The second point, which
he also stated, was that karate was too lethal for ‘matches between exponents’.
Clearly, therefore he was strongly against karate tournaments and, more
importantly than this, “…it elucidates that the karate, he was talking about, was
nothing like the ‘kumite’ found in modern tournaments (both now in 2018, right
back to the first All Japan Championships in 1957).
It
is very worth mentioning here that “the first All Japan tournament was held in
the year Funakoshi Sensei died 1957—after he was dead)”. Just an unlucky
coincidence? Well, based on his published opinions, which I have conveyed above,
that is highly unlikely.
 |
| Funakoshi Sensei opposed competition as his karate was too dangerous, and he didn't want to water karate down. |
So,
to reiterate, Funakoshi Sensei stressed that “…the application of karate is for 'self defence' and is 'extremely volatile'”. This is why ‘when we see kata, it doesn’t resemble
competition kumite’. Sure, there are relationships but, indeed, very dim ones.
OK, so let’s
return to the point of this article: chudan tsukiwaza… Surely, if karate was so
dangerous in application it wouldn’t teach so many 'body shots'. Yes, body
punches are, of course, highly effective, but (for obvious reasons, and generally speaking) it is natural to prioritize head attacks.
Well,
as I learned many years ago from Asai Tetsuhiko Sensei: "Most of the chudan punches in the 'time capsules of
our art'—the various kata (which, again, ‘coincidentally’ Master Funakoshi
emphasised)—are, in fact 'jodan attacks' when applied". Over and over again, we can
see that the techniques in the kata result in the opponent’s head being lowered, by the use of gravity, being folded forward at the waist, and so on.
What’s
more, is “…that the head is positioned directly in the line of the ‘chudan
trajectory’; moreover, in a position that disallows the neck to do one of its
most important jobs: 'to move the head in relation
to an impact/trauma', thus, reduce any potential damage to the brain”.
In
sum, the opponent is highly exposed as they are off balance, potentially
disorientated, and have become, at least momentarily, a ‘sitting duck’ for a
king hit with a ‘chudan-waza’. The funny thing is that this ‘way’ can be
applied effectively by small and/or physically weaker people and, most
importantly, “…can be devastatingly applied by someone with minimal prowess”.
In particular, this last point is essential as “fine motor skills have an
extremely poor rate of success under the pressure of a violent assault”. From
reading this, you will now see what Funakoshi Sensei meant by his words and how, karate, for the most part, has lost it’s direction.
Today
I have used the example of chudan tsukiwaza to highlight a bigger picture. I
sincerely hope that this article has enlightened you in some way, or provided a
different thinking platform. Overall, and needless to say, merely thinking
about such points is insufficient. The key is, as I have always stressed, daily
and correct physical karate practise and training. In this way, karate can be
returned to ‘the unparallelled martial art of civilian self-defence’ that it
actually is. Osu, André
© André Bertel. Oita
City, Japan (2018).
