The Kobukan dojo in Hamilton was the venue for the end of year training and grading for Koryu Uchinadi New Zealand. Sensei Steve McLellan and Sensei Brett Hall brought a group of Auckland based students from both the North Shore and Onehunga dojos, for what was an excellent days training.
Starting with the traditional junbi undo or preparatory exercises, we soon moved on to the kihon waza, or basic techniques, which build the foundation for the Koryu Uchinadi delivery system. Within Koryu Uchinadi, we have six stand up sets of basics, comprising of: Punching, kicking, posturing, open hand striking, alternative methods of impacting i.e.: elbows, knees, headbutts, bumping etc, and blocking, checking and receiving. These stand up basics are followed by two groundwork drills, ground kicking and breakfalling, these 8 sets of basics culminate in a single kata called Nanshu, which is only taught when all eight sets of basics have been learnt.
Sensei Steve (5th Dan and the new Zealand shibucho or head of style) led the group of 25 willing and eager students through the first two hours, coaching, guiding and correcting, from beginning white belts, through to experienced black belts and confirming to me that he is one of the best instructors I have had the pleasure of training under. All to soon the morning session came to an end, and we bowed out for a welcome drink and bite to eat.
White to Green Belts during Nanshu Kata.
The afternoon session began with Nanshu being performed at a reasonably sedate pace to allow lunches to be digested, (I for one didn’t want any lunch bought up on our new matts). Tegumi came next; tegumi is what we like to think of as the link between kata and bunkai (bunkai is the practical application of the techniques that the kata consist of). A set of twelve exercises comprising of blocking, trapping and seizing, a variety of offensive techniques, tegumi can be a continuous flow drill, or it can be broken down into it’s individual components.
Tegumi is much like the hubud drills found in the Filipino systems, and are an important part of the Koryu Uchinadi curriculum.
The afternoon training finished with fifteen of our members being tested for a promotion in rank, including three members who were retesting after not meeting the required level last time. This time I am happy to say all the members met the requirements, and were successful in achieving their new rank.
Later in the evening we all met at a local restaurant and bar for a meal and a couple of cold beers, and had the pleasure of catching up with Sensei Terry Hill, who had contacted me earlier in the day, Sensei Terry is also a member of the International Ryukyu Karate Research Society. Founded by our international head, Kyoshi Patrick McCarthy the IRKRS is a non-political research group, studying the ethos, anthropology and technical theories of traditional karate do.
The Black Belts during Nanshu Kata.
I would like to say a special thanks to Sensei McLellan, Sensei Hall, and to Sempai Aaron Leillan, Sempai Marcus Steele and all the students who attended the Saturday training. Without your support we couldn’t host these events. Also my sincere congratulations to all those members who were successful in their test.
