Excellent 2 part interview with Hanshi Patrick McCarthy @ Ikigai Way

Sean — Tue, 19 Oct 2010 02:00:05 +0000

Just a heads-up – Sensei posted a note on the KU-SA Facebook page that linked to an interview with Koryu Uchinadi founder Hanshi Patrick McCarthy, and guess what? It was from Matt over at Ikigai Way! Given that our club is now training exclusively in Koryu Uchinadi and that I’m trying to train my mind in lieu of some injuries that are keeping me from training physically at the moment, I’m reading up and studying information on the style, as well as viewing footage of the techniques and drills so that I’m not too rubbish when I start back in class again, so this is great timing.

It was great getting a digest of Hanshi’s varied training and experiences, but it was the discussion on KU philosophies and the extra bonus of mentioning the hakutsuru style that has particularly piqued my interested, as I’ve talked about this with Matt in the past after he mentioned one-legged kata in the syllabus. It re-affirms my interest in grabbing a copy of Hanshi’s Bubishi: The Classic Manual of Combat, though I’m currently ploughing through some study at the moment, so recreational reading has been on-hold for a while and is likely to roll on into early 2011 at this stage.

But enough of that – head over to Ikigai Way and read Part 1 and Part 2 of the interview!

Hakutsuru, the white crane – classical karate style with techniques that only use one leg?

Sean — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 03:24:14 +0000

Matt over at Ikigai Way dropped off an awesome comment on my recent whinge about mangling my stump. He provided some information and links to a classical style of karate – Hakutsuru or the White Crane – that his instructor has trained in. Apart from the fact that it’s an interesting style of karate to study due to the heavy Chinese influence in its forms vs the comparatively rigid styling of modern styles like Shotokan (note I mean “modern” as used in the “post-modern”/Japanese post-modernism sense, and not in the misuse of the word in place of the word “contemporary”), it also features techniques that only utilise one leg!

For those unaware of what Hakutsuru looks like performed as a kata, Matt posted a couple of vids that I’m going to pinch and post up here as well:

First up is Seikichi Odo, who moves around with amazing skill despite his age: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iD78dP428ec (I can’t embed that one by request of the author, but please check it out, some amazing stuff in there).

The second one is of Matayoshi Shinpo:

Being the super champ he is, Matt even fired across a link to the Okinawa Hakutsuru Kenpo White Crane Association’s website, and in particular the articles written on the topic China and the Origins of Okinawan White Crane Kenpo (Part 1 and Part 2). I haven’t had a chance to do more than quickly skim through their site, but by plonking the links up here, I’m hoping it’ll remind to go through it in much more detail when I get a chance.

Since I’m curious about what I might be able to learn and apply from their style to me as an amputee, I’m going to drop them an e-mail to see if they can recommend any particular part of their literature or offer any advice on this one. I’ll post back with an update on how I go!

Gisoku Budo - musings of an amputee martial artist » Hakutsuru

Excellent 2 part interview with Hanshi Patrick McCarthy @ Ikigai Way

Hakutsuru, the white crane – classical karate style with techniques that only use one leg?