Bunkai or Balderdash Bunkai or Balderdash
Bunkai has been around since the inception of the martial arts when one student was brave enough to ask,
"What do I use that move for?" Since then, bunkai (applications) have developed like the folds of a fan.
Forever expanding from the point of origin.
Many schools don’t dwell deeply into the bunkai of techniques and some revile in how many bunkai they can
find for even one technique.
Telling students that a punch is a punch and a block is a block is somehow not enough these days. In the
hands of a knowledgeable student, a punch can become a spear hand or a wrist break or a punch a different
direction all under the premise that the originator wanted it this way. "Sure, in the bunkai my punch
actually goes in the opposite direction. The originator actually knew this but wanted to keep it secret
so he went the other way. He never told anyone. "It’s really a one finger strike to the "x" pressure point
but the originator thought it was too deadly so we hide it as a punch."
I’ve even found a source that says that a punch is really 13 different strikes in one movement!
It wouldn’t be a surprise to anyone if I said many of the originators to many of the kata done today are
unknown! How can we possibly know what they were thinking. It’s also not a revelation that much of the
history of the martial arts got destroyed when the Americans attacked Okinawa and the Japanese mainland.
It’s also not hard to believe that many sensei and students of the martial arts died in WW2.
What I’m saying is we’ll never know the original bunkai to many moves in kata. We are left to explore moves
and analyze them so that they follow our dynamics and what we think is "practical".
Sensei Nagamine, who we know created fukyugata ichi and died only a few years ago, was asked if the first
move in his first basic kata was to symbolize the "peaceful" side of karate and he said, "No, it’s just
the direction I started the kata".
I wonder how many originators would have said the same thing! How many kata creators stepped forward while
blocking just because they felt like adding a few blocks to round out the kata. With all the kata out
there, how many had no hidden agenda. How many are laughing in their grave as we stumble to find the secret
applications that are "lost". I’ll bet if you visit the cemetery of some past sensei and sat in the cool
October air sometime after midnight, you just might hear their voice blowing on the wind…."aaahh punccch
is jaaahst a puuuuuunch".
"Think well, of the beginning. Think often, of the beginning".
Just a warrior rambling…
Sensei Mike
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