Sensei Dave with Iain Abernethy at MAF-UK April 2009.

Article on Iain Abernethy Seminar Sunday 5 July 09

The Seminar was hosted by Andi Kidd, an expert in his own right, one of Iains qualified instructors.

For those who are unaware, Iain Abernethy is a practitioner of Pragmatic Karate , I wont list his qualifications as I may do the man a great injustice. Iain has made some excellent DVDs on his studies of Kata Application as it was originally intended, written some world renowned books, and is respected for his ideas and teachings around the world.

Iain welcomed us all and informed us we would be looking at Naihanchi (Tekki Shodan), the variations in it, and of course the application of the techniques shown.

We all did the Wado Ryu version, Iain explained that due to politics and rivalry Funakoshi removed the first 3 moves as he thought they already appear in Kanku Dai. The first 3 moves are very dangerous, eye gouges, neck cranks, strangles, neck breaks, it depended on how much harm you wanted to Inflict . It all worked and seemed very logical.

Next we came onto moves 4-6 (1-3 Shotokan), eye flicks, elbow strikes to the head, changing sides and carrying on the onslaught, adding the next sequence of techniques as arm rakes to allow further elbow use on the head.

The Nami Ashi (leg sweeps) were of interest, they were used to bring the opponent down to a manageable level to re-introduce moves 1-3 or 4-6, we were given the option to try them both.

Iain reminded us of the four stages to Kata (listed below, hope I got them right Iain!!), we were already at a level of understanding so could move on to
stage 4.

The afternoon went quick, we had a break before moving on to doing the sequence for ourselves.

The last part of the day was a little ground work should we find ourselves down there, it was harder than it looked, taking move 3 to the ground, and moving around an opponent to get them where you want them to put on a strangle.

The Seminar was brought to an end, Iain and Andi got a standing ovation, (from those of us capable) we look forward to the next one.

There are 4 stages to Kata:

The first is to learn the Solo Performance , the sequence of moves as laid down.

The second is to understand the Functional Application of technique.

The third is once you have gained an Understanding of practical application you should begin to include Variations in your training.

The fourth is to do Live Practise in a non Karate environment, this means practise for use against non-karate people, close up combat.

I would like to thank both Iain and Andi for the Seminar.

Thanks to the RSKC students that attended.

Oss Sensei Dave.