Response to Question regarding Snapping Isshinryu Punch - Ed McGrath

Response to Question regarding Snapping Isshinryu Punch

This was posted on a Yahoo Group in response to a question regarding the snapping Isshinryu Punch. Master Ralph Passero recommends all read this as it provides great insight not only into the Ishsinryu vertical punch, but also into Isshinryu and into the great understanding and in-depth knowledge of Grand Master McGrath the head of AOKA Inc. Isshinryu Karate. From: Ed McGrath, Ju-Dan I have no idea why Mr X is throwing a different punch, perhaps Kichiro S. is changing his fathers Isshinryu. That is not something that you should emulate. I was in the first Isshinryu dojo in the United States, under Sensei Nagle, who among about three hundred people in a ballroom in Tennessee in 1994, with the leaders and students of about eight of the largest Associations in the United States decided that Sensei Nagle should be the first American Grand Master, after Lou Lizzotte intoduced the idea and Master Harold Long gave an impassioned speech on behalf of Master Nagle and he was unanimously appointed Grand Master of Isshinryu. On his death bed, he told his family and several high ranking Isshinryu Masters that he wanted me, as his oldest student and closest friend to assume his rank. I have been studying, fighting and teaching Isshinryu for 48 years and I think that I can shed some light on your questions regarding Mr X and the snap punch. Soke Tatsuo Shimabuku created Isshinryu many years after he began his study or Okinawa Te, their native fighting art. He had later become a Master in both Okinawan Goju and Shorin-ryu teaching these arts for many years. As you may know, these styles used exaggerated stances and a cork screw punch which was thrown from a position just under the arm-pit. Eventually, although he was just a simple farmer and jack of all trades, to make a living, he was actually an astute observer of the human body and it's physiology. He began to realize that the styles that were available, at that time, were not logical in regard to the manner in which the human body worked. His keen mind told him that the other styles were awkward and difficult to defend, because the stances were too wide. It was then he began to create Isshinryu, a true fighting art and an excellent method for self defense. He adhered to the natural movements that God had instilled in our bodies. The stances in the katas were made relaxed and shorter, more like a real person would stand, when totally relaxed. The cork-screw punch was dropped, for the straight fist punch since the movement was the same as reaching out from your side to shake hands with someone. Our stances allow us to easily move in any direction required, in an instant. The idea of Isshinryu is not to confront the attacker, but to avoid his attack, hitting him from the side as he rushes past you. The vertical punch that we use is snapped and among the first thing I teach a new student is not to fully extend either the arm while throwing a punch, or the leg, while throwing a kick. Shimabuku Soke's reason for that has multiple reasons. The first is the fact that if you fully extend your punch or kick, you will damage your joint in the elbow or the knee. Secondly, we chamber our kick then snap the kick out with the muscles relaxed. As it hits the opponent, the ball of the foot goes into the target about one inch and immediately snaps back into the chambered position, so that if you wish to, you can throw a second kick with the same foot in a second, or place it back on the ground back into a relaxed stance. Just at the moment that the kick or the punch strikes the target you immediately snap back, in order to leave the focus of Chi of the strike at the point of contact. Think about throwing a rock into the air and having it fall into a pond. It splashes where it hit the water, but ripples surround that spot and move outward. That is why we throw our punch totally relaxed until it hits the target and snap back faster, leaving that Chi to reverberate through an area bigger than the target causing internal damage. When I fought I weighed 153 lbs. fighting Marines who weighed 190 to over 200 lbs. and I won because I listened to Sensei Nagle and tried to emulate everything he did. When you are teaching Roko-kyus or new students, you make them snap their punches all the way back to the hip, just above the obi, in order to get them used to snapping punches. In 1957 Sensei Nagle made us throw our punches at a concrete wall, on his continuous count, pulling the punch just as the skin on our two foremost knuckles barely touched the wall. This was to gain total control of our strikes. If we misjudged we would drive our fist into a concrete wall. That really hurt so we learned to control the strikes quickly. Now I tell my students to tack ribbons one inch wide from the ceiling to about three inches from the ground. Throw your snap punch at the ribbons, until you can get extremely close to the ribbon without touching it, by snapping back, after focusing. Without touching the ribbon, you should be able to make the ribbon recoil from the punch. In the films by Shimabuku, he does snap back after focusing, but as a Master, he barely pulls back, it is hard to see, but he does snap back and he never fully extends his arm and you will see that on his film. That is because the Okinawans were taught to get in close since they are not tall, which means their arms are shorter than ours. Also, not pulling back more than an inch to two inches allows you to strike the stomach from a Sei-Uchin stance and immediately throw the same hand in a backfist to the face, since when you strike the stomach, that hand is closest to the opponent. If Mr. X is fully extending his arm and no longer snapping back, he is doing a great harm to his students, since they will eventually get arthritis badly and be incapacitated. Another reason for snapping our punches and kicks is that, it makes it impossible for the opponent to grab your strike and pull you off balance. When I do seminars, I pick out someone who is fast and tell them to hold their hands out to catch or stop my punch and tell them I will barely touch their gi by their stomach. I am 70 years old and I have still never been caught or stopped. Please go to my web site at http://www.aokaincmcgrath.com/ and you can look up my fighting principles and also see a film of me with Frank Klos a Championship Fighter and Seichi-Dan. I hope that I have helped you. I am also active in the Marine Corps Martial Arts Program at Camp Quantico, Va. and teach active duty Marines at the First Marine District at Garden City, Long Island, New York. I teach them Hand-to Hand Combat (H2H). I have taught there for over five years, as well as teaching at my HQ dojo in Patchogue, NY. Ed McGrath, Ju-Dan Grand Master, The art of Isshinryu http://www.aokaincmcgrath.com/