"The Author, it must be remembered, writes from his own standpoint!"
My personal "Interpretive" Lens!

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If you have a question not covered in this blog feel free to send it to me at my email address, i.e. "snow" dot here "covered" dot here "bamboo" AT symbol here "gmail" dot here "com"

"One thing has always been true: That book ... or ... that person who can give me an idea or a new slant on an old idea is my friend." - Louis L'Amour


"Ideally, your self-defense will never get physical. Avoiding the situation and running or talking you way out - either of these is a higher order of strategy than winning a physical battle." - Wise Words of Rory Miller, Facing Violence: Chapter 7: after, subparagraph 7.1:medical

"Read not to contradict and confute; nor to believe and take for granted; nor to find talk and discourse; but to weigh and consider..." - Francis Bacon

Warning, Caveat and Note: The postings on this blog are my interpretation of readings, studies and experiences therefore errors and omissions are mine and mine alone. The content surrounding the extracts of books, see bibliography on this blog site, are also mine and mine alone therefore errors and omissions are also mine and mine alone and therefore why I highly recommended one read, study, research and fact find the material for clarity. My effort here is self-clarity toward a fuller understanding of the subject matter. See the bibliography for information on the books.


Note: I will endevor to provide a bibliography and italicize any direct quotes from the materials I use for this blog. If there are mistakes, errors, and/or omissions, I take full responsibility for them as they are mine and mine alone. If you find any mistakes, errors, and/or omissions please comment and let me know along with the correct information and/or sources.

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What came first: bunkai or two person kata or kata; kobudo or empty hand; chicken or the egg?

An excellent questions from Matt Jones at the Ryukyu Martial Arts (Research and General Discussion) Facebook group. The question goes like this:

"What came first, bunkai or two person kata drills or kata? Then he asks, what came first, kobudo or empty hand? Then, as a jest he asks what came first, the chicken or egg?" So, I answered with the following:

Last question first, actually a one cell type split, then along with evolution, created the creature that one day would soon be the chicken who then laid eggs.

Second question next, empty hand is first simply because humans didn’t survive using weapons until a time came to discover ways to be superior to other tribes for survival. Weapons came second and it is believed that empty hand training was the prerequisite to kobudo training in those early years.

First question next, bunkai because kata were created to pass along those combatives that Okinawans found to be useful, they worked. They took those techniques, tactics and strategies and created kata to teach those who were like recruits of today, no combat or experience so they developed kata from the bunkai to teach and pass on leaving the recruit to test and validate when they entered into combat.


I cannot for the life of me determine why those questions were important except maybe as a historical fact but it was asked and the reason I started this particular blog was to provide an answer to such questions with the caveat that the answers provided are mine from my perceptions, my perspectives and my experiences.

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