Bunkai vs oyo

I see a lot of times when meanings of bunkai (分解 disassembly, analysis) and ōyō (応用 application) are mixed and misunderstood or misused.

Bunkai is not oyo even when this term is applied as application of some kata moves to “real” situation. If you interpret some moves from kata, you may do bunkai but bunkai, as an application, is not the same as oyo, which is the application or interpreted moves put into practical use or for particular fighting situation. Clear as mud, isn’t it?

Let’s begin that there might be used (now!) such nonsense terms like kihon-bunkai – which is claimed to be a “basic” application when bunkai is meant as an application here, of course, not just a mere analysis. And then comes another or “advanced” form – like oyo-bunkai, which is understood like being variation of bunkai. But variation is actually called henka-waza so literally, with oyo-bunkai, you are saying “application [that is] disassembled” – and I start to wonder if you are applying what is just broken down or your application doesn’t work anymore?

But this kihon-bunkai versus oyo-bunkai division makes us assume (i.e. ass+u+me – to make an ass of you and me) that bunkai is a kind of lesser stuff than oyo. Like, bunkai is for basic interpretation of kata and oyo is for effective applications that kick asses and eventually make you a winner in a fight. Uh, right. So, it means, that you train bunkai but win actually with oyo, even it is said that you fight like you train (which leads “practical” people to ignore bunkai at all and focus on oyo solutions only)?

I should disagree even it appears more than often that I dismiss bunkai and focus rather on oyo. Let me explain why is so.

Bunkai is indeed this disassembly of moves in kata to interpret them. But a real purpose of kata is to engrave preset and necessary body moves into your unconsciousness (or as sometimes is said – into your muscular memory, even muscles have no memory at all because muscles have no brains to store any kind of information), so you use these moves automatically in a stressful situation (e.g. fight or confrontation that escalates to the physical level) without even thinking (because there is no thinking anyway when shit hits the fan and you feel adrenalin dump in your body and your brains shuts all logics and screams in panic “oh shit, oh shit, what to do, I’m forked?!”).

However, for a teaching and learning purpose, each move of kata got its own name to describe, e.g. you may grab somebody’s hair and pull him down but nonetheless in kata it is named as gedan-barai or lower sweep, even you don’t sweep any incoming low punch or kick here.

I think this shift in understanding has occurred at the time when karate/tode (唐手 Tang/Chinese methods/hands) was renamed to karate/sora[no]te (空手 empty hands/bare hand methods) and made its way from Okinawa to Japan (where a form of grappling called jujutsu/judo already existed so mainland folks took only kick-boxing aspect of karate, ignoring mostly all grappling stuff of karate) and kata (型 type, shape, mold, model) became kata (形 form, shape, type) – do you feel that difference for the latter names, because there is such, one like a rock and another like clouds, but this difference is not necessary understood and then, again, which is which?

You see what is a main purpose of kata and how kata is designed or intended to work but along the way all that original Okinawan stuff got muddled with Japanese point of view from their martial arts (Budo), which is not the same as Chinese kung-fu that served to build karate in the first place and in Okinawa as a birth place of karate. Then comes the World War Two, all society is in a mess, lots of masters and advanced students gone in a war, and after that enter the ignorant gaijin hordes with their shut-up-and-take-my-money attitude and finally you see original Okinawan stuff looking exactly the same as Japanese but called traditional and, for a modern approach, what Western paying customers would have their opinions and expectations tailored to, including boot to the head and sporting aspects and so on (so you may dismiss all my bragging about bunkai and oyo as merely ranting on caca de toro and hasta la vista with y’all).

If Okinawans had to explain kata moves to Japanese and hence put the names to moves but not necessary they named these meanings of moves correctly for what moves are intended to, then we, as Westerners, are even worse than Japanese because we just need to know what is it all about at once. When I was learning kata from my sensei Bob Honiball, I kept asking him what is bunkai for that messy mash he just has showed me and he, being a kind person, of course, was giving me bunkai but didn’t make a bigger mess with my brains showing what otherwise would be called oyo.

I really hope I didn’t make him crazy (others mostly didn’t bother themselves and him aiming for a black belt as a solid goal) with all my curiousness as he himself was asking a lot his sensei Miyazato Ei’ichi at Jundokan dojo up in Okinawa, so he in turn was breaking Japanese etiquette (reigi) – not to ask any questions your teachers (sensei) or seniors (sempai) because it may appear to be rude. Sounds a kind of ridiculous in Western point of view when we are encouraged to ask questions when learning and we used to be often too familiar with other people who are not our juniors (kohai) – but, hey, I blame that on French and their egalitarian point of view, not only these straight-forward Americans (and Bob is true Brit from Liverpool and these guys can kick asses pretty good up in Europe, if you ask).

This naming of different meaning but of similar appearance moves serves a sole purpose to make learning of kata faster and more easy to remember all the sequences.

When one has learned correct sequence of kata, then pair exercises of kata, which is bunkai applied to your cooperating partner, are taught, e.g. tsuzukite for gekisai-gata. These are still same bunkai moves that you were using named when learning kata (if you dared to ask your teacher to know what are these moves of kata and he was pining any names to these moves of kata, in a first place, because, you see, when you get some moves named you get limited here, too).

But because this interpretation of moves is called bunkai but blatantly assumed as oyo (i.e. application), it may lead to frustration and disappointment as student starts to think that kata doesn’t work (I didn’t need to ask you to raise your hands who’ve been here and done that but, hey, I used to live in that neighborhood, too). And indeed, he learned kata, he assumes (i.e. makes and ass of you and me, uh right) that he knows bunkai (sic!), which is not oyo, nonetheless it is uses in a sense of application, and he tried to apply all that stuff on cooperating partner but it seems to be ineffective even then, not even going further to test in a fight. So, one assumes (!) again – let’s dismiss all karate (or particularly kata at least) as ineffective, too, and why not?

What is good for teaching logics when you disassemble kata (i.e. bunkai), there is not necessary that same logics apply for the application of kata (i.e. oyo). But if anybody has told you the difference which is not only in terms bunkai and oyo applied properly? I bet, not at all. Funny though, that all bunkai, which Bob showed, works perfectly for him on any dummy, me included, but this gives none or a very obscure cutting edge for winning in a fight if you try to apply that bunkai on others and even when you know and trained and they don’t and doesn’t know how to cooperate properly (e.g. “like all beginners you attacked me wrong!”).

Taira Masaji of Goju-ryu Jundokan shows bunkai for kururumfa-gata (from shinseidokandojo.blogspot.com)

But bunkai (analysis) shouldn’t stop right here. It’s good when you discover its practical application (oyo). Bunkai is more than name for moves like gedan-barai and you have its practical application like gedan-barai (when it is gedan-barai). Bunkai overrides oyo when you name same move as gedan-barai or as ude-osae.

Now bunkai becomes analysis of kata in deeper and more broader sense, not just a strict application that you discovered and happily call it oyo because, you see, it is practical, effective and the heck with bunkai you learned when learning kata. Bunkai comes to its second life and second meaning because now you start asking questions yourself: why and how it works, what these moves of kata mean when applied? Bunkai is a quest for the answers why kata consists of such moves – from the points of view as tactical applications and as style strategies. And even what else kata, as gymnastics exercise (or martial dances of angry white pajamas), trains with these moves, too.

Bob pays attention to the fact why his late teacher Miyazato put all Goju-ryu katas for learning in that particular sequence when for Miyagi himself the order was to learn basic and then any other to it and other Goju-ryu styles, not Jundokan of Miyazato, uses slightly different learning order. I’ve been lucky that Bob shows and explains why you learn sanchin-gata (as go/hard), then saifa-gata (as ju/soft), then seiyunchin-gata (accent on shiko-dachi), then shisochin-gata (accent on hips in zenkutsu-dachi), then sanseru (go/hard above ju/soft), and so on. Each kata has its own flavour, says Bob (and I osu to that!).

So, even it might appear, bunkai is not of something lower or lesser than oyo, in my opinion (even opinions like assholes and each of us does have one, at least). Bunkai is much broader and deeper than oyo when bunkai comes from disassembly to analysis but, in a very beginning when learning kata, bunkai may serve a bad service when understood as mere application (basic oyo) and is dismissed but for a “real” oyo or “true” application.

I agree, damned that Japanese language and its grammar with all its colloquialisms and homonyms: if that’s gedan-barai only, it’s bunkai then; if that’s ude-osae but not gedan-barai, it’s oyo; if same time that’s and that’s not gedan-barai or ude-osae, it’s bunkai in a broader meaning and if you analyze what and why do you do that in kata.

And even you do not analyze but just do kata, you may start analyze later on, but now just write moves into your “muscular memory” so that form is molded (kata vs kata) and will start to work when needed and later when applied automatically (oyo). Then you may start to analyze, i.e. bunkai again.

Clear of oyo or should I bunkai more?