I’m going to start with kama.
My first memory of kama occurred at a tournament in NE Pennsylvania back in 1979. I was competing in the weapons division and one of the competitors showed up carrying kama. A friend of his who was also competing walked up to him and asked him where he learnt them and he replied he didn’t and he was just going out there to ‘fake’ a kata.
Even though a senior in his organization gave him a zero he took 3rd place overall (high and low scores being dropped in those days).
I was just a new sho-dan at that time and kama was not in my Isshinryu tradition. I didn’t know how to take what I saw but in time found kama was almost a ‘cult’ study, and I bet most of the forms crafted ones too. In those days with no reference information available, anybody saying anything was likely to be believed, especially if they evidenced some skill.
The first few years I was competing, and making friends with the other competitors, I met Tristan Sutrisno in Kobudo competition. He is a Shotokan practitioner (among other arts) and I recall the day he showed up with a bo, how many seniors tried to convince him not to compete because they told him everyone knows Shotokan doesn’t do weapons and he would embarrass himself. Of course he won first place.
Eventually he invited me down to his dojo to train and I discovered what you see at a tournament doesn’t begin to describe what one’s art was. He never taught me his system, but over the next 10 years tried to teach me what his senior students were studying. I think it was my 4th visit to his dojo when he was teaching several of his students Chosen No Kama Sho and had me jump in on the instruction. Then a month or so later he was teaching them the Chosen No Kama Dai form and again I went along for the ride.
I never experienced anything like this. The 2nd form built upon the first form using the same embusen, but an entirely different technique selection, more advanced in complexity. As my purpose was to train, I never really questioned his father’s original studies as to where these forms originated. Nothing I’ve discovered elsewhere used the same logical approach for weapons skill development.
Sutrisno Sensei practices Chosen No Kama Sho, Chosen No Kama Dai and Chosen No Kama Di Ichi. Each form builds upon the earlier version increasing skill and technique in the form. I only studied the first two. In the same manner his bo studies included O’ Sensei no Kon, O’ Sensei no Kon Sho, O’ Sensei no Kon Dai and O’ Sensei No Kon Dai Ichi. Each building on the structure of the earlier form, each with increasing skill difficulty. A far more thoughtful system of weapons skill development, and the emphasis is on skill, extreme skills.
Another trademark of these forms were many shifts between open and closed kama grips, and then shifting back again. With skill this makes it extremely difficult for an opponent to understand what is coming next. At the same time it is difficult to develop those skills, making it a coin with two sides. IMO most kama kata were based on direct usage and use simpler handling as their basis. I’m far from an expert in his system, but I believe this weapon shifting is a trademark of his short weapons studies.
So I was practicing these forms several years before Demura Fumio published ‘Kama Karate Weapon of Self Defense (sharing the form Kanegawa no Nichougama, a version of which can be viewed Kanegawa No Nichougama (Kanegawa no Niccho Gama)
I found my kama kata containing more than enough difficulty to last a lifetime of work, but came to appreciate some of the Okinawan kama studies too.
For a while Kama text publishing was a trend. Among them:
“Kusarigama the flashing art of the sickle weapon” by Tatadhi Yamashita, which did not contain kata but focused on application of the kama technique.,
“Kama” by Toshishiro Obata showing Tozan no Kama kata. Again a version of this can be seen at Tozan no Kama
”Kama, Tekko, Tinbe and Surujin – Ancient Martial Arts of Ryukyu Islands by Motokatsu Inoue (also containing the Tozan no Kama). In turn this was an extract from Inoue’s larger work in Japanese “Ryukyu Kobudo” which detailed Kama Kata:
Kanegawa no Niko-Gama Dai and Toyama (Tozan) No Nichagama
I believe it takes real work to find in depth instruction in Kama arts. For one thing I strongly hold that they should only be studied with live blades, the danger is necessary to learn correct skills to avoid . I’ve found that the new study of all weapons means you will experience their bite, or their cut in this case. Unless you learn to live and respect that risk you endanger yourself, for a mistake with a pretend weapon is no big deal because there is so little danger, and accepting those pretend mistakes can really be dangerous if you then grab the live blade versions and the mistakes tend to more serious self injury.
The following are a selection of other interesting kama studies.
KUBIDO D'OKINAWA
- (7-8) SAI - TONFA- KAMA - BO
Kama Dai Ni (Nakaima No Kama). Shorin-Ryu Shorinkan.
Kama kata
I find all of them interesting, more directly Oshiro’s kata. For one thing it contains similar elements to those found in the Sutrisno family kama, similar and of course very different too.
Just as a note, there are different types of kama, and that controls how a form can be used too. Small lightweight garden variety kama (as found in all Okinwan households) are very dangerous in their own right. Then
Unfortunately with a dearth of serious instruction available, and the reality in today’s martial world there are truly no limits except those we create ourselves. And what we the modern martial artists have done (explicitly and implicitly)!
I think it was around 1981 or so when I saw George Chung of the West Coast Demo team in WilkesBarre Pa, performing a ‘kama’ kata. The kama held in the middle of the shaft, never changing and with his Tae Kwon Do kicking technique. I’m certain those were the origins of todays’ competition kama.
Take that add some baton twirling and a touch of gymnastics and you end up with Excell Kama kata
Not picking on them there are literally hundreds of YouTube examples of the same approach, better or worse. Of course their choice of handling technique is classical (Hohen Soken used it), but is done because it’s a safer way to do stunts and kicks with less chance of self injury.
And the perversity doesn’t stop there. Look what happens when you put them in the hands of a 7 year old competitor.
A weapon that slices necks, fingers, skin, etc. turned into something cute for the kiddies.
We all need to step back and think about this a bit.
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