This is a lovely JKA video, and it starts artistically.
And slowly!
On the other hand, if you keep the faith, you’ll see some interesting karate techniques, and very, very good technique at that.
This is the old black and white film shot with Sensei Nakayama and early karate students, who transmogrified into Senior JKA Instructors.
It looks a little rough by today’s standards, but for a world that had never seen Shotokan Karate, it was remarkable.
Sensei Tanaka is a very nice man.
But he sure looks scary!
In the old days, these are the sorts of exercises that Shotokan Karate Students used during warm-ups.
Did I say, “old days”?
This video starts slow, but gets more interesting as it goes.
Sensei Shojiro Koyama, my instructor, is now 75 years old.
When I’m 75 years old, I want to be able to do what he can do at 75.
The smart money doesn’t bet that I’ll get my desires, but he who lives longest sees the most.
Jion is a tranquil kata. I like it very much. It has no athletic, flashy movements, so it’s not as popular for tournaments as Unsu, which has flashy, athletic movements, and is also a wonderful kata.
Not as tranquil, though!
I love the old JKA martial arts videos; previously, of course, they were on film, and the production quality is degraded because of time and because of translation from one medium to another.
We’ll need to explain”film” to our kids someday.
And Sensei Nakayama was very young in this video, and so was Don Draeger.
While I was privileged to meet Sensei Nakayama on several occasions, I never had the opportunity to talk to Don Draeger; by all accounts, he was a good guy.
And I liked all his books, including the one that was intended as a joke.
It was years before I got it!
This is the Kata Enpi, performed by Sensei Yahara, formerly JKA.
He has a reputation as a serious customer in a real fight, and I suspect that reputation is well deserved.
This is a particularly nice video demonstrating the five Heian Kata, by Senior JKA Instructors; the level of technique is, of course, remarkably good.
