Some thoughts on the Dunedin, NZ Seminar

 Taira Bunkai Seminar in Dunedin, NZ Novemeber 2024

Taira sensei came to NZ for his annual seminar. We've had him here every year since 2011, excepting the plague years of course. So this would have been his 12th trip to NZ. He had a seminar in Timaru in 2010. For a few of the earlier years we did a whole of country, going to Christchurch, Wellington and Auckland. He's less willing to be away from home for the 2 weeks we need in order to fit in two weekends, so for the last couple of trips it's Dunedin only.

For those that have to travel -- Dunedin's small so it's easy to get around, accommodation might be cheaper. Visitors had good AirBnB, and the small means  you can be at the other end of town and it's still 15 minutes to the venue.

For the main sessions we used the Fairfield Hall again. It's Goldilocks "just right" sized, we can heat it, and it's 1 minute from my house. It also has a good floor.

We had a large group from Australia. We had visitors from other Kenkyukai related dojo. We had Geoff's Christchurch Team.  Tangiwai, Charlie and Kauri Tepana came down. Non Kenkyukai visitors from Okinawakan throughout the country, and some TOGKF practitioners helped us spread Sensei's message.

We started with a  Kenkyukai members only session on Friday night, for about 90 minutes. A short session as Sensei had arrived in NZ that afternoon. Often he concentrates on kata, but this time, after some novel warm ups, we moved directly to Gekisai bunkai. There were a few surprises, and as always he segued into other kata as the technique was either the same in the other kata, or if the difference  enhanced the understanding of the basic bunkai. It was nice having people that all had significant exposure to Taira Sensei's methods.

Saturday and  Sunday were four hour sessions for all participants. Again he started with warm ups which had some new emphasis to help us prepare for the bunkai. They also emphasized how to use sanchin like movements in a dynamic manner.

The  training covered many kata -- Gekisai, Saifa, Seiunchin, Sanseiru, Seipai, and Kururunfa mainly. Most of the other kata got some looking. He also kept coming back to Sanchin as the core of power generation.

At many points Sensei would take a move from a kata, demonstrate how it was an analogue of a sanchin movement, and show how applying  sanchin principles brought power to the move. Combine this with early junbi undo movements based on  sanchin techniques bridged a  way to develop body strength to  perform a sanchin move with it's application within a kata. The result then is the ability to say many moves in the kata derive from sanchin, and all bunkai derive from sanchin. This was the clearest way I have seen Sensei express this concept.

His final night  teaching was at our dojo, where we worked on bo/bo kumite. Again he linked body movement and techniques of the empty hand kata into similar movements with the bo. It became hard to decide if the mechanics from karate were being applied to kobudo, or if it was the other way around. He then quickly demonstrated a stripped down renzoku version of Shushi no Kon Sho which showed a direct link to his kumite. He was also able to show how the kihon of the bo kata can be applied in basic or advanced method to the bo/bo kumite. It was a great session.

Thanks to everyone that came. We'll have to do it again.