Ryukyu Kobudo — 10 Bo Kihon

These are the 10 basic techniques of the bo (bo kihon) of Shimbukan and other schools coming from Akamine Eisuke. There are three more techniques, but these are very simple and not shown here. I do these rather casual here without sweating it and without strict count.

BTW, this gym is that of my second elementary school and it is also were I trained when I first entered an athletic club, i.e. around 1974.

These 10 basic techniques of the bo define the kata performance. This is because they were part of every training at Ryukyu Kobudo Shimbukan. They were done 10 times left and 10 times right so everyone did like 100 techniques (combos) on both sides, which took quite some time an energy. They were counted, not freely done, so everyone would count 10. Usually, after bo kihon, there was a water break. I think they thought about using like only 5 techniques on each side due to the time factor – it is really time consuming.

Because there is so much time spent on kihon, there is little time for kata. Actually, each kata was done only 1 or 2 times so you can imagine the learning effect of kihon was muuuuch bigger than that of kata. In addition, the kata gets to look like the kihon. This is both good and bad at the same time.

There’s another important point: When changing the habits/style of the kihon, it then also changes the style of the kata, ain’t that right? So kihon provides the “style sheet” for the specific school or the specific sensei. Accordingly, the performance habits of these kihon techniques might change at any given time and with any given sensei. For example, you could do them in Yamanni style, and then all your kata would gradually adapt to it. In this connection, there is actually a new Yamanni-ryu that uses Taira Shinken kata but with Yamanni basics. It is an example of this effect.

It is the style sheet effect.

Here is a list of the 10 bo kihon:

 TechnikPositur
1.Shōmen-uchiShikō-dachi
2.Chūdan-zukiShikō-dachi
3.Shōmen-uchiShikō-dachi
 Chūdan-zukiShikō-dachi
4.Gedan-ukeKōkutsu-dachi
 Gedan-nukiKōkutsu-dachi
 Gedan-baraiShikō-dachi
 Shōmen-uchiShikō-dachi
5.Jōdan-nukiZenkutsu-dachi
 Chūdan-zukiShikō-dachi
6.Chūdan-ura-uchiShikō-dachi
 Chūdan-yoko-uchiShikō-dachi
7.r. Chūdan-gyaku-yoko-uchiZenkutsu-dachi
 l. Chūdan-gyaku-yoko-uchiZenkutsu-dachi
8.Shiko (vier Angriffe) 
 Age-uchiZenkutsu-dachi
 Kaeshi-uchiKōkutsu-dachi
 Jōdan-ura-uchiNeko-ashi-dachi
 Shōmen-uchiShikō-dachi
9.(Gyaku-mochi) Chūdan-uchiShikō-dachi
 Chūdan-zukiShikō-dachi
 Kaeri-gyaku-mochiShikō-dachi
 Chūdan-tate-ukeShikō-dachi
 Mawashi-baraiShikō-dachi
 Chūdan-zukiShikō-dachi
10Jōdan-ura-ukeShikō-dachi
 Jōdan-nukiZenkutsu-dachi
 Jōdan-mawashi-ukeZenkutsu-dachi
 Kaeshi-uchiKōkutsu-dachi
Filmed Saturday, ‎20 ‎Februar ‎2010. Heinz Tessner and Frank came to visit and asked a lot of questions, including showing them the basic techniques of the bo (bo kihon).

By the way, there is only one Jodan-ura-uchi in all these 10 bo basics, that is, in number 8. In the complete set of kata however, the techniques is done in 141 instances.

© 2021, Andreas Quast. All rights reserved.

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