Customer Reviews

Yamanni Ryu - Okinawan Karate Bojutsu (Tsunami) [VHS]

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Excellent film quality with professional special effects. Content: about 5 min of intereting but unnecessary historc comentary of Japanese influence in Europe, 20 min basics, 15 min of kata; "Suuji No Kun" (Shushi No Kun) claiming ot have originated in Yamani ryu though not sure if meant the short Shushi No Kun or ALL Shushi No Kun Kata origines, "Choun No Kun Sho & Dai" (created by the aurhot's teacher, they are NOT the classic Choun No Kun nor even resembling Choun No Kun with the kneeling jab, leap back & out and turning long sweep of sand-flicking, but rather with similarities to Isshin-ryu's three bo kata and a few other, useing multiple horizontal & vertical striks), and Ryubi No Kun (with elements of Sakugawa No Kun katas and again perhaps similar influences to Isshin-ryu's bo katas, though maybe jsut common contemporary influences of both styles at the time of their kata creations), then ending with 7 min of Kumibo and a geneology chart glimpse. Yamani Chnin Ryu seems to be a branch of Shorin-ry but it was never actually said, nor sure if these are it's only 4 bo kata, as I had thought there was a "Chinin No Kun" kata existing. The kata shown are clear and shown from different angles. The only thing being the historic portion, unrelated to the style, that probably should have been instead, a specific history & background of Yamani Chinin Ryu it's self. If there are other bo kata, I hope a volume 2 will someday be done to cover the rest, as well as the specific history & perhaps even describign the influences leading to it's differences of other Shorin-ryus or at least that it is indeed a branch of Shorin-ryu or an independant weapons branch onto it's self?

Excellent bo video covering four katas in this style's repertory, with professional production qualities (music, commentary, filming angles, etc.) as usual from Tsunami. The forms are filmed from both front and side, and at normal and slow-motion pace, which is very useful. I echo an earlier reviewer's very informed comments that these kata, syushu no kun, choun no kun sho and choun no kun dai, aren't the classical versions of these katas. I study Matayoshi-style kobudo and these katas are all different from ours, which I assume are closer to the classical tradition. The video mentions that the founder of the system was unhappy with current technique and changed some things, and created special kata that are unique to the system, so I was prepared for some differences, and they are certainly significant, such as a different turning low block, an overhead baseball-bat like strike that is different, and different striking combinations from the Matayoshi-style versions except for the use of the 5-strike gorenda combo, which appears in ryubi no kun, although that isn't a Matayosh form. Sensei Oshiro also does a more extended foreward nukibo thrust with the back of the bo positioned under the armpit, rather than on the outside of the elbow, as in Matayoshi-ryu. There's a very nice combo at the end of the ryubi no kun kata that I liked, also. I suspect the style is an offshoot of Shorin-ryu but as the other reviewer noted, this isn't stated. Whatever the genesis or origin of these forms, they're certainly quite impressive forms also and I added Ryubi no Kun to my repertory of existing bo katas from several styles. There's a section with about 10 kumibo (one-step sparring) techniques to round out the video.

I have trained with Toshihiro Oshiro Sensei learning Bojutsu, Saijutsu, Tunfajutsu and Kumibo. This video is an indispensable tool for the practitioner or instructor of any weapons art. The video is perfect for the beginner or the advanced student. Tsunami has done a great job.

As usual with all the Tsunami videos there ia an extensive "poetic" commentary and landscape-photo "slideshow" with questionable relevance to the main video material.
The first 6 minutes are clearly "filling stuff" and the continuous background okinawan music during the whole video is sometimes quite annoying!
However the image quality is good, the editing is OK, the technique shown is superb and the overall presentation is quite usefull for the seasoned martial artist.

Yamanni Ryu is presented as one of the several exclusive Okinawan Ko-Budo styles, some of them already lost due to secrecy (don't forget Matayoshi-Style was also a "family" style).
Examining the video, Yamanni Ryu techniques look like a mixture of traditional Okinawan Ko-Budo Kon (roku-shaku-bo) techniques and mainland Japanese Ko-Ryu techniques. The great length of the Okinawan Kon allows traditional stylists to keep their hands almost static at the extremities of the middle third of the weapon most of the time. However most of the mainland japanese "pole" (jo, bo, naginata, yari) techniques use dinamically sliding hands to add range, power, smoothness and versatility to the strikes. A fusion of the two (not very distant geographically) ways would be very likely to appear anytime and Yamanni-Ryu could have been the result.

Anyway, as someone already wrote, a more complete background on this style would have been more interesting than the time-filling spurious introduction.

I am a student of Oshiro sensei and am extremely pleased with the quality of this video, both in content and production. Not only can the Yamanni-ryu student watch it constantly as reference material but the newcomer can learn much about our tradition too. I recommend it highly!

This is one of the best presentations about Yamanni-Chinen Ryu Bo-jutsu I have seen. After seeing the video, I had the opportunity to train with Oshiro Sensei in several seminars... his Bo-jutsu is as effective as his Shorin-Ryu Karate! I use the video to keep up my studies of Bo Kata.

when are you going to make a vol. 2, vol.3 ........ of this tape, i cant wait, please make as many vol. as you can about this style...