Vince Morris is a Karateka that has become world renowned for his no-nonsense approach to martial arts and fighting. He is also the founder of the Kissaki Kai.

Kissaki-kai instructor Dave Hook 3rd Dan and I flew out to Hanover the other weekend to take a couple of seminars on the British Army base near Bergen Belsen. We were made extremely welcome by our host, Clive Greenhalgh who runs the martial arts club there.

The name of 'Belsen' will no doubt be significant to many of you, and whilst there Dave and I visited the memorial and paid our respects to the tens of thousands who suffered and died in that dreadful place. Even now it is not a nice place, but a salutory reminder of just how important it is that we keep our sights set on using our martial training to establish and maintain a world where that cannot ever happen again!

However, the hospitality of both Clive and the members was magnificent and everyone joined in the training with a will.

Because of the spread of grades, it wasn't possible to give the normal Kyusho Kata Bunkai seminars, so the explanation of the secrets of the Katas was interspersed with a number of sections dealing with the correct application of Kihon - basics.

This brings me to a point which I have made elsewhere, but tends to go unremarked in the enthusiasm to understand the hidden techniques. The truth is, if you do not already have a good and strong foundation in basic technique, both in general body movement and in the execution of strong waza, then just learning a few Kyusho points will be worse than useless!

There is, I'm afraid, no shortcut to good karate! The progress is often hard and unrelenting, and seemingly endless. To imagine that Kyusho is some kind of "Quick Fix" is to completely misunderstand its function.

Knowledge of the ancient secrets as revealed in the 'sacred' text 'The Bubishi' will serve as a key to understanding the most effective manner in which to deliver the physical techniques, it helps unlock the door to understanding the targets on the human body so that the destruction or control of the opponent can be achieved with a minimum of force, and in a reliable and consistent way.

As I've tried to emphasise before, there is no need to feel that it is necessary to throw away all that was learned before (This was a reaction of one German Black-Belt of some 18 years standing with the JKA who was on the course). Frankly, if you can do what is necessary with long-range techniques, then do so! If with mid-range techniques, then do so! Only at close-range does the effectiveness of Kyusho play a dramatic part. To understand that - for example - Age-uke, the so-called "Upward Block" will in fact disable an attacker's grasping or punching arm and knock him unconscious gives a cogent reinforcement to time spent practising the technique in kihon!

To be honest, there is no escaping the reality of a point that formed the basis of one of my articles a number of years ago, and that is, that very many Karate-ka are practising what I called "Children's Karate."

My argument was (and is) that in most Japanese systems which utilise the Heian or Pinan Kata as the basis of teaching up to 1st Dan - because of a number of reasons which I will touch upon later - there is a very real danger of students being inculcated in the belief that the main difference between low-grades and high-grades is mostly in the speed and efficiency of execution of any given technique, and in the development of power.

Frankly in my experience when discussing this with hundreds of Black-belts all around the world, I meet a common consensus that in Kata, for example, the main difference between high and low grades is that the high grade should "Look sharper" and "Be faster!"

"What?" you may ask, "Is wrong with that?"

Nothing intrinsically, but remember back in your infant school you were taught to recite the alphabet. Now, at whatever age you happen to be, if your idea of conversing is to say the alphabet as fast as humanly possible, then something is either obviously wrong or you have been aiming at a career in Politics!

"Of course!" You say: "That's obvious, you have to learn the sounds and letters first, then put them together to make words and sentences, and even novels or poetry if you are particularly gifted!"

Exactly!

A great deal of modern karate is based upon the misconception that what is taught in the Heians and basics is the truth. That is: Age-uke is a block, Uchi-uke is a block, Soto-ude-uke is a block, Shuto-uke is a block, chudan nukite is aimed at the chest, Morote-uke means you are blocking an opponent with both hands, and that in the execution of Bunkai you are always surrounded by opponents who have orders to wait in line and take their turn to attack! And finally, that - regardless of age or ability - you must be able to deliver powerful destructive blows and kicks to be successful!

The problem was that this goes against all logic and experience. So-called blocks were practised religiously many thousands of times, but were NEVER used in ju-kumite; pulling away the front hand (Hikite) to expose the head in order to gain some extra hip rotation was exposed as foolhardy against a fighter intent on hitting you in the face, and so on.

Only when research revealed the truth - that the techniques drawn from the Heians were themselves taken from higher level Kata and made safe for High-school children to practice without hurting themselves - did the reason for this paradox emerge.

In general, most of the Japanese sensei sent out as young warriors to convert the barbarian West had been taught in this way themselves, and could not teach differently. Indeed, one well-known head of his own style was so far away from understanding the deadly applications of what he was taught that he admits to breaking away and creating his own because he couldn't understand the relevance of Kata to combat! He then proceeded to invent his own "Fighting" Kata!

I had arrived at this perception after many, many years of hard traditional training, and presented it when it was impossible for me to remain silent any longer. The fact is that many of us spent years training in what we considered to be the ultimate fighting art, only to find that we had been practising only the basics, the alphabet.

Now, at the time I was saying this it was deemed by many as heretical, that somehow I was decrying all the effort put into gaining some mastery of this art. Far from it! But I had - still have- a perception of the martial arts as being significant and supportive in all aspects of life, and thus should be based upon reality, not misconceptions nor indeed upon a regime which insisted that the building blocks were all there, and we must simply learn to use them faster and with more power!

In truth, the building blocks ARE all there, but to use them for their proper function we must understand their proper function, now, some years later it seems as though the Japanese are ready (well, one USA based one at least) to reveal the truth to us all, that so far we have been only practising basics, and now we are now deemed ready to be led forward to the reality.