Suna Uke 砂 受

Receiving sand?

My introduction to practicing Kobudo was instruction in bo basics and Choun no Kon kata. Right from the get-go I was troubled by the definition of some of the movements. Perhaps having been athletic all my life, having practiced karate for a few years and being an engineer gave me an unusual perspective. In particular it struck me that Suna Uke, which was defined as "throwing sand", was unlikely to work well given the length and geometry (cross section) of a bo. So I went out and tried it. It does not work well. You can get a few grains of sand to an opponents eye level, but only at an unrealistic distance (due to the arc-length of the bo). So I practiced diligently for years and retried it periodically; it didn't get any better. When I finally got the nerve to ask if the instructor had ever tried this with sand, I was told no. So I asked several other experienced practitioners and they had never actually tried it with sand either. (In contrast, you can easily put a good sized glob of sand exactly where you want it with an eku, though I didn't try that until many years later.) So what might this actually be?

Suna Uke occurs only once in Choun no Kon, at the end, and is followed directly by a thrusting attack, so it must be defensive. It must come up to thwart an attack and end relatively close to the attacker if the following thrust is to be effective. That's an interesting dynamic, coming up, under an attack. What might that encounter? A hand perhaps?

So I implore you, try this out. Throw the sand. Come up to meet the attack and deflect the bo (be careful for hands). And let me know what you think.