The 1 Idea for Bunkai. Now here’s the one idea. Let’s set the table by looking out from this perspective. There are a lot of interpretations. There’s a lot of ideas that bounce around about how bunkai works. How bunkai should be done. How one should feel their tactics. Some people say tactics are great but you need to be principle-based. True.

That’s all good, and we want to go further. I may give you a new idea or an old idea couched in a new container. You can take it to the floor and have more fun with the idea. A bit more relaxed and have a great time with it, we are going to do that today.

Comedians & The 1 Idea for Bunkai

What is there that is more naked as an entertainer than to walk out onto the stage with a microphone. If you are a singer, you at least have a band backing you up. If you are in a band, you have other members that you can rely on.

When you are a stand-up comedian it’s you there’s that little thin mic stand. You can tell the pros because they take the mic out of the stand and they put it to the side not hiding. The performers are as naked as you can be. Even clowns have balloon animals and greasepaint. Applying a good idea for Bunkai leaves little room for a counter and is as good as a pure joke.

When you are doing your karate it’s you, and another person banging and clanging. It is as raw as the comedian and their crowds. If you speak to a comedian, you may hear them talking about watching the act in front of them getting destroyed by the crowd.

They are measuring the crowd at this point. They are looking out at a surly bunch. It’s Friday after work they are hammered, there’s a bachelorette party down in front. The pros know that audience won’t pay attention.

An on-the-fly Assessment of Bunkai

The little trick lies in watching that crowd in getting an assessment. The comedian is seeing how can I make the crowd come along with them. How can they make the crowd enjoy the show and not eat the comedian alive? Not too dissimilar from the karate application. My point is there’s the assessment. I’ve got a surly person who’s drunk, whose marriage collapsed. They’re looking for any opportunity to eat somebody alive, to share their pain.

Let’s take a very simple scenario. If a drunk, a drunkle, a term we coined in the book a Dirty Ground, is at the family picnic. Things are going sideways and they’ve decided they’re going to give you a shove. You know they have a snootful and a bad attitude.

They may give you a shove. You parry, shift offline and they are down on the lawn nobody is hurting. The incident is over that’s the way that a comedian handles the heckler.

The 1 Idea for Bunkai & Spontaneity

Todd Barry is the king of deadpan humor. You know that blank, impassive face, the matter-of-fact response. His Netflix show called, I believe, “Todd Barry, The Crowd Work Tour,” is a masterstroke of Scripted Spontaneity.

If you, as an audience member, have any weakness it is on its way to an exploiting. Crowd Work is extemporaneous like working some applications in karate. When your partner gives a weakness it’s ...