Wastelander

There is no way for us to know what the "original" version of any kata looked like, unless that kata was developed in the modern era, so we can't answer that question for any of the koryu kata, pure and simple. We can say which versions, probably, more closely resemble the "original," based on examples that we have in the modern era--for example, a modern Shotokan student could look back at videos from the 1970's to compare their kata, then look at Funakoshi Gigo's reprint of his father's book in the 1950's to compare, then look at Funakoshi Gichin's original books from the 1930's to compare, and see a progression from what Funakoshi Gichin learned on Okinawa to what it is today, and one could say that the versions in Funakoshi Gichin's original books likely resemble the "originals" more closely because they are not as far removed from the Okinawan martial arts practices they came from. Of course, as you say, every teacher makes changes, and that was likely just as true of the instructors who developed the kata as it is of the ones passing it down. We know, for a fact, that it happened with Miyagi Chojun and his Goju-Ryu kata, for a modern-ish example. I even see changes, year-to-year, in the organization I am a part of, although a lot of people in the organization still insist "it's always been done this way," whenever a change starts to make its way through. An easy example I can give is from Pinan Yondan, which has a low uke-waza after the initial opening postures to the left and right, which has flip-flopped between a sasae-gedan-barai and a gedan-juji-uke about four times just in the 8 years I've been in the organization, but "it's never changed" .

Welcome to the forum!

Given your description, it sounds like you mostly want something that would be challenging but "fitting" for her, which would be fun/cool to practice. I know Pinan/Heian Godan has been mentioned, but honestly I think Enpi would probably be more fun for her. You could always just add a jump to another kata, but I know you were looking into steering things back toward your Shotokan roots.

True its main purpose is to develop power and teach proper body mechanics, however it can not be denied that the bodies natural weapons do over time become conditioned with it's use. I understand what you are saying and do agree with you but it does also serve this function albeit not its main function. It does offer that positive side benefit. Like swimming has the side benefit of not drowning while learning how to swim. Very true. Although not intended for the purpose it does yield the results. Obviously there are also other methods, even better methods, to achieve the goal of conditioning. However after 41 yrs in my art and around 40 years of Makiwara training I can tell you that if done correctly it is an effective conditioning tool as well as a way to learn proper power generation, positioning and body mechanics. I strike mine at least four times a week for a minimum of three hours (using all weapons) and have realized the results. Personally I feel, if done correctly, it is the safest way to condition the weapons of the body that other means would over time cause damage (ie: arthritis and joint damage) mainly due to its somewhat giving properties and the fact that it teaches/forces you to strike correctly. After 40 years I have no ill effects and can strike whatever I want without fear of destroying or damaging the weapon. Just my 2 cents. Oh, it definitely does condition the body, over time. The reason I specify that the intent of the makiwara is not conditioning is because many people--probably the MAJORITY of people, if we're being honest--believe that the makiwara's primary purpose is toughening the striking surfaces of the body, and because they use it as such, they make their makiwara too stiff, or with the wrong type of padding (if any), and end up damaging their bodies.

Kobudo includes spears, swords, and a short spear/long knife and shield combo, which are all pretty definitively martial. The bo is actually a bit more than just a wooden stick--it was a status symbol for the guards of Shuri Castle, for example, with those people carrying octagonal bo with every other face painted red and white. Octagonal bo will do some serious damage to a person, thanks to the edges, and are not terribly dissimilar from the spears they might upgrade to, if needed. Sai are historically a police weapon in China, and they are the same on Okinawa--they were the equivalent of our modern police batons, so they were more focused on "less-than-lethal" force with those, and they were also used as symbols of station of those in the peacekeeping ranks. Nunchaku are horse bridles, and I rather suspect that using them as a weapon came about from either necessity (somebody was attacked while repairing their horse bridle and used it in the moment) or boredom (soldiers spend more time traveling and camping than actually fighting). The same could be said for various other weapons, such as the kama (sickle), given that many of the nobles were responsible for guarding gardens.

The only thing I will add, here, is that the makiwara IS NOT A CONDITIONING TOOL. I've written articles on the makiwara, a number of times, and I have to point this out each time, because it is a very pervasive myth. Your makiwara is not just a post to beat on until your hands get tougher, it is for developing your structure, and should function like a spring--if it doesn't flex, it won't do the job.

This is a subject that I, and others, have mentioned numerous times in various threads, but since it keeps coming up here and there, I figured it might not hurt to consolidate thoughts on it into one thread. So, who developed karate/kobudo? Popular belief is that farmers and fishermen, after having their weapons taken away by the invading Japanese, began training with their empty hands and their farming/fishing tools in order to defend themselves from the sword-wielding Satsuma samurai, but they had to train in secret, because martial arts were banned. It's a very cool story, and would make for a great movie, which is why it is so popular, but it's not true. The truth is that nobles were the ones who developed karate/kobudo, not commoners, and while the common folk weren't allowed to have weapons (which was a rule put in place by the king of Okinawa nearly 200 years before the Japanese invaded), the nobility was most certainly armed. Even after the Japanese invaded, the only weapons they banned were firearms, because the Japanese had been first introduced to them by the Okinawans, and then used them to overpower the island nation. Martial arts practice was also not banned, it was just not allowed to be done publicly, or in large groups. Both the firearms ban and the public restriction on martial arts was to make it harder for resistance groups to build up a revolution, but this did not really impact the nobles, at all, as they already did their martial arts training fairly privately, and got to keep all of their other weapons. If we think about this, logically, it makes sense, even if it isn't as easy to romanticize. If you lived on a subtropical island, and your livelihood was based on farming or fishing, you would, most likely, spend most of your time doing those activities in order to provide for your family. That doesn't leave much time or energy to learn, much less develop, a martial art, especially in any attempt to fight against Japanese samurai, who had been trained for war their entire lives. Nobles, though, tended to have more time on their hands. On top of that, we know, for a fact, that the nobility on Okinawa was responsible for security and peacekeeping activities--they made up the royal body guards, palace/temple/garden guards, military leadership, and police. It makes perfect sense for such people to be practicing martial arts, as it is a key component of their jobs. It isn't a very romantic notion, to say that rich, entitled nobles, whose rights were actually protected by the invading rulers, developed the arts that we practice today, but I believe that unfortunate truths are more important than pretty lies.

To be perfectly honest, I would like to see kumite that is actually reflective of the methods shown in kata, but that doesn't look pretty, so it won't take off. If we are going to stick with a sport karate kumite format, then I would essentially like to see the same things that MAfreak described. You would have to make it continuous instead of point-stop to really make that work, though. I also hate the criteria for a scoring technique--it has to make contact at full extension, meaning you have NOTHING left to actually deliver impact if you need to, so you are purposely training at the wrong distance. You can see a perfect example of this in this video from a WKF medalist: Even if you are going to keep the contact light and controlled, you shouldn't count techniques that have nothing left on them like that. That isn't "control," it's just being too far away. Have people have to get into the right range to be able to strike hard, and just stop the strike short, if you want control.

Welcome to the forum

Welcome to the forum

Welcome to the forum

For what it's worth, the English "reverse hand" would be "gyaku-te" in Japanese, which is something else, entirely

Trick questions/answers aside, answering just the exact question of a "move," and not something more broad: A punch to the face. There are lots of principles/concepts that can be used to deliver that punch to the face. There are lots of things you can do to make it more effective, or counter an opponent's defenses to ensure it lands, and so on, but when it comes right down to it, a punch to the face is probably the highest percentage fight-ender that exists in fighting, statistically.

Yep, yep and yep. I don't think I conceded many points other than going off the mat. And the head whack. I feel like so far, my Karate has been in defensive mode, and that's kind of fundamental in the art. 'There is no first attack', etc. I'm not feeling so down about it atm, hope to put some stuff together over the next few sessions. Thanks all! The trouble I see with that is an overemphasis on the literal interpretation of "there is no first attack in karate" (karate ni sente nashi). Even other masters pointed out that this is a philosophical idea (karateka shouldn't start fights), when in actuality you DO sometimes have to attack first in order to protect yourself. It's an important lesson to learn, because reacting is slower than acting, and if you ALWAYS train from a purely defensive perspective, then you are ALWAYS putting yourself at a disadvantage. In sport fighting, especially, that becomes a problem

Honestly, while the general response to this is going to be that you need to spar more--and you do--I think the bigger thing right now is that you need to DRILL more. You mention that you mostly spend your time responding to attacks, rather than developing them, and it sounds like you aren't so concerned with your defensive ability as you are with your offensive ability. You need to be drilling offensive combinations and tactics, extensively, and THEN start working them into your sparring. The key to that will be that you have to spar with the intent of trying to use the methods you have drilled, rather than trying to "win."

I'm guessing Kenkasho might be Kanku Sho? If you're Shotokan, that would be your version of the Kusanku Sho kata that I practice. If you want to clean up and correct your kata to fit modern Shotokan, there are lots of videos available to reference. If you want to go more old-school, you can look at Funakoshi's old books, but if you have been doing modern Shotokan basics then that can be a tough transition. The most common kata in karate is Seisan, technically. In Shotokan, it's called Hangetsu. Naihanchi is the runner-up, and is called Tekki in Shotokan. The Pinan/Heian series is pretty ubiquitous across Shuri-Te systems, as are variants of Passai/Bassai and Kusanku/Kanku. Still common, but less consistent, are Chinto/Gankaku and Useishi/Gojushiho. What you want to use for your curriculum is kind of up to you, but I highly suggest you work on developing a solid understanding of the "new" versions you want to teach BEFORE you start teaching them. I also highly recommend you look into the practical application of them, so you can answer questions you will inevitably get about why you are doing certain movements and poses. If I were to give you a small suggested list to work from, for what you want to do, it would be this: 1. Pinan Nidan/Heian Shodan 2. Pinan Shodan/Heian Nidan 3. Pinan/Heian Sandan 4. Pinan/Heian Yondan 5. Pinan/Heian Godan 6. Naihanchi/Tekki Shodan 7. Naihanchi/Tekki Nidan 8. Naihanchi/Tekki Sandan 9. Seisan/Hangetsu 10. Itosu Passai/Bassai Dai 11. Itosu Kusanku/Kanku Sho That gives you a solid collection of Shuri-Te material, covering a wide array of methods, which will provide your students with a solid base to work from if they move or transfer. They may have learned them "out of order" for the school they transfer to, but these are at least very common, very well-known kata that can be easily referenced and adjusted, as needed.

Yes, that's correct. There is an Okinawan-English dictionary on Amazon, but I haven't purchased it, yet. You can find an Uchinaaguchi booklet online from Samantha May, though.

Slips, trips, and falls are the leading cause of accidental injury and death--the average person is FAR more likely to slip, trip, or fall and be injured than they are to be attacked. Knowing how to fall safely is probably the most important self defense technique you will ever learn. Doing it in a fight? Still better than cracking your head on the ground, or breaking an arm that you still need to use for fighting.

"Oyo" literally means "application," or "to put to use," so that is VERY open to interpretation "Tichiki" is an Uchinaaguchi word meaning "what the hand is doing," and the hand could be doing a lot of things "Henka" is "change" or "variation" so, again, very open to interpretation This is why there is no universal terminology for what type of applications are what--there simply aren't words that are specific enough, that I'm aware of.

We do not allow anyone to test for Shodan before the age of 16--and we have only had one person test at that age. He tested right alongside me, and had to do everything I had to do, but he did it with a broken foot (broken outside of the dojo, before the test). Hardly a typical teenager. We do have a "jun-shodan," or junior black belt, which they could potentially earn before that, and we have done a few of those, but not many. Obviously, black belt ranks mean different things to different styles/orgs/schools/instructors, so there is no standard. Additionally, in the Western world we have elevated the black belt and put it on a pedestal that it was never put on in Japan or Okinawa. Personally, I'm quite happy with our standards, and all you can control is your standard.

I think you are misinterpreting a little--the kata does not care what the attack is. In a kata application, you can be defending from LOTS of things. It is just generally TAUGHT (at first) against basic, simplified karate techniques because it gives everyone an easy example to start with. As MatsuShinshii and I have tried to point out, a few times, this is a beginning stage, so they get comfortable with the idea. After that, you start working it against all sorts of common/habitual acts of violence, and in a number of skill-building drills, and in resistant training like randori/kakedameshi. Just because you usually see it demonstrated against an unrealistic attack, does not mean that people only ever train against unrealistic attacks.

In my opinion, when you are more concerned with the way something looks over how it works, you've lost the form/function ratio that makes karate a martial art, and not a performance art. Zenkutsu-dachi, in particular, is actually something I've been meaning to put together a video on. I actually started recording it on Saturday, interestingly enough. Hopefully sometime this week I can finish that up. I did somewhat cover it as a topic in a recent article I wrote, though. To just quickly address a couple of your points: There is a difference between the rear leg in zenkutsu-dachi being "straight," and the leg being "locked." You should never lock your joints--it's unhealthy and you can't move again until you unlock them. The longer/lower your stance, the less rotation of the hips is possible, so a long/low zenkutsu-dachi is going to severely limit your rotational power. It accounts for this by moving your bodyweight forward/downward, instead.

Not the way that we do it!! The initial is known, but after that, it's not, hence, the battle isn't known by either student, nor is the outcome. And yes, that's the MA...performing a specific action is expected...TECHNIQUES, whatever that might be at that particular moment. Please don't group all of us traditional MAist together on the same cloth and/or with the same broad brush stroke!! I was raised, and am still, a traditional MAist, but the manner of which we/I was/were trained by Soke and Dai-Soke, is very much realistic and practical. Why?? Our lives depend on it each and every time!! The MA is an ongoing testing ground, in which I'm still an active participant of because NOTHING is written in stone...NOTHING!! Therefore, it's up to the student to take what they've been and/or being taught, and greatly expand upon it because, once again, their live depends on it. What the student is taught is how to give that door of opportunity that swift kick to get that door opened, but that student must be willing to have the guts to first go through the open door, and then to bust that door wide open with their own testing grounds. Students are given the tools, but how the student uses them is up to that student, traditional or not!! I'm a Senior Dan, but what I've given to my students is the free will to expand what it is that they've learned from me. But they have to have the guts to accept it or discard it for their MA betterment. I've given them all of the puzzle pieces but it's up to them to put them all together so that their picture becomes much more clearer to them, not for me, but for them!! How will the student learn to use the tools? How will they expand upon what you've taught them? When will they get that opportunity? Should they go out to bars and deliberately cause trouble so as to create the opportunity to practice? Should they beat up random people? Probably not. As students, we pay someone money to train us to fight. I'm sure some might go to learn kata, but very often people go with the exception that having spent many thousands of pounds/dollars and several years saying yes sir and bowing and placing their full trust in the guy at the front, they'll become proficient fighters. The posters and adverts usually imply that too. The reason to keep going to a class rather than just copying YouTube demos is to have an instructor see and correct you, but perhaps even more importantly, to have a room full of like minded people to practice against and with. It's not unreasonable for a paying student to expect to be taught what was promised. To say that kata should be taken literally, then it's up to the student to expand upon it, without creating that opportunity in the training hall, is effectively only given them half of what was promised or alluded to at the time of accepting their money when they first come to train. IMO the only martial arts that should be taken literally are actually fight sports and not traditional martial arts: Boxing, Muay Thai and BJJ. When you're throwing a jab in boxing, that's the way you should use it in the ring. When you're throwing a kick in muay thai, that is how you're supposed to do it in the ring. When you pull an arm bar, that's how you're meant to do it. But any other arts? Not really, no. You're not supposed to chamber the non-punching hand next to your wrist or ribs in a real fight. Who would ever get in a super low zenkutsu dachi or shiko dachi stance in a bar fight? I, for one, would never think "incoming punch! Better put my fist next to my ear so I can then perform an ude uke block!" No karate practitioner out there will tell you "you should chamber your hand next to your hips on a real fight, and you should definitely punch in using zenkutsudachi". And that means... you're supposed to adapt said techniques, making them not literal. That's exactly what several karate folks here and telling us. They are saying that kata and their bunkai are literal. I thought they meant that in the sense of "that age uke is actually an age uke" I made the point earlier that attacks may come from different angles or may be in many ways slightly different to how the kata has you position yourself, and therefore kata can only work if it's principles rather than literal. I was told I was wrong. I sought further clarification in several ways. Same answer each time. My point, and I believe the point of others, seems to have been glossed over, here, a bit. That may be my fault for not being clear enough, so I apologize if that's the case. I'll try to be a bit more clear: The kata are originally/intentionally made up of specific technique drills These technique drills are representations of principles, because principles are what make techniques work Transitively, kata are made up of principles You have to start with static, compliant technique drills that are specifically structured for learning, and then go through a process (which I briefly described) to make the techniques more widely applicable. That doesn't mean they aren't applicable to begin with but, as you pointed out, you have to be able to adapt. This is the case not just with kata, but with pretty much any technique you drill with a partner. You aren't going to understand the principles until you understand the technique, in general. That's all.

As MatsuShinshii points out, these are demonstrations for teaching/illustration purposes--they are simplified and "cleaned up" so they are easier to see, understand, and begin to practice--but they are not examples of the full training process used to make them applicable. We generally do start people learning techniques against simple attacks, which are often straight punches. From there, we have them drill those techniques against a variety of different attacks, from grabs, to shoves, to haymakers, and more. Additionally, we have them drill the techniques from a number of different platform drills, so they get used to entering into the techniques from various different positions, points of contact, and directions of movement. Then, we get into kakedameshi and randori, where they have to find ways to enter into the techniques in the midst of the chaos of striking and grappling with a resisting partner. Without a process like this, you will never get from the demonstration/example to a point where you can actually use it. As for whether the kata teach techniques or principles, the answer is "yes," but I think it is a mistake to suggest that the kata were originally developed to record principles, with the exception of a few kata, like Sanchin. Principles are expressed through techniques, and techniques only work because of the principles behind them, so they go hand-in-hand. The majority of koryu kata contain VAST amounts of information, and I think that to suggest the creators of the kata intentionally formulated a perfect representation of all of those concepts is to attribute supernatural foresight and understanding to those who, while skilled and knowledgeable, were still human. The kata were created by connecting proven fighting techniques together, in a logical sequence, for practice without a partner. Those techniques are the embodiment and physical representation of a number of principles and concepts, just by virtue of how techniques work. Those principles and concepts can then be used to reinterpret the movements and postures of kata, because in solo kata you have no true physical points of reference for what those movements and postures are being used for, so you have the freedom to explore options beyond the intended techniques/examples.

At the risk of this becoming a semantics argument, I think the terminology that gets used with this saying can be a bit misleading. When people say that a kata is an entire system or style, I don't think it is accurate to say that they are a "system" or "style" in the sense that they are a complete, well-rounded fighting art unto themselves. It is a "system" in the sense that it is a systematized collection of techniques and principles, and is "complete" in the same sense that you can have a "complete breakfast"--it has all the components that the person who made it thought were important enough to include. Obviously, this doesn't apply to all kata, because there are plenty of kata that were created for purposes other than passing on fighting techniques, like the Taikyoku series, or Fukyugata Ichi, or (debatably) the Pinan series.