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I think you did ok. If it was my daughter I would of put him in hospital.

Do you maen Heain oyo? This is a kata made up from all the Heian Katas, its very long and quite tiring to perform. It was invented by Sensei Kase (9th dan?) for his own Shotokan offshoot/association (shotokan Rya Kase ha). My sensei learnt this from Kase (who recently died). Although it is not officially part of our standard Shotokan syllabus, he teaches it to black belt students out of respect for Sensei kase so the kata wont be lost. EDIT: Although its made up from all the heians, all Zenkutsu dachi moves are done in Fudo dachi!!!

In Shotokan alot of animal style technques can be found in the chinese origin katas. i.e gankaku (crane), Jitte, Chinte, Jinn have elements of tiger style I think. Even Empi and Unsu have White crane elements.

Bunkai is the direct application of the kata, in the same order and context of the kata in question. Oyo is when you take moves from a kata and apply them out of context of the kata.

10. knifehand strikes starting at the head or from behind the head. The opposite hand blocks the attack and then you grab with the same hand. The striking hand has to come up high so as to come above the arm you have grabbed, so as to strike to the neck while pulling the grabbed arm. nice post btw.

Shotokan. What you do?

Did mine in '91. Was going bad with basics, slippy floor and all that(so I thought), but I redeemed myself in the kumite. I was up against this other guy going for his black belt too (there was 8 of us grading at the time). As soon as sensei (dave Hazard) said begin I feitned a sweep followed by a jodan mawashi geri, obviously I used the instep of my foot (not full contact), The slap from the kick on his cheek was so loud it echoed around the dojo! Ippon!! We started again and i did exactly the same move! SLap! Ippon!! I felt really sorry for the guy I was fighting,his cheeks where looking pretty rosy:) Anyway the guy I obliterated and myself where the only 2 who passed. Sensei Hazard then said I should try and vary my technique a bit more but also commented on how well controlled I was. To this day i dont think Ive ever pulled off such a good roundhouse!

It takes alot of skill and experience to block effecively in sparring, not to mention speed and conditioned arms.. I find inside-outside blocks and gedan-beari style blocks to be most effective, becuase they can be combo'd easily. My tip, Think of the block as a strike to the opponents arm. After a while they just wont want to punch you:)

Beacuse the rules in most tournaments dont allow open hand techniques i.e strikes and grabs which utilise 'chambering'. Also people conditioned for the knockdown tourneys tend to take the punches rather than block them, this is for the same reason as above plus the fact you would be using some form of boxing gloves which hinder effective blocking. The only excpetion I have seen is Kyokoshin tournaments which are knockdown but with no punches to the face. These fighters dont always stand like a boxer, but again kyokushin fighters train to take hits rather than block them. In conclusion its basically down to adapting to the rules.

I like Meikyo.

Depends what you mean by 'ugly' and 'pretty'. The way you have changed your emphasis on your kata wiht visualising an opponent is correct imo. If all the techniques are correct then it shouldnt ever look 'ugly'. If you mean you change the techniques to show the bunkai more clearly then I believe that is wrong. What I dont like is competition kata where kata is often performed at double speed with no focus on various techniques with ludicrously large athletic jumps that take away from the original feeling of the kata. If this is what you are refering to as 'pretty' then I dont see it that way. If I was to guess at your meanings then I would stick to the 'ugly' way.

Why wouldnt you want a 100% cotton gi?

Well street/bar fights are usually won by who gets the first hit in. Usually this will be a surprise blow from behind possibly with a beer glass or chair etc. People who start these fights are the kind of people who can stab someone and not lose any sleep over it. I would lose sleep over it and I think most MA's would to. Yes I could stop someone with a strike to the throat or finger strike to the eyeballs but could I live with the consequences? In a life or death situation yes but in a meaningless drunken brawl? Im not sure. Remember trained fighters, boxers, UFC etc still fight in a ring with rules. It dosnt matter what style, how big you are etc. If you get jumped from behind with a baseball bat or stabbed or maybe your in a 2 on 1 situation. My advice is to get away as fast as you can.

Just found out that this kata is a shotokan version Nipaipo Kata. So basically suparenpi and nipaipo are being brought into the Shotokan sylabus by kanazawa. Cant wait to see the Shotokan versions as both of theses katas are very different from any other kata I can think of.

Ridiculous IMO. Should take 5 years absolute minimum with training at least twice a week. I assume its a junior grade anyway like the previous poster suggested.

Yeah I just had one of those days. I couldnt pick-up Tekki Nidan and Sandan katas as quickly as I expected which was quite frustrating. Went home and revised them with a book and feel alot better now!

Short of actually training Shotokan, someone would be really hard pressed to have any other kind of way to evaluate it if their opinions couldn't be based on observation.... If I have spare time I might actually go train it just to see. The guys I watched were pretty high dans in JKA (the chief instructor is 8th dan). If their foundation is based on these "poor" body mechanics (short of actually training it, I really can't see the good derived from their movement, stances, and posture in places), that might explain a lot of what I observed. To addresss McShotokan worries, they share the dojo my club trains in (hence my ability to watch them practice), and I assure you they are not a McShotokan place. These guys are old school (and literally "old"...40's-50's-ish with the chief instructor in his late 60's), hardcore, traditional guys. But my observation of their movements still stands. So you where watching high dan shotokan peeps doing shotokan basics. Yes thats how we do it and all classes will have basics no matter what grade you are, they are drilled into you every class. I can agree that this will look unuseable in RL situations but we do the moves like this as a means to an end, I wouldnt agree that they are 'poor' body mechanics tho, can you explain again what you mean by this statement?. Have you observed any kumite, Throws, grabs, chokes? This sort of stuff is only really teached from BB in Shotokan, where as I believe this sort of thing is taught earlier in okinawan styles along with pressure points i.e Shotokan is more kiddie friendly as Funokoshi wanted it to be. lets not start shorin vs Shotokan wars. Shorin ryu to me looks very intersting and I would like to try the style but there isnt many clubs in England to train in it. I like the way that in shorin kata you seem to implement the bunkai in the actual kata rather than in Shotokan we simplify the move but the bunkai remains the same. If I was to make a statement based on observing Shorin ryu I could say that it looks lazy and weak compared with shotokan, but I cant having trained in the style, justify myself.

You are obeserving pre 1st dan Basics. All stances long with hips square (if we take fromt stance for example). Shotokan is taught very gradually these stances are taught from the beginning to strengthen the body more than anything. When you reach around 1st dan the stances used are slightly higher your whole body is a coiled spring from your toes thru hips to the extension of the punch. However, unless you are taught the basics of each stance you will never fully comprehend the eveolution of shotokan technqiues and the body mechanics later on. This is why shotokan karetka look so good, becasue we constantly go back to basics for training purposes, so our technique is very finely tuned. TBH You cant base an opinion on Shotokan through observation alone. To answer the original question, No Shotokan is not a weak style. I would say that only kyokushinkai is stonger. One of the major problems I have with many styles of karate is that it is extraordinarily rigid until post-blackbelt levels (in some cases it is always rigid). Many BB forms show the "soft core" of the style...but why wait so long to reach that soft core? Thats just the way of karate, Cant run before you can walk mentality. Not many people start karate and have the dedication to reach BB. When you get to 1st Dan you are just considered to be a 'serious' student and you start learning the 'good' stuff. BB is just the beginning in Shotokan Karate.

You are obeserving pre 1st dan Basics. All stances long with hips square (if we take fromt stance for example). Shotokan is taught very gradually these stances are taught from the beginning to strengthen the body more than anything. When you reach around 1st dan the stances used are slightly higher your whole body is a coiled spring from your toes thru hips to the extension of the punch. However, unless you are taught the basics of each stance you will never fully comprehend the eveolution of shotokan technqiues and the body mechanics later on. This is why shotokan karetka look so good, becasue we constantly go back to basics for training purposes, so our technique is very finely tuned. TBH You cant base an opinion on Shotokan through observation alone. To answer the original question, No Shotokan is not a weak style. I would say that only kyokushinkai is stonger.

Thanks for replies, Guess Ill have to wait a while for it to become common knowledge. Im even more tempted to buy kanazawas dvd boxset now!

Done some research and apparently Knazawas association also performs a kata called hyakuhachiho which is a shotokan version of SUPARENPI kata from Okinwan karate so im presuming nijuhachiho is also based on an okinawan form. Any Okinawn karateka want to take a guess? PS I watched a shitokai/ryu mpeg of suparenpi and thought it was awesome! started of a bit like hangetsu but there was almost no steps just nice hand movements! very impressive. I would love to see how the kanazawa/shotokan version compares. I think its great that kanazawa is bringing kata like these into shotokan.

I was looking at Kanazawas new 9 dvd boxset and it mentions Kanazawa performing this kata (its based on white crane form I belive). Ive never heard of it in Shotokan before. I cant really afford the boxset of dvds so as anyone performed or heard of this? Are there any books describing it or any diagrams/movieclips online? Of course ill ask my sensei at the weekend, hes trained with kanazawa in japan a couple of times. Thanks.

Sochin and my thighs are still aching from sochin/fudo stance!

Keep your eyes facing forward at all times and try keep you hands in front of you as in fighting stance, try leaning towards the way you are kicking, think of your whole body behind the kick driving forwards not just the leg. Focus on not moving your hands back as you kick or rotating too much on the ball of your foot as you would with a round house kick, try and keep your head and hands still. Also you may be trying to kick to high i.e a not realistic jodan height. The higher you wanna kick the harder not to lean back. Hope this helps