palatoss

Here is a site with some Tekki bunkai videos: http://www.budostudienkreis.de/Video/VidUbers.htm

Tekki is a Shotokan version of Naihanchi. I do Shotokan myself and have been training Tekki Shodan quite a lot this spring. However, I haven't done any bunkai for it, just the movements. I know that there is a lot of nasty bunkai for Tekki katas, some people consider them an "application goldmine". In Shotokan you stand in a wide kibadachi stance during the kata. The stance should be strong and stable and shouldn't collapse at any point. If I compare Shotokan Tekki to the one those Okinawan Senseis in the video are doing, I think that the major difference comes from the kibadachi stance. Those Okinawan guys use their hips very strongly. Shotokan kibadachi is much wider and because of this, you cannot use your hips much. In fact, if you use twist your hips in Shotokan Tekki, you are doing it wrong. The hand movements in Naihanchi Shodan and Tekki Shodan are quite similar.

I had similar problems with my knees when I started doing Karate four years ago. Today I don't have any problems. I think the key here is correct technique. Shotokan stances are low and long and feel quite unnatural in the beginning. They can also feel bad for your knees in the beginning because your leg muscles are not strong enough. But if you keep training your muscles will develop and the stances will feel more natural. Actually now that I've trained more the stances feel good for my knees In Shotokan techiques, I find it important to keep your knees always pointing to the same direction as your toes. This prevents knees from "twisting" unnaturally.

What is the advantage in snapping your waist back on impact? In Shotokan I've been teached to keep the hip and waist thrusting forward in the time of impact. Of course if you are doing a combo you'll twist hips accordingly but this is only to generate power in the follow-up technique. If I train a single yakuzuki for example, I try to keep my hips forward in the end. Is this pull-back method same as vibration?

Does anybody know if also Sensei Taiji Kase had injuries in his knees? His students in Shotokan Kase-Ha use fudo-dachi instead of kokutsu and zenkutsu-dachi. I read somewhere that due to his knee injuries he had to use fudo dachi and now his followers are doing the same... Nothing wrong with the Kase-Ha style, very powerful style and not so sports-oriented as mainstream Shotokan. Just wanted to know if those knee-rumors are true...

This is a very interesting discussion. I've always thought of the whip comparison as a metaphor for properly relaxing the legs and arms while kicking or punching. Beginners usually try to punch with the power of the arm alone, the whip metaphor helps them to understand that the arm should be relaxed and power comes from the twist of the hips and waist. It makes no sense to physically compare whip and leg, their mechanics are completely different. The comparison with nunchaku is interesting, though. The mechanical principles in nunchaku and leg are quite similar, especially if the nunchaku has a very short chain... Somebody wrote that thai kick should be done with a "dead leg". I have no experience in Muay Thai, but for me that sounds like another metaphor for a kick with a relaxed leg. Maybe not so different from a whip comparison used with a Shotokan kick. The biggest difference seems to be that in Muay Thai you commit a lot of your own mass to the kick by "following through" while in Shotokan you are not throwing yourself in to the kick that much, but instead choose to keep good control of your leg.