Brown and Black belt katas

[renketsu]

For our shodan gradings, the students should know:

 

Bassai Dai,

 

Kanku Dai,

 

Jion and possibly

 

Wankan

 

They would be asked to perform Bassai Dai and then one or two of their choice (list above).

 

Oh and the learning from video bit is a very bad idea unless your own instructor created the video - Most clubs do kata slightly differently (Kanazawa's and Enoeda's videos/books show different versions!) and picking up bad habits is very difficult to correct!

 

Andy.

[angelica d]

And have you seen the quality of some kata vids? I got some from a catalogue and the quality is terrible!

[ShotoMan]

I have Frank Brennan's brown belt and black belt kata videos and they are excellent. Top quality.

 

[aefibird]

I have seen a copy of my sensei (looking rather younger and with a bad late-80's hair 'do') performing Unsu, Ji'in, Jitte, Gojushiho Dai and Meikyo as part of a demonstration - does that count??

 

I've got on my hard drive at the moment video footage of a Japanese black belt performing all SHotokan kata. I don't know who he is, he's not one of the 'big names' of Shotokan and the website I downloaded the vids from has now shut down. Even though the kata are performed excellently, there are still differences between how my organisation do the kata to how this person does them, even though it is still all Shotokan.

 

Angelica, does your organisation teach its own kata to blackbelts only, or do you learn them at kuy grades too?

[angelica d]

We learn a kata called Yontikan for fourth kyu - its quite nasty, lots of reverse gedan barais. Then for 1st dan you learn Kan Sho, for second dan you learn Kan Ni, and then there are loads of others that the black belts can choose to learn.

 

Does your organisation have a lot of its own katas. Its a shame that in most competitions they're not allowed, I reckon it'd be interesting. But hard for the judges!

[renketsu]

Nope - no non-standard katas... atleast not anymore - one was created around the time I started and although I did learn it many years ago I cant remember it now (no one seems to be able to!).

 

Are the Kan Sho / Ni katas anything along the lines of the Kanku katas? Or just a similar name?

 

Andy.

[G95champ]

Glad to see other people doing Wankan.

 

LOL

 

I like the kata a lot but its not well known.

[SaiFightsMS]

I like way wankan really illustrates the way the hips stay level while you are moving. It seems like that above all other katas really illustrate that.

[aefibird]

It's a nice kata, but one that you hardly ever seem to see in competition. I hope it hasn't 'dropped out of fashion' as that would be a shame.

 

Sai, I agree with you. The hips are really important in Wankan.

[renketsu]

Wankan can be impressive to watch but only by someone who can do it properly 'cos it is really hard to do well IMO.

 

I guess it is unpopular in comps because you can make it look really bad with a poor stance (5 different stances in such a short kata!!) or two and there is no chance to recover points with a flashy kick or jump...

 

I also tend to have problems getting back to the embusen without cheating and making the kake-wake uke blocks move sidewards than diagonal

 

Andy.