Taikyoku

[ninelivesarentenough]

does anyone else's school for some reason call taikyoku taihokyu instead? i don't know why we do this. we have a lot of name changes like that.

[SaiFightsMS]

That particular set of beginning katas were put together by a group of karate masters and each style has its own name for them. They go my ten no, chi no, taikokyu, fyukyu, gekisai and all are essentially the same katas.

[ninelivesarentenough]

thanks, i thought they were like copyrighted or something (cuz everything is these days) and my dojo was doing something illegal or who knows what. i asked my sensei once and he acted wierd so i got worried lol.

[SaiFightsMS]

There are at least 14 different versions of Bassai Dai that I have seen as just one example of a kata that is done many different ways.

 

Many times a master taught a traditonal kata differently to his senior students making the best use of that students strenths in the way it was taught. Many times differences were explained but over time much of that got lost. And then the more the differences were passed on the more diffences were created.

 

As much as we like to think we practice an ancient art that was passed down to us in a pure form there has been a lot of tinkering done over the years.

[Jussi Häkkinen]

Fukyu-series is different than Taikyoku-series. As are Gekkisai-series.

 

They all are different and concentrate on different things.

 

There are also several ways to translitterate their names.

[aefibird]

There can be several names for what is essentially the same series of kata.

 

My organisation calles Taikyoku Shodan "Kihon". We don't tend to teach the other Taikyoku katas as standard, although my own Sensei has been known to occasionally teach T. Nidan and T. Sandan.

 

There are also Yondan and Godan versions of taikyoku, although I've only ever seen these kata performed, I've never done them myself.

[AngelaG]

Hi

 

We call it Kihon Kata as well, and we only do the first one.

[ramymensa]

In our dojo Taikyoku shodan is taught as a means to familiarize newbies with the whole idea of a kata. Afterwards we get to Heian Shodan. I've seen it work (the Taikyoku Shodan preparing them for the other katas), as in Heian Shodan there's that tettsui (many have problems with that), not to mention Shuto Uke in Kokutsu Dachi is not their favourite thing

 

So we teach them Taikyoku Shodan and they have the kata for the test (9th Kyu - white belt). After the 3-5 months needed to test they had plenty time to realise what this Kata thing is and have a basis for the advanced stuff. I'm not saying it's the way to do stuff ... it just worked in our dojo

[aefibird]

Ramymensa, we use Taikyoku kata as a base for teaching Heian Shodan too.

 

We use Taikyoku Shodan as a way to teach beginners what a kata is all about.

 

To get their first grade they must know Taikyoku Shodan.

 

Heian Shodan is the kata we use to test for second grade.