Classic Katas...okinawan and japanese.

[Master dave]

Greetings, i recently posted this subject on my discussion forum. and was shocked at the replies. First my style is Tang Soo Do a korean art. so all the replies came from korean stylist.

 

Now the forms (katas) or hyungs as the korean term goes are derived from shoto kan katas.

 

now its no secret that these katas werent learned in china like our history would have you believe, they were taught by the occupuying japanese to the koreans! ok, after the end of the occupation of korea by the japanese many korean kwans or schools emerged, one being the Moo Duk kwan headed by hwang kee. which brings you to the martial art i have trained in for now 37 years. heres the problem!

 

our katas are as follows

 

pyung ahn 1 through 5 or in shoto kan heian 1 through 5

 

bassai

 

nahanji 1 through 3

 

sip soo which in all realaty is jutte 10 hands

 

jindo which =chinto

 

kong san kun to view the sky+shoto kans kushinku

 

row hi

 

sei san

 

whan su

 

jion

 

as you can see we use the same kata as shoto kan and as okinawan karate...classic katas! the problem lies here...

 

and still goes on today...these classic katas have been altered and changed to not exactly mirrior the origional japanese and okinawan katas! even today if you belong to one school or federation they teach these katas one way, but so and so"s federation changes a few movements and does it differently. my opinion is it does an unjustice to the kata ...removes and leaves out important aspects of the kata. most replies stated that even the okinawan systems and shoto kan schools dont do them the way funakoshi taught them? they change them and alter them...i say BULL!!!!!i had a copy of funakoshis karate do khyon and just dont see anyone altering these katas who train in a japanese or okinawan system. so ive come here for an answere my friends. do you do your kata the way it was taught and introduced say 40 years ago unchanged? or does all systems of martial arts alter katas? just if i perform kata i want to do it correctly no matter what the koreans say!

[Shorinryu Sensei]

In the system that I practice, we are actually trying to regress backwards to the oldest ways that we can find. Not an easy task, since many masters and records were destroyed during WWII.

 

Techniques, such as kata, do change from person to person. It's just a fact. I would imagien over the last 50-100 years, many things about my own system have changed, despite attempts to keep it the same.

 

One can only do what one can do to preserve and keep what we have learned as accurate as possible.

[Master dave]

but to purposly alter the kata to not look japanese? this is what is being done. this i feel does an unjustice to the kata and the origionators of the katas

[Shorinryu Sensei]

but to purposly alter the kata to not look japanese? this is what is being done. this i feel does an unjustice to the kata and the origionators of the katas

 

I totally agree with you. I've seen some of the variations and interuptations of the Japanese and Korean systems of the Pinan, Naihachin, Kusanku, Rohai, Chinto, etc kata, and although they are similar..they are different and their applications/bunkai have changed.

[Master dave]

i guess the question is and one the korean stylist use to justify everyone from different korean federations doing the katas differently is they say even the japanese and okinawan stylist are allways changing the katas...i dont buy it!

[Shorinryu Sensei]

i guess the question is and one the korean stylist use to justify everyone from different korean federations doing the katas differently is they say even the japanese and okinawan stylist are allways changing the katas...i dont buy it!

 

Well, the kata's do get changed...whether on purpose or by mistake...it's human nature. I think on Okinawan generally, the changes are few adn minor normally, unless an instructor jsut doesn't get it right...which is his mistake and gets passed down to his students.

[P.A.L]

I am mostly agree with both of you guys , the only thing I wanna add is that the changes have been made in shuri-te katas by okinawan ,Japanese, Korean have different natures , in the case of okinawan the changes are mostly natural, during adaptation of katas among different groups as they start to cross training, masters from tomari and shuri and different families got the katas from each others and adapted them to their own technical characteristics,You can see this in variations of passai or Kusanku. In the case of Japanese and Koreans katas have been changed according to their culture and their own martial arts. IMHO ,they have changed them too much that the essence of the katas has changed. Heian kata has nothing to do with pinan ,they just look the same . the essence of shuri-te as a speedy style has been changed to a rooted , low stances which is more familiar to Japanese eyes so they don’t look at it as a low class foreign style. Same with Korean, they don’t wanna admit that they learned these forms from their Japanese oppressors, so they change the names and techniques without paying attention that they are cutting the roots to the original style, Japanese and Korean styles are good but are not connected to shuri-te anymore and this is basically what they intended to do , to create their own style.

 

At this point it really doesn’t matter that the katas been altered, we can consider them new katas with other applications.

[47MartialMan]

but to purposly alter the kata to not look japanese? this is what is being done. this i feel does an unjustice to the kata and the origionators of the katas

It is called pride and/or "face"-important issue among Asians.

[Master Jules]

Good post PAL.....I definetely agree with you.

 

MM makes a very good point as well.

 

And BTW......welcome to Master Dave....good to have you here.

[Sho-ju]

I'm not sure the oldest way is the best way...let me explain.

 

The masters of old Okinawa spent hours every night learning and perfecting a system of empty handed fighting, how many modern karateka spend this much time at karate? Not many. For most dojo, the bulk of the students tend to be folks under the age of 15, who usally aren't able to discern when and where to use these deadly skills...these folks also tend to train 2x a week.

 

I believe it's best for most sensei to teach a select few the secrets and traditions of karate, I could be wrong but this was also the way of the masters of old. Traditional karate has always been underground and will probably remain underground.

 

Back to the OP, if you want a better understanding of your forms take up Okinawan karate with a good sensei, this will help. Dig as deep as you can to find out 'why' the forms were changed...I'm doing the same right now with Shotokan kata and find a bulk of bunkai that I never knew existed.

 

peace and good luck.