shotokan kobudo question

[Sauzin]

the reason we learn weapons is because budo and kobudo are "brother and sister" as my sensei says

He's right, and real budo and real kobudo are. But when you make up kobudo kata you aren't practicing a brother and a sister. You are cloning the brother and the clone really does the same thing as the brother only with less effectiveness. Better to go with just the brother rather then try and clone something into something that it is not.

OK, I think I'm done with the clone analogy.... ...yea I'm done .

Now Tokomine no kun is a kobudo kata. You learn it as a yellow belt huh? Well generally speaking this kata is one of the more advanced kata in a kobudo system. So things might be a bit outside the norm if you're learning that kata first. If your sensei has this kata he likely has other kobudo kata and hopefully has been taught by someone who knows a full kobudo system. This is good since it means he very likely understands a lot of the "unique principles" that exist with these weapons. Still my opinion is that if he wants to really bring the value of sai to his class he should talk to whomever taught him Tokomine and learn a kata made for the sai.

[SaiFightsMS]

hmm this thread died fast. i was hoping to get some more information.

What kind of information are you looking for?

I practice shotokan and kobudo. Working empty hand katas with a weapons is generally a more advanced concept. It takes analysis of how the empty handed move is applied and how would you do the same thing with the weapon. It can enrich both your empty handed and kobudo skills.

Jutte/jitte is an excellant kata to do with a bo for one example.

Heians are commonly done with sai.

There is no set in stone single application for a movement in a kata. The kata does not really become part of you until you can begin to see for yourself multiple ways to use a move or mutliple ways where the move may take you next in a series of moves.

[kitsune_no_tama]

to sauzin: oh.... so that explains why it was so hard to learn. thanks for clearing that up. they made it look so simple in the isshinryu video clips. do you know anything about suishi no kon or tenryu no kon? they look even harder. the thing with our weapon kata is that in our dojo we always seem to score extremely high. i guess its because of the initial hardness of the kata itsself. anyway, in my dojo there is a choice of which weapon to learn at which belt in 2 belt intervals. yellow and orange you get to decide whether you want to do nunchaku or bo first. green and blue, sai and kama. purple and brown, tonfa and escrimas. black is 3 different ones even more advanced.black 2 the other 3. then degree up from that from 3-5 (i think that my sensei can only teach that high, he's a 7th dan.), its all of them because of how much longer it takes to get another rank.

to saifightMS: thats really interesting. i'll try to look more into that. in shotokan, didnt the heian katas original have the name pinan? in my dojo we still call it that. i dont know if its wado ryu influence or not because heian and pinan are so similar. still the thing that grinds my beans stands. he said that he "made up" the sai kata (kanku katas adapted) himself to give himself more credibility. he changed his mind several times at how he wanted us to perform the kata, and he always claims that he taught it right the first time, and that we keep getting confused on our own. funny enough i have 3 or 4 different karate sessions in which he changed the same part of the kata over and over again when i exhibited it to him in tournament practice. he gets up on the floor and does it differently every time.well anyway i seem to be rambling on.so i'll let u go for now. thx a bunch

(ps. do either of you know about a nunchaku kata called "kada" or a kama kata called "kadit" (spelling not sure.)?)

[Sauzin]

Not familiar with tenryu no kon nor any "kada" kata's

Sushi no kun, that one I used to do. The one I did has a together stance sequence where you do a head strike then shift your body to the side and rebound the bo to kind of a mid block. This one was quite a bit easier then the Tokomine's that we practice. So is your sensei (who has a very respectable ranking) gaining his kobudo from an Isshinryu instructor or a video tape? Just curious.

[kitsune_no_tama]

well, he's from pensacola florida i know that. around there isshinryu is fairly rare, so i dont know if he is learning isshinryu kobudo or not. i think he learned that kata from his own instructor. he might get his kobudo from tapes or something though, because around the area available there is pretty much only ata tkd and quan fa schools. i see videos all over the internet of tokumine no kon that involves sliding the bo through the lead hand, but the one he teaches us we move our entire arms moving primarily the elbows and shoulders only. probably to fit shotokan ideals.so i'd have to say he either teaches kobudo from what his instructor taught him, or he gets it from a u.s.k.a tape. you can find my instructor if you search for "butch galan" on google, or search for "galan karate" to see tournament u.s.k.a results, just to let u know. im not sure if u.s.k.a has anything to do with how shotokan is done compared to other organizations.one strange thing i've seen before was that there was a "karate for christ" judge at my last tournament judging weapons. he himself was shotokan, so i guess it might depend on the organization after all.

[papaschtroumpf]

pinan and heian are the same, however heian shodan = pinan nidan and vice versa.

[SaiFightsMS]

to saifightMS: thats really interesting. i'll try to look more into that. in shotokan, didnt the heian katas original have the name pinan? in my dojo we still call it that. i dont know if its wado ryu influence or not because heian and pinan are so similar. still the thing that grinds my beans stands. he said that he "made up" the sai kata (kanku katas adapted) himself to give himself more credibility. he changed his mind several times at how he wanted us to perform the kata, and he always claims that he taught it right the first time, and that we keep getting confused on our own. funny enough i have 3 or 4 different karate sessions in which he changed the same part of the kata over and over again when i exhibited it to him in tournament practice. he gets up on the floor and does it differently every time.well anyway i seem to be rambling on.so i'll let u go for now. thx a bunch

(ps. do either of you know about a nunchaku kata called "kada" or a kama kata called "kadit" (spelling not sure.)?)

The Heian/pinan katas were originally developed from Bassai Dai and Kanku Dai as katas to teach kids in school. The other katas were considered too advanced for beginners. Prior to developement of the Heian/pinan katas beginners usually learned the tekki/naihanchi katas.

Pinan is the Okinawan name of the katas and Heian is the Japanese term. The Okinawan and Japanese terms are not the same.

[kitsune_no_tama]

so would that be a sign that my dojo is learning more towards traditional okinawan karate? he didnt even know the japanese name of the kata. either he trained for however many years he needed to straight and never found out common names of today, or he wants to point out that we are traditional school.