A Kendoist, Fencer and Judoka's take on the Heian Katas

[kozushi]

Karate and Two Sword and Bayonet Fighting

By Christopher Miller, B.A., B.Ed., M.A., O.C.T.

© Christopher Miller, 2010

I took a year of karate lessons, in the Wado Kai lineage as a youth, and then again as an adult in my early thirties for a summer. My main interest through the years has been judo because of its intensity and my perceived utility of it for self-defence. At the moment of writing I have done judo several times a week for over 22 years, but I have also spent over a decade each at fencing and kendo. In addition to these, our judo club fences with 4 foot long staves on a weekly basis. I am fascinated with historical fencing and have read and put into practice a number of manuals, such as George Silver’s, Zach Wylde’s, and Joseph Swetnam’s, to name a few. I am in the habit of drilling the Taikyoku and Heian katas of Shotokan Karate, which I learned from Gichin Funakoshi’s “Karate-Do Kyohan” (Kodansha: 1973,) in my basement several times daily. I have found karate kata practice excellent for my overall health and strength, and also for my skills in judo and fencing. The karate moves have for a long time now reminded me of positions in judo and fencing more than of those found in boxing or kickboxing (which I also do.) I am thrilled to have recently read Dr. Bruce Clayton’s book “Shotokan’s Secret” (Black Belt: 2010,) which reinforced a number of suspicions about karate and the Heian katas that I already had, and gives me a good starting point for my own investigation into the original meaning of the katas.

I think it is very helpful that I have a strong judo background along with a strong background in Japanese and Western swordplay, primarily since I can discount nearly every movement in the Heian katas thought to be grappling as definitely not grappling. From my experience with boxing and kickboxing, I am quite sure there is also next to nothing to be found in the katas involving punching and kicking. I also do not think there are any disarming techniques, except for two involving a bayoneted rifle or musket. These break the pattern of being two-sword only moves, since it would appear there is a desire to acquire the superior reach of the bayoneted gun. Notice that the true bayonet disarms come at the end of the last kata. Pride of place in precedence is reserved for weaponry. Up until that point all the moves are nito swordsmanship techniques. Other than the second half of the 5th kata (Heian Godan,) dealing with a bayoneted rifle in your hands, all the other movements in the katas are “ni-to,” two-sword (long and short) techniques, starting with easy and progressing to difficult skills.

Heian Nidan teaches the basics of block and chop, which are overall the best, most common moves with the two swords. These are done against a stationary opponent in an on guard position. This resembles modern kendo where you learn the basic downward chop moves first.

Heian Shodan teaches slightly more difficult and dangerous techniques against the same stationary opponent’s on guard position, those of the beat and thrust, and larger cuts, which expose you more during your attacks, but can be effective in the right situations.

Heian Sandan complicates things further with more adventurous and surprising attacks, and actual parries for the first time – the opponent is now thrusting or chopping at you and you parry and thrust or chop back.

Heian Yondan focuses on the scissors block for trapping your opponent’s sword – definitely a more advanced level of skill!

Heian Godan has you fighting a soldier wielding a bayoneted rifle, with your two swords. You use all the lessons learnt in the previous katas, including the scissors blocks. The second half of it treats how to fight with a bayoneted rifle you have picked up. You presumably give up your two swords for the rifle because it is a superior weapon due to its reach. The Bassai kata seems to pick up from here and introduce even more bayoneted rifle movements.

There are no movements in the kata holding a sword in both hands as a two handed sword, as is most commonly seen in modern kendo. Also, there is no tsugi-ashi stepping (like fencing or boxing stepping) where you lead with the forward foot and the back foot follows, never crossing over. The stepping style seen in the katas is ayuma-ashi, normal walking: i.e. the back leg crosses over and settles down in front of the other one. Looking at historical engravings of Japanese samurai, and also records of pre-kendo kenjutsu styles, like Shinkage Ryu, and the centuries old Japanese swordfighting styles preserved in the 18th Century Korean military manual Muye Dobo Tongji, it appears that stepping over in front, crossing your legs in stepping, was very common, probably to achieve more reach in delivering a stroke from the same side as the stepping leg. This was also the case in German two handed sword fighting, where the first lesson according to Sigmund Ringeck is to step forward with the same side leg as the side from which the blow is being delivered. We see this kind of cross-stepping footwork in the Heian katas. Cross stepping was also used by a lot of rapier and dagger schools in Europe. Nito swordsmanship resembles rapier and dagger fencing in many ways, since the swordsmen in both cultures were using tactically very similar weapons and developed similar skills for their use.

You will notice that attacks with the right hand take precedence in the katas. Where there is a series of three moves, it is normally the right hand that makes the first and last attack. This makes for two attacks with the right as opposed to only one with the left in these series. There are other, more specific instances where the right hand is favoured which we will come to in the kata analyses below. The right hand gets this favouritism in training since it is holding the sword that is longer and therefore has more reach than the one in the left hand, making it a better side to attack with.

Why are the Heian katas all two-sword katas, with a little bit of bayonet fighting? As Dr. Bruce Clayton so clearly writes, one of the founders of the Heian katas, Matsumura, was an expert at nito swordsmanship, having trained in Japan in samurai academies, and one of his inner circle, Azato, was an expert at jukendo, the sport and art of bayonet fighting. But this in and of itself doesn’t explain why they devised these nito and jukendo based katas. In my opinion a little of it was that they were very upset that, in spite of being in their own minds of samurai rank, they were not allowed to carry the two swords that were the badge of a samurai. The two swords were a badge of privilege and effectively citizenship. Not being able to carry them marked you out as a commoner. We have a hard time understanding this kind of symbolism or mark today since we live in much more egalitarian societies. But, think about the kind of blemish a criminal record can stain us with in our societies today. We would do a lot of things to try to rid ourselves of a criminal record. In the same way, Okinawan nobles would want to rid themselves of the stain of appearing to be commoners, even perhaps to their own consciences.

In addition to this, it was very easy to acquire the two swords in case of an emergency. Even though the king’s guards were not allowed to carry swords by decree of the occupying Japanese, it would not be terribly hard to simply snatch the two swords off of one of the Japanese standing around. The long sword was stuck into the belt at the side, sharp part up, and the short sword was thrust in the belt at the front of the belly area. It would be reasonably easy to snatch both of these swords at the same time from a nearby samurai, who might be part of the crew that you don’t like, before the samurai expects anything. I don’t think any of the movements in the katas are meant to represent disarms of nearby swordsmen. It was just too easy to simply grab them as they were.

But the real reason I think they created these katas is that they wanted to pass on their knowledge of how to fight with two swords and bayoneted rifles to the bodyguards under their command. Since they weren’t able to train their men with weapon replicas, due to the wary Japanese Satsuma clansmen watching over them, they used ghost weapons. If these sword and bayoneted rifle techniques were already present in the older katas like Empi, they would not have needed to devise these new ones. These new katas were to teach new and different skills. They left the grappling (except for the rifle disarms,) kicking and punching behind.

The original order of the katas was to start with Heian Nidan and then progress through the others. To me, it is clearly starting with easier sword lessons and progressing to more difficult ones. Just as in modern kendo, the downward slash is taught long before the thrust, so too in these katas it seems the thrust is taught after the downward slash is mastered. Kata number one (Heian Nidan) deals primarily with the basic beat and slash attack. Kata number two (Heian Shodan) focuses on the beat and thrust combination, but also reviews the beat-slash moves, and adds some upward cuts at the wrists of the opponent. Kata three (Heian Sandan) starts with more upward slash combinations and then goes onto more advanced movements of various kinds, this time parrying first, then responding, not simply attacking an opponent who is waiting for you in an on guard posture. Kata four (Heian Yondan) introduces a true cross or scissors block with the swords and how to capitalize on it – a much trickier skill. For these first four katas, your opponent is another swordsman – he could be using two swords or only his one long sword, it makes little difference in the attacks and defences you are doing. Probably the intent was to fight a single-sword swordsman, as this is the focus of traditional nito swordsmanship. However, the fifth kata (Heian Godan) pits you against bayoneted-rifle-wielding modern troops, presumably of the modernized imperial Japanese army, although maybe the creators of the kata had US Marines in mind too. In all probability, exactly who the bayoneted-rifle-wielders were was not important to the creators of the kata. What mattered to them was training to handle an attacker using a bayoneted gun. In each kata the first two sets of moves, the first to the left and the second to the right, give something of a hint of the theme of the kata. These opening moves are always finishing moves in their own right. Your enemy is sliced or stabbed some way or other in each of them from a basic, natural stance on guard position, the favoured starting position of Miyamoto Musashi, the founder of Nito Ryu kenjutsu. All the strange on guard postures with your hands at your hips et cetera found in the katas correspond with the five ready postures found in nito swordsmanship.

A basic and very important principle to keep in mind is that at all times, one of your swords is pointed directly at your enemy. This keeps him from rushing in on you and catching you unguarded. The tip kept pointing at him keeps him away from you and keeps your pointing sword ready to either: block, beat or attack. Remember this for all the movements.

Here are some definitions to terms I use:

Nito On Guards:

These come from Miyamoto Musashi’s book, “The Book of Five Rings.” They are found at the start of the Water Scroll. In each of them, your short sword is pointed towards your opponent’s throat area to threaten him and keep him from charging in on you. George Silver advocated a very similar style of fight. He used a cut and thrust long sword in his right hand and a shorter dagger in his left. Musashi’s basic ready stance for fighting was the “natural stance” which was one where the legs are close together and you are just standing there, with both your swords kind of pointing down towards your opponent’s feet. This is the position you are in at the start and end of each kata. Upon taking up a guard position, nito ryu swordsmanship, that is, Musashi’s school of swordsmanship, has your short-sword side and foot generally forward, and your long sword side generally behind, ready to sweep in with a big step to surprise your enemy with how much reach you have. But this is not a fixed rule. You can have the same guards with the other foot in front too. This is why I like to single out the stocatta position explained below for special designation.

Middle Guard: your long sword and short sword are both pointing towards the opponent’s throat area. Silver calls this the “variable guard.”

Upper Guard: your long sword is held above your head ready to cut down from above. Silver calls this the “open guard”

Lower Guard: your long sword is lowered so its point is aiming at your opponent’s legs. This is called the “lazy guard” in Swetnam, a contemporary of Silver.

Left Guard: your long sword stretches out pointing backwards with your right hand over top of your left hand, or long sword hand over short sword hand. Your hands cross over each other at the hip area.

Right Guard: your long sword is held out behind you on your right hand side.

One thing that can confuse you a bit in the katas is that these guards can be reversed to mirror images. Thus, you could have a “left” guard where actually your left hand sword is placed over your right hand at the hip, pointing your short sword held in your left hand backwards on your right side. I will call these positions “reversed.” Therefore, this position would be called “reversed left guard.”

Other Fencing Terms:

Inside Line, or just Inside or Inward: from your perspective, action happening on the side that your chest is facing.

Outside Line, or just Outside or Outward: from your perspective, action happening on the side that your back is more or less facing.

Hanging Block: a block where your fist is above your head and it is turned so that the tip of your sword is pointing towards the ground. This is a primary guard position in traditional backsword and sabre fencing. It shows up a lot in the katas. It can function as well as an on-guard position as it can function as an actual block. It has the special quality of keeping the sword in a position where it can be easily be swung up and then down at your opponent, with no “wind-up.” This is Musashi’s fifth technique in the Water Scroll, and it is seen in the coming back part of Heian Sandan.

Beat: a kind of aggressive blocking movement, where you are actively knocking your opponent’s sword out of the way so you can get past his on guard defense. Since this kind of thing does not work well against a heavy rifle stock, you push your opponent’s rifle stock out of the way with your sword in the fifth kata, or scissor it, instead of beating it. You can beat other light weapons like swords but not heavy ones like spears, staves or rifle stocks – you have to push them with your sword or scissor them between your two swords, not beat them.

Parry: another term for “block.”

Riposte: an attack that you do right after you have parried your opponent’s attack.

Stocatta: an on-guard position from classical rapier fencing where the left hand holding the dagger (typically a 2 or more foot long short sword, historically) and the left leg were placed out in front and the right hand holding the rapier or long sword, and right leg were placed behind. It somewhat resembles a typical boxing stance. This stance seems to be the main stance preferred by the creators of the kata for using the two swords together. It is the same Middle Guard mentioned above.

The following are what I think the basic karate moves become with a long sword in the right hand and a shorter one in the left:

Gedan Barai: the low block. While swinging the arm down and to the side a little, keep the sword’s tip up so that the sword blocks your torso from harm and also keeps it ready to do more work.

Chudan Shuto Uke: the sword hand blocks. These aren’t really blocks. They are a combination of a beat of the enemy’s blade that is pointing at you to your inside followed by a cut over his beaten-down sword to his neck area with that same sword you used to block with. You finish in a kind of on guard position with the swords called a stocatta in historical rapier fencing parlance. Your left hand sword is held out in front and your right hand sword held a bit back. It resembles a boxing on guard stance in a lot of ways.

Oi Zuki: the lunge punch. This is quite simply and obviously a stab with the blade of the sword turned so that it slips through the enemy’s ribcage unhindered by bone. This is probably why we turn our fists over in these katas while punching: to approximate this trick with the sword.

Gyaku Zuki: the reverse punch. This of course is also a stab with the sword, but using the back hand to do it.

Jodan Age Uke: the upper level blocks. These too are not really blocks. One hand beats your opponent’s sword upward and kind of holds it there for an instant, or knocks it upwards, while your other hand cuts upward from underneath, slicing your opponent’s forearms or wrists from below. Notice how this “block” is always preceded by putting up your other hand overhead first. Now you know why. This is a basic trick to the nito system of swordsmanship. It is described as technique three in the Water Scroll of Musashi’s Book of Five Rings.

The following is how I break down the parts of the katas for ease of reference. The lines represent the embusen, the path of the kata:

The first half of the kata – moving out:

Part 2 Part 1

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| Part 3

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Part 4 | Part 5

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The second half of the kata – moving back in:

Part 8 Part 7

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| Part 6

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Katas Sandan, Yondan and Godan have no parts 4 and 5. They skip right from part 3 to part 6. I do not think that there is strong continuity in a kind of supposed story or narrative from one part to another in the katas. I think that each part as I have labelled them, is a distinct unit, tied together with the other parts in a kind of lose theme. In other words, in the main, each “part” is a distinct lesson in and of itself. We can confuse ourselves by looking for continuity between one part and the next. This is especially clear in the transition from parts 2 to 3, 6 to 7 and 7 to 8 in Heian Godan, where at the beginning of each step it is assumed that you are starting with different or no weapons in your hands.

I am assuming that the reader is familiar with the katas. If you are not familiar with them, then you can refer to Gichin Funakoshi’s book, “Karate-Do Kyohan,” since this is the book I am using as my reference. I do not retell all the details of the katas. I only explain what is necessary to understand how these moves are sword and bayoneted rifle moves. This little paper is intended for people who already know the katas, as practiced by traditional Shotokan karate.

Let’s start analyzing the katas!

Each and every kata starts and ends with you in the natural stance and your swords angling down at your sides towards your opponent’s feet or the ground. This was Musashi’s starting posture. From this natural stance, you suddenly switch into a brutal, vicious attack to your sides against someone you don’t like standing there threatening you, or rushing in on you.

When attacking opponents in their on guard positions, it is assumed they are using the standard, middle guard, and most likely they are using only their long sword, held in both hands, which is what nito swordsmanship assumes will be the case, since it was the standard method of fencing in feudal Japan. You are attacking these kinds of opponents in the first two katas of the Heian series.

Heian Nidan:

Theme: basic, most important cuts, attacking a stationary opponent who is in a basic on guard posture.

Part 1:

You take up a defensive guard posture to the left with your right hand executing a hanging guard over the left side of your body. From this hanging guard, you swing the sword around to cut at the left side of your enemy’s neck, hopefully lopping it off, while bringing back your left hand to ready it to cut too and also protecting the right side of your head from a potential cut there. You cut now with your left hand at the same part of your enemy that you have attacked with your right hand while pulling your right hand back to your hip. This puts you at a second kind of on-guard for nito swordplay, which in rapier fencing terminology would be called a stocatta guard.

Part 2 is a mirror image of part 1. It is a drill of the same sequence of moving from one guard to the other (with an enemy’s head coming off in the process.)

Part 3:

You cut towards the back of the embusen (kata floor pattern explained above) with a big cut with your long right sword starting the cut with the sword in the left guard as explained above. You take a big, kicking, lunging step with your right foot to cover the distance quickly, giving your sword even more reach. We have a big right-handed cut looping up and then down at the enemy’s forehead with the longer of the two swords. The starting position is one of Musashi’s guards, the Left Guard, where the short sword in the left hand is held out in front, pointing at your enemy, while your long sword in your right hand is held so that it sticks out behind you on your left side. It is possible that the cut was actually an upwards one, aiming at the opponent’s wrists or forearms from below, making this technique identical then to that described as the fourth technique in the Water Scroll.

The next movement is to whip your short sword, your wakizashi, around backwards and get yourself in a ready position facing the other way, in a stocatta guard. Alternately this can be interpreted as a shuto “block” beat-attack. I don’t think it really matters which interpretation we take. It is virtually the same movement anyhow.

The next two shuto “blocks” are described above as basic techniques. They are beats followed by cuts to the enemy’s neck, always settling yourself into a stocatta guard at the end of each beat-attack.

The next move is a beat inward and down with your left hand sword and a thrust over it with your right hand sword into his unguarded ribcage. This is a common rapier and dagger move.

Part 4:

Two more shuto “blocks” that aren’t really blocks, as we already know. 

Part 5:

Two more shuto “blocks.” You just keep drilling this beat-attack to stocatta guard! This move comes across as the most important move in the creators’ minds, since it is the single most repeated move in the Heian katas. It deals with someone pointing their sword at you, in other words, they are in their on guard position and you defeat it, quickly! This would be a very important skill indeed!

Part 6:

You execute a circular parry or beat with your right hand sword, then you lunge forward with your right foot, kicking it out fast to speed up your movement. This enables you to slide in closer to your opponent along his sword. I don’t believe you are kicking your opponent here. A kick would pale in comparison to a stab. I think the “kick” is a lunge. We use kicking lunges in fencing and kendo all the time. In fact, every lunge in each sport is really a kick forward that pulls the rest of you forward and downward. You then stab with your left hand sword underneath his sword, which you have raised up and pushed aside with your right hand sword. This is actually a pretty simple manoeuvre.

This sequence is repeated with the opposite side now starting forward, to train you to do the movements from both sides equally.

But with this second attempt, the opponent has jumped back quickly and you couldn’t reach him with the thrust, so you have to chase him with another one, but this time using your left hand sword to guard against his sword as you deliver the final thrust with your right. Your sword blade is turned horizontally to fit between his ribs, but it is turned the opposite way you turn it for the oi zuki thrusts. If you do these moves with wooden swords in hand, you’ll find this turning over of the sword in this sequence more convenient and comfortable.

You end up in a form of the Middle Guard. The stocatta is a middle guard too, but this kind of middle guard has your long sword hand and foot in front and your short sword hand not held back very far.

Part 7:

Here is a low left hand block with the sword’s tip kept up of course, since you are really blocking a cut or thrust to your midsection, not to your legs. Leg attacks are best avoided by raising your forward leg up, drawing it back, or simply chopping down to your opponent’s head faster than he can reach your legs. Leg chops are generally a bad policy in fencing. Modern kendo and two of the three fencing weapon styles do not even allow the athletes to attack the legs, since it is such a bad habit. Naginata (halberd) fencing allows cuts to the legs since the reach of the weapon permits this as a more viable attack.

Then, you do the upper level “block” sequence where you take the left hand sword up to lift or bash your opponent’s sword a bit. Next, you slice his forearms or wrists from below with your right hand sword.

Part 8 is the mirror image of part 7, to get you good at doing the sequence from both sides.

Heian Shodan:

Theme: progressing from the basic skills you learned in Heian Nidan to more dangerous but still useful attacks against another swordsman’s on guard position, particularly making use of the thrust. Your opponent becomes more intelligent in this kata and you have to sometimes use compound moves to overcome his defenses.

The thrust is utilized more here, which can be a riskier policy against a swordsman since he could be cutting down at your head at the same time. Your own downward cut also functions as a guard for your head as Silver explains in his book. A thrust does not give you cover against a cut like this. In other words, you are exposing your head to danger. This is why the basic two handed sword move in standard kenjutsu was the downward blow, and in nito ryu also, and it remains so in modern kendo and sabre fencing. The most common score in modern sabre fencing is the downward cut to the head, as it is in modern kendo: both for nito and single sword kendoists. Even though both styles allow thrusts, the cut to the head reigns supreme.

Part 1:

This is a low block or beat, stab combination against your enemy’s middle guard position.

Part 2:

This starts with a low block or beat with your long sword against your opponent’s middle guard position. Because your left hand sword might be a bit short to stab effectively with here, you slip back a little with your right leg so as to disengage your right sword or to position yourself better for a subsequent hanging block, and then you bring it up through the hanging block position to cut down on your opponent’s head or thereabouts, flipping the sword over onto his head so it cuts right through. Maybe he blocks this move with a high block of some kind, so you thrust underneath his sword with your left hand and finish him. Notice that your opponent is fighting much more intelligently here than in the first kata (Heian Nidan.)

Part 3:

You now do a low block or beat with your left hand sword, which turns into a kind of lifting or beating of your enemy’s sword from below, maybe after he responds with his own strike as is described in several different ways in the Water Scroll. His sword is now high up for you. You deliver a cut now to his wrists or forearms from underneath with your right hand sword. This jodan ude uke set repeats three times. Notice how the right hand sword does the slicing twice and the left hand sword only once. The right hand sword is favoured because it is longer and therefore more appropriate to choose for attacking.

Parts 4 and 5:

Two low block – stab combinations. More drill at this.

Part 6:

An interesting set of three stabs a la oi zuki. Notice though that the end of each stab your position turns effectively and naturally into a stocatta guard. The sequence starts with a low block or beat, which you should have gotten used to by now on turns from one line to another in the kata.

Part 7:

There are two beat-attacks here from stocatta, reviewing the main lesson found in the first kata (Heian Nidan.) After the second beat-attack, you thrust with your left hand sword.

Part 8:

You do the same here, but a mirror, of part 7 except you do not do the stab with your back hand sword at the end of the second beat-attack. Presumably this is because you are too close to your opponent, since you are striking at him with your short sword on the second beat attack, to be able to stab him with your long sword held in your right hand. If you can reach him with your short sword, your long sword will probably be too long to use effectively for a stab. George Silver mentions this problem in his book “Paradoxes of Defence” where he recommends that the blade of your long sword be short enough to still stab in this position.

Heian Sandan:

Theme: Your opponents now start attacking you, and you have to respond with parries and ripostes. Your attacks are now more tactical, with more steps to them. These are harder sequences to learn, but very tricky to your opponents if you do!

Part 1:

This sequence starts with a circular parry or beat with your left hand sword at your opponent’s sword, then moves along to a cut to your opponent’s wrists from below with your right hand sword. You have first moved your opponent’s sword to your outside line (your left side in this case,) and then are able from where you have trapped it there briefly, to knock it upwards with your sword held in your right hand. Then for good measure, since his hands are lower than when you do this kind of cut at a higher level, and you therefore can’t generate the same kind of force, you also slice his wrists from below with your left hand sword. Possibly the first cut from below helps to knock his hands upwards by hitting his sword near the guard and without necessarily catching his wrists or forearms yet. The step after the initial block gets you in close enough so as to reach the underneath side of his wrists or forearms from below. This is a very tricky and clever way to forcibly enable you to do the famous upward seeping cut at the wrists of Nito Ryu swordsmanship.

Part 2:

The mirror of part 1.

Part 3:

You start by taking a middle guard position. You then knock your opponent’s sword to your inside (right in this case) line past your body with your left hand short sword, and then stab over top of your short sword, and his sword, with your long sword, accompanying your stab with a lunge, turning your sword horizontally to fit through his ribs. This kind of attack virtually ensures success. You have trapped his sword with your short sword, and you are now free to stab him with your long sword. This is a very powerful move! It is very popular in rapier and dagger fencing.

The only way someone can escape your thrust is by leaping backwards. You defeat this by spinning around and cutting at his neck with your short sword held in your left hand.

If this too fails, then you can keep chasing him by thrusting home again with your long sword.

This sequence is about trapping your opponent’s sword and then chasing him with thrusts and cuts until you finally hit him. In judo, we call this a continuous attack, and it is considered to be a more advanced manner of fighting than simple attack, or double attack, or parry attack combination moves.

There are no parts 4 and 5 in this and the remaining katas, remember! So, the next part is part 6.

Part 6:

The series of techniques you do now are similar to technique five in the Water Scroll.

You start with your feet in a natural ready stance and your swords held at your sides, but pointing forward at your enemy’s throat instead of drooping down towards his feet or at the ground. This is the meaning of keeping your elbows flexed a bit instead of letting them droop. This is a natural stance middle guard position. You are facing off against an armed swordsman here, face to face! He is not coming at you from the side as he is at the start of all the katas.

From this position, you beat your opponent’s sword that he is holding in middle guard with an upward beat through the hanging guard position, while taking a lunge step, and you then strike him on the head from above. This is a basic attack in traditional sabre and backsword fencing, when the swords were still heavy.

This sequence repeats itself three times to drill you in it. Notice again that the right hand, long, sword is favoured for this attack, as it gets drilled twice as opposed to the left hand, short, sword only once.

You finish the sequence with a thrust. This is an option after your cut from above, if it fails. If he blocks it with a high block, then he is opening himself up for a low thrust. It’s simple stuff! 

Part 7:

This movement is a head-removing chop with your long sword. Your left hand sword stays pointed out at your opponent to keep you guarded during the motion, but moves to your left side to help you generate momentum. The little hop you do in the direction of your sword cut helps you generate power for it.

Part 8:

This is the mirror image of part 7.

Heian Yondan

Theme: you now start using the scissor block and more difficult and adventurous, unexpected cuts, which require a better sense of timing and coordination than heretofore.

Part 1:

You suddenly cut upwards to the left with your long sword held in your right hand. Ideally you chop your enemy’s wrists or forearms from below with this cut. The sweeping upwards in this movement in the kata represents your upward sweeping cut, and your taking your time for a moment afterwards is because have already defeated your enemy and you can slow down for a few seconds. You end up in a kind of high stocatta guard, which was called a “high ward” in classical rapier fencing, according to the English translation of Giacomo Di Grassi’s fencing treatise.

Part 2:

This movement is essentially a mirror image of part 1, but I think it is still the long sword held in the right hand that is doing the business cutting the opponent. I think the left hand short sword would not be favoured for this cut. Without swords in your hands the movements look the same, but with swords you would obviously prefer to make contact with your longer right hand sword than with your shorter left hand one.

Part 3:

You use a scissor block to force your opponent’s katana or similar long weapon down. This is a recognized and highly effective move in European rapier play too, not just nito swordsmanship. Joseph Swetnam (writing 1617) extols its virtues against all sorts of long weapons, including quarterstaves and pikes!

The next movement lands you in a middle guard position at the end of it. Traditionally, when going to his kind of “two handed block” in Shotokan Karate, you swing your arms into it. This might, as in the earlier instances of its use, represent a horizontal cut at the enemy’s neck, or it might represent a thrust. Anyhow, the key lesson here, going from the downward scissor block to this lunge and cut or thrust, is how you use the scissoring tactically. In this case you are able to swing your right hand, longer sword up and across the opponent’s throat, or stab him through the ribs, absolutely unhindered, by disengaging it from the top ridge of your opponent’s trapped down sword. This kind of thing is the beauty of scissoring techniques, as Swetnam, as I mentioned above, goes on and on about!  The turning of your right hand over in this “block” (attack) might represent turning the sword over to fit through the ribs for a thrust, which is my strongest suspicion. It is a turn of the opposite direction to the turn done for oi zuki. If you hold the two swords in your hands and try this scissoring technique you will find that this different way of turning the sword over is much more convenient from this lower scissoring position than to turn the sword over the other way. Anyways, it is either a finishing cut or a finishing thrust. You end up establishing a strong middle guard position.

Now we have the same technique first encountered in Heian Nidan at the start of part 3 of the kata. This time you have a reversed “Left” Guard to begin with, having your left sword crossed over your right and pointing backwards by your right hip, and you then cut with this left sword while lunging with your left foot, ending this time in a finished lunge posture. You are maybe cutting from below upwards, in which case you are possibly drawing his sword down as he tries to beat your attack back down. This would then open up the upper part of his body for an opening for your other sword to capitalize on.

The next move isn’t really an elbow strike. It just looks like an elbow strike. What it was originally, I think, is a cut delivered with your long right hand sword that cuts off the enemy’s head. You end up with your swords crossed, as a natural result of this sequence. Conveniently, you can easily now go back to another left guard, this time the regular, rather than reversed, left guard.

The next little series of moves is the reverse of this, so as to train you to deliver this powerful sequence on both sides. You end up with a kind of high reversed “Left Guard” where your left arm is crossed over your left, and you left hand sword is now pointed in the same direction as you faced at the start of the kata when you bowed in and took your natural stance.

You now have a samurai cutting at your forehead, or brandishing his sword point in your face. So, you block it or lift it up with a rising hanging block with your right hand sword. You left hand sword then creates a scissor position underneath his sword blade. Your left continues its action. It now slides your opponent’s sword off of your right hand sword, to your left, enabling you to slide your right hand sword out of that position and wheel it around for a cut aimed directly at your enemy’s neck from your right side to the left side of his neck. Perhaps it doesn’t succeed for whatever reason, most likely he has jumped backwards and got out of range slightly, which seems to be a common theme in these katas, as it is the most common defence in kendo and fencing. So, you push your left hand sword out to keep guarding, or to keep his sword pushed to your left, and then you lunge forward with the same kind of thrust encountered in the last sequence of moves, turning your sword blade over to fit between his ribs. You end up in a solid middle guard, your left hand sword still keeping his sword to your left, away from you. You are done with this opponent.

Part 6:

You now turn around on a diagonal, as you know from your study of the kata, and you scissor your opponent’s blade with yours, scissoring his sword upwards, from below. He might be applying some pressure on you, possibly because you are defending a downward blow with this scissoring, so traditionally in this kata you slow down here are make as if you are under a great deal of strain. This put-on strain might be to set up your opponent for the unexpected next move.

You suddenly shuck his sword off to your left with your left hand sword and then lunge forward with your right leg, accompanying the lunge with a stab with your right hand sword. For good measure you next follow this stab up with another stab from your left hand sword. This is a pretty standard and basic rapier and dagger sequence in European rapier and dagger fencing manuals.

The next little sequence is the mirror image of this.

The next three moves, the “double handed blocks” are, as we have learned above, probably thrusts, but ones where you keep up your guard with your other sword, quite possibly sliding it along your opponent’s blade so as to push it out of the way of your thrusting sword’s trajectory.

You finish this part of the kata with a lunging step which allows you to turn around efficiently to see what is going on behind you now.

Parts 7 and 8:

You do two quick basic nito attacks: the simple beat-chop combination learned in the first Heian kata (Heian Nidan.) These finish the kata off.

Heian Godan

Theme: this kata is a fascinating study of a nito swordsman facing off against a “modern” i.e. 19th Century Japanese Army infantryman or US Marine armed with a bayoneted rifle. Up until this kata we were dealing with swordsmen, and learning more and more complex manoevers to face them, progressing from simple beat attacks, to parry-ripostes and compound moves, to scissoring parries to entrap the opponent’s blade and then retaliate swiftly. Now we are using all these skills to subdue bayoneted rifle wielding soldiers! Very cool!

Step 1:

A soldier approaches you from the left pointing his bayoneted rifle at you.

You block it with your left hand sword and stab with your right hand sword.

He is despatched.

You leave your right hand sword in his ribcage and at this point drop your left hand sword too and grab his rifle, which is a superior weapon, even without its ammunition, since it is longer than your swords are! This grabbing of the rifle likely explains the strange arm positions at the end of this move. You grab over the top of the barrel with your right hand and swivel the gun over to the right side of your body from where it was on the left side of your body, and snuggle it close! Moving in towards your stabbed foe enables you to get a grip closer to the butt of the gun, making it easier, faster, and more efficient to take the gun away from him. It also gets you past the business end of his gun fast so he can’t stab you with the end of it (or maybe even shoot you – who knows???)  This disarm depends on you stabbing him first. There are other techniques in this kata for disarming soldiers without stabbing them first.

It is not impossible to alternately interpret this beginning sequence as one where you are starting with your own bayoneted rifle, and you do a simple parry/beat to the left with your rifle, followed by a stab with its bayoneted end, and then you pull your rifle back out of him and let him drop to the ground. In this case, the final position of the arms is a kind of shouldering of the gun. Actually, it resembles this very much. I honestly don’t know which interpretation is better here. The only reason I vote for you starting out with swords is that step 3 clearly begins with you using scissoring sword techniques, not rifle moves. I think for the sake of continuity, starting with two swords makes more sense.

Step 2:

This is of course a mirror image of step 1 in order to train you to do this sequence from both sides.

Step 3:

You brandish or thrust your right hand sword out, accompanied by your left hand sword, ending in a middle guard position. This position might represent how to push a bayoneted rifle over you your right side. Doubling up your sword here adds leverage and strength to your push. Anyhow, it is fundamentally a middle guard position one way or other.

You could interpret this position as you holding your bayoneted rifle in a middle guard posture. The problem with this though is that the next moves involving scissoring techniques do not make sense if you are holding a rifle in your hands.

Having pushed the enemy’s gun to your right side with your sword(s,) you now step in closer with your left foot and scissor block/push the gun downwards. You are now close enough to thwart any attempt by him of stabbing you with the bayonet. He now tries to back up or otherwise resists, keeping his grip on his only hope of life in the midst of this battle – his gun.

I think the next move is you raise up your swords from the lower block position and scissor off his head, cutting through his throat with both of your swords! I think this scissoring is the meaning of the slippery small hand movements you do at this point in the kata. Because his hands are both down low holding his rifle which you have pushed down with your scissor block, his neck is open for scissoring right through!

Next, you pull your swords back to your right side and make sure his gun falls to the ground there.

The next two moves are both sword thrusts, probably at someone else who is getting close to you, behind the last guy you despatched. The second thrust is accompanied with a lunge.

Having stabbed or scared away this new soldier, you step back, pulling your right hand sword out of the soldier’s ribcage, and bend down a bit on your right side in order to pick up the gun that the first soldier dropped for you. This is the meaning of that right hand low block accompanied with a pulling away movement to a horse stance.

I think at this point, you drop your swords and grab this rifle fallen to the ground on your right side, and you then turn it around so the bayoneted end, represented by your left shuto, sword hand, points left towards your enemies. I think this turning around of the rifle is what is meant by that slow outward push with the back of your shuto hand. This movement can just as easily represent a kind of bayonet fencing block to your left against an oncoming adversary. The slowness of it, as it is traditionally done slowly, seems to me to be an indication that you are getting in position to fight more, not dealing with an attacker yet. This position you adopt is the middle guard, but done with a rifle instead of a sword or swords.

However, now an attacker does come. So, you keep your rifle out there and push his rifle to your left, stopping him from stabbing you with his bayonet. You then lunge forward with your right foot in a big kicking lunge step, and whirl the butt end of your rifle around and hit your opponent in the left side of his head with your rifle butt! Ouch!

This might not finish him off, so you turn the gun around, switching your left hand from gripping up on the barrel to gripping at the butt end of the gun, and with a subtle step added, you stab him with your bayonet. The switching of your left hand position is probably what is meant by the slapping of your right elbow against your left palm in the kata. In this case it is you slapping your left palm around the butt part of the gun. Then you turn it around and thrust, adding a clever behind-crossing step to trickily get the bayonet into his ribcage or possibly throat.

This above sequence could be still all interpreted as involving more fighting with your swords against bayoneted rifle wielding soldiers, with this last movement being the same kind of head-lopping cut that you find at about the same point in the 4th kata (Heian Yondan.) But if this were the case, the gedan barai low block opposite to where the action is coming from would make no sense, and the following move where you are stopping an enemy soldier from wrestling your gun from you, would also make no sense. The gedan barai low block becomes a wasted move then.

Back to the story in progress:

Part 6:

Perhaps this bayonet thrust even doesn’t succeed, and he grabs your gun and starts to try wresting it from your grip. So, you more or less pick him up and throw him over your shoulders, with him still gripping the gun. This is a known technique of wrestling over the gun used in armies in the 19th and 20th Centuries. Of course, if he lets go then you have the gun. If he doesn’t then you end up throwing him over your shoulders to the ground.

In the kata at this point, we assume that he was stubborn and didn’t release his grip on your gun, so you do indeed end up throwing him to the ground. You crouch down and finish him off with a swift thrust of the bayonet through his ribcage.

You then pull the gun out, turn around and face back towards the starting position of the kata in a bayonet-fighting, jukendo ready posture, which is the middle guard, which corresponds to the same middle guard positions you have used earlier while wielding two swords.

Part 7:

You are now learning a different lesson: one on disarming someone who has a rifle when you do not have one. Your enemy has his rifle gripped in the normal manner and you take a hold of it with your left hand at around the top section of the gun’s barrel, and your right hand grabs the butt end of the rifle. You then lift up with your right hand and twist down with your left. This screwing motion wrenches the gun away from your opponent. It is a well known disarming technique, as Dr. Bruce Clayton points out so clearly in his book, “Shotokan’s Secret.”

Part 8:

This sequence is the mirror image of part 7.

We are now finished all the katas in the Heian series.

Karate and kobujutsu already had plenty of katas dealing with boxing, brawling and improvised weapons. What the Heian katas did was add katas dealing with nito two sword swordsmanship and jukendo bayonet fighting. There was a hole in the training system of the Okinawan king’s bodyguards that needed to be filled. It needed to be filled in these ways because the chiefs of the bodyguards were enthusiasts about nito swordsmanship and jukendo bayonet fighting and they wanted to pass on their skills as best they could to their men. Teaching and training in these katas did not negate or eliminate the other katas dealing with other aspects of fighting. They added to them. The Bassai kata, created by Matsumura, one of the two responsible for these Heian kata, involves many of these same sword and rifle movements found in the Heian katas. There was a need in their handed down karate system that these gentlemen filled. By doing so, they modernized karate for their time.

As to why Itosu did not pass down the correct interpretation of these techniques, I have a simple theory. I think that he felt if he handed down their interpretation that the students would not find them interesting, since no one walked around with two swords in their belt anymore, whereas all the kickboxing and everyday object weapon katas still would seem practical for study, to handle brawls and self-defence situations. I think he felt the Heian katas had become obsolete more than anything. I don’t think he hid their true meaning for fear of reprisals, since he could have simply pretended that they were ancestral Chinese-originated sword and spear katas. I think that in the end, he wanted them to fit the image of karate as a practical self-defence system, and possibly he himself tried to reinterpret the meaning of the techniques to fit this new mould. For sure older katas had been adjusted for the sake of perceived practicality before.

[sojobo]

Cool,

What's your point?

Sojobo

[honoluludesktop]

Sory, way too long for me to read in detail. But it did make me think about kata as movement of body parts like handed weapons.

[kozushi]

It is indeed too long for a light read. I actually had it as a Word file and wanted to attach it here but I don't think I can attach files here.

I'm wondering if anyone has the same feeling about these particular katas?

I think Bassai also has the same flavour. It seems to go from unarmed or two swords to rifle&bayonet.

Sojobo, do you mean that you already see these katas this way?

[rogue2257]

This is a bit difficult to follow, but certainly an interesting idea. I'm always interested in unique interpretations of kata. I've turned karate katas into kobudo ones before (and vice versa). I'd be curious to see how these would actually look in practice. Any chance you have any videos of them floating around anywhere?

[kozushi]

I have done the all with two bokken (long and short) and they worked out very well.

I think though now in retrospect that the katas are maybe inspired by rather than actually trying to be nito sword katas.

[rogue2257]

I'm tempted to give it a try myself, if I can manage to figure out what all of the actions you're referencing are. I like your idea quite a bit, but I think it needs some kind of accompanying visual to help grasp some of the concepts. Having never fenced or practiced nito sword, I don't quite follow where all of the guards and cuts fall.

[kozushi]

Now that I have learned Kwanku and Bassai, I see that many of the moves in the Heian katas come from those older katas. However, I think it was the pleasure of the creators of the Heian katas to find similarities between their inherited karate skills and the new things they learned studying nito swordsmanship and jukendo bayonet fighting.