Asai Ryu Kata's

Hi Marcus,

I am a bit familiar with Asai's approach to Karate and he formulated his Kata to teach his special way of moving. And he formulated a lot of them. Kato Sadashige (one of Asai's senior students) also formulated new Kata. Asai and Kato also formulated Kata for wheelchair Karate. You can find a list here.

They were not intended to be practical (at least not in a way of practical that I understand as such). Take a look here:

That doesn't mean you can't find any usefull and practical applications in those new Kata. But I wouldn't look for them in these Kata.

I hope that helps.

Regards Holger

Thanks, that was a lot of use, I look forward to learning more about these kata's

why so many kata. there is more than Shukokai. they should have replaced the Shotokan kata not added to it

Black Tiger wrote:

why so many kata. there is more than Shukokai. they should have replaced the Shotokan kata not added to it

If Asai had done that, all the practical fighting principles incorporated in the originals would have been lost and replaced with kata designed to teach you to move more fluidly... doesn't seem like a good swap to me.

Personally I don't like the junro kata's, I think they were "of a time" and don't have as much relevance now. My reading of Andre Burtel's blog on this matter was that he developed these kata's based on his observations of the very stiff and non-fluid karate of the "western" shotokan practioners he observed in the 70's and 80'sand 90's..

Certainly in my experience in the UK I rarely see Karate taught like that anymore, the emphasis now being on fluid movement, rather than the over emphasis on tensing we used to see back in the 80's.

Can I ask what association you train with as I have yet to find a dojo that works on fluidity of movement over the age old stiffness.

Really? Maybe your definition of fluidity and mine are not the same? 

I train with the Southern Area Shotokan Karate Organisation (SASKO), we are very small, south london based, club, but we have been members (or certainly I have anyway) of most of the major Shotokan organisations in the uk over the last 30 years. JKA, KUGB, AMA etc.. However if you spend any time with Kawazoe or Ohta or Dave Hazard etc "stiffness" is not a phrase I would use to describe their karate.

What I tend to find in Shotokan clubs is it takes the 5 years or so to get to shodan before the karateka starts to grasp the concepts and principles of relaxation. This is difficult to teach and often requires the student to "unlearn" over-tensing, a habit that is often picked up at a junior grade when watching seniors move. They associate explosive aggression with straining and tensing muscles, which counter-intuitively actually slows you down and reduces power generation.

I hope that explains my point.

Cheers

Tom

I really like ShotoKan but I agree i do find that many KarateKa are not fluid in motion and they seem to find Sabaki very hard to adopt.

Although there are many fighters who adopt it more naturally than others