What are the most important techniques in karate according to the kata?

As long as it's not your go-to kick blocking move!

 

Not quite a shodan/nidan thing that I'm aware of. But there do seem to be some chopping and changing of movements from one to the other in different systems.

In our system there's one notable difference with Shotokan that you'd pick up on immediately - the first move. Our Sho starts with the left open hand supporting the right fist in an 'outward block', and Dai starts with the high 'x-block' that you have in Sho.

But once you get past the following series of blocks our Dai and yours are sequentially identical from what I recall, stylistic differences aside. I'd say that your Dai is a direct ancestor of ours. Sho is a different matter. Ours is clearly a shortened, slightly simplified version of Dai with many moves being exactly the same. Yours, if I remember rightly, has some larger deviations from Dai and so presumably has some other influences but I don't know what they are.

Personally I think that's more likely than, say, one person thought they were so useful that they included them in several different kata.

I'm going to throw a spanner in the works and argue the converse to my earlier argument now! Sometimes it seems to me that different moves in different kata are actually expressing the same principle. The same applies to different versions of the same kata. So sometimes you have the same principle rather than the same move repeated through different kata. I think the reason is the same though - its just that the kata authors' physical expressions of the same principle was different.

Mike

 

Supports my assertion. Think about it. As far as a reason why one technique appears more frequently in a kata, perhaps it was because they are more difficult techniques to truly master and need to be repeated more frequently, perhaps it was because it is more aesthetically pleasing, maybe they just like the technique or could do it well and wanted to show off, maybe they just felt that the benefit of doing the technique repeatedly had a positive effect on your physical training, or maybe these techniques are just flexible and fit with more other techniques. My suggestion to all of you would be to find techniques in kata that work for you and practice them in live sparring over and over again until you can deploy them without thinking. I only focus on a few katas for technique, but still practice all the katas I know.

 

I see it as the reverse of your assertion. I think there is a truism in your assertion, but I also think that it is a glib cop out from a thorough logically approached training methodology.

I think we'll need to agree to disagree here. I think there is a great deal that has been kept and tweaked to make it aesthetically pleasing, but ultimately I believe that the techniques we see most commonly repeated within a single Kata, and we see commonly repeated across kata in general, are there originally because they were the most useful. If I believed otherwise I would have to consider the 'old masters' nothing more than posing Walters.

Now that I do unreservedly agree with.

 

Point was that there are many different possible reasons why these techniques were used more frequently. I personally think it is a big leap to draw a definitive conclusion that is was purely because the author felt they were more important. I also believe that if Itosu believed that one of the techniques in the Pinan's was more important, we know this definitively. There are plenty of schools/systems started by his direct students still around. As for the older katas, I also think we would know this and I don't think that Shosin Nagamine would make the opposite point that all moves are of equal importance, as he was from this lineage.

If you really want to design your own training program, why not take one kata and dive into it like they used to? Break out all the moves and get inside each. Learn how to apply them and get very good at doing that. Each move in the kata, not just one. Someone earlier on the thread made a point that each kata was a fighting system. Great, so train each move as much as you can. Why would you only train a right hook?

 

Too bad you weren't wearing a hat. If you were, you would have felt it knocked off when something went over your head.

I never said no other techniques or tactics were unimportant. Sure Marciano needed that jab and the ability to slip a punch, but if his right hook sucked we'd never know of him today. Because he had an amazing right hook and based his game off of using that right hook to drop his opponents, that's why he's very well known.

 

If you think I misunderstood what you said, perhaps you need to re-read what I wrote (especially the pawn analogy). I understood perfectly well what you said about Marciano and I stick by what I said about it.

 

And he was white of course

 

Don't worry, ultimately I'm still an Iron Mike fan.

 

I still go nuts over "the Brown bomber" personally

 

Personally, I think Gary is onto the true nature of the reason here. Kentsu Yabu said "Karate begins and ends with Naihanchi". I suspect if you are in a style of Naha-Te you would say Sanchin. I believe the reason why this was said, is because the kata trains all the body mechanics needed to perform the other techniques in karate and could stand as a deadly fighting system in and of itself. Naihanchi is a very basic kata, but all the moves are performed in an almost equal number.

So this begs the question, is there a single most important kata in karate? I would answer no. Because as valuable as Naihanchi is, most people greatly benefit from studying other katas beforehand to lay a foundation for Naihanchi.

 

If you think that's what I said, you really missed the point.

Interesting that you use Shoshin Nagamine as an example, when it is pretty well known his teacher Ankichi Arakaki had a devastating big toe kick (tsumasaki-geri). Shoshin Nagamine himself mentions this in his book "The Essence of Okinawan Karate-Do", stating no other karate man alive had that kind of tsumasaki-geri.

 

Think about it. If you identify one technique as "more important", you are going to train it more.

I am well familiar with Ankichi Arakaki, as I am in the very school he was involved in setting up in the US and have been practicing Ankichi's kick since I was a white belt. No where in Shosin Nagamine's book, or through the lips of those I have trained under who were Nagamine's students or student of his students was the "toe tip" kick identified as more important than any other technique. IMHO, just because something is your "signature" technique doesn't make it any more or less important than any other technique you practice. Yes, the "toe tip" kick is a signature move of "Matsubayahsi Shorin Ryu", but that doesn't make it more important than any other technique. To me it is like the color of your skin. Some people have tan, some have white and some have black. It is just who they are and a no less or more important detail about them than any other, only one that stands out.

 

And where have I ever said it was? You need to look back and see, as it's plainly obvious you missed quite a bit.

Using the Marciano example, nowhere did I say his right hook was more important than anything else he did, to the exclusion of all else. Because of his skill with the right hook, Marciano's entire strategy was using everything else in his arsenal to get into position to effectively use that right hook to knock out his opponent.

Do you understand what I'm talking about now?

And if you're good at a technique, why not train it more? Everyone great has a specialty in some way shape or form. No one ever became great by being "okay" at everything.

Good article on finding your tokui waza:
http://www.karatebyjesse.com/?p=1224

 

Osu,


Yes, of course...
If a technique is more important "to me", because it works well for me and I can make it work well - maybe because of my body type, age, injury, or other personal specifics - I am going to train it more than on that I cannot perform, or cannot perform well, maybe because of age, body type, injury, my wooden leg, or other personal specific...

It doesn't mean other techniques are not important, it meant that maybe a few are more important "to me"!

Way back, if I understand well, students were assigned ONE kata that they were to make their own - the choice was that of the master based on............ age, body type, injury, etc...
Only the recipient of the whole system was taught the whole set of kata.


OSU!

 

Well said, my friend. Well said.

 

Something is either more important or not. Please make up your mind.

Just because you are very good at one technique and you develop your strategy around that technique does equate to what we are talking about regarding kata. In fact, it is a ridiculous notion that a kata can be naturally better at one technique than any other. Its like you are trying to argue that since the sky is blue, blue is the color you should like to look at the most.

I say the sky is blue, but appreciate and look at all the colors. What is naturally your favorite will be.

 

A perfect example of someone like Old_Kyokushin mentioned? Bill Superfoot Wallace.

 

....Wow.

 

Here is the disconnect. A technique that naturally works for you, will naturally work for you. Whether one trains that technique more or less is a completely independent concept than what we are talking about. Kuma and others are putting forth the notion that the kata should dictate which technique is going to be more important for you. Personally, I would much rather train techniques I am weak in, than ones I am strong in. What is natural will be.