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Post by jimlukelkc on Feb 12, 2013 11:35:07 GMT
In the original pinan series pinan shodan was our heian nidan and vice-versa. Why do you think this was so when heian nidan is technically more difficult to perform than Heian shodan ?
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Post by malk103 on Feb 12, 2013 14:21:28 GMT
The theories I have read about stated that they were swapped because Nidan was too complicated for the beginners.
The reason why Nidan used to be first was that the applications were more striking at a distance, whereas Shodan was designed to have more advanced applications and were supposedly closer range and included some grappling.
All theories though....
I normally get the red belts to drill reverse Uchi - Mea geri - Gyaku Zuki routine in the line work so they can find the Heian Nidan Kata easier.
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Post by th0mas on Feb 12, 2013 20:17:28 GMT
bored Jim? You obviously have a view, what is it?
Sadly for the OSS debating society I suspect it is probably the same as Mal's and mine.
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Post by jimlukelkc on Feb 13, 2013 9:18:20 GMT
Yup, bored! The applications we use for heian nidan deal primarily with moving limbs out of the way and with gross motor skills. Heian shodan deals with ( in our applications ) closing the distance and striking simultaneously and taking to the ground whilst controling arms. I have read that Itosu, later in life became a school teacher and as he was introducing karate to children it was uneccessary to teach them applications and so, reorganised it so that the tecnically easier to perform pinan nidan came first on the syllabus. This makes more sense to me than viewing the heians as kata to be taught as an exercise for children. In that case, why bother to teach them to adults?
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Post by kensei on Feb 13, 2013 12:17:29 GMT
I have read several reasons for the change and not many for the original lay out. One suggestion I once read was that Itosu simply split a current Kata into bits and that was the lay out it gave him....I personaly dont believe or is it that way. I feel that the Heian kata were originals and that they may have taken bits and peices from different Katas and Itosu may even have had a "master Kata" that went through all of this, but the splits and separations seem very deliberate and "lesson teaching" esk!
Now, as for Itosu being a school teacher, not from what I can see. yes, he got Karate into the schools, but it was through his younger students that he did this, he would have been much to old for this himself.
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Post by jimlukelkc on Feb 13, 2013 13:59:58 GMT
!
Now, as for Itosu being a school teacher, not from what I can see. yes, he got Karate into the schools, but it was through his younger students that he did this, he would have been much to old for this himself. [/quote]
I was given to understand that Itosu was a part-time teacher of To-te around 1905 at a Junior high school in Okinawa. In 1908 he wrote a letter outlining his ten precepts and why he felt karate should be taught in schools. He was originally employed as both a martial artist and a scribe and was recognised as an educated man.
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Post by kensei on Feb 13, 2013 15:47:32 GMT
I was given to understand that Itosu was a part-time teacher of To-te around 1905 at a Junior high school in Okinawa. In 1908 he wrote a letter outlining his ten precepts and why he felt karate should be taught in schools. He was originally employed as both a martial artist and a scribe and was recognised as an educated man. He was a body guard for the king of Okinawa and a scribe for him. when the Japanese "asked" the king to move to Japan he retired and was apparently at an advanced age when teaching Funakoshi (dont know what advanced was at their standards). he may have helped set up the school programs with his students, and much has been written about that..but I am not sure how much of that he actually did. And being from a wealthy family he was educated very well....whichi s one of the reasons he was in the royal administration.
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Post by th0mas on Feb 14, 2013 7:57:13 GMT
I believe Itosu not only developed the Pinan kata's but also the "short" form for a number of the older classical kata's.
The theory being that having developed the Pinan Kata's as a complete fighting system, taking elements of Bassai, Tekki, Kenku, Jion etc, the next step was to re-work those original kata's to show alternative techniques from the ones he had now put in the Pinan series. Hence Bassai-Sho, Kenku-Sho and Gjushiho - (whatever Dai or sho... never sure which is which)...
Anyway, I like Iain Abernethy's explanation (I am not sure if he was the originator of the theory) that the order in which the Pinan's are placed is meant to reflect the most likely order a confrontation would occur. Pinan Shodan (Heian Nidan) - opening techniques, clash of limbs etc; Pinan Nidan/Heian Shodan: tactics and Applications from a grab position; Pinan/Heian Sandan - standup grappling, mainly throws. For both Yondan and Godan, more complex or "advanced" flowing applications.
So back to the original question at the start of the thread... I think the rather sad answer is what Jim originally postulated which is the difference in kata sequence is purely down to how easy it is to perform the solo motions between Shodan and Nidan, the order of the kata's shifting from fighting strategy at different ranges to performance complexity... I would suggest that that has a lot to do with the change in nature of Karate to a more Health and sporting/competition emphasis from the 1940's onwards...
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