Naihanchi/Tekki Nidan and Sandan

I would like to second the above query as I can see so much use in the 3 kata and can see it as a complete fighting system in itself

I would love to learn all 3 kata but no-one available to teach me nearby

Personally I think the 'core' message of Naihanchi is shown in the first kata, I believe the second and third kata were simply application varients/expansions created later.

Our Ryu says different, that the Naihanchi Shodan and Nidan kata were form Matsumura, and the third was created by Itosu. Im open minded about that.

They all, IMO have wonderful things to teach, all have value - personally I only practice the first 2 as this is what my Ryu does and I have little time for anything outside of that these days, but that doesn't take anything away from the third Naihanchi kata.

However if I could only have 1 Naihanchi kata, it would be the first one.

When you move from the last move in naihanchi 1 to the first move in naihanchi 2 and  from the last move in naihanchi 2 to the first move in naihanchi 3, you have a complete form. All three flow together into a great fighting form. There is nothing useless. if you understand all attacks are from the front and you move the attacker 90 degrees to your side. Try it, it does work. IMHO

Hi Dennis,

Your anlysis is of course correct and very useful, I see it as half the complete picture - if you step to the side of your opponent (ie the Kosa Dachi movement, or 'body change') and apply 'Naihanchi' everything fits very nice indeed as well, inside or out of the opponent.

As a note I have spent sometime training the Naihanchi Complete Form and 2 man Chin-Na set from Nathan Johnson Sensei group, whilst different to my own Ryu's interpretation it is simply the most complete and plausabile Bunkai I have ever seen, when all things are considered. Well worth checking out.

Otsuka did also say that Naihanchi was his favourite kata, there was something “profoundly deep about it”, and that it would take “more than a life time to master”.

Lee Richardson wrote:

Could it be that he considered the other two kata to be unnecessary? That Naihanchi proper was such a complete kata that further variations were not needed?

That would certainly be one way of looking at it. Not so much “useless” as “pointless” from Otsuka’s perspective of the original being profoundly deep and more than a lifetime’s work.

shoshinkanuk wrote:

Personally I think the 'core' message of Naihanchi is shown in the first kata, I believe the second and third kata were simply application variants/expansions created later.

I share that view. It is vitally important to explore variations on a theme, and whether we use alternative kata to suggest those variants or not is an irrelevance. It’s a judgment call I can see merits in both approaches.

Dennis L. Ernst wrote:

When you move from the last move in naihanchi 1 to the first move in naihanchi 2 and from the last move in naihanchi 2 to the first move in naihanchi 3, you have a complete form. All three flow together into a great fighting form. There is nothing useless.

It is true that the three kata can be combined, but I don’t see the evidence for them originally being one long kata as has been suggested by some (not that Dennis said that, but it is an increasingly common view).

I think we also need to define what we man by “useless”. If I already have a complete combative system, then other things can be surplus to requirements. If it’s surplus to requirements, then I’m not using it and we could therefore say it was “useless”. What I mean, is that it is not useful to us. As someone who drives a car, a motorcycle helmet is “useless”. That’s not the same as saying motorcycle helmets are valueless.

If a given kata has given us all we need, then it can be argued that other kata are of no use to us. They may be useful to others, but not to us because we already have all the bases covered. I’d therefore suggest that Otsuka may well have meant “useless” in the sense of “I have no use for them” as opposed to “they are inherently valueless”. That is what I see from Otsuka’s quote in the context in which it was stated. From the position of seeing one variation of the kata as being a lifetime’s work, all other variants are obsolete unless you have more than one lifetime.

Dennis L. Ernst wrote:

If you understand all attacks are from the front and you move the attacker 90 degrees to your side. Try it, it does work. IMHO

Motobu – who Otuska credits as being the person who taught him the basis of the form as practiced in Wado – makes the same observation in his writing and taking the angle in the kata as being the angle we are in relation to the enemy certainly opens many doors (a observation Mabuni makes in reference to the Pinans too). Shoshinkanuk’s observation about stepping offline is also one I agree with and have found useful.

All the best,

Iain

Greetings all,

I realize this is an old thread but I had some thoughts while reading it that I'd like to share.  Allow me a short foray into Taijiquan for a comparison.

In Taijiquan, the long form of 108 (113 in some schema) movements is broken up into three sections, the 1st approximately 20 steps long, the 2nd approximately 40 and the 3rd approximately 60 steps long.  Only the first part is begun with the typical beginning technique that one sees so often, with both hands rising and then falling.  The other two sections begin with arms out in front in a kind of rest position that could be viewed as vaguely similar looking to the yoi position in karate.  To me, this is similar to only Tekki Shodan having the signature beginning posture, and also the longer length of Tekki Sandan compared to Shodan and Nidan.

There are 37 "postures" in yang style.  The word posture is, according to Yang, Jwing-Ming, a mistranslation and that the word should more accurately be translated as "pattern".  Furthermore, because of this, it may be easier to see that Taijiquan teaches that these positions/patterns are merely guidelines and that several different applications can and should be derived from these patterns.  It is for this reason that, even though many of the techniques are repeated in the form, they are often followed by a different technique than in the previous repetition.  If "step forward brush knee left" is a block and strike in the first repetition, for example, then it may require a different following technique than if, as in a later repetition, it might instead be a trap and throwing technique. 

Couple these with the idea that Taijiquan and Okinawan karate are related to White Crane, and for these reasons, I am of the opinion that all three were the original form, and that like Taijiquan, the later repetitions of certain movements are either different applications of the same "patterns" or else they are saying something like "the first repetition is when the opponent does THIS, and the second repetition is if that isn't feasible given a different outcome", such as being inside as opposed to outside, etc.

Kind Regards,

Christopher Crittenden