Second to last Shuto Uke in Passai

Hi Drew,

Drew Loto wrote:

In the end of the Passai there are three shuto uke.  The second to last one confounds me, because unlike every other shuto uke in the kata, for this one you look in the opposite direction of your arms.  Does anyone have an idea why this might be?

We had a discussion about this last October. My view is that the shoto-uke where we are looking in the other direction is an “exaggeration” that has became part of the standardised form in styles such as Shotokan and Wado.

If you follow the link below it will take you to the discussion last year. I explain my thinking in that post in a little more depth. The post also includes a couple of videos to help compare and contrast the styles.

http://iainabernethy.co.uk/content/bassai-dai-shuto-application#comment-2965

All the best,

Iain

In Tang Soo Do, we do it a bit differently (as can be seen in this random video I found on Youtube:

We do this shuto uke as a definite separate move, and we do look at where we're striking. Now I could see doing it looking forward, but since the angles are slightly different in our Bassai, I think it could still be explained...

Now of course I don't know who's closer to the original intent (and I don't much care, to be honest). I just wanted to mention this, say there are different applications, different ways of doing this. :)

I like Iain's explanation of it being an exaggeration. The way it's done in the video in Iain's link, it reminds me a bit of the three moves in Jitte on the way back, after the double high block/double hammer fists (once again the way we do it in TSD, but close to karate, if I can believe Youtube on that :P ). So whatever your explanation for those is, maybe it's related?

(Sorry if I'm not clear on this, I don't know most of the karate terminology...)

i know it is slightly off-topic..but what is that little jump-thing at 52 seconds in?

My Sensei teaches that Shuto as pulling an opponent past you, as a throw. We practice it with the heavy feeling of pulling someone.

Here's one of the ways we look at using that shuto kamae. Hope this helps your own exploration of the posture/movement.

I'll leave it to Iain to embed if he's ok with the video!