Tomarai No Passai / Bassai Dai

Hi Jason,

there are as many kata versions of Bassai/Passai as there are masters teaching them. However there are two major lineages if I remember correctly. The Tomari line and the Shuri line. Because there are no written records and most of the information was passed on by word of mouth everything is just speculations. I guess we will never know for sure which one is the oldest form. And you most certainly won't find an original Passai.

So when we talk Tomari Passai which version are you refering to? There is one such Kata in Shito Ryu. There is a similar version in Matsubayashi Ryu here it is called Oyadomari Passai.

Some lineages of Shorin Ryu use the Itosu version, some use the Matsumura version, some use both. As far as I know the Shotokan version of Bassai Dai is based on the Asato Bassai who again was a student of Matsumura and very close with Itosu.

Due to the fact that originally there were no Kanji for the names of kata, those names were written in Katakana, a meaning of those names was not clear. That was one of the reasons Funakoshi changed names for some of the kata and chose Kanji that sounded similar to the pronounciation of the kata names.

The kanji Funakoshi chose for Bassai mean something like "to remove, clear, overcome, resolve an obstacle, barrier, obstruction, resistance".

I hope that helps.

Regards Holger

Hi Kyohan,

thanks for the reply and info, great help.

Kind regards,

Jason

The Bassai Dai and Bassai Sho are Bassai/Passai but for different sources it was as per my thread to distinguish different versions as opposed to a larger and smaller version

Hi,

the suffixes of Dai and Sho don't mean large or small. According to Karate historian Henning Wittwer Dai means old and Sho means young. That makes perfect sense to me. When we take a look at the Kata of Shidokan Shorin Ryu of Miyahira Katsuya we find a Passai Dai and a Passai Sho. Passai Dai is the Matsumura Passai (the old form) and Passai Sho is the Itosu Passai (the younger form). 

When we apply that to the Shotokan versions of Bassai,  the Dai version is the Asato Bassai and the Sho version is a younger form that later came into the Shotokan curriculum, maybe formulated by Itosu himself maybe not.

Regards Holger

ky0han wrote:

Hi,

the suffixes of Dai and Sho don't mean large or small. According to Karate historian Henning Wittwer Dai means old and Sho means young. That makes perfect sense to me. When we take a look at the Kata of Shidokan Shorin Ryu of Miyahira Katsuya we find a Passai Dai and a Passai Sho. Passai Dai is the Matsumura Passai (the old form) and Passai Sho is the Itosu Passai (the younger form). 

When we apply that to the Shotokan versions of Bassai,  the Dai version is the Asato Bassai and the Sho version is a younger form that later came into the Shotokan curriculum, maybe formulated by Itosu himself maybe not.

Regards Holger

Thanks for adding to my post, its awkward at times to add details on an Android phone.

"Dai" also means "Greater" and "Sho" also means "lesser" but on the reasoning behind the bassai/Passai kata it is as you described in Shotokan anyway.