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Zach Zinn
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Gekisai, Etc. Impact

Some quick and simple Gekisai and Kurufunfa impact concepts.

Iain Abernethy
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Very nice Zach! I really like the Gekisai sequence on the kick shield.

All the best,

Iain

Heath White
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I don't know this kata but I like the movements.  The "low block" dragging down the head on exit is pretty good.  So is the crashing in with the elbow.

Zach Zinn
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Heath White wrote:

I don't know this kata but I like the movements.  The "low block" dragging down the head on exit is pretty good.  So is the crashing in with the elbow.

Thanks Heath, the head drag thing is my own take on the ubquitous step-back shiko downblock and the most consistent use I've found for the position. I think it's basically the same thing as the "low shuto" type movement that is in the Pinan/Heian forms.

Anyway Gekisai is a good kata to learn to kind of get some Goju Ryu flavor. It is simple and short. Some people poo-poo it as "schoolboy Karate" etc. like people will sometimes do with the Heians, but that's a mistake.

The two Gekisai are basically paired-down, kihon-ized versions of some core Goju Ryu skills. As such they are a great thing to learn without having to jump into the more ornate, harder to learn forms. About half the other forms (4 of the 8) resemble Gekisai very strongly and in places are basically "advanced" variations on the same themes.

Iain Abernethy
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Zach Zinn wrote:
Anyway Gekisai is a good kata to learn to kind of get some Goju Ryu flavor. It is simple and short. Some people poo-poo it as "schoolboy Karate" etc. like people will sometimes do with the Heians, but that's a mistake.

The two Gekisai are basically paired-down, kihon-ized versions of some core Goju Ryu skills. As such they are a great thing to learn without having to jump into the more ornate, harder to learn forms. About half the other forms (4 of the 8) resemble Gekisai very strongly and in places are basically "advanced" variations on the same themes.

I 100% agree! For those who don’t know, in the 1940s Miyagi (Goju-Ryu) and Nagamine (Matsubayashi-Ryu) were tasked with coming up with some “universal kata” that all karateka, irrespective of style, could do. The results were Fukyugata-Ichi (Nagamine) and Fukyugata-Ni (Miyagi). While both kata are still practised in Matsubayashi-Ryu, the kata didn’t become widely practised throughout karate as was hoped.

Miyagi renamed Fukyugata-Ni as Gekisai-Dai-Ichi, so that is essentially a Naha inspired kata that was specifically designed for non-Naha stylists. Miyagi then created a second version called Gekisai-Dai-Ni, where the first half is exactly the same as Ichi, but the second half has more Naha influenced material introduced (so less, “universal”).

They are great kata with some superb content. As Zach rightly says, “Gekisai is a good kata to learn to kind of get some Goju Ryu flavour.” They were, after all, initially designed specifically for that purpose. They are kata that I think all karateka should be familiar with.

All the best,

Iain