This video quickly summarises a two-person drill for the bunkai of Jitte kata. Uke begins the drill with a throat grab (application of the opening “salutation”) before Tori then utilises all the motions from the kata in the same sequence as they appear in the kata.

For the purposes of the drill, when the kata shows a motion a number of times it is only performed once. To ensure both sides are practised, you would simply do the entire drill on the other side.

The video was intended to be “video notes” for participants in a four-day long residential course. It is therefore not intended to be an instructional video and it should not be approached as such. Whilst we did cover style variations on the course, the drill presented here is for the kata as I perform it. It can however be easily adapted for the Shotokan and Shito-Ryu variations.

The primary purpose of such drills is to provide a complementary partner drill for the entirety of the solo form. They help facilitate time efficient practise and can be useful when first learning the applications of the kata. The drill must never become an end in itself though and it must be understood that in actually application we can use any of the motions at any point they are appropriate. For the drill, we as simply putting all those discrete combative methods end to end; in a way that mirrors the kata.

The truest expression of kata bunkai is the free application of the methods and principles of the kata in a truly free flowing way. This drill, and those like it, are therefore a means to an end and not an end in themselves. It is when the methodology of the kata can be freely applied in Kata-Based-Sparring, and hence actual conflict, that the bunkai can truly be said to have been learnt.

As I say, this is not an instructional video. I nevertheless hope you find it of interest and it gives you some appreciation of the methodology of Jitte kata.

Thanks for your support of these videos!

All the best,

Iain

PS The direct YouTube link can be found HERE