r/karate • u/Chemical_Bonus_9258 • 6d ago
Chinte kata
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Has anyone ever seen this move in Chinte kata before?
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u/goldenglory86 5d ago
What style?
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u/Chemical_Bonus_9258 5d ago
This is Shotokan. Some old video of the kata. Wondering if this was one of the original ways of performing it and was later changed for unknown reasons.
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u/karainflex Shotokan 5d ago
There are two full length videos with katas from this recording (you can find them on Youtube) and there is a blog article explaining the background of the videos: they found this tape which was recorded in the early 1970ies at a university club (1974 I think). The teacher was one of Funakoshi's students and the tape was recently found in his private archive after his death (2 years ago? I don't know).
The execution of many katas is indeed a bit different compared to the JKA version many people know. Like the example you posted; another I rememver are two knee raises in Nijushiho instead of doing yoko geri. It's a great source for everyone who is not riding the competition train :-)
I don't know the source anymore but Funakoshi taught katas differently at different places.
There is also another video like this, albeit much shorter where we can see a student of Itosu and some of his students doing Pinan kata and others. They also show makiwara training and weight lifting. This was recorded in Hawaii many years ago where many Okinawans went to. And from what we know this may be the closest version to how Itosu taught the katas. Of course they are also a bit different to what we see here. Sadly this video cannot be found by searching on Youtube, you need the URL to see it.
I don't have the link right now, it was in the comments of one of Michael Calandra's podcast episodes, afair it was an interview with someone where he mentioned that video and linked it in the notes below the video.
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u/luke_fowl Shito-ryu & Matayoshi Kobudo 3d ago
The teacher was Isao Obata, this is from the Keio University if I am not mistaken. The Shotokan that Funaksohi originally taught when he first arrived in Japan is preserved in the universities, rather than the modern JKA. They're far more like Shorin-ryu in flavour than modern Shotokan, with the exception of the stances.
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u/precinctomega 5d ago
Well, yes. It's still in Chinte, but it's usually performed at a different tempo and the hizageri is performed as a crane stance. But it's a really good illustration of how different applications can inform performance and how we should be creative and loose in our applications.