Karate Kata: From the Pinan to the Heian

By Al Case

What is this beast called a Karate Kata? It's a style of dance, it's an epistle of martial techniques, it's a method for controlling and teaching large numbers of kids without the need for data. It's zen, it's doing only one thing at a time, it's a rank classification system.

It's a recent innovation that dates back 2000 years...and it shows you exactly and precisely and where to place them little clodhoppers you call feets.It's information arranged out of order in a fixed method. Whatever karate forms are, practice them long enough and you will come to know Karate.

Well, maybe so. And maybe not so. After all if Master Gichin Funakoshi is to be believed, Karate is changing...here is his direct quote.

"Hoping to see Karate included in the universal physical education taught in our public schools, I set about revising the kata so as to make them as simple as possible. Times change, the world changes, and obviously the martial arts must change too. The Karate that high school students practice today is not the same Karate that was practiced even as recently as ten years ago [this book was written in 1956], and it is a long way indeed from the Karate I learned when I was a child in Okinawa."

The classical Karate forms taught by Gichin Funakoshi are labeled Heian. This writer studied, from a source other than the Japanese lineage, Karate Kata called Pinan. And there were distinct and obvious differences between the two interpretations.

The Heian are violent forms, filled with front stance attacks, explosive, in your face, one punch one kill. The Pinan put their focus in the fist, work out of the more defensive rear stance, modify the explosion exactly to the work being performed, are subtle and polite, and believe in getting along with your fellow man. This is a sizable difference, to say the least.

Of course, my bias holds, the Pinans are better. They were created before the young turks of the Japanese college system altered them for tournaments and power and fighting and power and glory and power and...well, power. The Pinans were created before lust was in vogue.

Of course, that said, this writer's bias taken into account, one can modify the forms back to the way they were. All one has to do is adjust the angles and modify the mind. Ahh, modify the mind...perhaps it is not possible...but one can hope.

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Want to see the difference between the Heian and the Pinan Karate Kata? Head on over to Temple Karate at Monster Martial Arts.