Suparinpei Shotokan Style

osu

i am so interested in learning this kata, the actual name of the shotokan version of the kata is Hyakuhachiho. i have been researching this kata for the last few days. i once saw a shotokan karateka do this kata and i was blown away. he told me it was suparinpei. i never knew there was a shotokan version of this. well anyways if memory serves me right suparinpei means 8 or 108 chinese hands and osensei funakoshi talks about doing this kata in his book ryukyu kempo: tode published in 1922. does anyone know of any good video of this kata. or a book on the techniques and movement of the kata. i am not looking for suparinpei but the shotokan version of the kata. i have read that the shotokan version has variations to it. thanks for all your help. btw my association does not do this kata.

mike

Your talking about 2 different kata.

As far as I know Suparinpei is not a Shotokan kata.

cxt you maybe right but when i researched this kata it is mentioned in 24 fighting chickens and a whole bunch of shotokan sites. ok then do you know where i can find a video clip on HYAKUHACHIHO. i would like to be able to veiw it by comparison.

thanks
mike

Wish I had an answer for you, sorry.

There are a whole raft of kata with a similar name to "Hyakuhachio"

Some are the same kata with different spellings---some are VERY different kata or interpretations of kata.

Many are are found in association with various White Crane interpeatations--if memory serves.

Superempei however is another animal altogather.

Its mainly a "classic" naha type kata that is often on the "list" for a "standard" goju style kata at various tournaments.

The goju/naha method of doing it "correctly" tends to vary quite a bit from how a shotokan person might view "correct" technique and methods.

Nothing set in stone of course.

Wish I could be more help.

Hyakuhachiho Kata is just a shotokan'ized version of Suparinpei Kata (from Goju Ryu)

I've seen it performed by Scott Lippacher through the Shoto Research Society International.

IMVHO, stay with Superinpe, the original is a stronger form.

Here are several versions

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-8780486273264847827&q=Suparinpei

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=5392298193720385485&q=Suparinpei

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RKmBQuxoMoo

As time passes, various Shotokan factions are seeking new kata, pulling in kata from other systems (frequently adding shotokan technique execution) and very senior instructors are also working to create new forms.

that is something i don't think i entirely agree with.

a gojo kata is a goju kata, if i wanted to learn it, id learn it from a person who understands goju principles.

theres more to it then just the names of the techniques and there sequence. and i don't feel that someone from a shotokan background could really appreaciate the sublties of one of goju's "master" kata's.

Victor

Thats just weird.

If its just a "shotokanized" version of Suparinpei then why bother to call it/make up "another" name?

Makes little sense to me.

On the other hand Shotokan did re-name a lot of kata back in the day.

But then again, I have a problem with folks pulling kata from "other" systems--not that I think its wrong.

You just often miss a lot of the point of the kata when you remove it from its context.

If I force Bassai Dai thu a Goju "framework" then all I have done is replicate/create another other Goju kata.
I know what the various movements and technques represent in "my" system----but without training I have little understanding of what they might "mean" in another system.

maybe it was renamed because 'Suparempei' sound too Chinese? and maybe it was changed so it can include Japanese 'look and feel' body dynamics?

just a guess. why rename Pinan to Heian? why rename Seisan to Hangetsu ?

so I'm just extrapolating from prior things Japanese versions of Karate changed.

I think the answer is very simple if you take a step back.

Practice your system for say 40 or 50 years. That gives a lot of time to get it right (at least in your own definition). To become an instructor and pass what you know along to generations of students, to stand soundly on your own two feet without others looking over your shoulder.

While many may feel,,,,,,,oooooooh we have too many forms, others because they work at it find the entire system too little for the time they have.

So they learn new material. One person takes up tai chi, another adds forms from mutiple systems, and makes a few changes, another creates entirely new forms of their choice. And yes some change nothing.

This is the reality, time changes everything. The system of training Funakoshi Ginchin took to Japan was changed in few short years, and kept changing and kept splitting.

Just because Funakoshi said don't change the forms, do you really think, in the long run, anyone paid any attention to him, becuase he changed, rode herd over, or accepted a lot of change too, and they learned the real lesson, don't allow beginners to change, and when your in charge follow your heart.

No, personally having seen the form, I apprecite the Goju version much more. I hold mixed reservations about the shito-ryu version for I don't know if it's closer to the original than the Goju, or just a different vision?

Believe me I understand their choices with my 34 short years very well. And yes I have included additional material to honnor my friends as much as give a wider scope to my students about what others do because they have to try it themselves, but I don't muck with my Isshinryu kata because I have many more interesting things to explore with them than changing the beginning tools.

I've suggested elsewhere Shotokan in its development actually ran across everything the rest of the world would later discover, what really happens.

And of course that's scary for everyone who want's to keep the past locked up tight.

But you can't do it, not really. Nobody had any real record of what Funakoshi originally taught them, nor of what Itosu taught Funakoshi, and so forth. Even with all shotokan's efforts, you really can't know shotokan from the total of every book and movie made. They're still shadow glimpses of reality.

To try and undestand you have to step back away from your world view, and try, really try to grasp the larger picture.

After all it's all an accident. If McArthur and the rest simply decided to bypass Okinawa during WWII, making the decision that it wasn't worth the effort to invade and just leave them there, locked away, and made different choices, it's not unlikely there would be no world wide karate.

A few choices one way or another and all this would be naught.

So why simple things like name changes, if you can't speak Japanese (I don't) there will likely be no answer. After all the person who changed the name, why would they feel compelled for us to know why. It's just a name after all.

I tend to factor in preponderance of evidence. There were much bigger things going on in history than development of Karate or it's kata. To think those larger factors didn't play a part, allows for thinking anything as equally plausable.

but that doesn't seem the likely case. enveloping the development of Karate during the first half of 20th century, was the Japanese war machine. you had to be part of that machine or be deemed a useless part of society. One of the functions the war machine carried out, was the colonization of northern China. racial hatred during that time between Asian races is hard to comprehend for me, but it happened. currents of influence so big, that they could hardly be noticed, but only in retrospect.

Karate changed FOR Japan, and BY Japan - when Karate was trying to be Japanese. comprimises were made. names, 'look and feel', terminology, etc. it shaped the Art into a form that Japan could call it's own. If it remained to look and sound Chinese, it wouldn't have gone anywhere - is my guess.

while at the same time, apparently some Okinawans kept the Okinawan way to themselves and select few. a sort of 'undercurrent' of Karate....which still goes on today, I suspect, but wouldn't know first hand.

Thats not to say many Japanese have not made Karate work for them....or some Okinawans haven't lost their undercurrent. -no, not saying that at all. just like Victor says, things change.

so my conclusion is: if in the past, there is a preponderance of evidence (albeit circumstancial) that kata was changed in name and form to 'look feel and sound' less Chinese and more Japanese from nationalistic pressures at the time, then I call those changes suspect - since they were not likely changed for legitimate functional reasons. at best, masking the kata's original intent while at the same time assimilating towards Japanese economies of movement found in other of it's budo Arts.

In other words, the NEED for the changes were likely more political than functional. ...and form often fits need.

just the way I see it - doesn't mean it's true...and my opinion is definitely not fact.

I like the American Eclectic Krotty version: Super Empi - to be distinguished from regular Empi

(no joke, that's exactly how I saw it written several times)

Hi Hed,

Actually I had learned Super Empi once upon a time. The guy who shared it with me got it from Al Smith's Red Dragons of Easton Pa (the school originally founded by Chris Cassamssas (sp?) who then moved to Californian and started the Red Dragons chain out there...

It was a jazzed up version of Empi being done by a 'shorin' stylist. Al Smith had brought Kise Sensei over several times in the early 80's and he was nothing like Kise's karate.

But for open tournament fun, and if you didn't play the tournament circuit you really don't understand how much fun it was) before I got into my much deeper studies, it wasn't bad.

But then again Empi is just a jazzed up version of Wansu/Wanshu. And even the Isshinryu version of Wansu/Wanshu is a jazzed up version of Wansu/Wanshu.

It's always a matter of perspective.

Ed,

There is more than a little truth in what you say about why things changed moving karate to Japan.

But it wasn't Japan that forced the change, but the worldwide Depression. In the 20's/30's things were very hard on Okinawa. Many Okinawan's to survive had to leave and a worldwide disporia took place.. to Hong Kong, to Japan, to Hawaii, to Singapore, to South America.

Funakoshi, Mabuni, Motobu and the others were not working to make karate an acceptable study in Japan to fit into the Japanese society, but to gain acceptance to support their families and/or friends by making Okinawa more valuable to Japan.

Funakoshi, being an educator, realized making the names of the system more comfortable to the Japanese martial establishment, was a sounder way to integrate into the society. It was also accompanied with the reality Japan was walking all over their neighbors and was interested in Japanese arts, not say Chinese ones. So changing the names, even the kanjin for Karate, made sense because they were pushing an Okinawan art (not a Chinese one).

But Funakoshi didn't shy away from the origins and all of his book included sections of the Bubishi (in the original Chinese).

So at one level he was helping make name changes, but at another level he never hid anything.

His changes worked and the practice did get integrated into elite education (university). BTW Karate was not for the masses on Okinawa, and where he took it was to the youth of the Japanese elite.

Today, Joe Swift has told me, very few people in Japan realize karate isn't pure Japanese. At the same time the study of Karate in Japan is still a small time event. Most Japanese don't do the martial arts of any sort.

What Funakoshi really did was craft a group of Japanese instructors very quickly, and they were the disciples who spread his karate. He was older (alas something I know well) and it of course was impossible for him to teach in all those locations. Those instructors (including his son) were insturmental in changing Shotokan from it's origins. Who knows how much a hand he had in those changes. Some of which actually came from some of them training in China and importing techniques (such as kicking techniques) to be added to Shotokan. So the Japanese Shotokan stylists didn't shy from China (Of course they were occupying it then, and his students were often officers or occupying administrators -- after all he taught the elite).

Among the earliest attempts at Japanese control was the famous 1930's meeting to 'force the naming' of Karate back on Okinawa. After WWII it became more obvious. Japanese dogi were used for uniforms. Rank and belt structures and organizations came into existence, paralleling the earlier Japanese experiments.

Today, in austerity moves, mainland Japan has crept into funding public events in Okinawa, and the spectre of mainland karate groups may be trying to control Okinawan karte, simply becuase they're working hard to gain Olympic acceptance, and still want those 1930's dreams, only a common 'olympic' karate for everyone.

These events are much more complex and involved than these few short words indicate. None of them require or want our comments, btw, just as most of you don't want theirs.

Plus ca change, plus ca meme