There is one story that suparenpai and kururunfa were originally one whole kata, that it was a one-kata system of martial arts.

The theory is that if you take the foot patterns from both you would overlay then starting with kururunfa first, then suparenpai second. Some people try to add suparenpai immediately after the end of kururunfa, but you need to overlap the footwork patterns to get the correct version.

Like I said, this is just a theory.

could you add a source to where you got that from? thanks.

CVV

Good question.

Its pretty clear that at least some "goju" kata pre-date Higashionna trips to china.

Several kata were demonstrated publically well before that time.

I would really love to find out exactly what Aragaki was trained in and what his teaching consisted of.

(course I would love to know that about of a lot of the "old masters" )

One of my buddies suggests that one possible explaination for Okinawains being albe to train in china--some of them anyway--is that a link exsisted between Okinawan offcials and martial arts teachers in china.

That they were not going to wander about china looking for instruction--they had a good idea of whom and where to go too prior to travel--and they had a pretty good idea that they would be able to train.

Take into account the Okinawan hostel in Fuzou, the number and longevity of diplomatic links, the number of okinawans that trained in the region, nature of the realtionship with china etc.

He may have a real point.

What is also pretty clear that in-so-far as "goju" is concerned, a number of folks learned from RyuRyuKo--whomever that might have been.

Brian, the dvd is called "Goju-Ryu Karate Kata" and was recorded in 1980 in Japan of Higaonna doing 12 kata with bunkai. The back of the dvd says it is put out by a group called "dragon associates inc" and their website is www.dragon-tsunami.org I borrowed this off a friend so I don't know where she got it or how long ago that was. Hope this helps.

srv

Ron

There is also a theory that one kata and its applications are a kind of "defense" vs the previous kata's applications.

That suparinpei "trumps" kururunfa so to speak---Journal Of Asian Martial Arts had an article about it--I think.

bump

Hey...just started doing some preliminary work that will eventually lead to kururunfa...a little bunkai and a drill or two incorporating movements/techniques for familiarization. I don't know the kata, but can see versions on youtube, as kururunfa (as well as unsu) seem very popular for performance. I know it's considered a 'higher' kata...but what makes it 'advanced'?

As a caveat: my understanding so far of what makes something advanced is from limited studies of bo/kobudo. For example, interpretation and additional parries makes a 'simple' kata more 'advanced.'

Such an interesting question.

Essentially kururunfa has some very subtle movements and a high percentage of "ju" techniques. By this I don't mean they are "soft" or "slow"; rather they are "whip-like" and hard to perform.

I'd say kururunfa is actually goju's hardest kata, mitigated only by its relative brevity. The coordination of the various small movements and the depth and breadth of the applications all conspire to make it so.

It's fairly easy to learn sequence wise, but in order to get the right "whip-like" feeling you have to put in a lot of practise. Having said that, it is a lovely form and, I believe, particularly suited to female karateka (as opposed to goju seisan, for example). Just my opinion though.

Suparinpei might be the "highest kata" but it is, in many respects, more like a summary of earlier goju kata, differentiated from other kata mostly by a handful of moves and a different emphasis (depending on the school).

........."Ultimate"?..........No. It's usually cosidered the most advanced form in Goju, so normally it the last you will learn. But there is nothing "ultimate" perse, about it. It, like Sanchin kata, may look fairly simplistic in it's overall appearance (moves wise), but that is just on the surface. You will learn a different aspect (level of understanding) about the principals and their applications from studying this form.