Perhaps they meant "mechanical" as aptly illustrated by Shoshinkan in his two videos.

Hi Butterfly,

yes mechanical would be a good description of my Pinan, I see them as the delivery system of the mechanics of fundamental shorin ryu, well the long fist methods anyhow.

Of course I work them in different ways for myself, but my dojo is only just over a year old, so im getting alot of mechanical teaching/training going on.........

I shall inject a little flow and some of the timing i use for Bunkai and post a short video up to try and illistrate the difference.

I can put a realistic application to most movements within Kata. However, I can honestly say that I dont fully understand all movements and I dont think anybody truly does. That is why I tend to do kata hard with a jerky (i hate saying that) motion. e.g a down block, should be a nice flowing movement. I perform as almost two movements, arms coming to chest and then the actual block (alleged block). Its also been said that for a 32 move kata I do 64!
But thats just what I do. And knowing that there is far more to Kata than I will probably ever learn, I would rather perform hard movements and never need to use them instead of nice soft and flowing movements and find that they dont work when needed. But hey, we're all different and perhaps this should be expressed in pattern...or maybe not.

and Im convinced that a lot of the movements which arnt technically known as defense/attack moves, will one day become apparent as useful techniques. Hope so anyway or I may need to take out my white belt and start again!

of course your not wrong, its about what you have been instructed in and then to some extent what you find for yourself in kata that counts.

for example the basic down block, as I teach it to kyu grades really is a block ie a double bone block, really effective from a high boxers type position to stop, in its tracks and damage a lower rib hook/swing - a common method of assault if your hands start high.

moving on from that when you use the 'two handed' version you begin to see that as a deflection, leading to the 'block' being a strike/check, to the limb or another part of the body.

then the motion leads itself to being very useful as an arm brake, with the hikite now being used etc etc.

The classical kata hold a wealth of knowledge, only time in training with the right Sensei will ever show us 'some' of kata's true potential.

Im far from understanding the real bredth and depth of the classical positions in karate kata,

but every one (minus the salutations in some cases) does have a very valid combat application when worked right, well so far they do for me.