Hokei / Kata Question

[stevenm]

I was looking at the Shorinji Kempo Amsterdam website

http://www.cs.vu.nl/~eliens/sk/resources.html

and found reference to Ryuoken 2

http://www.cs.vu.nl/~eliens/sk/sylla...yuo-ken-2.html

and Ryuoken 3

http://www.cs.vu.nl/~eliens/sk/sylla...yuo-ken-3.html

I had a suspicion they existed but have never seen them documented anywhere before

Are there anymore that are recognised or practiced

[Steve Williams]

Ryuoken 2 is yori nuki
Ryuoken 3 is yori nuki ryote

There is also a Ryuoken 4 and I think a 5 and 6 mentioned in the Kyohan.......

[stevenm]

There is also a Ryuoken 4 and I think a 5 and 6 mentioned in the Kyohan.......

I wonder why they are not taught as tan en (in the UK as far as I know) regularly

I presume as they are juho techniques they are practiced with a partner it may not be considered necessary

However that would not explain why Ryuoken 1 and Ryu No Kata are practiced as tan en and documented in the Tokuhon

[Rob Gassin]

Steven,

there are very many SK hokei which arenot taught. For example I first learnt 2 versions of Tenchiken dai san 3 years ago - 24 years after starting SK. Most instructors teach what is in the curriculum but not all SK hokei can be found there.

The question you may ask yourself is - will I be a better kenshi if I know all Ryuo ken & sotai)? I suspect not. In fact you'll find that you know all the kihon contained in these katas. Therefore learning the katas do not help your progress significantly.

Cheers, Rob

[stevenm]

Hi Rob

Would tend to agree with you in pricipal, however as anything that is part of SK i.e Santei Sampo Nijugo Kei is worthy of some investigation/study (some being of more value than others)

[Anders Pettersson]

As Steve mentioned there are several Ryūōken. The kenkei called ryūōken consists of 27 different nuki waza, they all have their specific name, such as "kote nuki", which is the first in that group and thus also called "ryūōken dai ikkei".

In the Kyōhan ryūōken dai ikkei is also explained as a single form, however the others are not, even if it used to be more common to do ryūōken dai san in single form in the old days (before I started to practice, some of my seniors have said they used to do it when they started).

Also please note that the single forms in Shorinji Kempo are NOT called kata, the correct name for our single forms are tanen kihon hōkei 単演基本法形 (then it can of course be confusing when two of our tanen kihon hōkei has names that include "kata", manji no kata and ryū no kata)

/Anders