Is Koken Jodan Uke found in any Shotokan Kata?

[Lenmccoy]

Hello, I do ITF Tae Kwon Do. We pretty much do patterns the way they were done when General Choi and associates created his first set of 24 patterns. I do enjoy comparing them with Okinawan patterns. Anyway most moves in patterns are also found in Shotokan although not everything in opinion. One of the last patterns (way over my level) contains upward wrist blocks (koken jodan uke). Like in Goju kata like Tensho. I have never done Shotokan but looking at their kata I have not seen this block. If anyone knows a Shotokan kata with this block please let me know. Thanks, Len McCoy

[Trick]

Hello, I do ITF Tae Kwon Do. We pretty much do patterns the way they were done when General Choi and associates created his first set of 24 patterns. I do enjoy comparing them with Okinawan patterns. Anyway most moves in patterns are also found in Shotokan although not everything in opinion. One of the last patterns (way over my level) contains upward wrist blocks (koken jodan uke). Like in Goju kata like Tensho. I have never done Shotokan but looking at their kata I have not seen this block. If anyone knows a Shotokan kata with this block please let me know. Thanks, Len McCoy

Hi.
It is now 30 years ago i was into shotokan karate, by then i had been training it for about 20 years.
I do npt recall the use of koken in any of the.shotokan katas.

As i recall reading somewhere, there was in Tokyo at that time a Korean student of Gichin Funakoshi who got permission to open a dojo in some sort of Korean town in Tokyo, and Funakoshi went there to teach from time to time, but eventually other instructors from other styles was also invited there, probably Gogen Yamaguchi of GoJu-Ryu/Kai.
Koreans from that dojo eventually moved back.to Korea and introduced their mix of style karate which came to be the different styles of Korean”karate”, some more strikt shotokan'ish and some not so.

Tryggve Rick

[Gibukai]

Hello,

It depends on what you mean by Shōtōkan-ryū. There was no empty-handed kata using the bent wrist top (outer region of the wrist near the back of the hand) in the “official” kata list of the historical Shōtōkan (1938–1945) outlined in G. Funakoshi’s (1868–1957) 1943 book “Introduction to Karate”.

However, G. Funakoshi was master teacher at some university karate clubs in Tōkyō that certainly had kata using the bent wrist top in their curriculum. For example, the karate club of the Keiō University had/has the kata “Hyakuhachi” which includes uke with the bent wrist top.

Later, some instructors from the JKA added such kata into their program for several reasons. For example, T. Asai (1935–2006) introduced a kata by the name of “Shōte” into his curriculum, which he explained to be a “old form”, meaning it is supposed to be based on some kind of older martial pattern he learnt in Taiwan. It uses the “typical” bent wrist top movements.

Also H. Kanazawa (1931–2019) adopted some “crane” kata from Kingai-ryū or other sources. One example would be “Nijūhachi”. I learnt another “crane” kata from him during one of his gasshuku in Germany, but forgot its name. Both of these kata use the bent wrist top moves.

Regards,

Henning Wittwer

[Lenmccoy]

Thank you both for the replies. If anyone is interested the pattern in question is Tong il. Looking on youtube I did see everyone is not necessarily doing a high wrist block but it is always a rising block. We do know Koreans like Nei Chu So and Mas Oyama studied Goju so I cannot see why some of the ITF founders would not have some familiarity with it. Also I read an article by Mario McKenna that said Chojun Miyagi did a demonstration in Korea. Like a lot of martial arts history we can come up with many theories but we have very little evidence. Thanks, Len McCoy

[Trick]

To expand some on the chinese conection Mr Wittwer came to think about with the JKA instructors like T.Asai who learned some Chinese gong-fu in Taiwan.
However T.Asai's eventual Shotokan-Chinese martial-arts blend came.probably later to have any influence on the Shotokan that had been brought to Korea.
However, influences from Chinese gong-fu can very well have happened in Korea as for example Tanglangquan（preying-mantis）was around there already as well as Tongbeiquan to some extent.
Preying-mantis gong-fu of course famous with it's signature ”fist” -the hooked ”mantis” hand wich can be used as a koken as well as a hooking ”grip”.

Just a thought that came about.

/Tryggve Rick