2022-12-13

Subbing for ISKF Tempe at the Tempe Family YMCA.

Tonight we spent time differentiating between the different “arm flailing” manuvers in the Heian katas, because many students were doing just that … simply flailing their arms the same way every time instead of recognizing that these are four distinct techniques.

• Heian Nidan introduces the horizontal backfist (yoko-mawashi uraken-uchi).
• Heian Sandan uses a horizontal bottom-fist (yoko-mawashi tettsui-uchi) just before the first kiai.
• Heian Sandan also includes three dropping backfist strikes (tate-mawashi tettsui-uchi).
• Heian Yondan uses a dropping backfist (tate-mawashi uraken-uchi).

Really, these boil down to two things: The path of the arm towards the target (on a horizontal or vertical plane) and the orientation of the hand on impact (pronated for tettsui and halfway supinated for uraken.) We spent some time going over these differences, both in execution and in application, so students would understand not only how each technique is different, but how it changes the impact and target options.