Wednesday 20 October 2010

Kata, Hyung tonifies the body

I was asked to do Pyung Ahn Oh Dan yesterday. In fact, I offered as it's a hyung I need to practice, so I executed it three times: once to the count, twice without a count and boy did I know about it! I'd forgotten how many different stance changes there were, and of course...the jump.

In any case, I felt like I'd had a real workout by the end of it! A martial arts lesson for us all I think: kata or hyung can really tone up our bodies if practised assiduously.

As I searched for Pyung Ahn Oh Dan I came across the shotokan equivalent (or vice versa you may argue!) pinan godan and found it interesting to juxtapose the videos of the forms.

The first one is classical Tang Soo Do hyung. The second one seems almost shotokan in its delivery but still intended as Tang Soo Do. And the third one is definitely karate Japanese (Okinawan) style kata. But all in all, similarities run through them all I find.













1 comment:

Sue C said...

Hi Chris, you can tell these three kata have the same lineage and all are easily recognisable as variations of pinan godan. The shito ryu version you showed last is actually slightly different to the version we do (even though we follow most of the shito ryu versions of kata). We keep the jump in but we don't do the cresent kick and we end up by stepping forward into two deep back stances with a simultaneous block and strike action with each -that's the hardest part of the kata as far as I'm concerned!I have to admit though that this is not one of my favourite kata.