IGX

by Elmar Schmeisser

This is an interesting book. What is known about the Heian (Pinan) kata is that Itosu developed them as kata to be taught to school children. The story I've been told in the past is that they were developed from other karate kata that are typically practiced at higher levels (Kanku dai being one of the main ones used). The argument Schmeisser makes is that most of the Heian (except for Heian shodan/Pinan nidan) draw heavily on two kata that had been somewhat lost.

These kata were called Channan in Okinawa (Schmeisser uses the dai and sho notation to distinguish between them), and there is some record of their past existence. He thinks this was the Okinawan pronunciation of Chiang-nan in Chinese, which was either the name of the forms there, the name of the guy who taught them to Itosu, or the region of the China where they were taught.

While these kata are no longer practiced by karateka, Schmeisser dug around and found people who studied with a Chinese expatriate in the Phillipines who practiced a form called Chiang-nan and a related form called Panalo-panawan. Schmeisser does a pretty good job of showing how similar Chiang-nan is to Heian nidan and sandan, and how similar Panalo-panawan is to yondan and godan.

On top of that, he applies his own method of interpreting bunkai from these kata to show that how the Heian kata are supposed to teach a lot more than punching and kicking. Even the kata designed for children are supposed to teach throws, locks, etc. This puts the book in the same league as "Shotokan's Secrets", books by Abernathy, etc. that argue that karate was supposed to be a more complete art. Again, the ideas in this book are very interesting and any karateka with more than a few years experience should take a look at it; however, you're not going to learn how to apply a nikyu by reading this book. In the end, these books should be read by karateka and taken as encouragement to study jujitsu (or Judo or Aikido).

I'll have to get it...I'm a nut for Karate history.