Kata Hakutsuru

What we did on Friday 13 July 2012

Kata Hakutsuru (White Crane).  It is a rare occasion that we wheel out Kata Hakutsuru for dissemination, but tonight was one such.  Tony and I have taught Kata Shinseido Hakutsuru to only two other trusted Shinseido members in the UK thus far.  It is the ‘highest’ kata in the Shinseido system and while not the world’s most difficult form it does have some awkward moments initially.  

Traditionally (although the subject of a great deal of controversy) the kata was retained as the secret family form of the Matsumura family and handed down according to Matsumura Seito tradition from Matsumura Sokon Bushi (Machimura Bucho) (1797-1889) to Matsumura Nabe Tanmei (c.1850’s-1930’s) and from him to Soken Hohan (1889-1982) and thence to Nishihira Kosei (1942-2007) the last of the Matsumura line.  

During the late 1980’s a video of parts of Hakutsuru demonstrated by Soken Hohan was made public contrary to the agreement of those in possession of this video footage.  Since that time a number of people have attempted to re-contruct the kata from that footage.  A major problem is that the video is of poor quality and much detail is difficult to define.  Tony and myself were extremely lucky to be shown the kata by a student of Nishihira sensei, one Ted Lange of Australia when he visited London a few years ago.  Ted sensei is one of the most well informed and knowledgeable people in the world in respect of Matsumura Seito Karate.  Tony and I also have a video of Hakutsuru being performed by Yabiku Takaya (another student of Soken Hohan).  This version is alleged to have come by way of one Kojo sensei a student of Bushi Matsumura, so there are a few differences in the form. 

I made an intensive study of all the Matsumura Seito Hakutsuru material several years ago and the result was a Shinseido version that embodied all the principles of the other forms.  The now publicly known part of this kata can be viewed at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2oL1wM517VE   It is this version of the Hakutsuru (that contains the Nishihira version in its entirety and which is not shown on the video), that we teach to trusted Shinseido yudansha today.

Hakutsuru encapsulates the essence of Shinseido in its manner of performance, aspects of which permeate all the other Shinseido kata.

Kata Shintai.  While Tony taught the Hakutsuru I worked on what I currently call Kata Shintai, getting closer to whatever it is will be revealed by my somewhat obscure obsession with hand and arm movements of late.