Kata Shintai is 'Tancho'

What we did on Sunday 15 July 2012

More work on what I have been calling Kata Shintai.  The road to revealing this form has been tortuous, confusing, extremely difficult and complex.  I don’t often talk of my own perceived notions of my intelligence; neither do I often mention that I have been a member of Mensa (a somewhat dubious distinction I am the first to admit), I do so now merely to say that despite my ability to be logical and to unravel things, I do so with a great deal of difficulty.  This kata has severely challenged me in all kinds of ways.

It is clear to me now, that ‘kata’ may not be a perfect word for what I am putting together.  It is also extremely long and convoluted, it also has an ultimate randomness about it that transcends ‘form’ and becomes the subject for serious kinetic meditation.

I am aware that I will have to drastically shorten the form into what I perceive as a set of ‘keys’ that will open recesses of the mind and challenge the serious tankyusha (seeker) to discover a great deal about the nature of hand and arm movement. I am aware that it would be all to easy to loose the meaning of such a form in the sense that if a verbal or written explanation is not provided with the movements of the form it will be completely misunderstood.

One way of helping people who eventually learn this exercise to discover its real nature is to provide it with a name that challenges one to ask “Why is it called that?” without wishing to sound arrogant I suspect my intent here may well be lost on most people… it is easy to ‘see’ when you have been shown, but extremely difficult when you have not…  Nevertheless I decided today to call this exercise cum form ‘Tancho’ which means “a clue, start or beginning”. Extraordinarily it also means “Japanese red crowned crane” – I did not know that until after I had chosen the name to represent ‘keys’ or ‘clues’ to something more…

I have pretty well flogged this game to death now, and feel that I may have gone very much further into it than I needed.  But then I mayn’t have gained what I have…  In any event the game, which started out as very enjoyable has become an irksome and obsessive chore so I will be pleased to be done with all the reflection and research and boil all I have down into something meaningful.