Kata Shintai

What we did on Sunday 3 June 2012

Consolidation of Kata Shintai.  The last thing I actually wanted was another kata having been very much into reductionism over the last few years, however the tornado hands concept has become far too important to me not to enshrine its principles somewhere.  My attempt to do so within the existing Kata Tenshu was not a good idea and Tony and Luke’s reservations were valid and sensible and so Shinseido is giving birth to Kata Shintai.  It is still early days and there are one or two irritating inconsistencies within it.  Nevertheless the spherical cube and spiralling sections are extremely pleasing and valid as is the inclusion of the regular and reversed tatsumaki uke (tornado ‘block’).  I also like the opening and closing sections where our Okinawan roots are stated overtly in drawing the OMMA logo and Okinawa flag.  The spherical section is less than perfect although growing on me, and the perceptual section revealing how circles can be transformed into the figure eight format is still not absolutely right.  I want to reveal within that section how reversing the direction of movement can be carried out within the encompassing circle as the yin yang (taijitu) symbol or without the circle as part of a figure eight.  This gives the simple realisation that both are actually the same thing and it is a perceptual thing whether the movement is contained or not.  One should research the geometry of the taijitu; it is a deep and revealing, directly related to the process of tatsumaki te (tornado hands).

The important thing about Kata Shintai is to recognise that it is a set of keys or doorways into an entire way of thinking about hand and arm movements.  It is a perceptual challenge, a kinesiological challenge in coordination and a powerful method of kinetic meditation that can be carried out physically or in the head as a mental exercise.  I have already discovered how reflection on the nature of Kata Shintai has a powerful effect upon one’s perceptions regarding movement and find it increasingly difficult to think of individual movements of components of a move.  My art has really truly reduced to one technique for all situations.  This represents an enormous shift in the way I view my art and is unquestionably on a par to my initial realisation of non-dualism of which tornado hands is merely another facet.