Journey to a new style...

[Stuarto]

-The White Crane seminar was amazing!! Spent about 3 hours on the first form which is what I actually wanted as this form is in our system, but a fair few differences still. The last hour was on the next form which is toootally different to ours. But wonderful to see the original forms and where ours evolved from. And something which was so memorable, the Master handpicked me (and only a couple of others to do other forms) to perform Happoren/Babulien for everyone. I was so so incredibly honoured, considering this was only my first day of learning it, he was really impressed with how I performed it so pointed me out to demonstrate. So I was crazy nervous with that pressure haha but something I will hold very dear, and feel very honoured.

-And the demonstration day was just magical. Such a wonderful day and everything went very smoothly! All my breaks (of which I did 4) and my form went perfectly, couldn't be happier, and the look on the kids faces... absolutely priceless .

Congratulations Simon, glad to hear you had a fantastic seminar!

 

[Gyakuto]

Sounds amazing. You may not be in a position to answer this until you’ve digested the seminar contents, but do you think the variations/differences in the kata are are just that or are they evolution.

 

[_Simon_]

Sounds amazing. You may not be in a position to answer this until you’ve digested the seminar contents, but do you think the variations/differences in the kata are are just that or are they evolution.

From speaking with more senior students and instructors it's sort of both... and you can definitely see that Nepai for example has elements of Sepai and Saifa. I think alot of forms were developed to expand upon themes within older forms.

But regarding those source forms that remained, they seemed to be altered slightly for certain reasons, perhaps to suit the philosophy or emphasis of the style... that's the gist I'm getting. So evolving, but through those variations haha. I do get what you're asking though, unsure if I answered it

 

[Gyakuto]

My question may be nonsensical because ‘evolution’ suggests modification pushed by environmental factors. In this context that might be due to adoption by a group of people with, say different physical characteristics; longer limbs, more central mass etc. I suspect the variance you have experienced is due to something else such as reinterpretation, the desire to modify or a bad memory!