Shotokan help

[Hand Sword]

Hi all,
i was wondering if any shotokan practitioners that know all of the heian katas are near Boston ma. If so, would any be willing to teach me the forms correctly. I say this because I was a long time ago SKK practitioner and our pinan forms were rearranged shotokan heians. In my life now I am trying for actual bunkai I and need the original forms. The rearranged ones ruin the bunkai that was in place.

Any my help would be kind and greatly appreciated.

 

[hoshin1600]

while im sure your just looking for a "yes i will teach you" i dont have that for you sorry. but you do have me questioning deeper into your request. you say your pinan kata were re-arranged heian kata...??? i dont get it. re arranged how? my first thought is that you were looking for a bunkai that makes sense and you feel the kata you know do not seem right. so maybe you can help me and other understand your position and meaning. first off heian kata are arrangements of pinan kata not the other way around. but i wouldnt even call them arrangements i would say variations. pinan kata are the forms as taught in Okinawa. Funikoshi taught them in Japan and renamed them Heian. so Pinan is the original name Itosu gave them. the only time i have seen a true rearangement of the kata is from the kenpo/kempo or Korean systems. Kenpo calls them pinyin katas which are really a combination of the heian and the taikyoku kata. Korean styles like Tang so do have made small adaptions i belive but i have never studied these so i am not sure. so if you learned kata called pinan i might assume these are original but then your instructor or system may have changed stuff.
second if your looking for practical bunkai, just my opinion here but your barking up the wrong tree. the taikyoku and pinan kata were developed by Anku Itosu from the original kata he knew and these new kata were meant to be taught to school children. while a bunkai might have been developed it would.... (how do i say this) .....not be designed for adults. it would be simple and non effective. Itosu's point of view was that he wanted karate taught in the major school system and i dont feel he would have added effective fighting technique and bunkai in these kata. any serious study of bunkai would be better served looking at the more advanced and older kata.
third...Funakoshi made adaptions to many of the kata as well. there are non Funakoshi influenced kata out there like Kusanku (i have seen this one first hand) so which version of kata are you really looking for?

and i am west of Worcester if you ever want a training partner.

 

[Hand Sword]

Thank you for a response. I do understand all you have written already. I've researched and studied for years. What I was saying is this: if one was a shotokan practitioner and watched the 5 SKK "pinans" performed they would clearly see their heians with moves changed, deleted, altered etc. By Villari, Cerio (whom I heard got the forms from a book- shotokan most def. ) 2 pinan was a straight creation. One pinan is taikyouku shodan. 3,4,&5 are the heians. YouTube them and you'll recognize them. I just want them as done and to put the shotokan back into the SKK.

 

[hoshin1600]

ok i think i understand you a bit better now. the confusion for me was the abreviation SKK, shaolin kempo karate? i am usually ok with the short hand but maybe this one got me due to the context. in kempo i am used to the pronounciation and spelling as pin-yin. in Okinawan kata it would be pin-ahn. thus the assumption on my part you did a from of Okinawan or Japanese art. yes these kata were modified by the kenpo association. i am/ was very familar with all the kata mentioned and know exactly what your talking about and where your coming from. unfortunately my memory has lost all these to time except for pinan#5 which was always my favorite.
good luck in your seach to do these kata they way they were meant to be done.

 

[Grenadier]

The Japan Karate Association does have a group in the Boston area. If you're looking for Shotokan Karate knowledge that's as close to the source as it gets, they would be a good place to start.

JKA Boston

Also, check the local colleges in the area. The last time I saw, Harvard and MIT both had Shotokan Karate clubs on their campus, and those guys would certainly be more than happy to work with you.