i Love doing Naihanchi shodan, I know other katas but this one is special to me, partly because its the first one I learned, but mainly because I learned the moves in one class and got it almost perfect in a month. And thats something big for me, because it took me almost 3 months to learn my Tonfa kata (Its pretty long and there are 3 differant versions of it) And it takes me a wile to understand something, but when i understand it, I REALLY UNDERSTAND and can do it on command. Now with Naihanchi Shodan my sensei made a few modifications to his liking, and origonal, with throws me off a bit cause I have done it the traditional way for so long....
The last time I went to a tournament i did shodan and It was perfect (i know cause i saw it on the camera) and I still lost even though the guy I lost to lost his balence and almost fell down, AND told me after he did the kata "Well man, you got this one" and was shocked that he beat me. The guy even wanted to give me his first place trophy, and i turned him down......What i am getting at is that the TKD tourny i went to was all about "flash" HENCE the change in Naihanchi Shodan.....The newer version is still very effective