He also made changes that he taught to different students at different times, even as radical as changing from the vertical punch (and later back again), so there are those differences to account for as well.
I am content to do kata as taught by my instructor, to the extent I am able. For example, I can no longer drop to one knee and get up again gracefully. Arthritis in my knees has done for me. But neither would I teach kata without it. I simply need someone more able-bodied to demonstrate.
And to be clear, I am disinclined to make changes to my forms as well. I believe they are very valuable as they are. I am not advocating that changes be made by just anyone, Willy-Nilly. A hammer works just fine to pound a nail, I don’t need to reshape it to accomplish the same purpose.
But coming from a background in Chinese arts, I guess we kinda just see things differently. Change isn’t sacred, it can be done. That does not alter the identity of the system, but it does make for a variation in that particular downstream lineage. But Chinese arts often do not have a single central leadership. Different lineages splinter and may have its own central leadership for a while, until someone within that lineage decides to make his own change. Then people bicker and argue over who has the purest, or the realest, or the most legitimate version, but it’s all nonsense. In their own way, they are all legitimate, even though we all have reasons for believing that ours is the best. But such is life.
Tibetan white crane has two sister systems, Hop Gar and Lama Pai. All three came from an original method called Lions’ roar which, to my knowledge, no longer exists. These three systems have each gone in their own directions, have developed their own forms and curriculum, but continue to share a foundational methodology that drives it all. They were given different names because certain people in history decided to create a separation. That’s fine, no problem, that was their decision. In my opinion, they could all still be considered three branches of the same system (with sub-branches of their own) and could share a common name. This would be reasonable, in my opinion.
Choy Lay Fut has a couple of major lineages, one with many many many forms, too many for anyone to reasonably learn. The other has a very limited list of forms. Someone along the way made the decision to make that change. They are both still Choy Lay Fut.
These changes and splinters were done by people who may or may not have been genius martial masters. We tend to look back and believe that they were, but I suspect that is debatable. Maybe they grew into that role and became genius masters, but might not have been at the time. But they were bold enough to make a decision and change how they did their training, and they stuck to it and it worked and survived down the generations. I suspect many others failed.
My point is, people make these decisions, not gods.
