After a recent grading at the Romsey club, where a few new 1st Dan grades and black belts were awarded, I was asked to instruct these and existing Dan grades to complete the A to E series of katas.

The syllabus at Romsey only includes Kata A and C up to black belt. The KIA* syllabus had these 5 katas up to black belt, though as I have mentioned before in my blog, there was usually more time to cover them with more class hours per week in those areas.

During the instruction of Kata B, I was asked why it was called ‘B’.

It is a good question, but it may seem like an afterthought if you haven’t considered why Katas A and C are named as such; this is likely because no one mentions the existence of Katas B, D, and E, leading to a lack of awareness about the series.

These five katas are based on the Pinan (or Heian in Shotokan) series of karate katas, which exist in almost all the karate styles around today. You can read about the history of these katas on Wikipedia, and it’s interesting to learn that they were developed to bring some standardisation to the Okinawan forerunner of karate in the late 1890s so they could be taught in schools.

In Kyushindo Karate at Romsey, these are based on:

Pinan Nidan = A

Pinan Shodan = B

Pinan Sandan = C

Pinan Yondan = D

Pinan Godan = E

Shotokan, however, seems to have swapped Nidan and Shodan compared to the other styles, so be aware if you view Shotokan versions.

The KIA/KIJA* principle requires that all instruction be conducted in English; therefore, Japanese names are not used in Kyushindo Karate.

In other Kyushindo areas they will be called 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 instead of A, B, C, D, E.

I do not know why. I don’t know the original naming; so was it the Southampton area that changed to use A, B, C, D, and E, or did the other areas choose to use 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5 after Southampton split from the KIA in the early 1980s?

Furthermore, I suspect the latter, as the Bristol/Italian Kyushindo history refers to the katas A, B, C, D, and E on some of their websites. Early Southampton kata sheets have them as A, B, C, D, and E.

If you are coming to this page directly, then for a historical account of Kyushindo Karate, see my first 7 posts of this blog.

If you look at illustrations or videos of these Pinan katas elsewhere (YouTube, etc.), you will notice many differences. The Kyushindo katas have incorporated their distinctive techniques, such as circular blocks, and Kyushindo seem to have made many 45-degree movements into 90 degrees. Pinan Godan is the one that has been deviated the most from, and Kata E is now an entirely different kata after the jumping turn in Godan.

However, early Southampton kata sheets show that Kata E was a lot closer to the Pinan Godan.

I have added a video of the ‘old’ form of E to the Kata videos for the Romsey club. You will have to be a member of the Romsey Kyushindo Facebook group for the link to the club videos on YouTube.

George Mayo and the KIA area coaches standardised these Kyushindo katas in the late 70s and early 80s. They have remained pretty consistent since then, as I recently went through and compared them when Romsey was visited by Simon Dixon from the Surrey club.

Ooh err… there was one big change. It seems my memory had deviated a bit (rather than being unaware of changes made since I left the Surrey KIA area in 1992). Kata D after the cross-leg stance turn should have the ‘inner’ leg (R) kicking to the shin, but my Kata sheets and the Romsey DVD video show it as the ‘outer’ leg (L).

Hmm… the Southampton sheets show it’s aligned with KIA. This is one of my criticisms of the KIA, that the Katas were not written down – they had syllabus sheets, given to you upon gaining a black belt, but no Kata instructions.

I will need to evaluate this difference and make a decision about it in the future.

*KIA/KIJA: Kyushindo International Association and the Kyushindo International Judo Association, which were formed by George Mayo.