The Lost Form of Ancient Karate
Here’s an interesting one for you, karate grew from one form, the kata of which is now lost.
Strangely, it is true. Here is the story.
The original rumor is that karate developed from the Crane style of Kung Fu. That may be true, but if you’ve seen videos like that, you’ll probably shake your head and blink a little. The crane shape is kind of a shaky thing, hard to imagine the moves being refined into the blocking and countermoves of most karate styles.
I first saw this form on YouTube, and the reader is invited to do a search, inspect the form – the forms, I must say, because there are many versions – and draw their own conclusion.
So with this example that was hard to follow, I decided to do some research, and here is the story I discovered, the story behind the art of Karate.
A couple of hundred years ago on the island of Okinawa, in a gloomy cave located behind an old cemetery, lived a shipwrecked sailor. He was Chinese and his name was Chiang Nan.
Living nearby, in a house I guess, was Ankoh Itosu. Mr. Itosu, for those of you who don’t know, is one of the iconic figures in martial arts. He studied with all the masters of the time and is responsible for turning karate into a modern method.
One day Chiang puts Mr. Itosu. We don’t know how, maybe Mr. Itosu became friends with the shipwrecked sailor, maybe one of these martial artists went for a walk and saw the other practicing martial arts, and a conversation and friendship struck up.
Chiang Nan taught Mr. Itosu a form of martial art.
Mr. Itosu worked on the form, the working name was apparently Channan, which could be a translation of the phrase “peaceful mind” or could be a translation of Chiang Nan’s name. He developed Channan into five separate kata and called them Pinans, which means Peaceful Mind.
Later, when these forms were taught in Japan, they were called Heian.
Thus, the five Pinans became the heart and soul, the foundation of the art of Karate.
They became the main forms of an art that was the choice of imperial bodyguards from three different countries: Okinawa, Korea, and Japan.
Children all over the world are being taught as you read this.
Countless self-defense techniques, endless exercises and a philosophy of self-defense are derived from the Pinans,
In these ways a whole Zen belief system has arisen, a philosophy of ‘Zen in motion’.
This, as far as I know, is an accurate representation of the ‘Lost Form’ and how Karate came to be.
