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Kata and karate
THE FUNCTION organised recently by the Shotokan Karate International Federation - India at the J. J. Indoor Basketball Stadium to felicitate Kancho K. Kanazawa, world technical director of SKIF, was late by 35 minutes and 26 seconds. Under normal circumstances, this delay would have gone unnoticed. But not this time, for the invitation read "sharp 4 o' clock".
However, once it started with the bursting of crackers, the felicitation ceremony moved swiftly. After the Deputy Mayor of the Chennai Corporation, Karate R. Thiagarajan, honoured Kanazawa and Sensei Ryusho Suzuki, world kata champion, in the customary Tamil way, the two karate bigwigs demonstrated kata steps. However, the showstopper was what was called the "coconut-bottle breaking manoeuvre" by Chennai's own sensei Siva. Before being blindfolded, sand was sprinkled on his closed eyes. In a technique that married karate with silambam, he broke five coconuts placed on `goli' (marble) soda bottles with a silambam staff.
In case, you are bewildered by those words in italics, `kancho' means supreme master or grandmaster, `sensei' stands for teacher, `kata' is a sport where a participant has to fight with an imaginary opponent while he is assessed for his punches, blocks and other moves, and Shotokan refers to a particular style of karate.
The popularisation of karate is attributed to Gichin Funakoshi, who made the martial art malleable enough to be pursued as a sport. He taught various styles, but refrained from giving them names. However, during his lifetime they were `pinned down' with names. In Japanese, `kan' denotes hall, and Shotokan simply means Shoto's hall. Those of Funakoshi's students who were pursuing this form of karate would practise at Shoto's hall, and as a result, it came to be known as Shotokan.
Back to the J.J. Stadium, the felicitation ceremony marked the end of a two-day seminar called `Shotokan Karate Seminar - 2004'. Kanazawa and Suzuki taught Shotokan techniques to (hold your breath) shitoryus, gi-toku-kais, uechiryus and goshinryus in the city. Don't let your imagination run away with you. These are not different groups of Japanese expatriates living in the city. They only refer to different karate styles and those who have mastered them.
PRINCE FREDERICK
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