Practical Kata Bunkai: Shotokan’s Wankan
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 9 ก.พ. 2025
- www.iainaberne... In this video we look at bunkai for Shotokan’s Wankan kata. There is another Wankan which is very different - which also goes by the name of Matsukaze in some styles - but in this video it is specifically the Shotokan version we are examining. It is a very short kata. Examining the bunkai, we see a core theme of distributing posture in various way in order to get the enemy to fall; as well as what to do if they don’t fall. As always, a short clip can never cover things in detail, nor can it cover how what is shown fits within the wider training matrix. I nevertheless hope you find this quick breakdown interesting.
All the best,
Iain
Wish this information was publicly available when I was learning back in the 80's makes way more sense than what I was taught.
I really like the throws explained here, opens up the kata in a new way, great video
I fell in love with katas again! OSS from germany
Sensei, I have to thank you for bringing this Kata to my attention. 🙏🥋
I've grown a fondness for training with it as of late. Wankan has a layer of sophistication and power to it underneath it's rather simple appearance.
Hi Iain, I love your explanations! Thx a lot and Merry Xmas!❤
Love this I interpretation. I have a whole new appreciation for Wankan since learning this at the May 2019 residential!
Two of my favorite youtube channels at one place, sensei Andy, sensei Ian OSS!!
@@goodbuy7556 Without Iain's influence, I would never have started the Applied Shotokan channel. :)
@@AppliedShotokan I don't know if that's true, but it is a very kind thing to say!
@@practicalkatabunkai we need more of that influence than ;D
@@practicalkatabunkai your always moaning were credits due just be quiet mate
many thanks for giving expression to wankan- my Sensei assigned it to me to be my speciality kata twenty-five years ago and it is welcoming to see you give it the recognition it is deserving of-keep up the work you are doing! - Andrew Kwait, fourth Dan
Mr.Abernethy please make a bunkai video on Ji'in kata.It's impossible to find any substantial video on it.
Nice! Despite the unfortunate name, you've come up with some very good bunkai! Thank you!
:)
Similar “arm levered over-head” takedown as in Gojushiho. Love that application.
Oss sensei. Very nice bunkai! Thank you for sharing your knowledge. Great master.
If only Karate Combat had taken notes from you and Karate Culture. Honestly, that way they would have a more complete understanding of Karate to apply it in both self defense and the live combat arena.
Sensible! What a relief! Thank you Sir!!!!!
Appreciated your self-defense course in Nuremberg! It was a pleasure to get me ;) body and mind trained under your instructions!
Thanks Alexander! It was a fun weekend!
My favourite kata for over 40 years
Donnie makes good uke.love wankan has some great application.
Hey bunkai master, I have some request and theories for practical applications of ukes. I am a low belt when it comes to the art but it's been in my system since childhood. However karate is like deciphering the hieroglyphics of fightscience for me and some points you and other masters have mentioned shows me I am on the right track. I have one application for gedan barai, however it is done at face level (there might be another uke that look like that) and basically the first brushing hand is to sweep the punch at the same time the first punch come out and then comes the gedan barai hammerfist. So more or less you trade 2 punches for one. I hope to see more content from you.
Interesting and useful as always. Arigato.
thanks Iain
Delightful 😊
Good interpretation. Thanks for sharing
Thank you - lovely stuff.
Fantastic
Excellent thanks
woowww.. very amazing.. this is oyo bunkai..
Your videos are amazing, but about shito-ryu did you make a video about papuren's bunkai?
Because it would be amazing to see your interpretation
Hi Iain, what's your views on the other shotokan version, and which is the original? My understanding is that the version you show, which has the first few moves in cat stance, is from Kanazawa, whereas there is another version that starts in back stance practised by other shotokan schools. Thanks in advance.
That’s a good question! Kokutsu-dachi (as done in Shotokan) is essentially an elongated cat stance i.e. bent lead leg and weight on the back foot, so the same bunkai would apply. It is difficult say which is the “original” as the origins of the kata are unclear, and the kata going by the name of “Wankan” in other systems (AKA “Matsukaze”) is entirely different. According to Nagamine, that version of that kata is very old and comes from the Tomari area … but what links that has to the Shotokan kata of the same name, if any, is unclear. Nakayama did not include Wankan in his Best Karate series, so it’s not clear to me how the JKA originally did it and whether the kokutsu-dachi or neko-ashi-dachi is the variation … it’s even possible that both were around when the kata was adopted into Shotokan. Bottomline, both work and are modest variations on each other. Not sure that helps, but “we don’t know” is often the right answer when it comes to karate history and I think it’s better that unfounded conjecture.
@practicalkatabunkai thank you! Great point about the kata being omitted from the best Karate series. I have all of the books and thought I was missing one lol.
Nice Job osssuuuuuu thanks to
1:22 how do I establish this position over my opponent, from clinch or after good hit from distance?
Lots of ways; which I like people to play with so they can apply the kata from a variety of positions. Hard to describe clearly in text, but you could shift a grip from the back of the neck, take the grip from a knee, from the inside of a crashed hook, etc. The best advice is to play with it :-)
@@practicalkatabunkai Thank you, I understood everything except "take the grip from a knee", what is that?
@@goodbuy7556 From this postion if he pulls back: th-cam.com/video/RCQnW1zSlL4/w-d-xo.html I hope that helps.
@@practicalkatabunkai Thanks
Nice kata
شرح جيد جدا يامعلم
seems like joining a judo session is better than practicing this kata
I’d agree that if you want to acquire high level throwing skills then judo is an ideal choice (which I is why I trained in it on the advice of one of my karate teachers). However, if the karateka wishes to understand their totality of their art - which includes the integrated use of wide range of methods - then a study of the kata is what is needed.
@@practicalkatabunkai but performing the kata doesnt teach you how to do throws. If you take a sequence and modify it to a judo-like version, then you learn how to do throws. and that exact same thing is true for every technique in a kata. When I do a kata, I feel like studying "applicable-like" techniques which could all be practiced in an adapted form much better. This, for me, leads to the assumption, that kata is great for practicing techniques when Im home alone, without a partner, but a waste of time when I could train some real kicks, punches and throws with a partner.
So the question that remains is if anyone gets good at fighting by doing kata. I have never experienced such thing in my ~10 years of karate or ~15 years of judo.
But maybe you have, since you probably have been doing karate for a much longer time
@@music-wd2yq I think you are misunderstanding the nature of kata (or at least my take on it). It is not an alternative to partner work and live practise, but something that informs and supports partner work and live practise. I’ve never said that solo kata alone will make you good at throwing. I’m obviously doing everything with a partner in this video; albeit a summary video for those who had just been working on the methods in various ways. It’s therefore not a total guide. However, in over 20 years of sharing material, I have never said solo kata alone will make one combatively competent. It won't. I needs to be part of the wdier preocess.
These videos may help as they give a little more background.
1) The kata process: th-cam.com/video/y02d-QU_aoE/w-d-xo.html
2) The role of solo kata in that process: th-cam.com/video/aK_YWpjg4Gg/w-d-xo.html
I know tons of people who have combatively benefited from kata. I’d not use the word “fighting” in this context as I use that term for consensual violence between martial artists, as opposed to the non-consensual violence of self-protection (as Itosu, Motobu, et all where clear that is what kata is for).
Slightly off topic, but his video explains the difference between consensual and non-consensual violence: th-cam.com/video/Wox8fB1Mdh8/w-d-xo.html
I hope this help clarify my position for yourself and other readers.
All the best,
Iain
After watching this video and other videos from this same Karate Teacher you begin to realize the 'sport' karate really hurt Karate. Because of sport karate people believe this martial art is ineffective, and it is if you learn sport karate (this includes the way they do katas as well, which I don't like). Real Karate is grappling, throwing, strikes, everything.
Yama zuki gets no respect at all from the bunkai masters. I wonder though it it has ever been effectively used in a "real" confrontation as a double punch? It appears in karate movies quite often (most recently in Cobra Kai season 4), and before then in Kuro Obi, and I am sure I have seen it elsewhere as well.
..works only when the opponent stand still - the young man stand like a statue - 😂
Assuming you get the difference between a demonstration and sparring … what do you feel won’t work live? The knee? The trips? Punching while controlling an arm? The overhand punch? Is it you that can’t make those work against live or do you believe no one can? If you feel no one can make a trip work, for example, how do you explain that other martial artists find this stuff basic and seem to be able to make it work? I am interested to know the issues you are alluding to?
Mostra o kata wankam
it's just fiction, it's not Wankan
????
There are no such movements in Kata. Too many changes. This is not true.
My guess here is you don’t know Shotokan’s Wankan? You only know the Matsubayashi-Ryu kata of the same name that is very different (and goes by the name Matsukaze in other styles)? You therefore ignored the title of the video (“Shotokan’s Wankan”) and wrongly said that, “There are no such movements in Kata” when these are exactly the movements of Shotokan’s Wankan?