"Here's a neat little trick that'll have your students...
Learning Kata in 15 Minutes..."
From: Jason Stanley
8th March, 2004
It was September 1992.
The clock read 7.45 pm...
There were 15 minutes left in the class and we still hadn't learned the kata that Sensei had promised us... I was becoming disappointed. I'd been eagerly awaiting the entire course to learn the new kata...
I heard it was supposed to be a really cool advanced Shitoryu Kata. Perhaps you've heard of it or know it yourself.
The kata that I'm talking about is called Seipai.
I'd never seen Seipai before but from what I'd been led to believe it had some great moves, some very interesting bunkai, and was quite difficult to perform.
I'd heard whispers that it was a "black belt kata", maybe even a "3rd dan kata" and that we would love it...
I was so looking forward to learning it but there were only 15 minutes left in class - hardly time enough to learn it - and Sensei Tommy would not be back for another year... so I was bummed.
For the last 3 nights we'd been practicing our basic technique, some sparring drills & strategy, and loads of ippon kumite & self defense application. In fact for the previous 3 hours of the course we'd been doing just that...
While I really love self defense application, and though we learned so much fantastic stuff in that time, I was frustrated that we were just about out of time - and still hadn't learned Seipai.
Or had we?