Gekisai

Performance instruction for Gekisai.

Gekisai (撃砕) means "attack and smash,” an appropriate name for a kata that emphasizes essential, aggressive, and powerful techniques. This kata is borrowed from Gōjū-ryū karate, being created around 1940 by Chojun Miyagi. Treated as beginners' kata in many systems, it’s meant to introduce a basic set of techniques; however, in keeping with Ki-Totejutsu’s combat philosophy, “basic techniques” are the most important for developing structure and power, which means we return to Gekisai regularly. Note that we practice Gekisai Dai Ichi, the first of a series of kata. Gekisai kata were strongly influenced by the Shuri-te techniques that Miyagi learned from Anko Itosu.

The nature of Gekisai is the hammer. It is aggressive and direct, but still contains sophisticated methods and tactics.

Featured learning:
*Arts: Chasing punch (oi zuki), naihanchi-style punch (variant of gyaku zuki/reverse punch), elbow strike (empi uchi), backfist (uraken), sword hand strike (shuto uchi), sweeping block (gedan barai), rising block (jodan age uke), inside block (uchi uke), front thrust kick with the heel (mae geri kekomi), returning wave kick (nami gaeshi), palm block (shotei uke), roundhouse block (mawashi uke)

*Stances & Footwork: Sanchin stance, sumo stance (shiko dachi), parallel stance (heiko dachi)

Concepts introduced or emphasized in this kata:
*Kushin - up/down movement and power generation
*Hidden forward movement
*“Shifting gears” between slow and fast movement
*Losing balance to accelerate movement
*More emphasis on low, dropping stances - used for leg attacks, unbalancing, as well as resisting grappling