Current kata-of-the-month: Jitte

We are now studying Jitte (十手) in our Saturday classes.

Jitte is also sometimes written as “Jutte.” The characters used are those for 10 (“Ju”: 十) and hand(s) (“Te” : 手). This could imply that we have the ability to fight off 10 opponents. But it could also have something to do with the defensive weapon, the jitte.

You can see a very good example of Imura Sensei, from the JKA, doing the kata here. Nakayama Sensei shows some applications here. Keeling Sensei notes that he did this kata in classes with Nakayama Sensei many times in 1985-87 at his private dojo, the Hoitsugan, where they often used bo or jo (long staff or short staff) to analyze potential application for this kata. From 14:50 of this video, Keeling Sensei shares some thoughts on kata application using some examples from Jitte.

Even if we’re beyond the kata you’re practicing, it’s great to begin to learn how techniques can be combined, and the practice in applying techniques is indispensable.

See you Saturday!

At SVSK our Saturday morning kata classes focus on one kata at a time. We typically spend four Saturdays on each kata:

Week 1: Overview/review of the kata
Week 2: Fine points of the techniques and the kata
Week 3: Hands-on practice to understand applications (bunkai)
Week 4: Variations in the kata