Kata Unsu, from Shotokan, Isshin Ryu, and other schools, is one of the most advanced karate katas you will ever learn. Unfortunately, there is good side and a bad side with this pattern. There are things you would never do in the moves, and there are things that are so incredible it is amazing.

Unsu literally translates as Cloud Hands, and it was supposedly brought to Shotokan Karate by Kenwa Mabuni. He taught the form to either Funakoshi’s son, or Nakayama, who introduced it to the shotokan forms line up. Originally, the form is supposed to be from the dragon style kung fu.

First thing to be noted, there are moves that would never be used in fighting. Still, the moves give athleticism (should one survive them), and can’t be totally rejected. Remember this when you set about learning the flying 360 double with a foot sweep on the end.

Second things second, and on the good side, there are some fierce changes of direction that it would be well to practice. These moves are very combat oriented, easy to do, and you just need to keep them doing and let your speed evolve. Take a look at videos unsu is presented on when you peruse youtube, the right ones will dazzle you.

Third thing to be noted, and back to the bad side, many people do Unsu Kata for competition, and this accentuates the flashy and not so useful, and to demoralize the functional. This is actually one of the things that has gone wrong with the martial arts in general, and not with just shotokan karate. I believe it was Gichin Funakoshi, you may have heard of the fellow, who pointed out that martial arts shouldn’t be done for glory.

Master Funakoshi’s advice in mind, one can see that virtually all arts have fallen to this problem. Kata bunkai are often messed up just to titillate a few screaming fans. This is a shame, as it tends to hurt and degrade the art.

Having brought this to your attention, there are some solutions to the problem. One solution is to rework Unsu, and find the moves under the skin. Do this, and you may end up with a form as short and sweet, yet as significant and worthwhile, as Sanchin.

The other method would be to spend a lifetime pursuing perfection through the unsu bunkai, a daunting task, yet…there is appeal here. Still, to perfect jump spinning double kick kata, which will be less than useful in specific terrain, once one gets a bit older, and so on, might be a fool’s path. Of course one could do both: follow the difficult path as long as one is young, then shift to the shorter, more functional path–and, in the end, perhaps that is the solution to kata unsu.

At Monster Martial Arts you can get kata Unsu, and ten other forms, along with a HUGE amount of applications. The video course is called Temple Karate. 3

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