Omote and Ura

by Stevens Fri Oct 09, 2015 8:33 pm

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Post n°1

Omote and Ura

by Stevens Fri Oct 09, 2015 8:33 pm

I learned omote is in front and ura is at the back. I'm wondering about two things at the moment.
1- Why is the first serie of Koshiki no kata called omote and the second one ura?
2- I read at a Dutch blog about kata that omote means what you can see in kata and ura means what's hidden in kata. Is this true?

by **wdax** Fri Oct 09, 2015 9:42 pm

wdax

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Post n°2

Re: Omote and Ura

by wdax Fri Oct 09, 2015 9:42 pm

In short:

Omote and ura have different meanings. One basic meaning is indeed "front" and "back".

The front is what you can see, the backside you cannot see. So omote also means visible side and ura means invisible side.

In Koshiki-no-Kata omote is what comes first, ura is what comes after (or behind). First you learn the basics, then you learn the application.

by Stevens Sat Oct 10, 2015 1:04 am

Stevens

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Post n°3

Re: Omote and Ura

by Stevens Sat Oct 10, 2015 1:04 am

wdax wrote:In short:

Omote and ura have different meanings. One basic meaning is indeed "front" and "back".

The front is what you can see, the backside you cannot see. So omote also means visible side and ura means invisible side.

In Koshiki-no-Kata omote is what comes first, ura is what comes after (or behind). First you learn the basics, then you learn the application.

Thank you, but help me!
So the ura in Koshiki no kata is an application for the omote serie?
What i know is that the both serie's used to be two different kata of techniques in samuarai-clothes. Also the attacks of the ura serie aren't the same as the omote serie.

by **wdax** Sat Oct 10, 2015 1:20 am

wdax

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Post n°4

Re: Omote and Ura

by wdax Sat Oct 10, 2015 1:20 am

Yes, they were two series of kata.

The actions are related through their principles, but the contents of the kata have changed during the ages, so some of the relations got lost - some less, some more.

But at least in the basic thought, there should be a relation between a pair of kata in omote (7*2) and a corresponding kata in ura (7*1).

by Stevens Sat Oct 10, 2015 5:49 pm

Stevens

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Post n°5

Re: Omote and Ura

by Stevens Sat Oct 10, 2015 5:49 pm

wdax wrote:Yes, they were two series of kata.

The actions are related through their principles, but the contents of the kata have changed during the ages, so some of the relations got lost - some less, some more.

But at least in the basic thought, there should be a relation between a pair of kata in omote (7*2) and a corresponding kata in ura (7*1).

This is just what i had in mind, when you wrote about "Application".
You write: "The contents have changed during the ages". You mean that these changes must have been made before the birth of judo?
But what about the third serie of Koshiki no kata? Was this also a application? My knowledge says that the third serie was not an old kata, but just a group of 10 techniqeus.

The 7*2 and 7*1 is totally new, but i'm very happy with it!

Maybe you can help me with the next question about Koshiki no kata?

In the kata topic Doyukai festival.

As seen before in the katabook (1954) of Yves Klein, in this old Koshiki-no-Kata film we see already the diagonal technics of no. 5-8. Ck wrote before that Kotani sensei changed this after Mifune sensei died.

Thank you again for the answer and almost forgotten: Congratulations for you and your partner with the vice-wold title in Juno kata!

by **wdax** Sun Oct 11, 2015 3:59 am

wdax

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Post n°6

Re: Omote and Ura

by wdax Sun Oct 11, 2015 3:59 am

Stevens wrote:(...)
You write: "The contents have changed during the ages". You mean that these changes must have been made before the birth of judo?
But what about the third serie of Koshiki no kata? Was this also a application? My knowledge says that the third serie was not an old kata, but just a group of 10 techniqeus.

If my sources are correct - and I have very little doubt - the names of the techniques of Omote and Ura were introduced by Yoshimura Sukinake in the 17th century, who also mentioned 10 other techniques. The names of the techniques are known, but what I know, is that the content ist lost.

The content of Koshiki-no-Kata has changed before it was named Koshiki-no-Kata, which was around 1900. Kito-ryu was spit in different branches and each of them did the kata different. Kano learned Takanaka-ha-Kito-ryu, but it is not possible to check, if his demonstrations were really authentic.

Nagaoka (10. dan) learned Noda-ha Kito-ryu and we can be sure, that Noda-ha and Takenaka-ha had slightly different kata. Todays Kodokan Koshiki-no-kata ist neither Takenaka-ha nor Noda-ha Kito-ryu, but a Kodokan-kata based on Kito-ryu kata in which several sources were merged into a Kodokan form.

If one wants to trace back to an authentic form one has to explore the purpose and the theory of Kito-ryu instead of focussing on tehcnical details.

All Kodokan-Kata today are choreographed to fit into the 50 Tatami-area of the main Dojo of the Kodokan. This is 9*9 meters (in 10 pieces of ca. 90cm). The techniques are all executed inside a 4*4 area (the position after the opening step after reiho), so it is not very space consuming. Moving along the diagonal line expands the distance from 4 tatami (ca. 3,60m) to 5m, which is better for the ikiai techniques (techniques from walking towards each other).

by Stevens Wed Oct 14, 2015 1:36 am

Stevens

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Post n°7

Re: Omote and Ura

by Stevens Wed Oct 14, 2015 1:36 am

wdax wrote:

Stevens wrote:(...)
You write: "The contents have changed during the ages". You mean that these changes must have been made before the birth of judo?
But what about the third serie of Koshiki no kata? Was this also a application? My knowledge says that the third serie was not an old kata, but just a group of 10 techniqeus.

If my sources are correct - and I have very little doubt - the names of the techniques of Omote and Ura were introduced by Yoshimura Sukinake in the 17th century, who also mentioned 10 other techniques. The names of the techniques are known, but what I know, is that the content ist lost.

Stevens: Were can i find the names of the 10 techniqes?

Stevens: Without direct source i thougt that Kodokan brought the names of the techniqes and Yoshimura the groups of 14 and 7.

The content of Koshiki-no-Kata has changed before it was named Koshiki-no-Kata, which was around 1900. Kito-ryu was spit in different branches and each of them did the kata different. Kano learned Takanaka-ha-Kito-ryu, but it is not possible to check, if his demonstrations were really authentic.

Stevens: I think we can see the movies of Kito-Ryu-no-kata on youtube. We have a discussion on this forum.

Nagaoka (10. dan) learned Noda-ha Kito-ryu and we can be sure, that Noda-ha and Takenaka-ha had slightly different kata. Todays Kodokan Koshiki-no-kata ist neither Takenaka-ha nor Noda-ha Kito-ryu, but a Kodokan-kata based on Kito-ryu kata in which several sources were merged into a Kodokan form.

If one wants to trace back to an authentic form one has to explore the purpose and the theory of Kito-ryu instead of focussing on tehcnical details.

All Kodokan-Kata today are choreographed to fit into the 50 Tatami-area of the main Dojo of the Kodokan. This is 9*9 meters (in 10 pieces of ca. 90cm). The techniques are all executed inside a 4*4 area (the position after the opening step after reiho), so it is not very space consuming. Moving along the diagonal line expands the distance from 4 tatami (ca. 3,60m) to 5m, which is better for the ikiai techniques (techniques from walking towards each other).

Stevens: When did the techniqes 5-8 change into diagonal?

Thank you!

by **wdax** Wed Oct 14, 2015 6:51 pm

wdax

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Join date : 2013-01-22

Post n°8

Re: Omote and Ura

by wdax Wed Oct 14, 2015 6:51 pm

Murata Naoki presented a small paper during the 2013 summer course with some historical points. Here we can read:

"Techniques established by Yoshimura Sukenaga (...):

14 Omote techniques (Tai, Yume-no-uchi, ... all 14)
7 Ura techniques (Mikudaki, Kuruma-gaeshi ... all 7)
10 Kô-techniques: Kozirigaeshi, Tsukatori, Morotedori, Ninintori, Yoninzume, Toiri, Yoroikumi, Iai, Hayanawa, Ate"

In the past, the positions on the tatami were not defined. Kata was done according to the space in the dojo. Some older recordings of Koshiki-no-Kata show diagonal approach, others don´t.

It is only possible to speak of a "change", if we find two sets of definitions. I only know about the Kodokan Textbook, which was revised in 1990 and were the starting positions are described the way they are taught nowadays. I do not have any earlier Kodokan source in which the starting positions of Koshiki-no-Kata are described.

So I cannot help you about the history of the positions of no. 5-8.

But BTW: IMHO this is a point of zero importance, because it does not effect the idea of the content. But the way it is done today makes sense for demonstration AND for training, because the space required for all techniques is about then 4*4 meters and several pairs can work on a tatami without always looking around for some space.