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 the great instructor, Kenwa Mabuni. He gave the form to either Funakoshi’s son, or Nakayama, who brought it to the shotokan forms line up. Originally, the form is supposed to be taken from dragon style kung fu.

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

Second thing to be noted, and on the good side of the matter, there are some fierce changes of direction that it would be well to work on. These moves are very useful when it comes to streetfighting, easy to do, and you just need to keep them doing and let your speed evolve. Take a look at videos unsu is shown on when you go hunting on youtube, you will likely find a couple of dazzlers.

Third thing to be noted, and back to the bad side, many people do Unsu Kata for competition, and this tends to accentuate the flashy and demoralize the functional. This is actually one of the things 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 mentioned that martial arts shouldn’t be done for glory.

Master Funakoshi’s words in mind, one can see that virtually all arts have fallen to this problem. Kata bunkai are often slaughtered just to titillate a few screaming fans. This is a shame, as it tends to destroy 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 few decades pursuing perfection through the unsu bunkai, a daunting task, yet…there is a strange appeal here. Still, to perfect jump spinning double kick kata, which will be less than useful in specific circumstances, once one gets a bit aged, and so on, might be a fool’s path. Of course one could do both: pursue the difficult path as long as one is young, then shift to the more functional path–and, in the final tally, 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 number of applications. The DVD course is called Temple Karate. 2

Tags: Self Defence