Sutrisno family Shotokan and kyu development

 

 

I am not an expert on how Tristan Sutrisno developed his students karate, even though I trained with his dojo many times over a decade.

 

I did experience many times his approach to dojo training was very ofter quite different from other styles I have trained with.

 

His karate program, while training his students with multitudes of valuble drills did not include kyu kata bunkai study. Of course his definition of bunkai was different from anyone in the world’s use of the term.

 

Bunkai was a lifetime Black Belt study with many layers and unique practices.

 

His kyu program instead focused on the students development of power, control and focus to make the eventual study of bunkai work for the dan student.

 

Nothing was hidden from his students for he frequently showed them that there were many uses for their kata studies in the future. Just that there were more important things to work on at their stage of training.

 

Now I had seen many things when I visited, but there was one time his kyu students were preparing for an upcoming testing, that I saw some of the depth of their studies.

 

This was a special Saturday morning testing and first he had them perform one of their kata, over and over till they got their performance right.

 

At that point something new began.

 

The kata they were working on was then broken down into sections. Each section was turned into a drill for that kata. The section movements was then performed as a drill first to the right then to the left, over and over. Only when Tristan was satisfied did they move on to the next section, and that was performed both ways, to the right and then to the left. Section after section until the entire kata had been practiced that way.

 

Knowing the kata was never enough, they were drilled until they knew each movement in depth.

Only then would they move onto the next kata, and continue the same theme.

 

I have never seen any other style begin to approach kata training in a similar manner.

 

More than enough for the kyu to work on, preparing to begin their study of bunkai at Sho-dan.

 

And the subsidiary drills at each kyu level were each preparing a variety of different skills building toward dan study. As well as extremely effective self defense studies.