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Tigger TSD
Tigger TSD's picture
Jae Nam - Pyung Ahn Mash Up Form

I don't think this is a real form, however I saw someone perform it and thought it was a very interesting way to organise the 5 Pyung Ahn Forms. I can no longer find the origina video so thought I would keep it alive on here.

I am not an expert of this (made up) form but I wanted to get your thoughts and if any one has ssen it anywhere else

Mark Powell
Mark Powell's picture

When we last trained together a couple of weeks back you mentioned Jae Nam and said it was like the five Pinan kata combined together and my first thought was: “oh god it’s the Channan rabbit hole again.” Of course, I am not a Korean stylist and I may be wide of the mark but this is my best guess.

The best researched article I know of on the subject of Channan was written by Joe Swift 20 years ago, it can be found in a few places around the web HERE is the link to it on Jesse Encamp’s website.

Some karateka chase after this “lost” form like it is the holy grail and finding it would alter the universe or something. They seem to think older or best of all “original” is better. This attitude is not new which is why Okinawan masters often attributed kata they invented to some mysterious Chinese master. An example would be the kata Annanko which Chotoku Kyan claimed to have learned from a master in Taiwan but which we now know he created himself. In the same way Chinese martial arts forms are usually attributed to some mystical master or Taoist deity. To me this older is better theory seems strange: I mean compare a model T ford with a Mercedes E class and decide which is the better car.

Iain discussed this recently far more eloquently than I can: HERE

I Personally do not believe that Channan is a lost kata, We still have it in plain sight as the Pinan kata! Itosu simply developed it over time and then renamed it. As the article above tells us Itosu told Choki Motobu:

Itosu wrote:
The students all told me that the name Pinan is better, so I went along with the opinions of the young people.’

So to your Jae Nam:

is it possible that someone learned it from Itosu when he was still developing what became the Pinan kata took what he had learned to Korea where it became preserved in time while those left in Okinawa moved on? I would say: yes it’s possible.

Is it possible that someone knew the Channan story and created it about five minutes before you first saw it? Yes: equally possible.

It would be interesting to find out if any of the other Tang Soo Do organisations other than yours have it. It doesn’t really matter because wherever it came from it is undoubtedly a real form: remember the techniques and tactics of a fighting system came first, the kata simply serves to record them. I remember Iain pairing off seminar participants once with a handful of techniques and told each pair to turn those techniques into a kata. All the kata’s looked different but still recorded the same knowledge. Jae Nam records exactly the same techniques and tactics as the Pinan’s so in my opinion it is a fully valid kata. Having said that I don’t know why anyone would bother to teach both the Pinans and Jae Nam unless it is the old “repetition through stealth” teaching method.

Best regards,

Mark