Nomenclature

Apparently, there is no standard or recognized method of textually describing Kata.  In these modern times, however, when students are unable to spend hours every day under the watchful and instructive eye of the Sensei, some sort of aide memoir is desirable.  To fill this breach, Marenco Karate Schools has pioneered just such a nomenclature. 

To describe the nomenclature, let's look at the first leg of the Taikyoku Shodan.  It is divide into three sections: Count, Technique, and Stance.  Each count, as given by the Sensei, gets its own column.  In the column are the technique to be performed and the ending stance.  The side indicator for the technique refers to the hand that performs it.  The side indicator for the stance refers to the leading leg.

Some of the stance transitions involve a turn.  The direction and size of the turn is indicated (as appropriate) in the side indicator for the leading leg.  The following table shows the complete set of turn indicators.

Techniques that involve kicks require extra coding.  The following extract (from Taikyoku Nidan) shows a stance transition into a Zenkutsu Dachi (forward stance) by way of Mai Geri (front kick).

Some kata require more than one technique on each count.  The following extract from Taikyoku Sandan shows one of the counts on the second leg.  Notice that the technique is split into two cells, and that one of the cells is itself comma separated. The split indicates that there are two separate techniques performed.  The first technique is Yoko Chudan Zuki.  The second technique is a combination of Uraken, Shotei and of course, a ferocious Kiai!

There are stance transitions that do not involve a full step into the new stance.  There are half steps, back steps, and no step at all.  As an example, lets look at the first leg of the Pinan Shodan.  After count three, the front leg is drawn backwards to move from Zenkutsu Dachi (forward stance) to Nechoashi Dachi (cat stance).

The following table shows the complete set of step indicators.

The layout of the tables attempts to mirror the geometry of the kata themselves.  So the Taikyoku have five grids, one for each of the distinct legs.  For other kata, life gets more difficult, but best efforts will be performed.

As the kata get more advanced, hand setup becomes important. Hand setup is too particular to permit of generalised coding. Instead, special and/or noteworthy hand setup will be indicated by symbols h_n meaning hands setup.  The setup will then be described at the end of the text, using the suffix as an index. This is an example from the first position of the Pinan Nidan.