Tag Archives: heian five

Handling the Sword Attack with a Karate Technique from Pinan Five

Mind you, a sword attack is not likely these days, but if you know the karate technique from Pinan Five then you can adapt pretty easily for other types of attacks. After all, a club is a short sword with no edge, a knife is a really short sword, and so on.
Pinan Five, also called Heian Five, has a move in it, about halfway through, where you raise your crossed wrists upward. This is the self defense technique we are looking at.
When doing this technique you must rush forward and make sure you apply it to the attacker’s wrists. Pretty silly to block a raw sword blade with your bare wrists.
You catch the attackers arm and push upward on the elbow and pull down the wrist. Then will translate into an armbar or elbow roll, and he will be pretty much at your mercy.
This is a real meat and potatoes technique, works for all sorts of stuff. After a while you will find yourself moving in and just grabbing and twisting the attacker’s arm. This is good. But, if you ever have trouble, you should have practiced the individual pieces, as prescribed by the Karate Form Pinan Five. Knowing the pieces will allow you to master the whole of the technique.
Check out this video, in which I teach this technique.

If you want to know more about the Karate techniques from Pinan Five, more than the sword attack I have just outlined, then drop by Learn Karate Online and check out the Kang Duk Won. This is a download and you could be seeing all the old, tried and true methods for self protection in less than a minute.

The Importance of Pinan Five (Heian Five) Karate Kata

Perfection of Body...Perfection of Character!


Back in 1967, when I was studying Kenpo Karate, I used to drive my instructors crazy. I kept coming in with books and doing forms out of them. Specifically, from the Best Karate Series by Nakayma, I found first Heian Two Karate Kata, then Heian Five, and I was in heaven.
I loved the power of those stances, I loved the feeling in the air when I did those whole body movements.
And, of particular interest to me was the art of the jump. I figured out how to swing the leg and rock the body into a launch. I figured out how to pull those legs high up under me, and then land low. The idea was to jump over a low sword swing, and then land under a high sword swing.
These are things that you don’t learn in MMA. I have nothing against MMA, I just don’t study it because it is sport instead of art.
The intent of sport is to beat another person, the intent of art is refine the self (achieve perfection).
I don’t mean to speak ill of other physical disciplines, because there is something to be learned from all, and darn, there is a part of me that just loves a good competition. But when it comes to my personal evolution, I prefer the art, and to this day, near forty-five years later, I still practice the Karate Kata known as Heian Five, or as it was called in the traditional martial arts school I later went to…Pinan Two. Check out my site for Evolution of an Art, it has three complete classical martial arts, dozens of forms, hundreds of techniques, and all sorts of things that will aid you evolution as a martial artist.

Secret Technique in Pinan Five Karate Form

I’m speaking of the Crossed Knife Hands raised to protect the head.

When you do this move you circle the hands clockwise, then left horizontal backfist, then punch. Youa re obviously slap and swinging the attacking hand (holding a club or knife or whatever) in a circle, and backfisting the guy in the center of the chest.

Well, it’s understandable. Ain’tnothing wrong with it, but…there’s something else there.

Take a look at the vid snip, then let me explain…

The fact of the matter is that the technique makes more sense if you circle the hands clockwise into an armbar or elbow roll. Much better.

So why do it the other way? Because there is a hip twist and whole body movement potential, which, if done correctly, can crack the chestplate of an armored samurai.

It takes power, it takes technique, but it is possible.

But people don’t really get the hip connection,

or learn how to power up the hands so they really explode all the way from the tan tien. That’s the difference, you know. Real karate out of the McDojo mess that many people learn.

It ain’t the tournament that’s important, man. It’s the power. Classical Karate Power that results in whole body energy surging down the limbs to the fists…and you can crack armor.

You can download Pinan Five, with all the techniques and the original power, allĀ  for only ten bucks. Go to the menu at the top of the page and check out Kang Duk Won. It’s the best deal since Christmas!

Or, if you’re interested in the video snippet, pop on over to Monster Martial Arts and check out Temple Karate.

Doing the Pinan Five Jump Backwards!

Doing the Pinan Five jump backwards? Am I crazy?

Well, don’t answer that.

I did a blog, you see, on the Matrix Martial Arts blogsite, about the value of doing your forms backwards. Not just listing the techniques backwards, but reversing motion. Now, the one technique that drove me to distraction, was trying to do the jump midway through the kata. How do you jump backwards? To jump forwards you get extra height by swinging one leg. But to do it backwards from the X stance you land in…how do you swing backwards? It turns into a brute force of a technique, and I never did get the reverse swing to the starting position figured out.

But I did figure out that swinging the leg doesn’t work if somebody is swinging a pole at your legs. Ouch! So there is a part of the technique that aids the physical education of the thing, but there is a part of the technique where you shouldn’t swing the leg, but just brute force launch yourself over the swinging pole.

Go ahead. Try it. It’ll tweak your art, and your bunkai.

Take a look at Temple Karate, it has Pinan Five in it, but it is a little different. After all, I’ve had over forty years to tweak the sucker.

Make sure you pick up the free book on Matrixing while you’re there.