Chinte
珍手 · Chinte
Literally: „Rare, unusual hand“
Also known as: Shoin
A kata whose name means rare or unusual hand, with finger and knuckle strikes and circular movements. In Shotokan it ends with three backward hops found nowhere else.
Quick Facts
About the kata
Chinte is an advanced kata, and its name points to techniques that barely appear elsewhere in the curriculum. Karatevancouver.ca names the scissor strike with both fists hasami zuki, the upward vertical elbow strike jodan tate enpi uchi, the two-finger thrust nihon nukite, and the strike with the protruding middle knuckle nakadaka ken. The English Wikipedia stresses that the kata contains a number of circular movements, although Shotokan otherwise favors straight ones, and that it is close-range self-defense. Sources differ on the count. According to themartialway.com.au the kata today has 32 movements with kiai on the 28th and 32nd; earlier, according to the book Best Karate 9, it was counted as 33 movements with kiai on the 9th and 32nd. Karatevancouver.ca gives 34 movements. The difference thus stems at least partly from a change in counting that themartialway.com.au itself describes. According to themartialway.com.au, men rarely choose Chinte in competition and it is performed almost exclusively by women. Karatevancouver.ca explains this by its being close-range self-defense, with techniques relying more on skill than on strength. WUKF lists it among the optional tokui kata for both Shotokan and Shorin-ryu.
The kata in different styles
| Style | Name in the style | Movements | Kiai |
|---|---|---|---|
| Shotokan | Chinte | 32 | 2 |
Meaning of the name
The name is written with the characters 珍手, which the English Wikipedia translates as rare or unusual hand; historyoffighting.com gives strange hands. According to themartialway.com.au the name points to the kata's unusual hand techniques. Gichin Funakoshi tried to rename it Shoin, according to themartialway.com.au a place of study at a temple, but his students did not accept the new name. Why he chose it is, according to karatevancouver.ca, unknown. Wikipedia interprets the kata's ending as the absorption of wave force by sand, a symbol of returning to calm after a violent storm.
Creator and history
Sources disagree on the origin. The English Wikipedia takes it to be a very old kata from China, historyoffighting.com gives a probable Chinese origin but also mentions the theory that it derives from an Okinawan folk dance. According to themartialway.com.au, credit for bringing the kata into modern practice is usually given to Anko Itosu; karatephilosophy.com writes that he brought it to Okinawa and that it was later adopted by Shito-ryu, founded by Kenwa Mabuni. When the kata reached Shotokan, we have not been able to establish.
Differences between styles
The English Wikipedia lists Chinte in Shotokan, Shito-ryu, and Okinawan Shorin-ryu Kyudokan. Only the Shotokan version has the three final backward hops. According to Wikipedia, some consider them an addition that returns the practitioner to the starting spot for competition, while others believe other styles dropped them once their meaning had been lost. Historyoffighting.com calls them apparently unique in the whole world of martial arts. In Seiyo Shorin-ryu the hops are replaced by the throw tai otoshi, followed by a series of blocks, a kick, and a strike.
Bunkai – applications
Interpretations of the final hops differ. Per themartialway.com.au they range from a simple retreat through wrist locks to a full nelson. English Wikipedia reads the hops as breaking the wrist with the practitioner's own body weight, after an opponent grabs the practitioner's chest and the practitioner secures the opponent's hand.