Jitte

十手 · Jitte

Literally: „Ten hands“

Also known as: Jutte, Kyudokan Jitte, Sip Soo

A kata from the Jion group, whose name 十手 means ten hands. According to the JKA material it has 24 movements, one kiai shout, and a passage defending against an attack with a staff.

Quick Facts

Martial Arts

Karate Shotokan Shito-ryu Shorin-ryu Wado-ryu

People

Gigo Funakoshi · Modified by Anko Itosu · Transmitted by Sokon Matsumura · Transmitted by

Form typeKata

OriginJapan

CharacterHard

About the kata

Jitte forms one group together with the kata Jion and Jiin. All three begin with the same posture, in which the left palm covers the right fist; the English Wikipedia sees in it roots in old Chinese boxing. The JKA material describes Jitte as a robust and "heavy" kata with many powerful techniques, and according to it, it has 24 movements, performed in roughly a minute. In the first part, pushing blocks and palm-heel strikes alternate, largely in the horse-riding stance kiba dachi. In the eleventh movement, the practitioner takes the yama gamae, the "mountain stance," and advances sideways with a yori ashi step. In the twelfth and thirteenth movements, the forearm sweeps at head height (jodan uchi harai) with a fumikomi stamp; the thirteenth movement closes with the single kiai shout that the JKA lists. After a calm release of power comes a passage that the JKA explicitly describes as defense against an attack with a staff, and the kata ends with a series of upper blocks, age uke. Jitte is on the official WKF kata list. In the WUKF list from April 2024, Shotokan and Shito-ryu list it among the tokui kata (own choice), Shorin-ryu and Wado-ryu among the sentei kata.

The kata in different styles

Style	Name in the style	Movements	Kiai
Shotokan	Jitte	24	1
Shito-ryu	Jitte	—	—
Wado-ryu	Jitte	—	—

Meaning of the name

The name is written with the characters 十手, ten hands. The JKA material explains that whoever masters the kata can act for ten men and defend against ten armed opponents. Historyoffighting.com offers another explanation: the posture with raised fists in the kata is said to recall the jitte, a type of sai weapon that police carried on Okinawa in the nineteenth century. Karatevancouver.ca links the name to the weapon of the same name, which in Japan's Edo period served police officers as a badge of office. According to the English Wikipedia, both the transcriptions Jitte and Jutte are correct.

Creator and history

The English Wikipedia places the Jion, Jiin, and Jitte group in the Tomari-te school. Hirokazu Kanazawa, however, believes that the kata Jion originated at the Jionji temple (慈恩寺), famous for practicing martial arts, and spread from there to the Tomari region. Historyoffighting.com and karatevancouver.ca also place the kata in Tomari-te. The website katashitoryu.org gives the lineage Matsumura, Itosu, Chotoku Kiyan, and names Anko Itosu as one of the main transmitters; we have not been able to confirm this lineage in other sources. Who created the kata, we have not found in the sources.

Differences between styles

It is practiced under the name Jitte by Shotokan, Wado-ryu, Shito-ryu, and Shorin-ryu; per English Wikipedia it is called Sip Soo in some styles. Movement counts differ by counting method: JKA material and English Wikipedia both give 24, karatevancouver.ca gives 27 for Shotokan. Per katashitoryu.org, the kata's structure in Shito-ryu resembles Shotokan's and differs mainly in the extent of the movements; the site attributes these changes to Yoshitaka Funakoshi.

Bunkai – applications

JKA material names the defense against the staff directly in the technique names. In the 16th movement the practitioner two-hand catches the staff in koko, the "tiger's mouth" (ryote bo tsukami uke); in the 17th, wrenches it up twice (bo toriage) and pushes it back (bo oshimodoshi). Historyoffighting.com states the kata's main function is defense against weapons, especially the bo staff, with elements of locks and gyaku te grips.

Competition status

Sport karate (WKF) — Official kata list · valid from 1/1/2026 ↗
WUKF (World Union of Karate-Do Federations) – Shito-ryu — Tokui (free choice) · valid from 4/26/2024 ↗
WUKF (World Union of Karate-Do Federations) – Shorin-ryu — Sentei (selected) · valid from 4/26/2024 ↗
WUKF (World Union of Karate-Do Federations) – Shotokan — Tokui (free choice) · valid from 4/26/2024 ↗
WUKF (World Union of Karate-Do Federations) – Wado-ryu — Sentei (selected) · valid from 4/26/2024 ↗

Key Tip

According to the JKA material, even the slow movements are performed with a certain forcefulness and tension.

Technique Sequence — Shotokan

Breakdown source: jkakarate.co.uk

Further sources on this topic (8)