Suparinpei

Quick Facts

About the kata

Suparinpei (壱百零八) is, according to the English Wikipedia, the most advanced of the Goju-ryu kata, and katastepbystep.com also calls it the longest. The name means the number 108; the same kata is also given as the Okinawan Pechurin, Pichurin, or by the Japanese reading Hyakuhachi. Wikipedia names it as a kata in which Yagi Meitoku, Shinjo Masanobu, and Higaonna Morio excelled. Worldbudokan.com places it among the kata derived from the White Crane style, sees in it a summary of almost all its elements, and finds in it techniques from the kata Sanchin, Seiunchin, Seisan, and Sanseiru. It develops attack and defense in eight directions, four main and four diagonal. East Wind Budo points to fast blocks that strike at the same time, and the British Wadokai to the alternation of fast and slow movements governed by breathing. The World Union of Karate Federations (WUKF) lists it in its April 2024 list under the spelling Suparimpei as an optional tokui kata for Goju-ryu, Shito-ryu, and Shukokai. Worldbudokan.com gives 108 movements, exactly the number in the name; we have not been able to find an independent count in another source.

The kata in different styles

Meaning of the name

The characters 壱百零八 simply mean one hundred and eight; Wikipedia and worldbudokan.com add "108 hands." The most common reading is Buddhist: the 108 worldly temptations or passions to overcome on the path to enlightenment (worldbudokan.com, katastepbystep.com). GoJu.co.uk and the British Wadokai also offer a second interpretation – 108 vital points on the human body according to the school of acupuncture. The Okinawan style Toon-ryu practices a related kata, Becchurin, whose name the English Wikipedia translates as "100 continuous steps" and explicitly distinguishes it from the Suparinpei with 108.

Creator and history

According to the English Wikipedia, Higaonna Kanryo sailed to Fuzhou, Fujian province, in March 1873, and after his first years with other teachers, trained under a man known as Ryu Ryu Ko. He brought four kata from China; Wikipedia names the fourth Bechurin and calls it a form related to Suparinpei. GoJu.co.uk dates the training to about 1868–1881 and allows that the kata may have been created in the 17th century by the Chinese general Ye Fai. Worldbudokan.com instead cites research holding that the kata already existed on Okinawa before Higaonna's stay and may stem from a hundred-movement White Crane form from the village of Yong Chun. Miyagi Chojun, per Wikipedia, simplified it: it had three levels, go, chu, and jo, and Miyagi kept only the highest, jo.

Differences between styles

The kata was brought into Shito-ryu by Mabuni Kenwa, who learned it from Higaonna Kanryo; his student Sakagami Ryusho preserved it in Itosu-ryu, per the blog Itosu-kai España. According to GoJu.co.uk, Mabuni also taught it to Otsuka Hironori, and Suparinpei stands on the list of kata that Otsuka registered with the Dai Nippon Butokukai in 1939. In Wado-ryu, however, it soon stopped being practiced, because according to the British Wadokai it did not match its principles; today's Wado version was reassembled in 2001 by Hakoishi Katsumi. Besides Goju-ryu and Shito-ryu, Worldbudokan.com also finds it in the Okinawan system Hakutsuru Kenpo.

Competition status

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

Techniques in the kata