Tenchiken Dai Ikkei

Quick Facts

About the kata

Tenchiken Dai Ikkei (天地拳第一系), shortened to Tenchiken Dai Ichi, opens the six-part Tenchiken series and belongs among tanen kihon hokei, the basic Shorinji Kempo forms for a single practitioner. The Nippon Budokan handbook describes it as practice of the basics of attack and defense in a single exchange, built mainly on strikes and kicks. It is practiced on command, with one movement per number in the first forms, on both the left and right side. The London club East London Shorinji Kempo breaks it down into eight steps. It begins in the hidari chudan gamae stance, continues with a direct strike to the head jodan choku zuki, a block soto uke with a hook yoko kagi zuki in heima dachi stance, a double block ni ren uke and a kick keri age, and ends in the ichiji gamae stance with zanshin, sustained awareness. The blog of the club from Osaka prefecture counts the same movements as seven. According to the London club, the last step can lead directly into the series' second form. The dojo in Takatsuki lists it as the first solo form that beginners learn. Of the twelve basic solo forms listed by the website budo-dojo-navi.com, half belong to the Tenchiken series.

The kata in different styles

Creator and history

The Tenchiken series consists of six forms, dai ichi to dai roku. The Nippon Budokan handbook states that hokei, the fixed forms of Shorinji Kempo, were devised by founder Doshin So, and later teachers passed them on, enriching them with their own research. He founded Shorinji Kempo in 1947, opening the central dojo in Tadotsu, Kagawa prefecture. We have not been able to establish in the sources exactly when or by whom the Tenchiken series arose. Alongside Tenchiken stands the Ryuoken series of three forms. According to the Budokan, it teaches release from a wrist grip and is the basis of the soft techniques juho; the first of them is a solo rendering of the technique kote nuki.

Bunkai – applications

The form also has a paired version sotai, where the attacker actually attacks and the defender answers with its steps; the Nippon Budokan handbook shows it in seven phases. budo-dojo-navi.com sums up the form's content in three defenses: a head strike is stopped by uwa uke, a body strike by shita uke, a kick from below by harai uke. Sources disagree on how many forms have a paired version: East London Shorinji Kempo names the first and second forms, the French Wikipedia the first four.