Tensho

Quick Facts

About the kata

Tensho belongs, together with Sanchin, to the heishu kata, as goju.co.uk calls them, and according to the English Wikipedia is its softer counterpart: it combines dynamic tension with deep breathing and flowing movements of open hands. Shukokai World sees in it four crossing hand movements — up, down, right, and left — in which the index finger serves as the axis of rotation. Dojo Kodokan Boston describes the kata's structure as follows: the first three straight strikes and closing morote nukite with mawashi uke in the sanchin dachi stance come from Sanchin. The circular block mawashi uke, common in Goju-ryu, is broken down in Tensho into its individual parts — first kake uke, then soto uke, and finally the upper palm strike. In his breakdown of the Kyokushin version, Jaap Kooman numbers 21 steps and does not list any kiai in them. The IKO technical syllabus, as published by IKO Nederland, places Tensho in the brown belt exam (2nd and 1st kyu). In the 2024 WUKF competition list, it appears among the sentei kata for Kyokushin and among the tokui kata of the Sankukai and Nanbudo styles.

The kata in different styles

Meaning of the name

The name is formed by the characters 転 (to turn) and 掌 (palm). The English Wikipedia translates it as turning hands or turning palms. Yamada Haruyoshi, as quoted by Shukokai World, interprets the name as flowing hands. According to goju.co.uk, Chojun Miyagi gave the kata the nickname Little Heaven.

Creator and history

Jaap Kooman writes that Chojun Miyagi developed the kata after returning from China in 1916 and created it as a softer Sanchin in 1921; the English Wikipedia gives the same year. According to Wikipedia, on his second trip to China Miyagi saw Rokkishu — a set of hand exercises based on rotating the forearm and wrist, not a formal kata — and adapted it into the form of Tensho. Shukokai World describes Rokkishu as a paired exercise from the Shanghai association Jing Wu, which Miyagi reworked into a form for a single practitioner. Dojo Kodokan Boston states that in the To'on-ryu lineage, Rokkishu survived as a separate sequence, which Higashionna passed on to Kyoda, and that it corresponds to four of Tensho's movements: koken up, shuto down, koken out, and palm in. Wikipedia also mentions other interpretations: according to some sources the kata arose from Hakutsuru movements, according to another analysis from the Kakuha kata, which Higashionna taught and which is now missing from Goju-ryu.

Differences between styles

Per Jaap Kooman, Masutatsu Oyama counted Tensho among his favorite kata and, thanks to his training in Goju-ryu, included it in the Kyokushin curriculum as a southern kata; karatephilosophy.com says he considered it the most important of all kata. In Kyokushin, per the same site, it is practiced with ibuki breathing, i.e. deep breathing under tension throughout the kata. Goju.co.uk, by contrast, writes that in Goju-ryu the breathing in Tensho is soft and internal, not hard and external as in Sanchin. Shukokai World compares the Chinese and Japanese forms: the Chinese version uses breath only slightly and moves fast, while the Japanese one breathes deeply and moves slower.

Competition status

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

Techniques in the kata