Tsuki no Kata

Quick Facts

About the kata

Tsuki no Kata is a Kyokushin kata built almost entirely on fist strikes. Per karatephilosophy.com, it adds only a few blocks, a few open-hand techniques and one kick – the front kick mae geri, after which Jaap Kooman places the first kiai in his breakdown. The practitioner alternates kiba dachi, sanchin dachi and zenkutsu dachi, striking the lower, middle and upper levels. Kooman's breakdown has 20 steps and two kiai, at steps 13 and 18. The tempo changes: steps 16–17 are slow, step 19 brings the circular block mawashi uke with loud ibuki breathing, and the kata ends in musubi dachi. Kooman and karatephilosophy.com both say the kata trains strike power in various stances, heights and directions. Where exactly it belongs in Kyokushin, we have not been able to establish: IKO Nederland lists it for the yellow belt (6th–5th kyu) with Pinan Sono San, Pinan Sono Yon and Yantsu, while Kooman places it at 3rd kyu. In WUKF competition, per the 2024 list, it is among the sentei katas of Kyokushinkai.

The kata in different styles

Meaning of the name

Jaap Kooman breaks 突きの型 into tsuki (突き, thrust or strike), no (の, "of") and kata (型): kata of strikes. Kooman and gojukarate.com both add a second, figurative meaning – luck. Gojukarate.com explains this by the fact that the character for strike (突き) and the character for moon (月) are pronounced almost the same, tsuki.

Creator and history

The English Wikipedia and Jaap Kooman both name Seigo Tada (1922–1997), a student of Chojun Miyagi, as the author; Tada founded the Goju-ryu Seigokan branch in 1945. Gojukarate.com writes that the kata derives from a southern Chinese form of Fujian White Crane, taught to Tada around 1937 in Shanghai by Ching Lou. Kooman instead traces this very direct kata to Okinawan Shuri-te and classes it among the "northern" katas of Kyokushin, while Wikipedia places it among the southern ones. How the kata reached Kyokushin, we have not been able to establish. Wikipedia says it is often mistakenly attributed to Tadashi Nakamura, speculating he brought it from his Goju-ryu background. Kooman finds it more likely that Masutatsu Oyama took it up directly – Tada and Oyama were both Goju-ryu students then and knew each other well.

Differences between styles

In Goju-ryu Seigokan the kata is taught as Kihon Tsuki no Kata. The English Wikipedia lists it with Kihon Uke no Kata as two forms created by founder Seigo Tada, practiced alongside the traditional Goju-ryu katas. Per gojukarate.com, the kata spread from Tada's school into other styles too, among them Kyokushinkai. We could not find in the sources either the movement counts or execution differences between Seigokan and Kyokushin.

Competition status

• WUKF (World Union of Karate-Do Federations) – Kyokushin — Sentei (selected) · valid from 4/26/2024 ↗

In grading syllabi

• IKO grading (traditional honbu): 5th Kyu – Yellow belt with black stripe