1968 - Kusanku - Taika Seiyu Oyata

This was an early version of Kusanku that Oyata primarily taught on the island to U.S. servicemen. In 1968 he made a trip to Kansas where a student recorded 12 kihon open hand kata as well as some exercises he had made. All were recorded on 16mm film with no audio. Taika continually refined thing in his kata to be more structurally sound, balanced, et cetera. As he moved away from teaching people an art that also encompassed tournament fighting and competition, his footwork, hand positions and body movements were more refined by him and his final versions of his kata are significantly different that what you see in his 1968 film. You can see a gradual change from this 1968 film, through his late 1970’s to 1980’s VHS tapes. In fact, Taika himself refused to let his digitized earlier vhs and 1968 videos of his kata performances be sold while he was still alive as he said that those were no longer representative of his art, but of a snapshot in time. Taika Seiyu Oyata died on June 18th