Rohai Kata w/Bunkai Comment

Rōhai (鷺牌) represents a kata, commonly taught to students of Shorin-Ryu, Shito-Ryu and Wado-Ryu karate schools. Rōhai translates as “image of heron” & considered to be an advanced form: typically taught to black-belt level karate students. Even so, it is not a difficult kata, just difficult to do correctly.
To do justice to this kata: use good stances and powerful hip rotation. “Focus” all punches and blocks! How do you know if your punches and blocks are focused? Every strike and block should be dripping with lightning-fast acceleration and focus, and you should hear a whipping sound of your karate gi sleeve and pant leg, referred to as ‘snap’.
Try a focus challenge! Grab a friend in the dojo to be a karate judge. Now perform your kata. The judge will count every time your gi makes a ‘snap’. Change places and you are now the judge - who won?
Now, practice Rohai. After your muscles memorize this kata, increase acceleration & focus of each block and strike working on a goal of developing lightning-fast strikes, blocks, and reaction time. If you are just punching & blocking with slow, unfocused, tai-chi energy, it will be nearly impossible to defend against an attacker. So, practice as if you mean it! When you finish practicing, you should be sweating! Remember - the more you sweat in the dojo, the less you will bleed on the street!
If you notice a lack of power and focus in technique; you can try to gain power by slowing down kata performance to 50% of normal. When you do this, over-emphasize focus of your strikes, blocks, & kicks (even though you are slowing to 50% of normal, you should still hear a distinct “snap” of your sleeve slapping your forearm and wrist)! This is one reason for a gi; your gi should coach you. After more practice, your sleeve will start talking non-stop telling you how “AWEOME” you are!
Consider videoing yourself while practicing kata so you can see your progress! As you practice, pay attention to stances (bending your knees and make sure you have good separation between feet). Rate your kata. Use a judge to rate: (1) ‘snap’ of your sleeves, (2) stances, and (3) overall performance.Rate from 1 to 10. At some point, when everyone gets the idea of power and quickness, schedule a training day for a contest.
Personally, I like Rohai. However, one problem I have with the kata is the prominent combination that is repeated 3-times in 3-different compass directions. These start with what appears to be a R-hand block, followed by L-R punches (tsuki). The originator of the kata should have thought more about symmetry and included at least one mirror-image combination: L-hand block followed by RLt tsuki.
ORIGIN of KATA. Unfortunately, the origin of many kata remain unknown or unverified, because few Okinawans bothered to record any written history about karate. If the author’s name was not added to kata title, we have to totally rely on Okinawan folklore.
Rohai it believed to have originated as a Tomari-te karate form and originally called Matsumora Rōhai; named after Kosaku Matsumora, the supposed author of the kata. It is reported Ankō Itosu later developed three Rohai forms from the original kata, which he named Rōhai shodan, Rōhai nidan, and Rōhai sandan.
In both Shorin-ryū and Matsubayashi-ryū, the kata introduces ippon ashi dachi (one-legged stance). In Seiyo Shorin-Ryu, we teach only the Matsumora Rohai kata similar to Wadō-Ryū schools. This is also true of Gensei-Ryū and Shindō Jinen-Ryū styles which only teach one Rohai: the Matsumora Rohai version. Some Shito-ryu schools teach all three Itosu Rohai kata as well as Matsumora Rohai.
The JKA has its own version of Rōhai renamed Meikyo (明鏡) (“Bright Mirror” or “Polish a Mirror”). It is distinct from Okinawan Matsumora and Itosu versions; but, it is possible that Funakoshi (an early student of Itosu), was taught a different version of Rohai than many of Itosu’s later students such Kenwa Mabuni the founder of Okinawan Shito-Ryu. Sometime in the early 1990s Tetsuhiko Asai, a Shotokan practitioner and student of Funakoshi, created two additional Meikyo kata: Meikyo nidan and Meikyo sandan. So, you can see, there are a handful of Rohai (Meikyo) kata.
Some Korean karate styles, i.e., Tang Soo Do and Soo Bahk Do also teach Rohai based on the Matsumora version of Rohai. Over the years a few practitioners made changes to these kata including one style that decided to add a breaking (tameshiwari) element to the kata.