04/08/2026
What fascinates me about his performance of kata is that his techniques, although not, so to speak, technically refined, exude life and naturalness. For me, this is what is, at the same time, beautiful and efficient. Overly polished techniques seem lifeless, rigid, and unusable. Of course, the form should be brought to perfection, but later that form should be restored to naturalness and given its own stamp. That's what Kase Sensei did with his karate. And this is really true mastership.
HEIAN OYO (平安応用) – a kata built from fragments of all Heian katas, created by Taiji Kase Sensei. It is a long-duration kata, with very few elements that demand isometric contraction, making it quite difficult to perform. When facing this kata for the first time, a karateka will notice fighting sequences that belong to a certain Heian kata. Even with few novelties, it interestingly covers all Heian katas, as some elements are connected differently and performed differently. The kata belongs to the Kase-Ha style and is not in the list of 26 Shotokan kata. Alongside Heian Oyo, Sensei Taiji Kase created several other kata, such as Tekki Oyo and Kase no Sanchin.
