This is interesting. The Go no kata (forms of strength) is one of the "lost" kata of judo. Gonokata was aparently practiced in the pre-war Kodokan school, but was not taught post-war and died out along iwth the pre-war students and instructors. There has been no small amount of talk in the last few years about reviving this kata, either by finding a surviving person who learned it before WWII or by reconstructing it from written accounts. I don't know which of these this demonstration represents, but on first viewing it appears to be a pretty good one for two reasons:
- It has a similar spirit to junokata, for which it was supposed to be a complementary partner-kata.
I'm endlessly fascinated by these judo katas. I love how they address the basic structures and still seem so pertinent to regular use.
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