Heian Nidan Step By Step In Detail

Heian Nidan is the second of five kata in the Heian kata series and is used as the testing kata from 8th Kyu to 7th Kyu here at EIKA.

Lots of simultaneous block and counter techniques throught Heian Nidan. This kata is a big step up from Heian Shodan in terms of the level of technicality. Because of this Karateka focus more on the latter Heian kata, than they do on Heian Shodan and this is a mistake!

Heian Shodan is probably the most important Heian Kata (also reffered to as Pinan), make sure you continually practice the early Shotokan kata.

Back to Heian Nidan. On the first move try and drop the body weight straight down, so the majority of the body weight is over the right leg, then on the fourth move sharply transfer the body weight to the left leg. Many karateka simply keep the body weight in the center for the first six moves.

On the first kiai, osae uke (pressing block) and nukite (spearhand), make sure the block is slightly ahead of the nukite, but only slightly. A mistake that karateka make on this move is they strike down with a shuto, instead of striking straight forward with nukite, the bottom of the right hand, wrist and forearm should slide over the top of the back of the left hand.

After the four shuto uke there are several different ways Shotokan Dojo practice the next eight move combination and although karateka practice different ways, the basic fundamentals remain the same and one of them is keeping the weight going forward, try not to lean back at all.