Breaking Through: The Secrets of Bassai Dai Kata

In Breaking Through, Master Colin Wee explores applications and concepts extrapolated from Bassai Dai kata. Bassai Dai is one of a group of forms which transcends cultures and styles through traditional martial arts originating from Okinawa to Japan to Korea. Inspired by this kata, Wee's twelve combative applications are compelling and practical as lessons for martial artists who train using fixed set patterns. More than 200 photos clearly illustrate not only hard-style striking but also effective, soft-style principles, traps and takedowns generally overlooked in modern martial arts training such as Karate and Taekwondo. The insights gleaned from Breaking Through encourage readers to explore body structure and mechanics and demonstrate how picture-perfect techniques become combat-oriented defense strategies. Masters of old depended on these principles, strategies and wisdom for their very lives, and transmitted them to their students through kata. As a student of the martial arts for more than four decades, Wee accepts the responsibilities of the originators of Bassai to pass this knowledge to all who would study it with him. Readers need not know Bassai Dai, as Wee's methods can be applied to any form in any style to inspire and enrich patterns training beyond simplistic rote, choreographed routines.