The 42 techniques of the basics.
Stances, punches, blocks, strikes, kicks and the movement that carries them. Each one described by what the body actually does — where the weight goes, what the hip does, where the fault usually is and what corrects it.
A name teaches nobody.
“Gyaku-zuki — reverse punch” is a translation, and a student who reads it knows exactly as much as before. What is worth writing down is that the punch is thrown by the hip rotating against a planted rear foot, that the arm arrives last, and that the fault which ruins it more often than any other is the back heel lifting to let the hips over-rotate.
So every entry here carries the mechanics part by part, the principles that survive when the Japanese is forgotten, the faults with their causes and their corrections, drills, and the kata and kumite the technique belongs to. Shotokan technique is public martial-arts knowledge, common to every Shotokan dojo in the world, and it is written here at length for a reader who is learning rather than for one who already knows.
Dachi-waza 立ち技
How the body stands, and therefore what it can do next. Every other technique inherits its power and its mobility from the stance underneath it.
Tsuki-waza 突き技
Straight techniques delivered by thrusting the fist along the shortest line to the target.
Uke-waza 受け技
Usually translated "blocks", but uke means to receive. Each of these deflects, unbalances or damages, and finishes with a counter already available.
Uchi-waza 打ち技
Techniques delivered along an arc rather than a straight line, and with contact surfaces other than the front two knuckles.
Geri-waza 蹴り技
The longest and heaviest techniques in the syllabus, and the ones that cost the most balance to throw.
Tai-sabaki 体捌き
Moving the body off the line of an attack while remaining in range to answer it.
Ashi-sabaki 足捌き
Sliding, stepping, switching and turning without losing balance, height or guard.
Kihon is one third of it.
Kihon is the vocabulary. Kata is the literature written in it, and kumite is the conversation. The three are taught together because none of them means very much alone.