Tetsuhiko Asai Video Archive
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Interview with Sensei Asai



                          Asai Sensei demonstrates some techniques based on the crane, snake and bear.

This video is devoted to Interview with Sensei Asai.

This recording belongs to the Asai kata collection on this blog, a growing archive of Tetsuhiko Asai's forms kept for study and reference. Asai's karate grew out of Shotokan and was later enriched with White Crane principles, which is why his kata combine direct Shotokan lines with unusually soft, circular movement. Watch the performance slowly and more than once: the value of these recordings is in the details of timing, posture and transition that a single viewing rarely shows.

This interview footage shows Asai demonstrating techniques based on the crane, the snake, and the bear — the animal principles that influenced his karate. Watch the crane-like movements first: long, balanced postures on one leg, with the hands open and extended, showing balance and reach. The snake elements are the opposite — low, coiling, circular movements in which the hands wind around an incoming attack. The bear techniques are heavy and direct, using the whole body weight behind short, powerful movements. What unites all three is the same principle: the body imitates the animal's way of moving, not just its shape, and the technique only works when the whole body commits to it. This recording is a rare chance to see Asai explain his art through movement itself.

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Tetsuhiko Asai was born on June 7, 1935, in Ehime Prefecture, on the island of Shikoku in Japan.  He began studying karate at the age of twelve, training at a dojo near his home. At high school he also practised judo and earned a second dan grade, so his early years were shaped by two martial arts at once. The combination of judo's throwing and grappling with karate's striking gave his later karate an unusual range.   After school he moved to Tokyo and studied at Takushoku University, where he became one of the leading members of the university karate club. He was a flexible, fast-moving fighter, and he developed a distinctive counter of his own: diving low beneath an opponent's kick and striking back before the opponent could recover. He called this movement the "submarine," and it made his name known across the karate world. The video below shows Asai in a kumite demonstration from 1987. Source: the official biography of Tetsuhiko Asai, International J...
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Asai karate video collection

http://master-karate.ru/video.html This video is devoted to Asai karate video collection. This video is part of the Asai kata collection, an archive of seminar and training footage connected with Tetsuhiko Asai's school of karate. Asai-Ryu is rooted in Shotokan and enriched with principles of Chinese White Crane kung fu, and the material collected here shows how that approach is taught and practised in the dojo. The collection is updated every week with further kata and seminar recordings. This video belongs to the Asai karate video collection, an archive of seminar and training footage connected with Tetsuhiko Asai's school of karate. The recordings in this collection show the same principles across many settings: basics, kata, kumite, and teaching, all performed with the relaxed power and precise timing that characterised Asai's karate. Watch each recording more than once — the first viewing gives the shape of the performance, and later viewings reveal the details of foo...

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