It has been my opinion for some time that Tsuken no Kon was designed for a bladed-end weapon, perhaps something with an additional cross-blade. Recently, a fellow practitioner wondered if, perhaps, all of the bo kata were originally meant for bladed weapons. This is an interesting hypothesis and worthy of some investigation. It will take some years to sort-out with any veracity. Please keep in mind here that we're not looking for any technique that might apply, we're looking for the original theme and intent of the kata.
My initial response was that I find sufficient effectivity in the other kata with a plain bo, but then I thought about the movements, here-and-there in some of the kata, that, after many years of analysis, just don't fit well with plain bo geometry. My rationale, to date, was that we just hadn't found the original meaning yet, but if the movements were meant for a different type of weapon, that might explain our lack of progress. This becomes a thorny problem when one considers the plethora of blade profiles that were developed for military use in feudal Japan and imperial China and the subtleties of use that might apply to each. One could also posit that practice with a plain bo might have been the result of the Japanese-imposed weapons ban in the early years of their subjugation of Okinawa. At any rate, we are again stuck with the problem of loss of meaning over time.
As of practice this week, it seems like blading might also apply to Shishi no Kon, but, again, it will take some years to sort this stuff out if ever.
It's curious that some of the motions found in traditional bladed weapons kata are very similar to the motions found in our bo kata. That's a clue perhaps, though, as always, the problem is finding and extracting the original meaning from our kata; the theme-consistent compilation of sequences that makes a solid coherent structure.
It's frustrating to not know and never be able to find, without some degree of uncertainty, the original intent of kata, but it also keeps training interesting and thoughtful. I'm not really sure that I would prefer historical clarity to investigation.
