Differences in Gekisai kata

I liked class today in karate. It was a small class today like last week. Yesterday, we had a lot more people. Is it because of the sparring class? Maybe nobody like to train in kata. I personally would like to work on kata more than we have been. However, we worked on Bunkai that I have only done once under Chinen Sensei. It's the attack and defend in a straight line Bunkai for Gekisai Dai Ichi. When I did it at my old dojo, I remember being better than my fellow Sempai Kurk because he couldn't remember what happens next. A few times I think I swept kicked and he couldn't remember how to counter that. I remember Sempai Linda being gone that day, so in the next class, Sempai Brooke told her about the Bunkai that we worked on. Sempai Linda said that she hasn't worked on that Bunkai for five years. I noticed that in this dojo, not many people knew it either. I glad that I was pared up with Anna because she's a black belt and two years younger than me.

While I was doing the Bunkai, I learned a new stance called the Han Zenkutsu dachi which is Zenkutsu dachi but shorter. We use this stance with the beginning blocks in the Gekisai kata. In Chinen's dojo, we used Sanchin dachi. Plus, we use Han Zenkutsu dachi in Saifa when we high punch, Han Zenkutsu dachi, and turn 180 in Neko Ashi Dachi. When ever I get into this stance, I have to check myself if my feet are correctly far enough apart by kneeling with my back leg and lining my knee up with my toes on my other foot. They do the same thing with Zenkutsu dachi; however, the knee lines up with my heel. I noticed that's shorter than what I've been doing in Zenkutsu dachi. Chinen Sensei would have us get into a deep Zenkutsu dachi where it burned my lead thigh. Sometimes, he would call me a lazy girl and have me go deeper. That's not the case with this dojo.

I learned more differences in the Gekisai kata this week. After the second block in Shiko dachi, I was taught to step directly to sanchin dachi instead of going towards to my other foot. I noticed that's going to be hard to break because my arm and leg are used to moving in a circular motion at the same time. The double punch or Morote tsuki is different too. Chinen Sensei taught me just have the hands parallel to each other and have the arms fully extended. With this dojo, the hands are not parallel to each other. The lead hand is fully extending pointing a little down where the other hand isn't fully extending pointing a little up. This dojo doesn't breathe either in any of the kata except Sanchin and probably Tensho. So with these differences, I have to rework my Gekisai kata.