Shotokan Kata · Advanced (Dan grade)
Step through all 42 movements. Use the arrows or press play. These are simplified schematics — pair them with the written sequence below and your instructor.
Gankaku is, above all, a study in balance under pressure. Its defining posture is the crane stance — standing on one leg with the other tucked, arms in the swirling manji guard — from which you fire a back-fist and a side snap-kick at the same instant, then re-settle. Nakayama called that simultaneous uraken + yoko-geri-keage the “nucleus” of the kata. Do it four times, cleanly, without wobbling, and you have understood Gankaku.
Around that core sit its other set-pieces: an early forward-spinning stamping kick into a rooted horse stance, a jumping two-level kick, swinging elbows, and slow wedge and swirling blocks. The embusen runs in a straight line, front-to-back, like the kanji 一 — the crane travels up and down a single line of rock.
A text reference for the whole kata, following the mainstream JKA form.
| # | Technique | Stance / turn |
|---|
Accuracy note: the 42-count and the two kiai (28 & 42, both right lunge punches) are confirmed across JKA sources; one outlier counts 37 by grouping compound moves. The four crane-stance kicks land on roughly moves 27, 31, 35 and 41. Fine stances/turns in the interior are the standard JKA execution but are not published to the frame by text sources — verify against Nakayama’s Best Karate Vol. 10 or a JKA HQ performance and your dōjō.
Each links to a full breakdown in the techniques glossary.
Read Gankaku as fighting on one line, using balance and the raised knee as a weapon and shield.
The raised knee checks a kick or jams the attacker; from that balance you fire a back-fist to the face and a side kick to the body at once — defence and two attacks in a single beat.
The nidan-geri leaps over a low sweep or closes distance explosively, the cross-block covering as you land — the kata’s big athletic moment.
The forward-spinning fumikomi drops your weight through a stamping kick onto a knee or instep, arriving in a rooted horse stance ready to counter.
The single-leg posture must be still and rooted before and after the kick. Balance is the whole kata — practise holding tsuruashi-dachi until it is effortless.
Uraken and yoko-geri-keage fire together, as one technique. Landing them on separate beats loses the crane’s signature snap.
Move 5’s fumikomi needs real downward bodyweight into a deep kiba-dachi — not a token step after the spin.
Gankaku’s embusen is a straight front-to-back line. Wandering sideways during the crane sequences is an immediate grading flag.
As a dan-grade kata, Gankaku is judged on rock-steady crane stances, the four simultaneous back-fist + side-kick combinations delivered as one action, a committed jumping kick and spinning stamp, a straight embusen held front-to-back, and the two kiai on the right lunge punches at moves 28 and 42. Balance and composure count as much as power here. Requirements vary by association — confirm with your dōjō.
The illustrations on this page are study schematics — they show the shape of each move, not a real body in motion. To see Gankaku performed at full speed by senior instructors, watch reference footage:
▶ Watch “Gankaku” performances on YouTubeOpens a YouTube search in a new tab. Look for JKA / Japan Karate Association or established Shotokan instructor demonstrations for the most standard version of the form.
Or explore the full kata library.