EMPI  (also called ENPI)

Enpi comes from the Okinawan martial art of Tomari-te, where it first appeared in 1683. It is believed to have been influenced by Chinese boxing. It was originally called Wansu. Funakoshi Gichin changed the name to Enpi when he moved to the Japanese mainland in the 1920's. Funakoshi changed the names of many of the kata, in an effort to make the Okinawan art more palatable to the then nationalistic Japanese.

Here is a diagrahm of the kata seperated (double lines) by technique

and a web video of the kata

NOTES: 1) Do not do this (or in fact any) kata fast ... it is not a race .. it it (and was) self defense and you MUST expect that such techniques take (reasonable) time and take time for the opponent to react.

2) The jump done at the end is for tournaments. There is no need for any jumping in ENPI

3) THANK you to Dieter Fisher - 7th Dan QUAN LI K'an for considerable help interpeting this kata - without his help we never would have gotten it right!

4) Thank you to Adam patterson for the video capture

Here are links to the origionally posted kata  empi diagrahm which are pretty good picture / diagrams ... of course it misses the essential small accessory moves that turn this kata into the fighting kata it once was ... but then I have no intention of putting such on the web due to an uncontrolled audience.         

http://www.karate-psv-hattingen.de/images/Kata/Empi_g.jpg

http://www.shotokankarate.ca/enpi%20kata.htm

Claims that Empi resembles a swallow or is chinese in origin [which is far different than being influenced] (or that the techniques are simply striking techniques ex: elbow) miss the point of this kata completely and miss the rich consistency of the flavor of the techniques in this kata which feel (force and obvious intent) Okinawan...