In your Poomsae do you personally devote enough time on each aspect of every single technique withen the poomsae?
I try to. My view of the poomsae/hyungs is that each of them comprises between four and six subsequences, each interpretable as at least one defensive scenario. Furthermore, each defensive scenario typically differs with respect to the initial attack in question. My first pass on a given poomsae (or kata, since we also train both bunkai and performance of Japanese kata in my school) is to decompose it into a set of subsequences each of which is a `minimal combat scenario'—an application of the basic Song Moo Kwan strategies which takes the defender from the initial attack to the effective destruction of the attacker via a
potentially killing strike to the head/throat. Massive soft tissue damage is the outcome of full-force application of the techs which emerge from applying realistic analysis to these subsequences.
So let's take a concrete example: Palgwe Sa Jang.
The first two subsequences can be taken to represent mirror images. (This subsequence is actually taken over whole from Pinan Shodan's initial `minimal combat scenario').
(i) There is a simultaneous rising and inside-to-outside block corresponding to a trap of an attacker's arm, forcing a hyperextension of his shoulder, setting up a throw/takedown driven from your hip where you would, presumbably, finish him with a hard kick to the temple; that's how we analyze and practice it. A `backup' strike to crush the windpipe with a knifehand is built in, in case the takedown goes amiss. Either way, the attacker is in mortal peril if you do things right at this point.
(ii) The second sequence involves a trap of an attacker's initial grab or punch, with a knife hand strike to the throat, where the knifehand morphs via a muchimi adjustment into a shoulder grip where you push the stunned attacker's upper body down into the path of a `rotated' palm heel strike to the face.
(iii) The third scenario assumes an attacker's grip on your wrist, which you reverse, and then carry out a 360º twisting throw, with a hammerfist strike to the attacker's temple if he's still on his feet at the end of it...
That sort of thing.
What one single techniques seems to be highleghted in most all poomsae?
No one literal technique, but a single strategy: the earliest possible maximally damaging strike to the assailant's head, preferably the temple, carotid sinus or windpipe, where all of that board-breaking you've been practicing comes into play to create maximum soft-tissue damage. Typically, this involves techniques that force the attacker's upper body down low, into range of elbow attacks, knifehand or hammerfist strikes to exposed neck regions, or hard knee strikes to the attacker's abdomen to bring him to the ground, where kicks to his head complete the counterattack.
What are you reasoning to finding a path to be enlighted by your poomsae>
Basically, I'm guided here by the rules for bunkai analysis that have been proposed,explained and defended by Iain Abernethy and people like Lawrence Kane & Kris Wilder, Simon O'Neil, and Stuart Anslow, who consciously and deliberately follow IA. Simple (though sometimes non-obvious, from the standpoint of Itosu's deliberately deceptive repackaging of karate moves), brutal, effective.
I should also mention maybe that when I practice hyungs or kata, I am visualizing these application scenarios as I carry out the performance of the form.
