Gankaku was originally named Chinto, supposedly after a shipwrecked Chinese sailor trapped on Okinawa who taught it to 'Bushi' Matsumura. Funakoshi sensei again changed the name for his mainland Japanese audience with the new name meaning 'Crane on a Rock', so-called because of the distinctive one-legged stance employed at different points. The form may have its origins in Five Ancestors Fist, a type of kung fu popular in Southern China and which includes a form named Chen Tou, which is pronounced Chinto in Japanese. Movement #10 (at 0:37) is highly reminiscent of Crane style kung fu poses, though this is much clearer in the original Okinawan versions where the same move is executed in a cat stance rather than a front stance. The kata also continually returns to the theme of taking a stance balanced on one-leg, again highly reminiscent of a crane and a (slight) variation of a stance found in Crane kung fu.
The kata was practiced in both the Tomari te and Shuri te schools before it came down to Funakoshi sensei and entered the Shotokan syllabus. Here the form was modified and became more linear. It is a difficult kata to perform well and a popular choice in competition.
