Naihanchi Puns

I've been doing karate for some years now and the naihanchi kata's was were pretty much my introduction to karate kata in general. I never really understood that stance though, until i started to do some thinking.

I wrote an entire blog post about it if anyone's interested (I'll put a link in the comments to avoid blatant self-promotion) but to summarize and gather some feedback: It's a fairly interesting and even useful stance to practice offering some benefits I didn't really expect.

I never really realised you should put your weight on the ball of your foot in this kata or that there's some interesting uses for having your feet in that at first glance awkward position.

Does anyone of you have any thoughts on it?

Looking for clarification from this community on Kata Naihanchi Nidan. Depending on how you count moves it would 9 or 10 moves the beginning of the 3rd direction and right before the foot stomp. Is it left knife hand to right anterior wrist then grab wrist overtop as the wrist goes down and elbow up? I just want to make sure I’m not mixing anything up.

Do the opening stances in forms like Bassai, Naihanchi, Jitte/Sip Soo, and so on mean anything different than the normal two-fists-pointing-downward ready stance? Are they combat techniques? Are they pre-combat salutes? I've been intrigued by these opening positions since I started training and I have never been given a clear answer as to what they mean. CLARIFICATION: I'm referring to the covered fist positions, not the opening techniques.

Hi, I just discovered this subreddit and I thought the best way to introduce myself here would be with this video. I'm from Spain and I practice Shorin ryu (Karate) & Shin shu kan (Kobudo).

I hope having fun here =D

ps: the video here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=meefZmVqTjw&feature=plcp