# Explaining Kata/Forms to Those Who Don't Do Them



## Koshiki (Nov 8, 2015)

*Here's what I think would be cool in this thread. I don't presume to dictate the flow of conversation, but it would be interesting if members would post a description of their own view of forms and their use, in whatever style. Rather than a conversation on the subject, per se, but a focus on each individual's understanding. I realize people will have questions, comments, jokes, etc for each other, but a limit on long back and forth debate would be appreciated by me, at any rate.

That way, hopefully the thread will be a fascinating read through of well thought out perspectives, rather than a disorganzed conversation. I know that probably won't happen, but that's what I'm hoping for.

That said, here's my own understanding. I tried to keep it brief but, well, I'm bad at that. Please understand, this is my view, not the majority view, and not the correct view. Certainly not the best view. It's what works for me. It's why I personally finally changed my mind and decided kata were worth something.*

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What kata is is pretty clear on the surface. It's a pattern of movements pertaining to combat against a single opponent, but performed as a solo practice routine. It looks a lot like dance. In many cases, it pretty much is dance.

What kata is _for _is a murky subject, however. For some it's performance art. For others it's exercise to strengthen the practitioner, develop their balance, and so on. Some people view it as a record of specific techniques to be used in certain situations.

However, the purpose for which I and others use kata is quite different from any of this. I've read many good descriptions that embody the way I personally view kata, but I htink many of them probably don't make sense if you don't already view kata in the way described, somewhat the way a really good description of the sound of train whistle would make sense to many of us, but would be utterly useless as a description given to one of us who is and has always been deaf.

Now, a couple things need to be said first.
1. Practicing a kata in the air, no matter how perfect your visualization, will not prepare you in any real way for actual combat.
2. The motions in a kata are not meant to be exact representations of specific applied techniques. The gross motions should be similar, but the practice of kata-derived application should largely be done with a partner, and is distinct from the movements in the solo form.
3. The bulk of kata practice should ideally be application with a partner, not solo air punching practice, though that has value as well.

Before I go any further, a disclaimer. My art is ostensibly Taekwondo, however it bears more resemblance to much of Karate than it does to much of Taekwondo. The kata I do are entirely found within Karate Styles, basically the Pinans/Heians, Naihanchi, and Bassai. We do none of the uniquely Korean forms. The versions we do, however, have been heavily Koreanized in many places. There are also parts of our forms where strikes have been added in that clearly read to me as though whoever added them didn't understand the potential of the original kata, and though it was blocking an opponent without countering, necessitating the strikes.

The point of this backstory is, my forms are often changed enough from the originals that whatever the original intent of a given kata was, it is now heavily obscured. The applications drawn from my Pion 2, sor example, are not going to largely correspond with those pulled from Shotokan's Heien Nidan, which in turn is going to have different potential from an Okinawan version of Pinan Shodan, none of which are probably comparable to whatever Channan entailed.

So if the kata don't really encode the specific techniques which can all be deciphered by a secret decoder ring, what's the point? I mean, really, couldn't we just use the Tango, or the Charleston, or contemporary ballet?

Well, actually, yes, you can. I have a close friend, practically family, who is an avid Belly Dancer, Kathak Dancer, and also plays with social dance styles. When she tries to get me to dance with her, she often complains that, "that step is not supposed to be a hip throw!" Can I help it if a dip is much like a take down?

The problem is, Kata don't necessarily look good, what they do is demonstrate powerful and natural movement styles of the body. Dance is designed to look good, sometimes at the expense of natural motion. One if form over function, the other is function over form.

In some places, yes there is obvious application, and most practitioners will arrive at similar results. Sometimes it's more muddied, and often it's completely, yes completely, up for interpretation.

This is about where those who don't practice Kata tend to really protest in earnest, "but then what's the point???"

This is also where I think many kata practitioners try to make kata out to be more than it really is. None of us know what the original applications of the older kata were, we all acknowledge that one interpretation can have as much validity as another, and we all acknowledge that most interpretations are likely not what the kata's creator intended, so really, it doesn't matter if there ever were any original applications, as long as the structure of the movement is sound. Again, these are my personal thoughts on kata, not everyone else's, not necessarily even anyone else's.

So again, what's the point?

I think what those who don't practice kata fully frequently misunderstand, is the purpose of kata. Kata is not a set of drills, and it's not intended to be. Also, it's of very limited use without the process of Bunkai.

That's right, process of Bunkai. An application that is derived from a kata is not "a Bunkai." Bunkai is the disassembly and analysis of kata. It is bunkai that separates kata from other drills, or from something like shadowboxing, or even from two man kata where both people have prescribed applications.

Kata and bunkai, a package deal, do not so much teach you Karate, as provide some structure to help yourself figure out karate. Even within just my own school, every long term practioner has a very different approach to fighting. One likes to grab and smash with elbows and body weight, simple, powerful techniques. Another likes small fluid movements, often in a psuedo-Aikido methodology of following the other person's movement, albeit much strike-ier than much of the Ueshiba stuff we usually see. Another is more of a sparrer, arms held close, largely parrying, absorbing, and striking back, any takedowns are usually sweeps. I'm fond of clinching and upright grappling mixed with close quarters striking. But we all learned from the same kata.

It must be understood that kata will not necessarily teach you good technique. It won't teach you how to do an armbar, or how to punch, or how to sweep. It will however, give you a framework for developing karate that works for you. Instead of an instructor giving you set combinations and applied techniques to practice, though this is necessary too, kata and bunkai enables you to find the combinations and applications that work for your body, for your experience, for your knowledge and skill, for your natural tendencies....

Now, certainly you can develop your own favored applications etc. on your own without kata, but kata forces you to decipher applications from motions you might otherwise ignore. It forces you to think creatively rather than habitually, it forces you to make sense of what might be senseless to you.

It forces you to explore uses for motion, at the most basic level, and in so doing you'll find thousands of potential applications. A majority of them will be crap. Many more will be possible but not practical. Of the small subset that are practical, many may not be suited to you in particular. A final group will be the applications that are the most suited for you. And occasionally, there's some stupid, impractical application that for whatever reason just really works for one specific individual.

Now, it's possible to do this same process of finding your ideal technique without kata, just learning applications. I don't argue that. However, that requires each instructor to learn, remember, and pass on those thousands of drills, most of which will be things he or she never uses, in the hopes that someday they'll just mesh for a person. Or, it requires the individual to just "come up" with all these possible  approaches without the aid to inspiration afforded by kata.

But again, you can't learn, say, the nuance of a rear naked choke from a kata, generally speaking. However, once you learn the choke, you'll see opportunities for it all through your kata, you'll see new ways to thread it fluidly from and into other techniques, many of them counterintuitive. So can you learn upright grappling from a kata? No, not really, but once you know some upright grappling the kata constantly provides a basis for inspiration of new applications for the grappling you know. And yes, on occasion you'll just find something you never learned. I learned a hammer lock from our first kata long before I knew what a hammer-lock was, just because the kata forced me to play around with a motion that naturally led to it.

So, can you, for example, learn ground fighting from kata? No. Definitely not. At least, not in any efficient way. However, if you know some ground fighting, can kata provide a basis for counterintuitive ways to utilize what you've learned? Absolutely.

People complain that that's not karate, it wasn't in the kata, you didn't learn it from the form, you just reapplied what you learned elsewhere. Yes. 100%. Absolutely. That's the whole point of kata. You could make the same objection to any takedown, arm bar, wrist lock, punch, elbow strike or kick commonly associated ith karate. We didn't learn it from the kata. We just found it there after we learned it.

We don't learn the applications of karate techniques from kata, the kata doesn't teach them to us. The Kata doesn't teach us anything, it gives us a new way to look at what we already know.

Kata is a Metaphor.

Or more precisely, a metaphor is the best metaphor for kata. Now stay with me, I know that sounds fishy and spiritual and wishy washy and silly. But it's true, in a way. A metaphor doesn't teach you anything, it doesn't hold great truths in it, and it relies on you already being familiar with what the metaphor is metaphor-izing. The metaphor makes you look at what you know in a new light.

Take this metaphor. "Authority is a chair, it needs legs to stand up."

If you don't know a fair amount about authority already, comparing it to a chair is meaningless. You'll learn nothing. If you know something of authority, and force yourself to consider how it is like a chair, and how a chair represents authority, then in the process of contorting your knowledge of authority to fit a chair, you may arrive at a variety of new conclusions on the subject.

Let's take that last paragraph and replace the word "authority" with "technique," and the word "chair" with "kata." (other slight alterations necessary for the English to make sense)

If you don't know a fair amount about technique already, comparing it to a kata is meaningless. You'll learn nothing. If you know something of technique, and force yourself to consider how it is like the motions of a kata, and how a kata represents technique, then in the process of contorting your knowledge of technique to fit a kata, you may arrive at a variety of new conclusions on the subject.


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## Touch Of Death (Nov 8, 2015)

Ok, upon reading the first part. Yes Kata does help you fight people in real life, if not just for the footwork alone. Secondly you can fight as many people as you want, in a Kata.


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## Kung Fu Wang (Nov 8, 2015)

I may have trained more forms (> 50) than most people in this forum. Here is my opinion about form.

I like to integrate kick, punch, lock, throw, and ground game. Unfortunately, there exist no form that can help me to do that. If I want to use kick to set up punch (such as groin kick followed by face punch), I can get that information from my forms. If I want to use punch to set up clinch (such as to use hook punch to set up under hook), Not much information can be obtained from my forms. The day that I started to created my own drills in order to achieve my goal, the day that I no longer train form.

Here is a self-created form just because such kind of form doesn't exist yet.


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## Bill Mattocks (Nov 9, 2015)

**** OPINION ****

Kata is karate, karate is kata.  Encoded within kata are all the techniques of a given system, and a nearly-infinite number of applications for those techniques.  This is often what is referred to when people talk about karate 'secrets'.  There are no secrets, but there is information that is locked inside the kata, waiting to be discovered, explored, and developed.  Like DNA; kata is the building block of all karate.

Kata can also be a form of meditation, or relaxation, or a loosening-up or warming-up exercise.

Kata can be done alone, at any time, and requires no equipment and little space.

Kata can be done in a group, and with a partner working the 'opposite side' of the kata in question, providing the cause or reason for the movements.

Kata is necessary to learn more than the surface techniques of karate.  Doing kata does not guarantee one will find a deeper understanding of karate, but not doing kata guarantees one will not.

Some complain that kata is unrealistic. _ "I will never go into a fight against an opponent who attacks in the way kata predicts."_  That is correct, you won't.  I will probably seldom find need to type "The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy yellow dog" (other than this example), but it's how I practiced learning to type on a typewriter.  I doubt many pianists play "Chopsticks" on record albums, but it seems many of them learn to play it.  The point is, kata teaches movement, balance, hard and soft techniques, transitions, rooting or grounding techniques, leverage and balance points, blocks, strikes, evasions, dumps, throws, trips, kicks, and so on.  It's all in there.  How you apply those techniques in 'real life' is up to you.  But kata helps cement those techniques in a usable format in your brain-body memory.

Some complain that they can't make the techniques inside a given kata work.  If that is the case, then either you are not learning it correctly or you are not being taught it correctly, or it has been so modified over time as to make it useless as a technique.  Kata techniques work or they are not valid techniques.  Do not be quick to judge them useless just because you cannot make them work, however.  Consider other alternatives.

The more I do kata, the more I see the techniques of the kata I do in every self-defense move I practice.  The more I do kata, the more I see the 'Codes of Karate' within them, clearly exemplified.  The more I do kata, the more my body 'knows' what to do when confronted with an attack I might not have seen before.

I know karateka who do not practice kata in their school or system, or who personally eschew kata.  I won't claim they are not good karateka; I'm sure many of them are.  I won't claim they are not able to defend themselves or they are not good fighters; I have no doubt many of them are.  It is entirely possible, I believe, to become a proficient karateka without kata; but proficiency alone is not what I seek, and kata offers more than mere proficiency (to me).

_"Do kata"_ has become my stock answer to everything.

_"I'm tired."  "Do kata."
"I'm sore."  "Do kata."
"I'm hung over."  "Do kata."
"I'm cold."  "Do kata."
"I don't feel like doing karate today."  "Do kata."
"I'm tired of doing kata."  "Do kata."_

I don't do enough kata.  I haven't even begun to scratch the surface of what I strongly believe kata will eventually give to me.  But I have seen enough to convince me that kata is the key to a deeper understanding of karate and a higher level of karate proficiency.

One thing I do not do, however, is argue about the efficacy, even the necessity of kata.  Those who disagree with me are free to do so.  I will not try to convince them otherwise; I know what I know and it's enough for me.  No one else is required to believe it.

**** END OF OPINION ****


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## Steve (Nov 9, 2015)

Since this is in the general MA section and not in Karate, I'm going to assume you are not specifically referencing kata and intend for this to be an open discussion about forms in general.

In BJJ, there are many solo and partner drills that are intended to be performed over and over, without resistance.  The goal is to get the body to learn the movement and to develop the strength necessary to execute the technique.  My impression is that forms in other styles fill this same role.

In partner drills, a lot of benefit comes from exploration of movement, such as what is described as bunkai.  Flow drills are great for this.  No real pressure, no strength, just good technique with a partner to flow and experiment with movement.  There is also a fun drill where you execute a technique and then stop, allow your partner to respond, back and forth until one person gets stuck.


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## Danny T (Nov 9, 2015)

**Question**
For those who do train Kata, Form, Technique Sets or whatever you call the sets of your systems movements; Is the practice of kata (the repeated performing of the movements as a session of training) what you mean by kata. Or, does it also encompass the drilling of specific movements for a specific application (or is this what is considered Bunkai)? Is Bunkai different from doing Kata? How much time do you feel is important to spend on practicing kata vs practicing specific drills to understand and have the ability to use the movements and positions for things like throwing, takedowns, armbreaks, chokes, joint locks, etc.?
Is practicing of such application drills all considered doing kata?

In the training I have had of Kata (shotokan), forms (wing chun & tai chi), technique sets (pekiti-tirsia), all have what I would call the practicing of the movements in specific set or series of moves. However, kata/forms are but a small part of the training. There are many drills to develop attributes, and many drills to understand timing, range, lines of force and vectors, pressure, and there are many drills to show the many moves, stances, footwork, postures, etc can be utilized for a multitude of different applications. A single movement from point A to point B can be, based upon the spacial relationship with the opponent and what is the point of contact along with different footwork can be completely different applications for the movements. Problems arise when one takes an attribute drill and line of force understanding drill and attempts to apply them in the same specific manner the drill is performed vs using the understand one gains from the drill and applying it appropriately. What is applicable and when is it applicable.

Just trying to understand what is meant by the term Kata.
Doing Kata
Practicing Kata
Drilling Kata
Understanding Kata
Studying Kata
Are they all the same to you?


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## Bill Mattocks (Nov 9, 2015)

Danny T said:


> **Question**
> For those who do train Kata, Form, Technique Sets or whatever you call the sets of your systems movements; Is the practice of kata (the repeated performing of the movements as a session of training) what you mean by kata. Or, does it also encompass the drilling of specific movements for a specific application (or is this what is considered Bunkai)?



In my style, kata is a set of defined movements.  We have 8 empty-handed kata.  We do not refer to specific exercises as kata, we call them basic exercises, one-point drills, etc, etc.  But they are not kata.



> Is Bunkai different from doing Kata? How much time do you feel is important to spend on practicing kata vs practicing specific drills to understand and have the ability to use the movements and positions for things like throwing, takedowns, armbreaks, chokes, joint locks, etc.?
> Is practicing of such application drills all considered doing kata?



Bunkai is not kata, and kata is not bunkai.  This is easily confused in my experience.  Bunkai is often referred to as 'application'.  There can be obvious bunkai and more subtle bunkai.  A given movement or sequence inside kata can have many, many, different applications available within it.  Practice in those movements is still bunkai, not kata.  One of the things I try to always keep in mind is that when doing kata, do kata.  Do not change the kata to demonstrate a particular application.

Those things are *in* the kata, but they are not kata.



> In the training I have had of Kata (shotokan), forms (wing chun & tai chi), technique sets (pekiti-tirsia), all have what I would call the practicing of the movements in specific set or series of moves. However, kata/forms are but a small part of the training. There are many drills to develop attributes, and many drills to understand timing, range, lines of force and vectors, pressure, and there are many drills to show the many moves, stances, footwork, postures, etc can be utilized for a multitude of different applications. A single movement from point A to point B can be, based upon the spacial relationship with the opponent and what is the point of contact along with different footwork can be completely different applications for the movements. Problems arise when one takes an attribute drill and line of force understanding drill and attempts to apply them in the same specific manner the drill is performed vs using the understand one gains from the drill and applying it appropriately. What is applicable and when is it applicable.



What you do sounds a lot like what we do.  We have lots of exercises, one-steps, self-defense techniques, etc, and in many cases, it is clear to us that the given sequence or movement is right out of X or Y kata.  Nothing wrong with that!  That doesn't mean we're doing kata when we perform those exercises, sequences, one-steps, etc.



> Just trying to understand what is meant by the term Kata.
> Doing Kata
> Practicing Kata
> Drilling Kata
> ...



To me, all are the same.  However, over time, deeper understanding may blossom.

Imagine something simple.  An open hand block to a punch.  At first, it is just that.  Open hand, block punch.
Then over time, it becomes a redirection if appropriate, and not a simple 'chop' style block.
Then one begins to notice that how one settles into the block/redirection affects the opponent's balance and one begins to think of ways to take advantage of that.
Then one begins to notice how the redirection can be combined with one's body movement to turn the open hand into a grasp, then a trap, then a throw, etc, etc.

Kata is kata.  One does the movements and imagines the opponent and the purpose of the movements.  Over time, one begins to see more purpose to the movements.  Working with partners, one explores those extrapolations and discovers what works, what does not, how best to apply, net effect, timing, follow up movements, and so on.

At the same time, kata teaches extreme basics, upon which everything else is based, even if bunkai is taken away.  Basic exercises, balance, movement, transitions, breathing, timing, speed, etc.  As one gains experience with kata, applications become more realistic as application.


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## pgsmith (Nov 9, 2015)

Here is my understanding of kata, based on my experiences ...

  Kata is a Japanese word and concept. The kanji for kata is 型  and it means pattern or model. The Japanese martial arts have been based on kata for centuries. The koryu  arts (classical schools started before the Meiji restoration in 1863) that began back in the 1600's in Japan still use many of the same kata today that were put down in scrolls that are (in some instances) still preserved from that time. In contrast to how they are used in many American schools, the purpose of kata within the Japanese arts is to ingrain muscle memory, and teach the body a particular way of movement through repetition. The majority of kata in the Japanese koryu involve two people, although there are still a number of them that are done solo. kata are fluid and not fixed. I have found that they will change based on what the head of the school decides that people need to improve. Movements and objectives within the kata will change, subtly changing the movements that are being ingrained in the body.

  In the Meishi branch of Mugai ryu that I practice, there are 23 solo forms and 27 paired forms, until you get into the upper levels when additional kata to teach advanced concepts are introduced. Some schools rely on only a few, others have hundreds.


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## Bill Mattocks (Nov 9, 2015)

pgsmith said:


> ... *kata are fluid and not fixed*. I have found that they will change based on what the head of the school decides that people need to improve. Movements and objectives within the kata will change, subtly changing the movements that are being ingrained in the body.


For us, at least (Okinawan basis, not Japanese), the kata do not change, there is no one authorized to change them.  That is not to say that different schools do not do them differently - that often happens.  But a student in a given school, for example, should not 'change' the kata taught to him or her by their sensei.  In fact, 'drift' is one of the things we try not to let happen; sometimes unsuccessfully.

We are fortunate, however, that we have a short lineage line from our founder.  In my case, I am third-generation, and my sensei's sensei, who is a 1st generation student of the founder, is still living and teaching.  It is relatively easy for us to find out the 'correct' method for our particular style if questions arise.


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## Bill Mattocks (Nov 9, 2015)

Let me offer an example of the kinds of misunderstanding that often exist around kata.

In my style, we have a kata called 'Seisan'.  Other styles of karate have the same or a similar kata.  In our style, at one point, the karateka executes a shuffle-step and then a double-overhead block.

Many karateka ask what the purpose of the double-overhead block is.  And they are often told what is the standard bunkai or application; it is a defense against a double-overhead chop.

Who is going to attack me on the street with a double-overhead chop?  No one, that's who.

I believe that it is just such things that lead instructors to change kata, and students to proclaim that kata is useless.  They are mistaken, but I understand why they make the error in the first place if that's all they think that particular move is good for.

Yes, the double-overhead block can be a defense against a double-overhead chop - if anyone ever attacks me that way, I'm ready!  But in seriousness, it is so much more than JUST that.  I won't go into all the applications, but many of them should not be too hard to imagine.  A person who executes the technique properly should be able to use it - without modification - to defend against many different types of attack.  One really only has to use one's imagination.  

And the point of the kata is to train the body to perform the movement smoothly, from a stable base, with power, speed, and balance.  So how the technique is applied is far less important than that the body can do it and the brain can recognize when to do it.

We train our bodies to move, we train our brains to coordinate that movement and apply it accordance with time and opportunity.  Kata develops both, but understanding may take far longer than simply learning to mimic the movements.


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## Tony Dismukes (Nov 9, 2015)

None of my primary arts involve kata (unless you count the partner drills that Steve mentioned). However I thought I'd share something that occurred to me a while back while learning the Nage No Kata from Judo.

In the Nage No Kata, uke is required to feed a very specific sort of energy feeding in to being thrown in a way that feels sort of unnatural. It's not quite throwing yourself, but it's just about a step away from that. It's certainly not the way a skilled grappler would normally react in a fight.

I was puzzling over this for a while and finally decided that may be a tool for practitioners to feel the ideal form of a throw in a consistent manner. The perfect throw is always the one where you manage to catch your opponent's energy and it feels completely effortless, like your opponent is throwing himself and you're just helping to steer a little bit. Unfortunately, it's really hard to do that consistently against a competent, resisting opponent with a good base. In the short term, you're likely to spend a lot more time in randori having to force the action more than you would in the ideal throw. Perhaps the kata is just a way of reminding us - "this is how things should feel when everything goes just right."


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## lklawson (Nov 9, 2015)

Tony Dismukes said:


> None of my primary arts involve kata (unless you count the partner drills that Steve mentioned). However I thought I'd share something that occurred to me a while back while learning the Nage No Kata from Judo.
> 
> In the Nage No Kata, uke is required to feed a very specific sort of energy feeding in to being thrown in a way that feels sort of unnatural. It's not quite throwing yourself, but it's just about a step away from that. It's certainly not the way a skilled grappler would normally react in a fight.
> 
> I was puzzling over this for a while and finally decided that may be a tool for practitioners to feel the ideal form of a throw in a consistent manner. The perfect throw is always the one where you manage to catch your opponent's energy and it feels completely effortless, like your opponent is throwing himself and you're just helping to steer a little bit. Unfortunately, it's really hard to do that consistently against a competent, resisting opponent with a good base. In the short term, you're likely to spend a lot more time in randori having to force the action more than you would in the ideal throw. Perhaps the kata is just a way of reminding us - "this is how things should feel when everything goes just right."


Depends on which Judoka you ask.  There isn't always a consensus on this subject.  However, what you describe is indeed one of the leading theories on the purpose of Nage no Kata.  I know that I definitely gained an insight into uchimata from nage no kata regarding timing, movement, and use.

Peace favor your sword,
Kirk


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## Buka (Nov 9, 2015)

Kung Fu Wang said:


> I may have trained more forms (> 50) than most people in this forum. Here is my opinion about form.
> 
> I like to integrate kick, punch, lock, throw, and ground game. Unfortunately, there exist no form that can help me to do that. If I want to use kick to set up punch (such as groin kick followed by face punch), I can get that information from my forms. If I want to use punch to set up clinch (such as to use hook punch to set up under hook), Not much information can be obtained from my forms. The day that I started to created my own drills in order to achieve my goal, the day that I no longer train form.
> 
> Here is a self-created form just because such kind of form doesn't exist yet.



Superimposing the second video onto the first - awesome. I wish every Kata in every style was available to us in that video format. That's just so cool.


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## pgsmith (Nov 9, 2015)

Bill Mattocks said:


> For us, at least (Okinawan basis, not Japanese), the kata do not change, there is no one authorized to change them.  That is not to say that different schools do not do them differently - that often happens.  But a student in a given school, for example, should not 'change' the kata taught to him or her by their sensei.  In fact, 'drift' is one of the things we try not to let happen; sometimes unsuccessfully.



Slight misunderstanding. Neither the students nor the instructors can change the kata. Any changes come from Niina Gosoke, who is head of our branch of Mugai ryu in Tokyo. Drift does happen on occasion, but Niina Gosoke visits the US once a year, and he'll let you know in no uncertain terms if you've drifted on anything.


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## Kung Fu Wang (Nov 9, 2015)

pgsmith said:


> Neither the students nor the instructors can change the kata.



Forget about the forms in your system. How about create your own forms? This way you can create it to fit your own training need.

If you are a beginner and you say you are not ready to do it yet, how about 20 years from today? How about 40 years from today?


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## pgsmith (Nov 9, 2015)

Kung Fu Wang said:


> Forget about the forms in your system. How about create your own forms? This way you can create it to fit your own training need.
> 
> If you are a beginner and you say you are not ready to do it yet, how about 20 years from today? How about 40 years from today?


  If I ever get to the point that I am named successor to be head of our school, then I would have the authority to change the kata. Until that time, if I create my own kata then I am practicing something other than Meishi-ha Mugai ryu. I have no desire to try and create my own art when there are plenty of existing arts being taught by those with much more experience than I possess. This will still be true 20 years from today, and I doubt I'll be around 40 years from now.


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## Bill Mattocks (Nov 9, 2015)

Kung Fu Wang said:


> Forget about the forms in your system. How about create your own forms? This way you can create it to fit your own training need.
> 
> If you are a beginner and you say you are not ready to do it yet, how about 20 years from today? How about 40 years from today?



For me, kata is about a lot more than training needs. I see no reason to ever create my own forms; there is more than enough to keep me busy all the days of my life.


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## Kung Fu Wang (Nov 9, 2015)

If form is like book then someone has to write that book.


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## JowGaWolf (Nov 10, 2015)

This is what forms are to me.
1. Reference library of kung fu techniques that teach students how to do the movements of a technique
2. Exercise and conditioning training required to do kung fu.  Jow Ga forms build muscle, improve reflex and coordination, improves agility, serves as a cardio vascular workout, trains memory, presents fight scenarios 1vs multiple opponents, and increases focus
3.Serves as a reference for realistic fighting combinations that can be used in real fights. Certain parts of the forms are actually combos while the rest is just techniques not meant to be used as a combo in a fight.
4. Provides am easy way to pass the knowledge to future students.
5. Forms are the "shadow boxing" of kung fu
6. Forms allow me to create custom fighting sets that are specific to the type of fighting system I'm fighting against.  This is only done by Sifus who have a deeper understanding of forms, the functions, and applications that they serve.

To me forms are a critical part to learning and understanding kung fu. This is only in reference to Jow Ga kung fuL a person can't learn Jow Ga without learning the forms.  Forms give meaning, purpose, and understanding.  Without the forms a person is just kicking or punching without direction.


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## Kung Fu Wang (Nov 10, 2015)

If you have learned

- jab, cross, hook, uppercut combo from boxing,
- hook kick from TKD,
- flying knee from MT,
- single leg from wrestling, and
- hip throw from Judo,

will you add those moves into your forms even if those moves may not exist in your system?


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## Koshiki (Nov 10, 2015)

Kung Fu Wang said:


> How about create your own forms? This way you can create it to fit your own training need.
> 
> If you are a beginner and you say you are not ready to do it yet, how about 20 years from today? How about 40 years from today?



Kata is not a magical solution. Kata is not a definitive solution. Kata is not perfect. Kata is in all cases a training tool, however deep or profound the inspiration derived from it.

So I agree; why not? 



Kung Fu Wang said:


> If form is like book then someone has to write that book.



Exactly. Itosu took Channan and made it into something for young children. He asked Matsumura for more kata, and got another form, even simpler, again for young children. then he took Kusanku and made two more forms for children in school to get some exercise. Finally, he took a really old form (dare I say ancient?), Passai, and twisted it around willy nilly to form yet another exercise for schoolchildren to practice harmlessly in the schoolyard.

He did this over a short period of time, employing no miraculous understanding or deep wisdom. He, bowing to the hierarchic social pressures lingering from feudal Japan, consulted previous, established, respected forms to produce a kata suitable for children, derived from Okinawan martial arts, and without offending procedure and limitations on personal extrapolation in the contemporary culture.

Today many of us view these forms, the Piñon/Pinan/Heian as irrefutable dictations of the purest martial arts.

Or perhaps they were a creative invention to get school children in shape, many of whom, according to the Japanese military of the day, were scrawny and less physical than desired for purposes of combat. Depressing though that is, that is part of the history of the Sino-Japanese and by extension Korean/European American practice. The idea that new kata/forms//hyung should not be created is, well, not very traditional, by any historical view.



Bill Mattocks said:


> For us, at least (Okinawan basis, not Japanese), the kata do not change, there is no one authorized to change them.



True. My school teaches, basically, eleven forms. If you can find a functional form of movement not represented in those eleven forms, if you can find a sequence of functional technique which is not somewhere applicable, then by all means, create new forms. However, the _need_ to do so, I feel, is highly limited.

As an aside, Bill Mattocks, I am more and more over the past couple weeks, short a span thought that is, begining to see why so many martial artists on this forum were excited by your return. You may only have a few years of training, but let us again remember the differnces between years training, capability gained, and understanding developed. I'm glad you're back.



Tony Dismukes said:


> None of my primary arts involve kata...
> 
> Perhaps the kata is just a way of reminding us - "this is how things should feel when everything goes just right."


Huh. Why is it that the guy who doesn't do forms has, to me, one of the best explanations, on a surface level, of forms?

I guess you always have a more objective view from the neighboring town...


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## JowGaWolf (Nov 10, 2015)

Kung Fu Wang said:


> If you have learned
> 
> - jab, cross, hook, uppercut combo from boxing,
> - hook kick from TKD,
> ...


Depends on how the fighting system draws it's power for attacks and how closely related the fighting systems are. What I've learned with Jow Ga is that boxing and TKD are not a good blend for Jow Ga kung fu.  The knee form MT would fit well because Jow Ga has similar attacks with the knees, a single leg from wrestling would go against the teachings of Jow Ga concepts, the judo throw would work.

The problem with the boxing is that Jow Ga draws it's power from the waist and not from the pivot of the hip like in boxing. If I throw a boxing punch then I wouldn't be in a good position to follow up with a Jow Ga punch.  Doing a boxing punch would make my Jow Ga weak. Doing a Jow Ga punch would make my boxing weak so the techniques won't be able to flow from one fighting system to another. Jow Ga is actually made from the combinations of 3 other fighting systems, but the techniques flow which means I can flow from one fighting system to another without destroying the effectiveness.


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## lklawson (Nov 10, 2015)

So the Takeaway from this thread is this: Kata is what a person needs it to be.  If they need it to be a "library" of techniques, then, to them, it is.  If they need it to be a flow-drill, then, to them, it is.  If they need it to be cardio, or to contain deep meaning, or "hidden" techniques, then, to them, it is.  If a person doesn't feel the need for Kata the, to them, it has little value.

In other words, the meaning of Kata is 42.

Now that we have that deep mystery of life cleared up, can we move on to trying to figure out women?

Peace favor your sword,
Kirk


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## Tez3 (Nov 10, 2015)

lklawson said:


> Now that we have that deep mystery of life cleared up, can we move on to trying to figure out women?



If women came with instructions it still wouldn't do any good because we all know men don't read instructions!


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## lklawson (Nov 10, 2015)

Tez3 said:


> If women came with instructions it still wouldn't do any good because we all know men don't read instructions!


I considered asking for directions to where the instruction manual is but, well... you know...

Peace favor your sword,
Kirk


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## Bill Mattocks (Nov 10, 2015)

Kung Fu Wang said:


> If you have learned
> 
> - jab, cross, hook, uppercut combo from boxing,
> - hook kick from TKD,
> ...



No, I would not.  The system is not mine to modify.  Also, everything I need is in the kata, it is a complete system.  It has most of the things you mention above already, I won't discuss which ones, but they are in there.


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## JowGaWolf (Nov 10, 2015)

Woman are easy to figure out.  Woman help men to become more peaceful. After dealing with a woman for a long time, man will naturally start to value things like peace, silence, and simplicity.


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## JowGaWolf (Nov 10, 2015)

Kung Fu Wang said:


> If you have learned
> 
> - jab, cross, hook, uppercut combo from boxing,
> - hook kick from TKD,
> ...


just to give an example of this many hard styles also practice tai chi or some other internal martial art to balance out the hard style. They learn another system to benefit and enhance the main fighting system.


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## Tez3 (Nov 10, 2015)

To be honest I'd rather explain women to you lot than have to go through posting about kata again. I'm tired of the constant arguments about kata, how it's useless, how it's just for people who can't fight etc etc. I applaud the OP and his wish for meaningful discussion but really I've had a bellyful of kata discussions on here, it's not so much the people who value kata for whatever reason but those that don't do kata/forms/patterns at all thinking it's fine to ridicule something they know nothing about. I don't feel qualified at all to make up my own kata nor do I see the point. Everything I want to say about kata has been pointed our and said by the person I learnt Bunkai from, Iain Abernethy. I wish the thread well though and hope it stays on track.


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## Dirty Dog (Nov 10, 2015)

Tez3 said:


> If women came with instructions it still wouldn't do any good because we all know men don't read instructions!









And there we have the fundamental issue.


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## Tony Dismukes (Nov 10, 2015)

Tez3 said:


> To be honest I'd rather explain women to you lot than have to go through posting about kata again. I'm tired of the constant arguments about kata, how it's useless, how it's just for people who can't fight etc etc. I applaud the OP and his wish for meaningful discussion but really I've had a bellyful of kata discussions on here, it's not so much the people who value kata for whatever reason but those that don't do kata/forms/patterns at all thinking it's fine to ridicule something they know nothing about. I don't feel qualified at all to make up my own kata nor do I see the point. Everything I want to say about kata has been pointed our and said by the person I learnt Bunkai from, Iain Abernethy. I wish the thread well though and hope it stays on track.


Hey, it's been two pages and the thread is still on track with no derails from kata haters. Keep your fingers crossed.


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## Bill Mattocks (Nov 10, 2015)

Zack Cart said:


> Kata is not a magical solution. Kata is not a definitive solution. Kata is not perfect. Kata is in all cases a training tool, however deep or profound the inspiration derived from it.
> 
> So I agree; why not?



Speaking only for myself, three reasons.

1) As previously stated, I haven't the authority to change anything about the system I practice - and I never will have.
2) I do not understand the kata I practice well enough to presume that it a) doesn't have all the answers and b) that I am capable of extending it in any meaningful way.
3) I see no reason/desire/need to do so.



> Exactly. Itosu took Channan and made it into something for young children. He asked Matsumura for more kata, and got another form, even simpler, again for young children. then he took Kusanku and made two more forms for children in school to get some exercise. Finally, he took a really old form (dare I say ancient?), Passai, and twisted it around willy nilly to form yet another exercise for schoolchildren to practice harmlessly in the schoolyard.



I am not Itosu.



> He did this over a short period of time, employing no miraculous understanding or deep wisdom. He, bowing to the hierarchic social pressures lingering from feudal Japan, consulted previous, established, respected forms to produce a kata suitable for children, derived from Okinawan martial arts, and without offending procedure and limitations on personal extrapolation in the contemporary culture.



As far as you know, "employing no miraculous understanding or deep wisdom."  I suspect that many people believe Itosu was quite wise indeed.  Just because we do not perceive a deeper meaning, that does not mean it is not there.  I am not claiming it is or is not, just that I do not presume to know.



> Today many of us view these forms, the Piñon/Pinan/Heian as irrefutable dictations of the purest martial arts.



I could not say, those are not kata I practice.



> Or perhaps they were a creative invention to get school children in shape, many of whom, according to the Japanese military of the day, were scrawny and less physical than desired for purposes of combat. Depressing though that is, that is part of the history of the Sino-Japanese and by extension Korean/European American practice. The idea that new kata/forms//hyung should not be created is, well, not very traditional, by any historical view.



Were I to presume that I was ready and desirous of creating a new system, I would also feel myself empowered to create any kata I wished, or to modify existing kata to fit the style I designed.  However, that is not who I am, or what I feel I will ever become.  I am a student of an existing style, one which I deeply believe is in need of no modification.



> True. My school teaches, basically, eleven forms. If you can find a functional form of movement not represented in those eleven forms, if you can find a sequence of functional technique which is not somewhere applicable, then by all means, create new forms. However, the _need_ to do so, I feel, is highly limited.



This is where I still seem to be miscommunicating with everyone in this thread.  To me, whether or not a given kick, block, jump, throw, gouge, etc, is explicitly seen in a particular kata is of little to no consequence.  It just doesn't matter if the system is encoded in the kata, which I believe mine is.

"But your X kata doesn't have Y application in it?"  "Oh, doesn't it?  Are you sure?"  Speaking only for myself, I have yet to be able to answer affirmatively to that question.



> As an aside, Bill Mattocks, I am more and more over the past couple weeks, short a span thought that is, begining to see why so many martial artists on this forum were excited by your return. You may only have a few years of training, but let us again remember the differnces between years training, capability gained, and understanding developed. I'm glad you're back.



Thank you for the kind words.  I am merely a beat-up old Jarhead (240 years old today, you know) who knows little but says much.  The opposite of wisdom, but I talk a good game.



> Huh. Why is it that the guy who doesn't do forms has, to me, one of the best explanations, on a surface level, of forms?
> 
> I guess you always have a more objective view from the neighboring town...



When I started training, as the Zen saying goes, the mountain was a mountain, the river was a river...

You are familiar, I'm sure, with the story of the Blind Men and the Elephant.

Blind men and an elephant - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

I claim no Satori, no awakening, no deep understanding of kata.  When I started doing kata, it was a set of exercises, patterns, that helped me to practice and memorize a set of specific movements.  I began to learn the basics of breathing and balance.  Over time, continued practice became a vehicle through which I could explore the possibilities of the movements as the related to time and opportunity to strike and defend, act and react.  Continued practice began to provide me with what I believe to be a deeper understanding of rhythm and timing.  Transitions and stances began to become more visible and important to me.  Then I began to feel as if doing kata was a moving meditation, and finally (most recently), I began to see, though yet dimly-lit and far away, a notion that kata is not only the key to karate, but that it forms an essential part of the 'do' that forms the path I seek to be part of.

I don't know a lot.  But I do believe I know that a bunch of exercises, it ain't.  It's as if someone complained that a song didn't have all the possible notes in it.  First, so what, and second, are you really sure?  Change the song?  Brother, it's not my song.  Maybe someday I'll write my own song, but I doubt it.  The song I'm trying to sing is going to take up all the time I have left on this earth and then some to learn to sing correctly.


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## Kung Fu Wang (Nov 10, 2015)

Bill Mattocks said:


> everything I need is in the kata, it is a complete system.


I started my 1st sparring in very early training stage. In those sparring, one person played offense while another person played defense. The person who played defense could only block, dodge, he could not punch back. I learned my "head dodging" through that kind of sparring training. When I started to learn forms, I paid very close attention on "head dodging". I could not find any "head dodging" in those 50 forms that I have learned.






For example, here is one form that I have learned.

- Should "head dodging" be in the form? I think it should.
- Why it's not in the form? I truly don't know.
- Should someone adds it into the form? I think someone should.


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## Tez3 (Nov 10, 2015)

Kung Fu Wang said:


> Should "head dodging" be in the form? I think it should.



I think that comes under the heading of 'use your common sense' rather than kata. Whatever else kata is for it isn't to teach you common sense when sparring, usually someone shouts 'duck stupid' and that does the trick.


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## Bill Mattocks (Nov 10, 2015)

Kung Fu Wang said:


> I started my 1st sparring in very early training stage. In those sparring, one person played offense while another person played defense. The person who played defense could only block, dodge, he could not punch back. I learned my "head dodging" through that kind of sparring training. When I started to learn forms, I paid very close attention on "head dodging". I could not find any "head dodging" in those 50 forms that I have learned.
> 
> For example, here is one form that I have learned.



I cannot speak for anyone else.  For the sake of discussion I will answer the questions you pose as if they were directed at me instead of you.



> - Should "head dodging" be in the form? I think it should.



I think I am not qualified to decide what belongs in my katas and what doesn't.



> - Why it's not in the form? I truly don't know.



I don't presume to know that something is not in my kata, just because **I** cannot find it.



> - Should someone adds it into the form? I think someone should.



I don't find anything missing from any of my katas that I feel someone should add to them.  If I cannot find them, it could be that I am not yet capable of seeing them, or of using them even if someone else showed them to me.  Just because I cannot see something in the kata, that doesn't mean it isn't there.

I see a lot of _"I think the system needs X"_ and _"the system is missing Y."_  I don't know you or your system, maybe you're right.  I don't know my system as well as I'd like to, but I do know that *I am far from qualified* to decide what's missing in the system I study and what it needs or does not need.  I guess that's the difference here.


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## tshadowchaser (Nov 10, 2015)

I never asked to change anything in any forms  but speaking as some one who was given permission (by the late Grand-master and his top student) to make changes in a couple forms within the system I had studied for many years I will only say that I changed a couple moves because of the possibility of the original move possibly causing more harm than good to myself.  BTW: both approved of the changes and said they worked well within the form and that I could pass the form on with the changes

As  for the Okinawan and Chinese forms in the system I was told never to change them but to instruct them as I had been instructed and to gain insight into what the moves and flow of the forms where.

As  for new forms made up by myself, I was told I could do this (in my old system) when I had mastered all of the forms within the system. (Like that was ever going to happen) 

before anyone asks I never questioned why I was told to make changes but have always thought it might have been some type of test of my knowledge of the fighting techniques of the system and my insight into the philosophy of the system


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## Bill Mattocks (Nov 10, 2015)

I found this instructive:

4 karate masters from Japan hold New Paltz seminar

_"Teaching karate to Americans is very different from teaching Okinawans, said Choko, who's a retired junior high school principal."

''"*Americans question everything and always want to know why they're doing something, while Okinawans just do it*. But Americans are open-minded and fun to teach," he added.''_
_
_


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## tshadowchaser (Nov 10, 2015)

As to how I explain forms:
they are a learning block constituting of proper stance, hand and foot techniques, balance, and the execution of technique .  I have beginners do look, cover, step (correct stance please) the block or punch,kick,etc.
for those that have been with me longer step to "x" face "x or y" execute Z


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## JowGaWolf (Nov 10, 2015)

Kung Fu Wang said:


> I started my 1st sparring in very early training stage. In those sparring, one person played offense while another person played defense. The person who played defense could only block, dodge, he could not punch back. I learned my "head dodging" through that kind of sparring training. When I started to learn forms, I paid very close attention on "head dodging". I could not find any "head dodging" in those 50 forms that I have learned.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


The form isn't going to include everything little thing about fighting like moving your head to avoid a punch.  Things like this will be naturally be worked in the form as you try to avoid being hit in the face.  This is where the student changes from knowing how to do a form and actually understanding the form. The way that boxers dodge punches are not the same way CMAs should dodge. You have to keep in mind that boxers dodge and duck punching with the knowledge that they aren't going to get kicked or kneed in the face.  CMA head dodges take into consideration that someone may kick you in the face while you are trying to duck or someone may sweep you while you are trying to dodge.

Based on what I see in the form it doesn't look like it would be necessary to add head dodging. I see a lot of clearing with one hand before attacking which makes moving the head like boxers unnecessary.  There are also a lot of redirecting of punches which again would make it necessary to anything else..  All CMAs have a parry-punch where the one hand parries the attack and the head moves to the side for safe measure. For something like that there's no need to add it to the form.  Those are things that a person will pick up as they spar.


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## Kung Fu Wang (Nov 10, 2015)

Let's look at how some traditional form was modified. The following Lien Bu Chuan was used as the basic training form for the *Central Guoshu Institute* 中央国术馆 in China back in 1928.

This is the original form. Please notice that at 0.35 and 0.36, there are 2 "double palms strike" back to back. When this form was passed down to the Chin Woo system, it was kept as the original form. Nothing was changed.






This is the form that was modified by my teacher's tacher GM Han Ching-Tan. Please notice that at 0.30, the 2nd "double palms strike" has been changed into a back reverse punch. The reason that GM Han did that was because he believed the "back reverse punch" should be part of the beginner level training. Since Lien Bu Chuan was supposed to be a southern CMA for, if it is used as the basic training form for northern CMA system, the "back reverse punch" is a must.

Here is my question is, "If your teacher's teacher was allowed to change the form, why can't you?" Will you be someone's teacher's teacher one day?


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## JowGaWolf (Nov 10, 2015)

Kung Fu Wang said:


> Let's look at how some traditional form was modified. The following Lien Bu Chuan was used as the basic training form for the *Central Guoshu Institute* 中央国术馆 in China back in 1928.
> 
> This is the original form. Please notice that at 0.35 and 0.36, there are 2 "double palms strike" back to back. When this form was passed down to the Chin Woo system, it was kept as the original form. Nothing was changed.
> 
> ...


I'll provide an example of why only the teacher or someone who has a deep understanding of the forms should change the forms.  The Double spear hand strike downward 0:17 is actually part of a technique that is used to prevent a takedown but it's not complete.  It's actually missing the piece that deals with the takedown.   Assuming that the student didn't forget the beginning of the form.  My only assumption is that someone changed the form and cut the original form off at the wrong place.  Instead of making changes before or after a complete technique someone chopped the technique in half, resulting in a useless and incomplete technique being in the form.  Had the Sifu (I'm assuming the person who made the form is a Sifu) had more understanding about the techniques in the original form then he wouldn't have cut the technique in half.




There is also another possibility that the student is doing the form wrong because there is another similar technique that doesn't use the spear hand. 
If that's the case then it's an advanced technique thrown in the beginners form.  Sei Ping is usually the beginner's form for many schools.  But they don't look like the Sei Ping in the video.  This video looks like someone took the Jow Ga forms Small Tiger, Flower Fist, Sei Ping, and 3 other advanced forms to make this one.  Basically they butchered the forms. There are advance techniques in there that are way beyond him some are beyond me.

Changing and removing a form before understanding all that is in it, may make things worse and not better. 

I believe this is a rip off of various forms including Jow Ga Sei Ping.  I think he had the same assumption that he could make his own forms.  It didn't make it better it made it worse.


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## Kung Fu Wang (Nov 10, 2015)

What if a move in your form doesn't make any sense? In the following clip, both of his palms are facing down while his arms are moving side way. No matter how hard that I may try, I can't figure out any meaningful application for it.






In the following clip, it's quite clear that he is using both hands to pull his opponent's arm. So if your teacher taught you the above way while someone told you the following way, will you change that move in your form?

I have addressed this issue to a Taiji instructor many years ago. After that guy's Taiji teacher passed away, he finally made his change.


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## JowGaWolf (Nov 10, 2015)

Kung Fu Wang said:


> What if a move in your form doesn't make any sense? In the following clip, both of his palms are facing down while his arms are moving side way. No matter how hard that I may try, I can't figure out any meaningful application for it.


 The only thing I do know is that motion in the Tai Chi I practice is a throw.  The same movement may have multiple applications, and the throw is the only one I know for that one. Think of it as a redirecting throw and not a pick up throw.

I'm not sure myself.  It may be an application where someone grabs both of his arms and he pulls that way to make it harder for the person holding on his arms to resist. In the video below it looks like that is what is happening because after that move there is an elbow to the body. see 2:01.  My guess is that the motion pulls the person into you and you snap back with an elbow. I'm thinking when you pull with a rotation like that it may encourage the person to let go and to grab your body, and while in the process of trying to grab the body they are being struck with an elbow.  If I pushed someone away, they grab my arms to prevent going backwards so I pull them in and strike them with an elbow.  Give it a try and see if it works.


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## Buka (Nov 11, 2015)

This is a pretty cool thread.


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## Human Makiwara (Nov 11, 2015)

Kata shows you the hill, Bunkai is the climb to the top. All the techniques are in kata but until you apply them you will never fully understand what they do or why. Once you start to apply you will find that there are MANY different applications for a single technique. It's now up to you, your instructor and your partners to "make it real" or just walk around kicking and punching 50 invisible men.


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## Tez3 (Nov 11, 2015)

Buka said:


> This is a pretty cool thread.




Drifting a bit though.


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## tshadowchaser (Nov 11, 2015)

JowGaWolf said:


> I'll provide an example of why only the teacher or someone who has a deep understanding of the forms should change the forms. The Double spear hand strike downward 0:17 is actually part of a technique that is used to prevent a takedown but it's not complete. It's actually missing the piece that deals with the takedown. Assuming that the student didn't forget the beginning of the form. My only assumption is that someone changed the form and cut the original form off at the wrong place. Instead of making changes before or after a complete technique someone chopped the technique in half, resulting in a useless and incomplete technique being in the form



I can see two reasons for the partial move.  
1. this could be why some claim there are hidden techniques.  The move is only half there and without understanding of the whole move  a person dose know it's true meaning  thus only those that have been taught at a certain level may understand the move
2. some forms are changed slightly when shown to "outsiders' so that if they are copied they are done incorrectly


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## Buka (Nov 11, 2015)

Tez3 said:


> Drifting a bit though.



Yes, maybe it's drifting. But the thread title speaks to me, personally, because I do not do forms.

I'm friends with some high ranking folks in various Traditional Martial Arts. We were all pups together.
I paraphrase, but this is what they always say to me about Kata. "A style/system that has Kata - Kata has to be trained all the time, constantly."  And I know they are correct. (I mean, duh)
When I ask them about a style, like mine, that doesn't include kata, they always say, "If a style doesn't have Kata then it would be pretty damn silly to practice Kata, wouldn't it?"

I used to be a judge of Kata at tournaments throughout the ninteen-eighties. Always in the Black belt division. (I wouldn't do white belt division because after an hour you want to scoop your eyes out with a spoon.)
I know, sounds odd that a guy like me who doesn't train Kata would be judging it, go figure. I was asked becasue I was an honest ref and judge - and knew all the katas. I was first talked into it by Lou Lizzote, an Isshinryu instructor at a tournament in Conneticut. (I learned a lot from Lou.) I enjoyed it more than reffing kumite because you were sitting in a chair as opposed to standing up. I'd be competing later and didn't want to be standing for three hours. I stopped judging Kata when they first introduced "musical forms". To this day all I can say about that is, WTF?

I'll tell you one thing, when I'm visiting the schools of friends and first see a student doing Kata, you can see the look on their face of trying to remember the moves. Time goes by and that look is gone, replaced with a focus. More time goes by and the kata doesn't even look the same anymore, the movements are as smooth as silk, the power feels like it's trying to bust out of the person's body. To me, it's when you can really see the beauty and function of what kata is. I mean, go watch a new student doing Sanchin. Then watch Sanchin done by someone who's been doing it for thirty years. 

In high school I did a book report on George Mattson's book, The Way of Karate. Got an A on it. And it was a year before I actually started training. My final exam in English as a fresman in college was to write three seperate papers with related themes. I did the first on Sanchin, the second on The Difference between Tae-Kwon-Do and Kung-Fu Forms and the third on Common Injuries in Karate Sparring. Got an A on that, too. Not because the papers were necessarily any good. But the Professor had no experience in Martial Arts. 

Again, I don't really do forms. But I know a little about them. And I like them.


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## Tez3 (Nov 11, 2015)

I've judged kata competitions too but that's just the surface of kata, just going through the motions to see who can 'perform' better, the trick though to kata is the Bunkai, that's the meat. To a great extent it doesn't matter how crisp the techniques look when practising, how loud the kiai, how focussed the performer looks, the crunch is knowing what it is for. It's no good looking smart/powerful etc doing a kata for the past thirty years if you have no idea how to use it.


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## Buka (Nov 11, 2015)

Tez3 said:


> I've judged kata competitions too but that's just the surface of kata, just going through the motions to see who can 'perform' better, the trick though to kata is the Bunkai, that's the meat. To a great extent it doesn't matter how crisp the techniques look when practising, how loud the kiai, how focussed the performer looks, the crunch is knowing what it is for. It's no good looking smart/powerful etc doing a kata for the past thirty years if you have no idea how to use it.



I agree, Tez. But let me ask you this,(or anyone else) do you think there's many folks doing Kata for thirty years that have no idea how to use it? That's kind of scary to think.


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## geezer (Nov 11, 2015)

tshadowchaser said:


> I can see two reasons for the partial move.
> 1. this could be why some claim there are hidden techniques.  The move is only half there and without understanding of the whole move  a person dose know it's true meaning  thus only those that have been taught at a certain level may understand the move
> 2. some forms are changed slightly when shown to "outsiders' so that if they are copied they are done incorrectly



I personally have experienced both situations 1 and 2 above. _Re number I_ my old Chinese Sifu pointed out numerous instances where the diverse applications of energy, movement or structures found in the WC forms went far beyond what you could superficially see in the forms, although once explained and mastered, you could easily _feel_ these potential applications.

_Re number 2,_ I can say that in all my old Chinese Sifu's published books, videos, etc. he always left out or changed bits of the forms. Sometimes he would note this fact, claiming that he had promised his last instructor(Yip Man) not to show certain parts indiscriminately to the public. Other times, the altered version was simply presented with no comment. I remember asking him about this, wondering if it was good for the lineage to be putting misinformation out there to be copied and, potentially, to diminish the reputation or our system. He responded, like a few other older generation Chinese instructors I've met, saying that he didn't care what those "outside door" thought, since they knew nothing anyway! OK, that's nicer than what he actually said, but you get the point.


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## Koshiki (Nov 11, 2015)

Buka said:


> I agree, Tez. But let me ask you this,(or anyone else) do you think there's many folks doing Kata for thirty years that have no idea how to use it? That's kind of scary to think.



Yes and no. I think there are people who have used Kata for thirty years and don't know how to use it for effective, realistic training for real world fighting. I find it unlikely that there are people who have been training kata for thirty years who don't know how to use it for _anything.
_
I mean, depending on the style and the school, it's great, healthy exercise utilizing natural movement patterns. Exercise is a valid use for kata. Kata is also a beautiful piece of tradition and culture. Cultural immersion and preservation is a valid use for kata. For some people, kata is mainly a meditative form of self-cultivation. That's a use.

I think there may be a fair amount of people with decades of training who never learned to use kata for combat because they don't really care, but I would guess they all have found _some_ use for kata, otherwise, why keep training it?



Bill Mattocks said:


> As far as you know, "employing no miraculous understanding or deep wisdom."  I suspect that many people believe Itosu was quite wise indeed.  Just because we do not perceive a deeper meaning, that does not mean it is not there.  I am not claiming it is or is not, just that I do not presume to know.



Looking back, my writing was imprecise. Ok, my writing was bad. I didn't mean so much that Itosu wasn't a fantastic martial artist with a deep understanding, I meant that the pinan series was not _necessarily_ intended to be quite as profound as many of us today make it out to be. I think most of the deeper meaning people find in the series they find, not because Itosu put it there, but because the practitioner _found _it there.

Now, I absolutely _love_ the Pinan series, or the Pion series, as my school calls it. My favorite interpretation of Sandan is a series of behind the back arm manipulations, controls, and breaks, coupled with the defenses against the same attacks. It flows beautifully, it makes perfect sense, it's simple, easy to perform, effective, and it reads like a story. It reads so well that It makes me want to believe that Itosu pulled those sections from Kusanku _just_ to tell the story that I found. Except that I'm certain it wasn't.

I didn't mean that Itosu's creation of the Pinans wasn't a great, profound contribution to Karate and its descendants, only that the vast majority of the deep meanings and applications found in the form cannot _possibly _have _all_ been intentionally represented there by Itosu.

And yes, it's true that Itosu's goal was to find a good kata for each year of school, and that he himself didn't feel authorized to create new forms, so he found old forms, broke them up, and asked his superior for help, who begrudgingly gave him the bizarrely different Pinan Nidan/Heian Shodan. The was a certain amount of other things going on, rather than an attempt to record the perfect essence of Okinawan Te.

I don't doubt Itosu's mastery, his wisdom, his profound depth of understanding, I only doubt that it's necessarily all encoded in the Pinan Series. That was what I meant to say. My meaning being that yes, one can become study their whole life on nothing but the Pinans, but that doesn't mean that the depth we find there is depth that Itosu expected us to find there.

Remember, Itosu himself felt he lacked the authority to create forms out of the blue, more for cultural reasons than a lack of qualification, but still...

With that in mind, I think it _is_ valid for practitioners to create their own forms. I think it greatly helps with understanding the traditional ones. I create forms, practice and refine them for a few months, and then ditch them, precisely _because_ it helps me understand the traditional forms, not because I think that at 26 years old I'm such a master that I really have anything to contribute to the martial arts community. I wouldn't recommend creating forms and studying them for internal insight, but rather to help you understand what others have created.



Bill Mattocks said:


> This is where I still seem to be miscommunicating with everyone in this thread.  To me, whether or not a given kick, block, jump, throw, gouge, etc, is explicitly seen in a particular kata is of little to no consequence.  It just doesn't matter if the system is encoded in the kata, which I believe mine is....
> 
> ...I don't know a lot.  But I do believe I know that a bunch of exercises, it ain't.  It's as if someone complained that a song didn't have all the possible notes in it.  First, so what, and second, are you really sure?  Change the song?  Brother, it's not my song.  Maybe someday I'll write my own song, but I doubt it.  The song I'm trying to sing is going to take up all the time I have left on this earth and then some to learn to sing correctly.



I would have to agree with you. By way of explanation, my style is Taekwondo, sort of. We practice front, side, round, in-out crescent, out-in crescent, axe, hook, inverted, rising, stomp/cross, and jumping and spinning variants of those, from ankle to head height. 

What's explicitly depicted in our kata? Front kicks, side kicks, and out-in crescent kicks, none of them above waist height. What is applicable in our kata? All of them. Because again, kata is not a precise step-by-step how-to for fighting. If it was, it would be nothing more than a brief set of somewhat impractical drills, and certainly not a comprehensive fighting system. 

Kata is a tool for exploration.

You don't need more tools.

It's not about having a tool for every purpose

It's about having a tool, for every purpose.

---------------------------------------------------

I would say though that the best way to learn to understand what is contained in the music of J.S. Bach, is to learn to write using 17th century harmonic patterns, melodic contours, formal structures, and voice-leading. It's much easier to see and understand a Fugue if you've written a few, regardless of how unremarkable they were.


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## geezer (Nov 11, 2015)

OK here's a topic somewhat related to this thread: How many of you have made up your own forms, either for teaching students or to advance your training? Is this a good way to advance your art or not? Don't bother to answer here. I don't want to contribute further to "thread drift". I'll start another thread on this specific topic, so if you have an opinion, post it there.


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## ShotoNoob (Nov 11, 2015)

Bill Mattocks said:


> Speaking only for myself, three reasons.
> 
> 1) As previously stated, I haven't the authority to change anything about the system I practice - and I never will have.
> 2) I do not understand the kata I practice well enough to presume that it a) doesn't have all the answers and b) that I am capable of extending it in any meaningful way.
> 3) I see no reason/desire/need to do so.


\
1. If one selects a martial system, one trains the system.... Doing something else, one is training something else.  So, yes while one is in a system, one has no authority to change anything, principally speaking...
\
2. The global answer as to why one must train & understand martial arts (and then vice versa) before one can competently evaluate same.  Of course, "train" and "understand" will necessary be subjective to a degree...
\
3. The reason to change a kata or form is to make it better for developing one's martial skill.  As you have stated & intimated; however, does one when one makes such a change, change it for the better or worse?  How do your know if your changes are beneficial or detrimental?




Bill Mattocks said:


> I am not Itosu.


\
I'm not either.  Yet we all advance by change & new developments.... in any discipline... We can also go backwards...  So we have martial art masters creating styles ("new") throughout history....  A good example is Ja Gow's kung fu style, which is based technically on a combination of three separate earlier created kung fu styles.... Is this good or bad, right or wrong?  Ja Gow thinks it's the best traditional martial art...





Bill Mattocks said:


> As far as you know, "employing no miraculous understanding or deep wisdom."  I suspect that many people believe Itosu was quite wise indeed.  Just because we do not perceive a deeper meaning, that does not mean it is not there.  I am not claiming it is or is not, just that I do not presume to know.


\
Yeah, it's great not to presume, yet we have to come to some presumptions or read "principles" about what we are doing or we are just mimicking some physical movements someone else has demonstrated....
\
Some my presumption or conclusion is that Itsou was indeed wise... my opinion is based on the principles I have come to understand in TMA..... not a life-long study of the character himself....


Bill Mattocks said:


> I could not say, those are not kata I practice.


\
Sure you can.... All kata, forms share universal principles, and you essentially say so in your fine, detailed definition....  Obviously the specifics of each kata, of different styles, no one is an authority on everyone else's style....





Bill Mattocks said:


> Were I to presume that I was ready and desirous of creating a new system, I would also feel myself empowered to create any kata I wished, or to modify existing kata to fit the style I designed.  However, that is not who I am, or what I feel I will ever become.  I am a student of an existing style, one which I deeply believe is in need of no modification.


\
Me too....  However, I have changed some of the kata in my style for personal training purposes....  This then, becomes an option for any one's personal training my style.... But what I have done personally does not alter or re-define the curriculum proper...
\
I would also qualify your last sentence... it's too absolute....  Nothing is perfect, and the reason I started study of one the more basic styles of traditional karate is because of the criticism's voiced about it from both other TMA styles and from the applied sport fighting styles like boxing, MMA, etc..
\
Unlike the absolute in your final sentence... I found and confirmed plenty of flaws and problems with the traditional karates.... and eventually all karate's.... and the Korean-based versions like Tang Soo Do & TKD....  The better answer than saying a style is 'poor' or style is the 'best' is --- to determine what TMA principles support making martial art effective the way the Masters, for example, Itsou, intended...
\
You've done so in your kata descriptions.  Ja Gow has done this in his version.  Zack has put forth his understanding.  Whose correct? some more than others... Whose perfect... only me....


Bill Mattocks said:


> This is where I still seem to be miscommunicating with everyone in this thread.  To me, whether or not a given kick, block, jump, throw, gouge, etc, is explicitly seen in a particular kata is of little to no consequence.  It just doesn't matter if the system is encoded in the kata, which I believe mine is.


\
Again, your statement comes across as an absolute.  However, as hyperbole to make a point.... YOU ARE DEAD ON....  I have said this (what you stated, in principle) from Day 1 on this forum.... but they want to talk to you instead of me...  The system is encoded in the kata... not sure why you say it isn't....???
\
On the basis of TMA principles.... it is principles the kata is training, and the physical techniques are then merely the vector or conduit for those principles to become martial techniques in effect....



Bill Mattocks said:


> "But your X kata doesn't have Y application in it?"  "Oh, doesn't it?  Are you sure?"  Speaking only for myself, I have yet to be able to answer affirmatively to that question.


\
This is because practitioners see the technique as the art.... not the principles behind the technique... So they obsess over techniques... which technique is better, which technique is 'stupid' and for 'kids;' which technique will carry the day, how physically doing the technique will guarantee winning or overcoming the opponent. which technique should or shouldn't be a martial art style, ad nauseum....  A TMA system is not conglomeration of techniques....  The techniques are part of what some long-time member defined as a 'delivery system,' my 2-short word definition = tactics + principles, etc.


Bill Mattocks said:


> Thank you for the kind words.  I am merely a beat-up old Jarhead (240 years old today, you know) who knows little but says much.  The opposite of wisdom, but I talk a good game.
> 
> When I started training, as the Zen saying goes, the mountain was a mountain, the river was a river...
> 
> ...


\
Thought you weren't Itsou..???


Bill Mattocks said:


> claim no Satori, no awakening, no deep understanding of kata.  When I started doing kata, it was a set of exercises, patterns, that helped me to practice and memorize a set of specific movements.  I began to learn the basics of breathing and balance.  Over time, continued practice became a vehicle through which I could explore the possibilities of the movements as the related to time and opportunity to strike and defend, act and react.  Continued practice began to provide me with what I believe to be a deeper understanding of rhythm and timing.  Transitions and stances began to become more visible and important to me.  Then I began to feel as if doing kata was a moving meditation, and finally (most recently), I began to see, though yet dimly-lit and far away, a notion that kata is not only the key to karate, but that it forms an essential part of the 'do' that forms the path I seek to be part of.


\
Now, now, being a little solicitious....  Everyone recognizes the intelligence & martial understanding behind what your saying....



Bill Mattocks said:


> I don't know a lot.  But I do believe I know that a bunch of exercises, it ain't.  It's as if someone complained that a song didn't have all the possible notes in it.  First, so what, and second, are you really sure?  Change the song?  Brother, it's not my song.  Maybe someday I'll write my own song, but I doubt it.  The song I'm trying to sing is going to take up all the time I have left on this earth and then some to learn to sing correctly.


\
Again, very Itsou'y of you.....contradicted yourself on that one.  You're an 'authority' after all....


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## ShotoNoob (Nov 11, 2015)

Zack Cart said:


> Yes and no. I think there are people who have used Kata for thirty years and don't know how to use it for effective, realistic training for real world fighting. I find it unlikely that there are people who have been training kata for thirty years who don't know how to use it for _anything._


[/QUOTE]
\
I edited out Bach... belongs in marketing brochure....
\
I also wondered when we'd get the plug for the self-defense schools of members....
\
TMA gives a base for "real world" fighting.... TMA does not make on a self-defense specialist or expert...  TMA was never designed to do the latter....
\
Tanks & 20mm jet cannons, I'll pass.....


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## Koshiki (Nov 11, 2015)

ShotoNoob said:


> \
> I edited out Bach... belongs in marketing brochure....
> \
> I also wondered when we'd get the plug for the self-defense schools of members....
> ...



Ah, I must have miscommunicated. I didn't mean that studying a traditional art will make one a knowledgeable expert on self-defense. My point was that some people use kata for a variety of reasons.

Some use kata for "real world" fighting. That could be friendly sparring with another practitioner, that could be partaking in nonsense in a bar, that could be many things. The point I was making is not what they are learning from the kata, but what they are trying to learn, using the kata as an aid.

Some use kata for excercise.

Some use it for mental distraction.

Some just use it for plain old enjoyment.

My point was that all these things have worth, and that one or the other is not the "right" way to use kata.

If I came off as claiming that kata will teach you self defense, I apologize. My intent was to communicate that it is entirely possible to train kata for decades and still to get a lot out of it, even if you're _not _training for Self Defense.

*To clarify even farther, Self Defense is not, in any real way, why I train in the martial arts.*


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## Kung Fu Wang (Nov 12, 2015)

If you use arm drag to set up your single leg, after you have obtained your opponent's single leg, you then spin his body, sweep his rooting leg, and take him down. If you do this solo without partner, it's a nice short form. As far as I know, there exist no form on earth that contain that information.

My question is why?


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## Tez3 (Nov 12, 2015)

Kung Fu Wang said:


> If you use arm drag to set up your single leg, after you have obtained your opponent's single leg, you then spin his body, sweep his rooting leg, and take him down. If you do this solo without partner, it's a nice short form. As far as I know, there exist no form on earth that contain that information.
> 
> My question is why?




I don't know what an 'arm drag' is so don't know how it would 'set up your single leg'. To me that makes no sense because I have no idea what you are talking about, I do have an idea what 'rooting leg' is but as we don't use that expression could well be wrong. You seem to want katas to be very literal and not to have to work at them to find your self defence moves.
I think your idea of kata is different from mine and others.


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## Paul_D (Nov 12, 2015)

Zack Cart said:


> but I would guess they all have found _some_ use for kata, otherwise, why keep training it?


Because it's in the syllabus.

In my experience very few karate instructors understand kata and some of the utter nonsense that is taught becasue of this lack of understanding is laughable.  Associations write the syllabus, not individual clubs or instructors, so they teach kata even though they don't properly understand it.

This is why, despite begin rubbished as long a go as 1938 by Mabuni (and in spite of common sense) many karate instructors today still teach "the turns in kata are you turning to face a new opponent".  That is what they were taught by their instructors, and that is what they teach, and then their students become instructors and perpetuate the same nonsense to their students.

Yes they will find an alternate use for it, but that is like buying a Ferrari and then use it as a plant pot.   You have this awesome highly useful and sophisticated piece of machinery, and you use it to grow Fuchsia's simply because you haven't learnt to drive.

If you have kata, use it for what it is designed for, don't use it for something else.  If your goal is something else, then come up with another way of training specially deigned to address that goal.


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## lklawson (Nov 12, 2015)

Kung Fu Wang said:


> - Should "head dodging" be in the form? I think it should.


How do you know it's not and you've just been misinterpreting it?  I've been told countless different interpretations for various movements in kata.  What is the "X-Block" which is part of more than one kata?  Is it a knife block, as so many once claimed?  A lapel cross-choke (nami-juji-jime) as is now the popular interpretations?  A double knife-hand (shuto) neck strike?  All of the above as needed?  Something else?  What about the classic "high block?"  I've seen three or four different interpretations of what that "really is."



> - Why it's not in the form? I truly don't know.


Maybe it was (is?) and teachers with no experience applying it didn't transmit that application to their students and it got "lost?"



> - Should someone adds it into the form? I think someone should.


Maybe you don't have to.  

This is why I conclude that kata is what it needs to be for each person, teacher, or lineage.

Peace favor your sword,
Kirk


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## Bill Mattocks (Nov 12, 2015)

Paul_D said:


> In my experience very few karate instructors understand kata and some of the utter nonsense that is taught becasue of this lack of understanding is laughable.  Associations write the syllabus, not individual clubs or instructors, so they teach kata even though they don't properly understand it.



I do not have the direct experience you do, but I believe you are correct.



> This is why, despite begin rubbished as long a go as 1938 by Mabuni (and in spite of common sense) many karate instructors today still teach "the turns in kata are you turning to face a new opponent".  That is what they were taught by their instructors, and that is what they teach, and then their students become instructors and perpetuate the same nonsense to their students.



I do not necessarily think it is wrong to teach that the directional turns in kata are to face a new opponent (begin a new sequence of defense and attack), but it's just the beginning.  I have found it difficult to absorb very technical explanations when I am just beginning to learn; a simple basic explanation will suffice whilst I start to peel the onion of that particular kata.  Turns are so much more than just an imaginary facing of a new opponent, but you have to get to the point where you can see that first somehow.



> Yes they will find an alternate use for it, but that is like buying a Ferrari and then use it as a plant pot.   You have this awesome highly useful and sophisticated piece of machinery, and you use it to grow Fuchsia's simply because you haven't learnt to drive.
> 
> If you have kata, use it for what it is designed for, don't use it for something else.  If your goal is something else, then come up with another way of training specially deigned to address that goal.



This particular problem, in my limited understanding, is that far too many instructors began teaching well before they had advanced beyond a basic and rudimentary understanding of kata themselves, so they had little to pass on.

It is not so much that what they teach about kata is wrong; it is that it is incomplete, because they have breadth but not depth.  Everyone is in a hurry to get teaching and become a 'sensei' or 'master' and start earning a living or passing on what they think they know.

I assist in teaching.  By that I mean I show basics of the first few kata to kids, under the supervision of my sensei.  I work on feet position, hands, turns, balance and breathing with them.  I do not teach them that a kamei can be used as an armbar tie-up, for example.  It's just a kamei for now.  And I also have much to learn, so even though I know more than the beginners, I still don't know much.


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## lklawson (Nov 12, 2015)

Paul_D said:


> If you have kata, use it for what it is designed for


Which is what, again?

Peace favor your sword,
Kirk


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## lklawson (Nov 12, 2015)

JowGaWolf said:


> The Double spear hand strike downward 0:17 is actually part of a technique that is used to prevent a takedown but it's not complete.


Can you please elaborate?  What is the full move, what takedown does it prevent, and how does it prevent said takedown?

Peace favor your sword,
Kirk


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## Koshiki (Nov 12, 2015)

Paul_D said:


> Yes they will find an alternate use for it, but that is like buying a Ferrari and then use it as a plant pot.   You have this awesome highly useful and sophisticated piece of machinery, and you use it to grow Fuchsia's simply because you haven't learnt to drive.



What if you live in an area with excellent public transport, prefer to bike everywhere, and have a fuel efficient daily driver should you need it, and you purchased the Ferrari specifically because you thought it would make a fascinating lawn ornament, vines climbing the sides, flowers spilling from the windows? 

Sure, it's not what _I_ would do with a Ferrari. But then, if I somehow acquired a Ferrari, What I'd do with it is sell it. I'm not really into flashy, fancy cars. Give me nice, reliable antique Beetle, that'll run forever if you don't neglect it.

My point was that if someone joins a Karate class for exercise, I'm not going to force them to study Bunkai and engage in close-quarters contact sparring without gear. My point was, that if someone is a huge fan of Passai, and wants to dedicate their life to learning the nuances of the _motions _of every version they can find, ignoring application, I'm not going to deride them because they don't use kata as I like to. 

My point was, there are many ways to appreciate and find worth in the Martial Arts, and I'm not about to tell anyone who has a different goal that their goal is wrong, simply because it's not my goal.

Frankly, I haven't figured out what my goal is yet.


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## Tez3 (Nov 12, 2015)

Zack Cart said:


> My point was that if someone joins a Karate class for exercise, I'm not going to force them to study Bunkai and engage in close-quarters contact sparring without gear



However, going to a karate class just for the exercise is pretty pointless for a number of reasons. In class instructors will teach karate as per it's curriculum, that usually includes kata, sparring/kumite, one/three step if done and perhaps weapons, you don't choose just to do the bits you fancy and say I'll sit this section out. They don't say well I'll do the kata because the moves are cool but I'll not bother with the Bunkai thank you. If you teach Bunkai it come as part of the package same as sparring, if you spar full contact or just points the student doesn't get to chose in class, they choose before joining when they come for a look and to see what you do.
Having gaols is good but to best meet your gaols in martial arts you have to find a place where the people train and think as you do, that doesn't mean anyone is better just that training for exercise isn't best done in a place that trains a lot of Bunkai.


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## Koshiki (Nov 12, 2015)

Tez3 said:


> However, going to a karate class just for the exercise is pretty pointless for a number of reasons. In class instructors will teach karate as per it's curriculum, that usually includes kata, sparring/kumite, one/three step if done and perhaps weapons, you don't choose just to do the bits you fancy and say I'll sit this section out. They don't say well I'll do the kata because the moves are cool but I'll not bother with the Bunkai thank you. If you teach Bunkai it come as part of the package same as sparring, if you spar full contact or just points the student doesn't get to chose in class, they choose before joining when they come for a look and to see what you do.
> Having gaols is good but to best meet your gaols in martial arts you have to find a place where the people train and think as you do, that doesn't mean anyone is better just that training for exercise isn't best done in a place that trains a lot of Bunkai.



Oh obviously yeah. I mean, don't walk into a school and demand to be taught only the bits you want. Search around until you find the school that teaches what you want. There are plenty of schools that train kata only as a way to practice balance, speed, coordination, and the rest of the curriculum is some form of unrelated light sparring game.

Find the school in which the curriculum fits your aspirations. And, no matter what that curriculum is, as long as its use of kata is in line with what you want out of kata, I would call that a legitimate use of kata.

But no, I wouldn't, say, attend an Iain Abernethy seminar and repeatedly ask questions about how the motions promote Qi flow, or how to develop my Faijing. (I know you like him) I also wouldn't walk into a KKW competition dojang and try to get instruction in close-quarters bunkai, or take up boxing and then become affronted when the other guys at the gym tell me to stop kicking their legs and sweeping.

But I also wouldn't walk into a Florist's looking for a breaker bar and a 36mm socket... Fortunately, Home Depot sells flowers too.


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## Tez3 (Nov 12, 2015)

Zack Cart said:


> But no, I wouldn't, say, attend an Iain Abernethy seminar and repeatedly ask questions about how the motions promote Qi flow



I would lol, just to see his face. He's a good sport though. It's worth going to the seminars just for the craic. They are more than Bunkai though,  it's what I call good old fashioned martial arts too.


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## Steve (Nov 12, 2015)

Tez3 said:


> I don't know what an 'arm drag' is so don't know how it would 'set up your single leg'. To me that makes no sense because I have no idea what you are talking about, I do have an idea what 'rooting leg' is but as we don't use that expression could well be wrong. You seem to want katas to be very literal and not to have to work at them to find your self defence moves.
> I think your idea of kata is different from mine and others.


With as much experience as yiu have, I'm 100% sure you would know it if you saw it.      It just must be called something different in the UK.   I recommend doing a quick search on YouTube.


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## drop bear (Nov 12, 2015)

Tez3 said:


> However, going to a karate class just for the exercise is pretty pointless for a number of reasons. In class instructors will teach karate as per it's curriculum, that usually includes kata, sparring/kumite, one/three step if done and perhaps weapons, you don't choose just to do the bits you fancy and say I'll sit this section out. They don't say well I'll do the kata because the moves are cool but I'll not bother with the Bunkai thank you. If you teach Bunkai it come as part of the package same as sparring, if you spar full contact or just points the student doesn't get to chose in class, they choose before joining when they come for a look and to see what you do.
> Having gaols is good but to best meet your gaols in martial arts you have to find a place where the people train and think as you do, that doesn't mean anyone is better just that training for exercise isn't best done in a place that trains a lot of Bunkai.




Fifo?


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## oftheherd1 (Nov 12, 2015)

This has been an interesting thread to read, and see how others think about kata/forms.

When I studied TKD, I of course learned kata.  I don't recall now how many, but I think probably something like 6 or 8.  I think we looked at it as learning moves in a structured way.  And it was structured.  Senior belts would watch us closely and correct any move or stance when we stopped, as we went from one move to the next, before putting it all together; straighten the wrist horizontally or vertically, keep the trail leg straight, whatever.  We learned how to obtain maximum power, and always search for new maximums.  In those forms, there wasn't a lot of doubt what kicks, strikes, or blocks were in the form, or what was to be kicked, struck, or blocked (leg or arm).  I don't know about others at the time, but I generally took it to be using kicks, strikes and blocks in a manner that helped learn and practice them, and improve my application of them.  It wasn't until several years after I stopped taking TKD, that it occurred to me that the forms also had multiple attacker aspects (contrary to the opinion stated above).  Not that anyone else mentioned it.

Later, when I began studying HKD, I was a little surprised there were no forms.  I was greatly surprised to learn there was no rigid way to do a technique.  They taught what had been learned as the best way to perform a technique, but if a person could demonstrate a way they worked better for them, it was allowed; the result was more important that the method.  Granted, that was rather rare, but it was accepted.  I do fancy now that I can sometimes see grapples in forms since having studied HKD.  Not necessarily just how we did them, but close enough I think that might be the actual meaning of some moves that don't always seem to have a reason for being.

So, forms to me were learning tools to be mastered, with the hope we could better perform strikes, kicks, and blocks.  Not too exciting, esoteric, nor zen-like.

One thing above that caught my eye was putting dodging into forms.  As I learned forms and in 1 and 3 step sparring, the goal was to deflect an incoming attack, not bob and weave.  We might move back or to the side, but to simply move the head would have been considered a poor way to avoid being struck, since it would have affected balance.  I'm not saying what I was taught is superior to anyone else's way, not that I wouldn't try to dodge a head strike if I found a block wasn't working, but just that was the way we learned, and it seemed to make sense.


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## Tez3 (Nov 12, 2015)

drop bear said:


> Fifo?



What does that mean?


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## JowGaWolf (Nov 12, 2015)

lklawson said:


> Can you please elaborate?  What is the full move, what takedown does it prevent, and how does it prevent said takedown?
> 
> Peace favor your sword,
> Kirk


I'll try to explain it.  The full move is to 1st. do the double spearhand downward, in the same manner that the guy in the video did. 2nd. Raise both arms creating a circle until your hands meet above your head.  Similar to the way the arms move when doing jumping jacks.

Purpose of the move is to prevent a shoot or tackle aimed no higher than he waist and no lower than the knees.  The 3rd part which is related to the stance isn't added in the form.  I think it was left out intentionally. When the technique is done correctly it will lock both of your arms behind your back in a very painful manner.  When the instructor showed me it felt like both of my shoulders were about to pop out of my sockets. I think one of my shoulders would have been dislocated if he had actually locked the technique and did it with force.

To give you an ideal of how it feels.  Bend over forward 90 degrees at the waist.  Do a reverse dumbell fly palms facing down (without the weight.)  With the arms extended, pull your arms back as far as you can, when you reach your limit have someone come and continue to pull your arms back until your hands are touching.

The more energy that the person puts into the shoot the more damage the technique will cause.


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## ShotoNoob (Nov 12, 2015)

Zack Cart said:


> Ah, I must have miscommunicated. I didn't mean that studying a traditional art will make one a knowledgeable expert on self-defense. My point was that some people use kata for a variety of reasons.


\
Right ZacK.  This quite popular in American martial art usage....  Kind of a corollary of the MMA theorem that picking & choosing by thre practitioner / competitor which evolve a better style...
\
IMO, and following on Bill's line of thought.... we as a group as too quick to judge the TMA model... thinking we know better or can somehow come up with the better 'angle.'  OTOH more commercially speaking, if one is operating a martial art school.... attempting to go against the egos of your customers is not sound salesmanship...  So letting students assume your position is practical business...


Zack Cart said:


> Some use kata for "real world" fighting. That could be friendly sparring with another practitioner, that could be partaking in nonsense in a bar, that could be many things. The point I was making is not what they are learning from the kata, but what they are trying to learn, using the kata as an aid.


In fact by TMA priciples, kata is a comprehensive system; it essentially is the TMA system.  That said, however, doesn't make kata the easiest way to learn; or to isolate out all the complexities and principles encoded in kata.
\
This is the genius of Ginchin Funakoshi, of deliberatly separating the major training goals inherent in kata, into 3 major training categories: the now famous (1) kihon, (2) kata, (3) kumite.  Funakoshi is not the sole TMA author of this model.... he popularized to a greater extent than most other TMA styles.


Zack Cart said:


> Some use kata for excercise.
> 
> Some use it for mental distraction.
> 
> ...


\
Well all your points have truth.  However the whole truth is that kata is a comprehensive traditional martial art exercise which prepares one for self defense...
\
_*Kata's fundamental purpose is expressly to develop & train the martial art base.... defined by three essential human qualities....*_ Tang So Do spells this out quite clearly in that style's manuals.... though it was CMA that defined the theory more than 1000 years ago, TMU.
\
So if you are training kata for a specific skill or objective, that's fine and well & good.  But you can't say you are doing kata to TMA standards; IOW really doing kata at all....


Zack Cart said:


> If I came off as claiming that kata will teach you self defense, I apologize. My intent was to communicate that it is entirely possible to train kata for decades and still to get a lot out of it, even if you're _not _training for Self Defense.


\
We want to separate TMA from doing other 'stuff.'  The goal of traditional kate or TMA in APPLICATION is self defense.  The applied goal.  The strengths that accrue from proper TMA training can be used in any aspect of the human endeavor.... just as you listed...

*


Zack Cart said:



			To clarify even farther, Self Defense is not, in any real way, why I train in the martial arts.
		
Click to expand...

*\
I'll agree & completely and absolutely with your decision.  IOW, you (one) never have (has) to use, or apply, or even be interested in self defense; in order to train & reap the human benefits that can accrue from TMA....  "Do" is separate from "Jutsu" by choice of the practitioner....  And you have made your own personal choice...  thumbs up!!!
\
EDIT: Zack  my bold, italicized text defines kata (&TMA); and what kata (&TMA)  is not...


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## Koshiki (Nov 12, 2015)

JowGaWolf said:


> I'll try to explain it.  The full move is to 1st. do the double spearhand downward, in the same manner that the guy in the video did. 2nd. Raise both arms creating a circle until your hands meet above your head.  Similar to the way the arms move when doing jumping jacks.
> 
> Purpose of the move is to prevent a shoot or tackle aimed no higher than he waist and no lower than the knees.  The 3rd part which is related to the stance isn't added in the form.



Whether or not what you're describing would be my favorite takedown defense, the point about altering established forms is a valid one. For example, there are places in many traditional karate kata, for example, a "block" is executed, and the practitioner then turns away. There are many reasons and explanations why this makes sense, but in my school, several of these have a strike inserted after the "block." I can only assume someone in my oh-so-murky lineage thought, "huh, why would you block and not counter? I'll stick a punch in so it makes sense."

In some cases, this added strike will completely disrupt otherwise excellent interpretations of the form, and I'm left internally screaming at the ignorance that may have prompted someone to change the form. However, sometimes I can view the same section and find that the throw or whatever may be assisted by some softening, and that added punch is a reminder that you can always, "Hit 'em first, if they're a big guy. Then do the throw." Other times, the addition of a strike, whether or not it's viewed as a strike skew the whole sequence off in a completely different, but valid direction.

But whichever way you do it, changing existing forms can and does risk losing the principles therein. I mean, feel free, but it's not the route I would go...



ShotoNoob said:


> I'll agree & completely and absolutely with your decision.  IOW, you (one) never have (has) to use, or apply, or even be interested in self defense; in order to train & reap the human benefits that can accrue from TMA....  Do is separate from Jutsu by choice of the practitioner....  And you have made your own personal choice...  thumbs up!!!



I wouldn't call myself a "Do" guy, rather than a "Jutsu" guy. Let me clarify. 

I train in the martial arts with the intent and mindset of effectively dealing with unwanted physical violence. That's how I try to train. Realistically. But I don't train that way because I feel I am in danger and have a need to protect myself. I mean, if something is cool and fun, but seems worthless in terms of self defense in a martial art context, I have limited interest. Again, not because I feel that I am in danger, but because that is the pursuit I enjoy. Karate, for me, is about applicable, realistic fighting outside of a sport context. If I want to protect my well-being, I'll look elsewhere for 99.5% of that. If I want to be a better person I'll look elsewhere. If I want to achieve some sort of spiritual realization, I would look elsewhere.



ShotoNoob said:


> _*Kata's fundamental purpose is expressly to develop & train the martial art base.... defined by three essential human qualities....*_ Tang So Do spells this out quite clearly in that style's manuals.... though it was CMA that defined the theory more than 1000 years ago, TMU.
> \
> So if you are training kata for a specific skill or objective, that's fine and well & good.  But you can't say you are doing kata to TMA standards; IOW really doing kata at all....
> 
> ...



I agree with you. Kata is, expressly and traditionally, as you say, intended to develop and train the martial art base.

And I also agree that if you view kata as something other than applied self defense, than you are not practicing kata traditionally.

And I also agree that I separate such practice from traditional karate. It's simply not. It's every bit as worthy as traditional karate, but it;s not my cup of tea and it's not traditional.

And again, the goal of traditional karate is certainly civilian self defense. No argument from me there. And that is how I try train.

I'm just saying that I don't train because I personally feel I need better martial skill in order to preserve myself. It's a tricky distinction to make, but there's a difference between self defense being _*what*_ you train for, and self defense being _*why*_ you train.


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## ShotoNoob (Nov 12, 2015)

Zack Cart said:


> Ah, I must have miscommunicated. I didn't mean that studying a traditional art will make one a knowledgeable expert on self-defense. My point was that some people use kata for a variety of reasons.
> 
> Some use kata for "real world" fighting. That could be friendly sparring with another practitioner, that could be partaking in nonsense in a bar, that could be many things. The point I was making is not what they are learning from the kata, but what they are trying to learn, using the kata as an aid.
> 
> ...


\
There's no need to apologize.  My response was satirical.  To clear up any miscommunication... .which is very easy for me to cause... any one really over the internet.. .. typing in blogs....
\
FIRST EXAMPLE:  A lot of kata critics, as well a certain TMA practitioners equate kata to 'dance.'  IOW, kata practitioners move around in a choreographed fashion.... dancers move around in a coordinated, choreographed manner...  Walla, kata is dancing really....
\
IN effect, completely wrong.  Dance is a physical recreational exercise, which objectives are physical recreation & social interacton yielding personal enjoyment.  Kata has a physical exercise component.  Kata, however, goes beyond memorizing and then mixing up some dance steps.... kata is really about developing unity between one's whole body & mind, where mental discipline exacts precise control over all physical actions....  Kata's applied objective  is about developing the strength of the physical body & mind, the melding them together to create power which power can them be expressed against an assailant to protect oneself or another....
\
Dance is like fun; kata is work, real hard work.....  Can dancers work hard... sure.... The level of mental intensity devoted & generated in kata is far above the relaxing end product of dance...  even if we are speaking of the meditative quality of that mental work... .compared to basically normal thinking while dancing....
\
SECOND EXAMPLE: Boxers and again some martial artists compare shadow boxing to kata... equate the  two.... Again, superficially share outward similar physical expression....  Again, in effect, completely wrong...  Shadowboxing has the boxer, whomever, randomly throwing physical techniques in succession @ varying paces.  It is a purely physical activity where the mind is just repeating physical moves in the form of techniques and random combos.... etc...  Sure, the colloquial muscle memory is developed along with physical strength and technique....Compared with mental activity in kata; however, Shadowboxing is practically mindless...
\
Kata is a prescribed pattern of physical movement express;y designed to engage the entire body into action effecting martial techniques.... Those movements embody tactical principles as well as tactical applications.  In kata, the mind is working constantly to exert discipline to precisely move the body to create mind / body unity -- a body physically,strong, well coordinated, and capable yet ruled by mental discipline @ all times...  Incorporated into that mental disciple is a host of heightened  mental abilities, not the least of which is KIME.... putting one's entire strengths & intent into a precisely controlled martial technique designed to incapacitate the opponent....\
\
My understanding....  good luck with that...


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## ShotoNoob (Nov 12, 2015)

Zack Cart said:


> Whether or not what you're describing would be my favorite takedown defense, the point about altering established forms is a valid one. For example, there are places in many traditional karate kata, for example, a "block" is executed, and the practitioner then turns away. There are many reasons and explanations why this makes sense, but in my school, several of these have a strike inserted after the "block." I can only assume someone in my oh-so-murky lineage thought, "huh, why would you block and not counter? I'll stick a punch in so it makes sense."
> 
> In some cases, this added strike will completely disrupt otherwise excellent interpretations of the form, and I'm left internally screaming at the ignorance that may have prompted someone to change the form. However, sometimes I can view the same section and find that the throw or whatever may be assisted by some softening, and that added punch is a reminder that you can always, "Hit 'em first, if they're a big guy. Then do the throw." Other times, the addition of a strike, whether or not it's viewed as a strike skew the whole sequence off in a completely different, but valid direction.
> 
> But whichever way you do it, changing existing forms can and does risk losing the principles therein. I mean, feel free, but it's not the route I would go...


\
Zack, I agree.


Zack Cart said:


> I wouldn't call myself a "Do" guy, rather than a "Jutsu" guy. Let me clarify.
> 
> I train in the martial arts with the intent and mindset of effectively dealing with unwanted physical violence. That's how I try to train. Realistically. But I don't train that way because I feel I am in danger and have a need to protect myself. I mean, if something is cool and fun, but seems worthless in terms of self defense in a martial art context, I have limited interest. Again, not because I feel that I am in danger, but because that is the pursuit I enjoy. Karate, for me, is about applicable, realistic fighting outside of a sport context. If I want to protect my well-being, I'll look elsewhere for 99.5% of that. If I want to be a better person I'll look elsewhere. If I want to achieve some sort of spiritual realization, I would look elsewhere.


\
Fine. So you are training for the potential for self defense.  I think we are on the same page....  The "Do" was used by me as an analogy to confirm that the TMA base skills are distinguishable from the practical applications of same...  IOW, to be more correct... Jutsu is at a minimum implicit in "Do;" and express in all TMA practice training form...  It's the TMA base that gives rise to the effectiveness of the technique.


Zack Cart said:


> I agree with you. Kata is, expressly and traditionally, as you say, intended to develop and train the martial art base.


\
Not only is that hard for most to understand.... it is now really hard to properly approach & 'master.'



Zack Cart said:


> And I also agree that if you view kata as something other than applied self defense, than you are not practicing kata traditionally.


\
Even the super-simple physically Taikyou kata call for blocks and punches.... actual fighting technique....  The real value, however, is creating a simplified physical design to point out & isolate the base TMA skills....  That' is why the Okinwan karate creators label the Taikyoku series as "First Cause."
\
Of course, applied fighters who only focus on physical technique... and we have this mindset here @ MT, ridicule the Taikyouku kata as kiddy stuff...  Who, they say, would walk around with one hand plastered @ the waist; the other hand in a down block by the knee.... literally begging to be punched in the face by the rapid shadow-boxing trained boxer..???  Not us 'smart' Americans.....
\
Completely missing the point of the Okinawan Master/// base, not applied fighting technical form.  The low block facilitates whole body coordination, flexibility, mental discipline directing the body to act with physical & tactical integrity in it's movement.  Tactical integrity.... Low block in principle defends against low attack,,, in principle.... If attacked low, defend low.  Defend all vulnerable zones of the body.  How vulnerable is the knee area?
\
The opposite hand is chambered at the waist... completely prepared to execute the next technique... a straight punch.... again from the waist (how many styles of any kind talk about engaging and incorporating the waist in generating power?) developing full ROM flexibility, exercise, coordination, with mental discipline controlling every micro-inch of action....  establishing the tactical working objective (you yourself just mentioned) of having one move flow into the next complimentary move... here the 'kiddy' block - then strike.... defend then attack...
\
And I'm only getting started.... kata is very sophisticated, it's a mental discipline....



Zack Cart said:


> And I also agree that I separate such practice from traditional karate. It's simply not. It's every bit as worthy as traditional karate, but it;s not my cup of tea and it's not traditional.


\
Fine, a personal choice.



Zack Cart said:


> And again, the goal of traditional karate is certainly civilian self defense. No argument from me there. And that is how I try train.


\
The Okinawans... and later really the Japanese... this was the cultural value they also made most explicit....



Zack Cart said:


> I'm just saying that I don't train because I personally feel I need better martial skill in order to preserve myself. It's a tricky distinction to make, but there's a difference between self defense being _*what*_ you train for, and self defense being _*why*_ you train.


\
Got it.... nice distinction....
\
EDIT: on the latter, and one all the self defense specialists here will be happy to entertain....


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## ShotoNoob (Nov 12, 2015)

Paul_D said:


> Because it's in the syllabus.
> 
> In my experience very few karate instructors understand kata and some of the utter nonsense that is taught becasue of this lack of understanding is laughable.  Associations write the syllabus, not individual clubs or instructors, so they teach kata even though they don't properly understand it.
> 
> ...


\
So what is the purpose of the "turns" in kata.... seems to me like your panned explanation is one of many logical, tactical conclusions.
\
Literally dying to know....


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## ShotoNoob (Nov 12, 2015)

lklawson said:


> How do you know it's not and you've just been misinterpreting it?  I've been told countless different interpretations for various movements in kata.  What is the "X-Block" which is part of more than one kata?  Is it a knife block, as so many once claimed?  A lapel cross-choke (nami-juji-jime) as is now the popular interpretations?  A double knife-hand (shuto) neck strike?  All of the above as needed?  Something else?  What about the classic "high block?"  I've seen three or four different interpretations of what that "really is."


\
How do you know it's not you misunderstanding....  aren't these moves you speak of symbolic of applied tactics & martial principles...???



lklawson said:


> Maybe it was (is?) and teachers with no experience applying it didn't transmit that application to their students and it got "lost?"


\
Clearly a possibility... other explanations abound about why kata / kata technique is imperfect...  People are flawed is the broad reason...



lklawson said:


> Maybe you don't have to.


\
To train & master a discipline, we have to come to some conclusion about what we are doing....


lklawson said:


> This is why I conclude that kata is what it needs to be for each person, teacher, or lineage.


|
COMPLETELY WRONG IN PRINCIPLE....  We don't make up science... we prove it, prove it's principles, then apply it...  Otherwise, it becomes a hippie, feel good fest.... and here's the  result




Certain Martial Talk heavies are convinced I'm the Star in the YT video....
\
EDIT: My favorite editorial comment is that the female black-belt standing in the center watching.... is hoping,,, NO PRAYING, I won't ask for her phone number after class...


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## Koshiki (Nov 12, 2015)

ShotoNoob said:


> \
> So what is the purpose of the "turns" in kata.... seems to me like your panned explanation is one of many logical, tactical conclusions.
> \
> Literally dying to know....



Judging by whoever felt the need to add punches before turns if they weren't there already, you're turning to face the next of ten to twelve, patiently waiting opponents....


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## geezer (Nov 12, 2015)

Hmmm. Some interesting ideas being expressed. I wonder how close _Shotonoob's _views on kata are to _Bill Mattock's_? They seem to track pretty closely. I've already expressed my view regarding it's value as one of four components of the specific TMA I train (WC) which are 1. form, 2. two-man drills (lat sau) 3. sticking hands (chi-sau) and 4. sparring (nuk-sau/guo-sau). To develop completely in this art you need to balance all four areas.

_Shoto_, my only question is whether or not your definition of a TMA isn't rather narrow,  and perhaps based more specifically on your understanding of certain Okinawan and Japanese traditions? After all, TMA_ in genera_l (Chinese, Japanese, Okinawan, Korean, Southeast Asian, Filipino, Malaysian, Indonesian, Indian, Nepali, Tibetan, Mongolian, etc., and of course. European, and others?...) are extremely diverse. I confess ignorance here, but from what I have encountered, it is unwise to make hard and fast assumptions about _anything_, including the function and relative importance of kata/forms ...assuming the the art even uses forms at all.

I fully appreciate that the point of this thread is for those of us that _do_ emphasize kata/forms in our training to share the _why _behind that emphasis. But honestly, that emphasis will differ from art to art, culture to culture. Similarly, concepts such as _Kime _from Japanese TMA _may_ have analogous concepts in other cultures TMA, or they may not... I can only conclude that there are many paths and many goals in the martial arts. It is not for me to judge others by my yard (meter?) stick.


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## JowGaWolf (Nov 12, 2015)

ShotoNoob said:


> \
> How do you know it's not you misunderstanding....  aren't these moves you speak of symbolic of applied tactics & martial principles...???
> 
> 
> ...


About the video. Bad technique. I played the video at a slower speed and it becomes clear that he hasn't learn how to connect the energy from the body to the backhand.  You can actually see the body mechanics of it fall apart.


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## Koshiki (Nov 13, 2015)

geezer said:


> I fully appreciate that the point of this thread is for those of us that _do_ emphasize kata/forms in our training to share the _why _behind that emphasis. But honestly, that emphasis will differ from art to art, culture to culture. Similarly, concepts such as _Kime _from Japanese TMA _may_ have analogous concepts in other cultures TMA, or they may not... I can only conclude that there are many paths and many goals in the martial arts. It is not for me to judge others by my yard (meter?) stick.



That's exactly what I was originally hoping for. Usually, online threads seem to deal with Yes/No, Good/Bad, Useful/Useless, type dichotomies.

Conversations in real life on forms seem to be much more enlightening, but it's pretty rare to get practitioners from twelve distinct traditions together to discuss this stuff.

I thought it would be really interesting to here, say, how differently someone like me with a mutilated USA/Korean/Japanese/Okinawan Karate might view kata when compared to a Goju practitioner, when compared to a Win Tsun practitioner, when compared to well, I don't know if there are any Silat guys here, but you get the idea.

I wasn't hoping for an authoritative thread on THIS IS HOW YOU KATA, but rather an array of detailed explanations of why various of us value the general class of training typified by forms, hopefully unfettered by having to step over comments about how useless forms are. So far, I think we're staying on track quite well, considering the tendencies of online group conversation!


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## lklawson (Nov 13, 2015)

Tez3 said:


> What does that mean?


It's a business, accounting, and inventory term.  *F*irst *I*n, *F*irst *O*ut.  :rofl:

Peace favor your sword,
Kirk


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## lklawson (Nov 13, 2015)

JowGaWolf said:


> I'll try to explain it.  The full move is to 1st. do the double spearhand downward, in the same manner that the guy in the video did. 2nd. Raise both arms creating a circle until your hands meet above your head.  Similar to the way the arms move when doing jumping jacks.
> 
> Purpose of the move is to prevent a shoot or tackle aimed no higher than he waist and no lower than the knees.  The 3rd part which is related to the stance isn't added in the form.  I think it was left out intentionally. When the technique is done correctly it will lock both of your arms behind your back in a very painful manner.  When the instructor showed me it felt like both of my shoulders were about to pop out of my sockets. I think one of my shoulders would have been dislocated if he had actually locked the technique and did it with force.
> 
> ...


Thanks.  I understand now what you were referring to.

Peace favor your sword,
Kirk


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## lklawson (Nov 13, 2015)

ShotoNoob said:


> FIRST EXAMPLE:  A lot of kata critics, as well a certain TMA practitioners equate kata to 'dance.'  IOW, kata practitioners move around in a choreographed fashion.... dancers move around in a coordinated, choreographed manner...  Walla, kata is dancing really....
> \
> IN effect, completely wrong.  Dance is a physical recreational exercise, which objectives are physical recreation & social interacton yielding personal enjoyment.


At least one person  in this thread has said that kata performs this function for him; a fun and productive way to get exercise.



> Kata has a physical exercise component.  Kata, however, goes beyond memorizing and then mixing up some dance steps.... kata is really about developing unity between one's whole body & mind, where mental discipline exacts precise control over all physical actions....  Kata's applied objective  is about developing the strength of the physical body & mind, the melding them together to create power which power can them be expressed against an assailant to protect oneself or another....
> \
> Dance is like fun; kata is work, real hard work.....  Can dancers work hard... sure.... The level of mental intensity devoted & generated in kata is far above the relaxing end product of dance...  even if we are speaking of the meditative quality of that mental work... .compared to basically normal thinking while dancing....


Umm... What?  I've found that dancers make *EXCELLENT* martial artists.  They are not afraid of hard work, are used to getting injured during training, know how to work through or when to let off and heal, have an excellent sense of balance, distance, and timing, and generally have a very solid flow to their body movements.  Years ago, one researcher told me that it was considered a truism in the Italian Renaissance that if a man couldn't dance, he couldn't fight (fence).



> SECOND EXAMPLE: Boxers and again some martial artists compare shadow boxing to kata... equate the  two.... Again, superficially share outward similar physical expression....  Again, in effect, completely wrong...  Shadowboxing has the boxer, whomever, randomly throwing physical techniques in succession @ varying paces.  It is a purely physical activity where the mind is just repeating physical moves in the form of techniques and random combos.... etc...  Sure, the colloquial muscle memory is developed along with physical strength and technique....Compared with mental activity in kata; however, Shadowboxing is practically mindless...


Umm... what?  I'm not sure where you learned shadowboxing.  It's a comparatively simple training tool, no doubt.  But it's not intended to be "random" per se and it's not supposed to be "mindless."

Peace favor your sword,
Kirk


----------



## lklawson (Nov 13, 2015)

ShotoNoob said:


> \
> How do you know it's not you misunderstanding....  aren't these moves you speak of symbolic of applied tactics & martial principles...???


Because all of those possibilities require different physical and bio-mechanical structure.  You don't hold and move your body the same way to do a crossed-arm double high block as you do to perform a cross-lapel choke.  That's the point.  You can't apply "symbolic applied tactics & martial principles" from different body structures.  Each has a limited, and often fairly specific, set of circumstances in which to apply.  You don't Cavalry charge entrenched cannonry.



> To train & master a discipline, we have to come to some conclusion about what we are doing....


What?  I don't think you know what you are replying to here.  Kung Fu Wang asked if boxing style "head dodging" (which he believes doesn't appear to be in kata) should be added to kata.  I opined that maybe it doesn't have to be.  Your response has nothing to do with that dialog.  I don't want to be a jerk about this, but, dude, don't just argue to argue.  



> COMPLETELY WRONG IN PRINCIPLE....


Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiight.  Which is why there's such a broad consensus among practitioners as to the purpose of kata.  Again, are you arguing just to argue?  Did you lose track of what the dialog was?  Are you just making assumptions about my commentary based on what you expect to see instead of the context of the dialog?

I don't know what happened here, but it's very frustrating to have someone arguing a position which I didn't take.

Peace favor your sword,
Kirk


----------



## Flying Crane (Nov 13, 2015)

lklawson said:


> At least one person  in this thread has said that kata performs this function for him; a fun and productive way to get exercise.
> 
> Umm... What?  I've found that dancers make *EXCELLENT* martial artists.  They are not afraid of hard work, are used to getting injured during training, know how to work through or when to let off and heal, have an excellent sense of balance, distance, and timing, and generally have a very solid flow to their body movements.  Years ago, one researcher told me that it was considered a truism in the Italian Renaissance that if a man couldn't dance, he couldn't fight (fence).
> 
> ...


My own experience has been that dancers struggle with martial arts.  While the points you cite above are true, they often have difficulty with grounding and root because they train to be light and to float.  The body connection is different, they struggle with full body connection in a martial methodology.  Of course different types of dance backgrounds may change this, one's mileage may vary.


----------



## lklawson (Nov 13, 2015)

Flying Crane said:


> Of course different types of dance backgrounds may change this, one's mileage may vary.


As well as different martial arts.  Bowie knife, for instance, "light and floating" footwork is absolutely wonderful.  

Peace favor your sword,
Kirk


----------



## Tez3 (Nov 13, 2015)

lklawson said:


> It's a business, accounting, and inventory term.  *F*irst *I*n, *F*irst *O*ut.  :rofl:
> 
> Peace favor your sword,
> Kirk



Ah thank you, the meaning of drop bear's post is still as clear as mud though! Doesn't have any bearing on what I wrote originally.


----------



## Flying Crane (Nov 13, 2015)

lklawson said:


> As well as different martial arts.  Bowie knife, for instance, "light and floating" footwork is absolutely wonderful.
> 
> Peace favor your sword,
> Kirk


Funny too, my main interaction with dancers in martial arts was in capoeira.  It ain't dance, even tho some people want to believe it is, or want to focus on the "dance-like" aspects of it.  And even so, the dancers struggled.


----------



## lklawson (Nov 13, 2015)

Tez3 said:


> Ah thank you, the meaning of drop bear's post is still as clear as mud though! Doesn't have any bearing on what I wrote originally.


Hey.  I'm a man.  ...studying Western Civ martial arts.  Did you really expect me to make any sense?



Peace favor your sword,
Kirk


----------



## geezer (Nov 13, 2015)

Flying Crane said:


> Funny too, my main interaction with dancers in martial arts was in capoeira.  It ain't dance, even tho some people want to believe it is, or want to focus on the "dance-like" aspects of it.  And even so, the dancers struggled.



Just out of curiosity, what kind of dancers were they? I'm guessing not the urban street dancer/breakdancer variety. Seems like that particular kind of athleticism might be helpful in capoeira.


----------



## Flying Crane (Nov 13, 2015)

geezer said:


> Just out of curiosity, what kind of dancers were they? I'm guessing not the urban street dancer/breakdancer variety. Seems like that particular kind of athleticism might be helpful in capoeira.


Typically they were modern dancers with a background in ballet, jazz, modern, that kind of thing.  Capoeira has a lot of spin kicks, spinning crescents and such.  When the dancers would do those, it was obvious.  They would rise up on their toes and pirouette.  There was no grounding, no digging in and loading up and uncoiling to unleash destructive power.  It was just spinning with a leg outstretched, just like in a dance performance.  When they would ginga, the only way I could describe it is "dainty", floating along mechanically.  There was no loose, strong, natural movement, nothing organic or spontaneous about it.

As far as street dancer/hip hop/break dancers, well legend has it that break dancing developed in NY City with influence from capoeira.  But it's still a different mindset with the movement, and that affects the "quality" of the movement.  A dancer mimicking capoeira movement is easy to spot and recognizable as poor capoeira.


----------



## Tez3 (Nov 13, 2015)

lklawson said:


> Hey.  I'm a man.  ...studying Western Civ martial arts.  Did you really expect me to make any sense?
> 
> 
> 
> ...




Ah but you told me what that odd word drop bear used meant, it's up to him to explain what he meant by it!


----------



## Buka (Nov 13, 2015)

A guy is in the dojo doing his Kata. SUDDENLY - there's two flashes of bright light and two people, also doing Kata, appear. One guy is from the past doing the form as it originated, the other guy is from the future doing the form as it's done hundreds of years from now. 

It's a _tense_ situation.


----------



## ShotoNoob (Nov 13, 2015)

JowGaWolf said:


> About the video. Bad technique. I played the video at a slower speed and it becomes clear that he hasn't learn how to connect the energy from the body to the backhand.  You can actually see the body mechanics of it fall apart.


\
I came in post - video... so I should take a look....  I convinced that you examine & adjust or advise...  So +1 for Ja Gow.


----------



## ShotoNoob (Nov 13, 2015)

lklawson said:


> At least one person  in this thread has said that kata performs this function for him; a fun and productive way to get exercise.


\
One can say whatever they want...  Doesn't make them competent... or their viewpoint valid for TMA.



lklawson said:


> Umm... What?  I've found that dancers make *EXCELLENT* martial artists.  They are not afraid of hard work, are used to getting injured during training, know how to work through or when to let off and heal, have an excellent sense of balance, distance, and timing, and generally have a very solid flow to their body movements.  Years ago, one researcher told me that it was considered a truism in the Italian Renaissance that if a man couldn't dance, he couldn't fight (fence).


\
Well...socially I have nothing to add...  kinda like saying good athlete's make good martial artists....



lklawson said:


> Umm... what?  I'm not sure where you learned shadowboxing.  It's a comparatively simple training tool, no doubt.  But it's not intended to be "random" per se and it's not supposed to be "mindless."


\
Sure, you've properly qualified my statement....  But other than co-coinciding with popular views, I seek to better define kata va. sports methodology....  The aegis in which I have witnessed or observed 'shadowboxing' performed or described.... the elements you speak of are quite limited....
\
But by all means, shadow box away..... dance away.... we have the kickboxer & boxer type stylists @ our dojo who kick & punch away....  even pull the standard to clever sport fighting gambits on you (me)....   We have one senior-belt who is an aggressive kickboxer and rolls over most all of the student population & some black-belts as well....  Nonetheless, It's not Traditional karate or TMA....
\
Please refer to my BAckfist Miss YT vid.... He claims he has always broken the boards... and there is a vid of him breaking 4 boards.  In the back fist miss, vid,  I see only poor 'dance' or  'shadowboxing' coordination.... & zero TMA.
\
So this TKD black-belt practitioner can make all the same, personally qualifying statement as you... and can have similar objectives..... but he's not demonstrating TMA....
\
The school is full of students many of which have advanced to Black-belt.... I hazard the far majority wouldn't make it out of Matt Breyer's BJJ Beginner class.  Standards?


----------



## ShotoNoob (Nov 13, 2015)

lklawson said:


> Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiight.  Which is why there's such a broad consensus among practitioners as to the purpose of kata.  Again, are you arguing just to argue?  Did you lose track of what the dialog was?  Are you just making assumptions about my commentary based on what you expect to see instead of the context of the dialog?


\
I'm not following this.... so just let me add...


lklawson said:


> At least one person  in this thread has said that kata performs this function for him; a fun and productive way to get exercise.


\
On the dance & shadowboxing... I'd like to add I don't have a problem with TMA student practicing or believing in these within the context of a commercial setting....   Customers should have some flexibility for their personal tastes and & opinions, as well as their personal journey in training.... The danger is you end up a TMA, TKD Black-belt who can perform (non-perform) like the Star in my video....


lklawson said:


> I don't know what happened here, but it's very frustrating to have someone arguing a position which I didn't take.


\
Again... I'm not following... peace...


----------



## ShotoNoob (Nov 13, 2015)

Zack Cart said:


> Judging by whoever felt the need to add punches before turns if they weren't there already, you're turning to face the next of ten to twelve, patiently waiting opponents....


\
Traditional karate kata is a solo exercise... So we speculate as the what the working objectives are... here, is it multiple opponents?  Does kata present 'passive' opponents; like we see in so many formal TMA demonstrations?
\
I was never taught that kata, forms, poomse, whatever was constructed with imaginary opponents in mind or as a formal part of the exercise.... The first I heard of the 'multiple oppponent' theory was from martial art board posters  typically trying to understand or explain how kata, etc. relates to or trains for actual fighting...


Bill Mattocks said:


> I do not necessarily think it is wrong to teach that the directional turns in kata are to face a new opponent (begin a new sequence of defense and attack), but it's just the beginning.


\
This is a working objective one can infer is incorporated in kata.  I don't believe the concept is integral to the competency of kata training.... and have never been instructed or read in a TMA manual that it is.....


Bill Mattocks said:


> I have found it difficult to absorb very technical explanations when I am just beginning to learn; a simple basic explanation will suffice whilst I start to peel the onion of that particular kata.  Turns are so much more than just an imaginary facing of a new opponent, but you have to get to the point where you can see that first somehow.


\
The kata / TMA problem statement....


Bill Mattocks said:


> This particular problem, in my limited understanding, is that far too many instructors began teaching well before they had advanced beyond a basic and rudimentary understanding of kata themselves, so they had little to pass on.
> 
> It is not so much that what they teach about kata is wrong; it is that it is incomplete, because they have breadth but not depth.  Everyone is in a hurry to get teaching and become a 'sensei' or 'master' and start earning a living or passing on what they think they know.
> 
> I assist in teaching.  By that I mean I show basics of the first few kata to kids, under the supervision of my sensei.  I work on feet position, hands, turns, balance and breathing with them.  I do not teach them that a kamei can be used as an armbar tie-up, for example.  It's just a kamei for now.  And I also have much to learn, so even though I know more than the beginners, I still don't know much.


\
Eminentlyl sensible, "Itsou."


----------



## ShotoNoob (Nov 13, 2015)

geezer said:


> Hmmm. Some interesting ideas being expressed. I wonder how close _Shotonoob's _views on kata are to _Bill Mattock's_? They seem to track pretty closely. I've already expressed my view regarding it's value as one of four components of the specific TMA I train (WC) which are 1. form, 2. two-man drills (lat sau) 3. sticking hands (chi-sau) and 4. sparring (nuk-sau/guo-sau). To develop completely in this art you need to balance all four areas.


\
I don't see any substantive difference in overall principle....  I've made plain how  I put the emphasis in kata...

_


Bill Mattocks said:



			Shoto
		
Click to expand...

_


Bill Mattocks said:


> , my only question is whether or not your definition of a TMA isn't rather narrow,  and perhaps based more specifically on your understanding of certain Okinawan and Japanese traditions? After all, TMA_ in genera_l (Chinese, Japanese, Okinawan, Korean, Southeast Asian, Filipino, Malaysian, Indonesian, Indian, Nepali, Tibetan, Mongolian, etc., and of course. European, and others?...) are extremely diverse. I confess ignorance here, but from what I have encountered, it is unwise to make hard and fast assumptions about _anything_, including the function and relative importance of kata/forms ...assuming the the art even uses forms at all.


\
Excellent question... though you go a bit overboard in the end...  TMA is defined by universal principles....  Sport or applied fighting methods have a different / more limited set of universal principles... I view the sport methods (boxing, Muay Thai, BJJ, kickboxing such as in "Caroline from Germany's YT Vid) as a subset of TMA principles, mainly focusing on the physical dimension, athletics....
\
The real problem, as Bill Mattocks has expressly stated, is the everyone is learning, and moreover, everyone has aptitudes and as "Peace Favor Your Sword" feels, personal preferences////  So in actual application by the individual, we are going to see a very wide range of interpretations & usages of and for TMA training.... Zack's perspective captures this reality very well, IMO.
\
OTOH, as I have premised, there are standards for any discipline.  Otherwise... we end up with Black-belts re the Backfist Miss YT VID... and precisely what all the SD heavies point out in their marketing programs about what is fault in modern TMA training...



Bill Mattocks said:


> I fully appreciate that the point of this thread is for those of us that _do_ emphasize kata/forms in our training to share the _why _behind that emphasis. But honestly, that emphasis will differ from art to art, culture to culture. Similarly, concepts such as _Kime _from Japanese TMA _may_ have analogous concepts in other cultures TMA, or they may not... I can only conclude that there are many paths and many goals in the martial arts. It is not for me to judge others by my yard (meter?) stick.


\
Again, there are universal standards in TMA.  Universal standards among any discipline.
\
The KIME example is a very good illustration of the subjectivity of these issues...  We can say for forum purposes we want to be broad minded, and accepting of other's views... but this must still be limited to standards... Otherwise again... we don't have a discipline; we have something we 'think' is good for us.... something we feel 'good' about.... not the way to approach a discipline...


----------



## ShotoNoob (Nov 13, 2015)

geezer said:


> _Shoto_, my only question is whether or not your definition of a TMA isn't rather narrow,  and perhaps based more specifically on your understanding of certain Okinawan and Japanese traditions? After all, TMA_ in genera_l (Chinese, Japanese, Okinawan, Korean, Southeast Asian, Filipino, Malaysian, Indonesian, Indian, Nepali, Tibetan, Mongolian, etc., and of course. European, and others?...) are extremely diverse. I confess ignorance here, but from what I have encountered, it is unwise to make hard and fast assumptions about _anything_, including the function and relative importance of kata/forms ...assuming the the art even uses forms at all.


\
And let me add, that my conceptual standard of what premises TMA is pretty high-level thinking...  Not everyone is going to have my years of thinking or perhaps aptitude to do so....
\
Many practitioners approach TMA as a sport, physical exercise... and this is why I favor Shotokan karate with its heavy physicality for these types of individuals///.  Yet again, to be TMA, one must approach the mental side... which Shotokan does by forcing an aggressive, rigid, highly technical body mechanics & authoritative mindset into the physicality....
\
As a final example, I find Ja Gow's sparring-heavy approach to Kung fu as sub-optimal by my understanding of TMA.  For Ja Gow, his approach is working and providing TMA-level skills.... and his students are equally encouraged...  So I confirmed this... and recommended that he NOT CHANGE anything about his current approach to kung fu.... continue on the path he is following...
\
Having an understanding of TMA principles.... how these are practically applied to various style and practitioners is necessarily subjective...
\
I believe that the vast majority of TMA practitioners, including the SD specialists here @ MT,,, the strict TMA model I am describing... is too challenging for the majority of students and everyday SD trainees...  Again, the TMA model requires years of intensive MENTAL study to become a bona-fide black-belt...and mucho double-effort to get there  That's always been a theme of my posts...
\
So all, good luck with that..... and Kata is NOT necessary to become a good MMA competitor, good fighter, or good at self defense...   Certainly the applied sport methods, and pragmatic self defense training will suffice....
\
How's that for broad...??? Peace...


----------



## ShotoNoob (Nov 13, 2015)

HERE'S MR. BACK FIST MISS., TKD BLACK-BELT IN HIS BLACK-BELT??? SPARRING TEST




\
What are we learning here?  Good sportsmanship... ie not clobbering our training / test partner... Yeah.
\
Practicing some fighting/ competition skills.... Okay.
\
Having a good time, enjoying what we are doing... For sure...
\
Joining a club & making new friends.... Again, okay...
\
Feeling a sense of accomplishment with our progression & belt ranks...  Most definitely...
|
Yet what standards of the Traditonal martial arts are being met.... What measures of traditonial TKD have been reached....
\
Thread Audience: Can Subjectively alone adequately answer these questions?
\
Peace.


----------



## Bill Mattocks (Nov 13, 2015)

I did not say any of the things you quote me as saying, my friend.  I don't understand your use of the \ mark between lines, and I don't understand your comments after the quotes you attribute to me, although as I said, I did not make them.


----------



## ShotoNoob (Nov 13, 2015)

Bill Mattocks said:


> I did not say any of the things you quote me as saying, my friend.  I don't understand your use of the \ mark between lines, and I don't understand your comments after the quotes you attribute to me, although as I said, I did not make them.


\
Yes you did....


----------



## geezer (Nov 13, 2015)

ShotoNoob said:


> \
> And let me add, that my *conceptual standard of what premises TMA* is pretty high-level thinking...  Not everyone is going to have my years of thinking or perhaps aptitude to do so....



Excuse me, but the phrase "conceptual standard of _what premises TMA_" doesn't make sense to me. Is it a typo? Perhaps you meant "what comprises TMA"?  Or perhaps it makes perfect sense and I just don't have the "aptitude" to follow your thinking here.

On the other hand, you use the term *"mental"* a lot in describing TMA. I must say that it's exactly the word that comes to mind when reading your posts. Perhaps, at least, we can all agree on that!

So, as you say, "peace" and "good luck with that".


----------



## Koshiki (Nov 13, 2015)

ShotoNoob said:


> \
> Yes you did....



In defense of Bill Mattocks, no he didn't. If you care to re-read the thread, quotes from other members, namely Geezer, have somehow been missattributed to Mr. Mattocks.


----------



## geezer (Nov 13, 2015)

Zack Cart said:


> In defense of Bill Mattocks, no he didn't. If you care to re-read the thread, quotes from other members, namely Geezer, have somehow been missattributed to Mr. Mattocks.



Quite so.


----------



## Flying Crane (Nov 13, 2015)

geezer said:


> Excuse me, but the phrase "conceptual standard of _what premises TMA_" doesn't make sense to me. Is it a typo? Perhaps you meant "what comprises TMA"?  Or perhaps it makes perfect sense and I just don't have the "aptitude" to follow your thinking here.
> 
> On the other hand, you use the term *"mental"* a lot in describing TMA. I must say that it's exactly the word that comes to mind when reading your posts. Perhaps, at least, we can all agree on that!
> 
> So, as you say, "peace" and "good luck with that".


I think perhaps he should look up that word.  I think maybe it doesn't mean what he thinks it means.


----------



## Tez3 (Nov 13, 2015)

Bill Mattocks said:


> I don't understand your comments after the quotes you attribute to me, .



Frankly I don't understand most of what he writes, I think my English is pretty good, I've been writing and speaking it for six decades now, I can usually decipher even my dyslexic friend's writing but his posts manage to leave me stumped, so sorry I don't know what he meant either.



ShotoNoob said:


> Thread Audience: Can Subjectively alone adequately answer these questions?



Ideas people? I don't want to mock just understand because there's reams of ShotoNoob's post on MT I simple don't understand.

Also I meant to say before...welcome back Bill.


----------



## ShotoNoob (Nov 13, 2015)

geezer said:


> Excuse me, but the phrase "conceptual standard of _what premises TMA_" doesn't make sense to me. Is it a typo? Perhaps you meant "what comprises TMA"?  Or perhaps it makes perfect sense and I just don't have the "aptitude" to follow your thinking here.
> 
> On the other hand, you use the term *"mental"* a lot in describing TMA. I must say that it's exactly the word that comes to mind when reading your posts. Perhaps, at least, we can all agree on that!
> 
> So, as you say, "peace" and "good luck with that".


\
Well, now can't I underline my points a little.... Guess not...  Anyway, I threw the statement out there and not unsurprisingly, the ego storm erupted....  And 1-dimensional insults prove your point?  Oh well....  the alternative to accept someone else's accomplishment it typically a challenge....


----------



## ShotoNoob (Nov 13, 2015)

Zack Cart said:


> In defense of Bill Mattocks, no he didn't. If you care to re-read the thread, quotes from other members, namely Geezer, have somehow been missattributed to Mr. Mattocks.


\
OK?


----------



## ShotoNoob (Nov 13, 2015)

Flying Crane said:


> I think perhaps he should look up that word.  I think maybe it doesn't mean what he thinks it means.


\
Ok?


----------



## geezer (Nov 13, 2015)

Tez3 said:


> Ideas people? I don't want to mock just understand because there's reams of ShotoNoob's post on MT I simple don't understand.



You have a generous attitude Tez. I also have difficulty understanding a lot of what _Shoto _has posted. On another thread, tried asking politely for clarification, but did not get an helpful response. This latest remark about people "not having the aptitude" to understand the depth of his comprehension is a pretty typical of the responses he's given before when questioned. So I admit I succumbed to the temptation to tease a bit. No harm intended. Now I'm feeling a little guilty since I might have unwittingly hit the nail on the head.


----------



## Flying Crane (Nov 13, 2015)

geezer said:


> You have a generous attitude Tez. I also have difficulty understanding a lot of what _Shoto _has posted. On another thread, tried asking politely for clarification, but did not get an helpful response. This latest remark about people "not having the aptitude" to understand the depth of his comprehension is a pretty typical of the responses he's given before when questioned. So I admit I succumbed to the temptation to tease a bit. No harm intended. Now I'm feeling a little guilty since I might have unwittingly hit the nail on the head.


Don't feel guilty about it.


----------



## Buka (Nov 13, 2015)

ShotoNoob said:


> HERE'S MR. BACK FIST MISS., TKD BLACK-BELT IN HIS BLACK-BELT??? SPARRING TEST



Almost makes me cry.


----------



## JowGaWolf (Nov 13, 2015)

Buka said:


> Almost makes me cry.


ha ha ha.. not me.  that big sign on the wall in the background "Black Belt School" tells me all that I need to know.  This tells me even more




 Everyday brain wash going on.  "Be a black belt"  and "Black belt school" signs on the wall




Schools like this always have a lot of students so I guess that type of martial arts is what most people want.


----------



## Tez3 (Nov 14, 2015)

ShotoNoob said:


> \
> Well, now can't I underline my points a little.... Guess not...  Anyway, I threw the statement out there and not unsurprisingly, the ego storm erupted....  And 1-dimensional insults prove your point?  Oh well....  the alternative to accept someone else's accomplishment it typically a challenge....



OK, if you wish to 'underline' your points there is an underlining tool to do that, if you wish to emphasis a point _italics _or *bold *will do it.
The / doesn't mean underlining a point.

You threw a 'statement' out there that no one could understand, the actual wording made no sense, it has nothing to do with egos and there's no insults, simply we cannot respond if we don't know what you are talking about which, sadly, is about 95% of the time. Your statement here 'the alternative to accept someone else's accomplishment it typically a challenge' is a case in point, it's words which when put together make little sense. Do you speak another language as your first language? We are trying hard to understand your points not insult them.


----------



## Hanzou (Nov 14, 2015)

As a person who has studied styles with kata and without kata, I still struggle to find the purpose behind kata practice beyond a simple desire to adhere to tradition.

It's to the point where I actively avoid styles that practice kata.


----------



## Flying Crane (Nov 14, 2015)

Hanzou said:


> As a person who has studied styles with kata and without kata, I still struggle to find the purpose behind kata practice beyond a simple desire to adhere to tradition.
> 
> It's to the point where I actively avoid styles that practice kata.


Oh yeah, we know.  That point was made a long time ago.

Move along now.


----------



## ShotoNoob (Nov 14, 2015)

Buka said:


> Almost makes me cry.


\
Well some many here are 'crying' because I came in and put their feet to the fire... re the popurri of views about kata.  Actually, not knowing who is really behind the avatars.... it was / is a good thread...
\
And Buka, Ja Gow is huge on free sparring as the way to go.... his theory is not working out so well here.... Any ideas on why not???


----------



## Flying Crane (Nov 14, 2015)

ShotoNoob said:


> \
> Well some many here are 'crying' because I came in and put their feet to the fire... re the popurri of views about kata.



Do you actually believe the stuff you write?


----------



## ShotoNoob (Nov 14, 2015)

JowGaWolf said:


> ha ha ha.. not me.  that big sign on the wall in the background "Black Belt School" tells me all that I need to know.


\
A number of the TMA schools in my area offer a 'black-belt' club.  It's only a problem if one has the maturity of a child; OR, a ego that's out of bounds (hint, hint).


JowGaWolf said:


> This tells me even more


\
Ja Gow, you fell off your sparring wagon here....  These TKD instructors are demonstrating exactly what is missing in all your students.  Exactly.


JowGaWolf said:


> Everyday brain wash going on.  "Be a black belt"  and "Black belt school" signs on the wall


Like the demo student you demolished, like the gifted girl student; like boxing brother are 'brainwashed' into using boxing principles in your class....  shouldn't throw stones when one lives in a glass house...


JowGaWolf said:


> Schools like this always have a lot of students so I guess that type of martial arts is what most people want.


\
Yep, recreational TKD, TMA, etc. is the most popular practice....  People are joining up to meet people & have fun.... be cool karate guys & gals....  playtime abounds....  Truth is, though, the class is serious TMA here....
\
And guess what it's all about psychologically? EGO.


----------



## Tez3 (Nov 14, 2015)

ShotoNoob said:


> \
> Well some many here are 'crying' because I came in and put their feet to the fire... re the popurri of views about kata.  Actually, not knowing who is really behind the avatars.... it was / is a good thread...
> \
> And Buka, Ja Gow is huge on free sparring as the way to go.... his theory is not working out so well here.... Any ideas on why not???



If you have put anyone's feet 'to the fire' we won't have noticed because we have no idea what you are talking about.  In fact I've no idea what putting feet to the fires means.
Free sparring? theory? nope, still no idea. I think you are waffling and thinking you are sounding high minded and above everyone else. Sorry, that's a no from me.


----------



## geezer (Nov 14, 2015)

Flying Crane said:


> Do you actually believe the stuff you write?



Well Crane, I'm wondered the same thing, and am frankly at a loss. The following quote comes to mind:

http://www.biggbossfan.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/9-Plato.jpg

Now in all fairness, I've also posted some pretty foolish things here on MT over the years. But for the love of God, ad least I admit it!!!


----------



## Kung Fu Wang (Nov 14, 2015)

If someone shows you this move (arm drag, single leg) and you like it, will you add it into your form?


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## Flying Crane (Nov 14, 2015)

Kung Fu Wang said:


> If someone shows you this move (arm drag, single leg) and you like it, will you add it into your form?


No


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## Koshiki (Nov 14, 2015)

Well, it was nice while it lasted, all. Thanks for the many interesting viewpoints.


Kung Fu Wang said:


> If someone shows you this move (arm drag, single leg) and you like it, will you add it into your form?



For my own part, no. I wouldn't add this particular move, because I would prefer not to go down with the other guy; this sort of takedown just doesn't mesh in anyway with the strategies and tactics of my style.

As for a more general, "would you add a move that you couldn't find in your forms?" my answer would still be no, most likely. Something as simple as an arm drag into a somewhat altered leg takedown can be found or worked into many of the traditional kata of my system, without altering the original form.

If there were truly no way to fit a certain technique or tactic into anything found within the forms of my system, but I felt that the technique was essential and meshed well with the overall methodology, that's something that might tempt me to create a new form and keep it as permanent part of the system. (assuming I was not myself, but rather someone with the influence to do that).

Thus far I have yet to find anything that both cannot be applied within the framework of traditional forms, that also meshes well with the overall style I practice. But then, as Karate kata, our forms are considerably less explicit than many of the CMA forms I've encountered or been shown, so I suppose there's more room for interpretation, making it more difficult to find a technique that doesn't, somewhere, fit into the several hundred moves found in one of the dozen or so basic kata we do.

I can see that, in a style with explicit motions in the forms, or with forms with set applications which are taught, it would make more sense to say, "hey, this is clearly not in our syllabus, but it works well, let's add it." And that's certainly valid, it's just different from my personal practice.

Also Kung Fu Wang, thanks for bringing us back. It _was_ nice while it lasted!


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## geezer (Nov 14, 2015)

Kung Fu Wang said:


> If someone shows you this move (arm drag, single leg) and you like it, will you add it into your form?



Why bother. Stuff like that is way more fun to practice on a partner!

Which brings us back to the whole question of why we do forms to begin with in TMAs and why aren't they used in competitve martial sports? I did know a good old wrestling coach named Mu Chang originally from Korea. He retired some years ago. He also taught a traditional martial art, Kuk Sool Won, which may have colored his training methods a little. 

Anyway he did incorporate some series of wrestling moves into _form-like drill sequences _used  for warm-ups, conditioning, and building muscle memory so that the combinations would flow quickly and naturally. An awful lot of good high school, and even some collegiate wrestlers came to him for extra training, so I guess there was some value in it.


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## JowGaWolf (Nov 14, 2015)

ShotoNoob said:


> A number of the TMA schools in my area offer a 'black-belt' club. It's only a problem if one has the maturity of a child; OR, a ego that's out of bounds


It's a problem when the students focus more on the color than the development of their skills as a martial artist. It's more of a problem when the school encourages that perspective.  The only way that sparring video wouldn't be a horror is if the the students had some kind of mental development or physical disability.  



ShotoNoob said:


> Ja Gow, you fell off your sparring wagon here.... These TKD instructors are demonstrating exactly what is missing in all your students. Exactly.


I don't consider what they are doing sparring.  Not even in the slightest.  They are simply just accepting kicks without any efforts to counter, avoid, or block the kicks. The only thing that they will develop is the habit of fighting opponents in the same manner. If this is what my students are lacking then I'm glad that they lack it, and I'll make sure that I'll do all that I can to make sure they never gain that perspective.  



ShotoNoob said:


> Like the demo student you demolished, like the gifted girl student; like boxing brother are 'brainwashed' into using boxing principles in your class.... shouldn't throw stones when one lives in a glass house


They aren't brained washed, they are having difficulties with using techniques that are out of their comfort zone.  They don't let a color of a belt to determine their level of achievement.  When students try to chase and be like other students we stop that student and remind that student that his or her personal development is more important than "being as good as someone else"  We constantly remind each other that it's all about our own personal development and not about beating someone.  Schools that have belted systems have to be especially careful that students stay focus on personal development and not the belt.


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## JowGaWolf (Nov 14, 2015)

Kung Fu Wang said:


> If someone shows you this move (arm drag, single leg) and you like it, will you add it into your form?


I wouldn't add it to my form because it doesn't fit with my fighting system which stresses the importance of not being on the ground.  Things that are added to a form have to go with the concepts and foundation of the fighting system.  There is no definite answer about adding or not adding a technique from one fighting system to another fighting system.   It happens all the time but not at the expense of the current fighting system that serves as the foundation.



Zack Cart said:


> For my own part, no. I wouldn't add this particular move, because I would prefer not to go down with the other guy; this sort of takedown just doesn't mesh in anyway with the strategies and tactics of my style.


Totally agree.


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## Kung Fu Wang (Nov 14, 2015)

Zack Cart said:


> I would prefer not to go down with the other guy;





JowGaWolf said:


> I wouldn't add it to my form because it doesn't fit with my fighting system which stresses the importance of not being on the ground.


If that's your only concern, the solution is simple. To go down with your opponent is only one way to end a "single leg". How to pick up your opponent's leading leg is one thing, how to take him down after that is something else. There are many other ways to end a "single leg" such as:

1. lift his leg over your shoulder to throw him backward.
2. lock his leg between your legs and press down on his upper leg to take him down.
3. use wheeling footwork, hold on his leg, pull his neck, spin him, and take him down.
4. sweep his standing leg.
5. hook his standing leg.
6. scoop his standing leg.
7. horse back kick his standing leg.
8. hand pull his standing leg.
9. ...

All those ending methods won't require you to go down with your opponent and you can still maintain your "mobility" as a stand up fighter.

Many years ago, I tried to add some WC moves into my long fist form. I didn't want to train my long fist forms and WC forms separately. It didn't work very well. IMO, the integration is much more than just A + B. I may have to modify B before I can integrate it into A.


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## TSDTexan (Nov 15, 2015)

Some thoughts…. or where I am at (right now) with regard to what is Kata:


Kata is many things, to many people.

To me, I see many things (about Kata) as being true, and not mutually exclusive.

Kata is a massively distributed repository. I will restate a jewel that I have already got out there:
"Kata is a .zip file" (tm); with different and distinct rules for decompression for each.

Some kata are an entire fighting system within themselves, and scale when complemented with correctly related kata.

Some Kata contained all of what was needed for a fighter to protect themselves in a real fight.

The embusan does not reflect the direction of traveling movement in a real fight but has value for didactic purpose.

Every single movement of kata in authentic old school martial arts has a lesson to teach. Every movement has a real intended meaning. Perhaps even more than one.

Kata is a model or blueprint. It is both an ideal and a practical.
Kata does not have to be karate. Kata can be called another name. Or other Martial's arts movement drills can also be descriptively called kata even if it is prescriptively incorrect.

1. Kata trains the body, and the brain, the physical movements and non-movements  (of those that would be used within a fight) at a deep neurological level. Done long enough the brain develops serious neurological pathways that significantly speed up complex movements.

For an example please watch:




The young boy started performing his cup stacking kata called “The Cycle” as in the cup stacking cycle, and in the beginning it took him between 120 to 150 seconds perform the task. (2 to 2 & 1/2 minutes)
After a number of years (and in about 3600 total hours), his practice of the routine had reduced the time down to 5 seconds.
*Even blind folded*.

There is some other amazing gems about the brain in Dr David Eagleman's series on the human brain. Stuff martial arts should know and inform their training methods.


Practicing the repeated kata allowed him to shave an incredible amount of time off the performance of the task.


And also move it from conscious effort to unconscious effort.

Which has enormous value in a martial art setting. Especially if you hardwire defensive actions into one’s involuntary response.
*[You can do that you know.
You should do that you know.]*
Your body will react to the threat before your conscious mind will have time to consider options.


-----

2.

We are living in an information (literacy) rich time. This has not always been the case.
How would you want to preserve and communicate something very important if you did not have a means of writing?


Human are social creatures who need to communicate. The greater the significance of a thought, the higher the need to transmit the thought. The idea of “how to” fight to preserve one’s family, one’s society and or one’s own life… is arguably one of the highest.


Illiteracy has always been a constant in human societies. There is no society without it.

This fact only increases scale and scope as we count backwards through the ages.

If you want to transmit information without pen and paper, or ink and brush… you have two choices. An oral tradition or a kinesiological tradition. {ideally one should use both}


This is not to say that the old masters were idiots, on the contrary they were incredibly brilliant. They succeeded in passing on a lot of information without pen and paper.

Ergo, easily remembered mental techniques called mnemonic tools, were developed back then for recording and transmitting knowledge.


In literate societies writing removes the mnemonic demand since information was transmitted in other ways.

However in societies in which literacy rare and uncommon song, dance and poetry were and are used as mnemonic tools to record and transmit stuff, especially important stuff.


Why?

Because these contain arranged patterns that is distinctive and contains both rhythms and systematic progressions, which are easily remembered and can be transmitted from one human to another relatively and has the ability for instant error correction in transmission.


Since war is one of the oldest traditions practiced by humanity it should come as no surprise that mnemonics were used by those who train (for fighting) to preserve and transmit combat tactics and strategies.

It was but one small step from dance to the development of kata.
In fact, many critics have {in ignorance} called kata nothing more “pretty dancing”.

Hence the reason why kata (prearranged drills) are found in most styles of fighting.


In addition to being a mnemonic tool that stores and transmits strategies

Kata is also a process that develops martial prowess.
In short… Kata makes you a better fighter by improving your skills, responses and thinking.


Kata is not fixed and it is not static.

Kata comes alive through the fighter who with their insight, creativity and pragmatism turns the practice of kata into a dynamic experience.

About mnemonics:

The acrostic is the most popularly used mnemonic. To make an Expression or Word mnemonic, the first letter of each item in a list is arranged to form a phrase or word. An example:

Almost every anatomy class has to remember the eight small bones in the wrist: Navicular, Lunate, Triquetrum, Pisiform, Multongular (Greater), Multongular (Lesser), Capitate, Hamate.

*Never Lick Tilly's Popsicle, Mother Might Come Home*.



The order of operations for math is Parentheses, Exponents, Multiply, Divide, Add, and Subtract = *Please Excuse My Dear Aunt Sally*.


Unlike an acrostic you can have a rhyming mnemonic without using the first letter of each word.

A commonly used rhyming oral mnemonic for the number of days in each month is:

*30 days hath September, April, June, and November.

All the rest have 31

Except February alone

which has but four and twenty-four

and every four years one day more*.

*For a physical law dealing with gasses, we created:

Charles' Law: For a constant volume, pressure is directly proportional to temperature.

*The simple way to remember Chuck is if the tank's too hot, you're blown into muck.*

Kata as a mnemonic teaches or helps retain the knowledge of when and where to apply specifically drilled & learned techniques. Kata gives strategic rationale, tactical method and coherence to motion.

An example would be “the when” of how to apply a grappling lock, or sweep or throw. Things that if just thrown out into a fight without rhyme or reason would not work, but the Kata teaches the set up. and the counter to a most likely counter in the same way a mnemonic device helps someone recall to conscious thought the "whys" which are made up of "when to" + "how tos" ..

Kata is not bunkai but bunkai is required to properly learn the meaning of kata.
Bunkai is not 



&





As much as it is this:



&




That is to say... kata bunkai is not meaningless imagery and motion that we project upon with our own thoughts and ideas.

Not. Bunkai and Kata are telling a nmemonic story. Deep and rich as life death and war and peace.


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## Kenpoguy123 (Nov 15, 2015)

Forms are the same as shaddow boxing. Practicing your moves without a live partner. Of course in a fight you're not going to defend yourself like a form but it teaches you to put the moves together and work at differen angles


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## Buka (Nov 15, 2015)

ShotoNoob said:


> \
> Well some many here are 'crying' because I came in and put their feet to the fire... re the popurri of views about kata.  Actually, not knowing who is really behind the avatars.... it was / is a good thread...
> \
> And Buka, Ja Gow is huge on free sparring as the way to go.... his theory is not working out so well here.... Any ideas on why not???



Uhhh, I'm sorry, I don't undestand the question. Nor the statement before it, actually. I'm just an old fool, do you mind running that by me again? I really like The Wolf's posts, I'd love to answer, but I'm confused.


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## JowGaWolf (Nov 15, 2015)

Kung Fu Wang said:


> If that's your only concern, the solution is simple. To go down with your opponent is only one way to end a "single leg". How to pick up your opponent's leading leg is one thing, how to take him down after that is something else. There are many other ways to end a "single leg" such as:
> 
> 1. lift his leg over your shoulder to throw him backward.
> 2. lock his leg between your legs and press down on his upper leg to take him down.
> ...


But many of those methods that you state are already in my fighting system.  The question you asked was would I add the technique that was shown in the video.  Once you change what was shown in the video then it no is the same technique that was shown in the video.


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## ShotoNoob (Nov 15, 2015)

JowGaWolf said:


> It's a problem when the students focus more on the color than the development of their skills as a martial artist. It's more of a problem when the school encourages that perspective.  The only way that sparring video wouldn't be a horror is if the the students had some kind of mental development or physical disability.


\
Well according to some M.T. members; if they like what they (those students) are doing.... more power to them...
\
And to rise above the 1-dimensional replies I often receive.... if one is so undisciplined mentally that a trophy-bobble is what you care about, then how much of a coaching crutch do you need in order to step up to TMA?  Open question....



JowGaWolf said:


> I don't consider what they are doing sparring.  Not even in the slightest.  They are simply just accepting kicks without any efforts to counter, avoid, or block the kicks. The only thing that they will develop is the habit of fighting opponents in the same manner. If this is what my students are lacking then I'm glad that they lack it, and I'll make sure that I'll do all that I can to make sure they never gain that perspective.


\
Well they are sparring... on their level which is incompetent on your level....  What do you want me to say other than that...  someone else here will advocate... "they are learning to get hit."  Well...



JowGaWolf said:


> They aren't brained washed, they are having difficulties with using techniques that are out of their comfort zone.  They don't let a color of a belt to determine their level of achievement.  When students try to chase and be like other students we stop that student and remind that student that his or her personal development is more important than "being as good as someone else"  We constantly remind each other that it's all about our own personal development and not about beating someone.  Schools that have belted systems have to be especially careful that students stay focus on personal development and not the belt.


\
Yeah, then how come all these alternative M.T. posters here beat up on me.... when I agree...???  Word: Promotion.  Same concept as awarding belts = accomplishment.  Promote the business...
\
EDIT: have to admit though, never thought of kata as an ink blot....


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## ShotoNoob (Nov 15, 2015)

Buka said:


> Uhhh, I'm sorry, I don't undestand the question. Nor the statement before it, actually. I'm just an old fool, do you mind running that by me again? I really like The Wolf's posts, I'd love to answer, but I'm confused.


\
YOu should be sorry...  good luck with that...


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## geezer (Nov 15, 2015)

ShotoNoob said:


> \
> YOu should be sorry...  good luck with that...



Are you joking or serious? Honestly, _it's hard to tell._ Even your choice of _emojis _is confusing.You _do_ realize that your comments come across as so disjointed and random as to _border on being virtually incoherent_ at times. Try re-reading your remarks from the perspective of those you are addressing. Better yet, have a friend read them and ask him or her if your meaning is clear. 

I, for one, will stop tossing the snarky one-liners your way _...bada-boom!_. I did that because I actually thought you were trolling. Now I suspect that maybe you are being sincere, but just not communicating in a way that some of us can decipher. One poster asked if English is your first language. Judging by your command of popular idioms, I'll bet it is. More likely, you get going on a topic and make mental leaps that are clear in your head but leave your audience behind. Slow down, bring them along with you. They might not agree, but at least everyone will be on the same page!

Oh, and drop the defensive facade of arrogance. People here at MT are mostly a pretty friendly and helpful bunch. In fact some are both highly educated and knowledgeable regarding their respective martial arts. I'd bet that if you_ try_ to communicate a little more clearly and offer some clarification when people have questions, you might get a more positive reception.


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## Buka (Nov 15, 2015)

ShotoNoob said:


> \
> YOu should be sorry...  good luck with that...



Oh, good, that's somewhat of a relief as I really am sorry that I don't understand. I see that as a good sign, sort of like hitting one for one (for me) so far. (Yay!)

Having been a fair investigator back in the day, I figured I'd help myself out so I Googled "\". 

Got this - Backslash - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

But that didn't really help me. So I then Googled that panda thingy. Got this - Urban Dictionary: confused panda

I wasn't sure if that reflected on your post or mine, but since I don't really understand your post, I figure it must be mine.

Then I Googled that other symbol, that emoticon thingy. I got this -
Google:

I'm not really sure what all that means. Or if it refers to you or me. My guess would be me as I really am confused and you don't seem to be at all.

Then I looked at your post itself -

"\
YOu should be sorry... good luck with that...
	

	
	
		
		

		
		
	


	







"

That made me feel a whole lot better. I am confused, truly. And I always appreciate wishes of luck from a fellow Martial Artist. (Rock on, bro.)

But uh, good luck with what?


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## Tez3 (Nov 16, 2015)

ShotoNoob said:


> And to rise above the 1-dimensional replies I often receive.... if one is so undisciplined mentally that a trophy-bobble is what you care about, then how much of a coaching crutch do you need in order to step up to TMA? Open question....



If one is so undisciplined mentally that one cannot string a coherent sentence together so that people can understand what you mean I'm surprised you even get 'one dimensional' replies.
What is a 'trophy bobble'? a bobble here is usually an elastic band used to tie hair up.
_'coaching crutch needed to step up to TMA'_ absolutely no idea what that means.

You may think you are far above us in intellect and martial arts skills but sadly you are the only one that thinks this, we don't know how or what to answer you simply because we cannot read what you write. It really is as simple as that. It's English Captain but not as we know it.


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## RTKDCMB (Nov 16, 2015)

Tez3 said:


> What is a 'trophy bobble'? a bobble here is usually an elastic band used to tie hair up.


Or an arcade game Bubble Bobble.

Bubble Bobble - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


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## Tony Dismukes (Nov 16, 2015)

Tez3 said:


> If one is so undisciplined mentally that one cannot string a coherent sentence together so that people can understand what you mean I'm surprised you even get 'one dimensional' replies.
> What is a 'trophy bobble'? a bobble here is usually an elastic band used to tie hair up.
> _'coaching crutch needed to step up to TMA'_ absolutely no idea what that means.
> 
> You may think you are far above us in intellect and martial arts skills but sadly you are the only one that thinks this, we don't know how or what to answer you simply because we cannot read what you write. It really is as simple as that. It's English Captain but not as we know it.



I think he meant "bauble", although the rest of his comment is still pretty incoherent.


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## lklawson (Nov 16, 2015)

ShotoNoob said:


> \
> I'm not following this.... so just let me add...
> 
> \
> ...


I'm trying my darndest to be polite but tell you that you're arguing about stuff that wasn't part of what I replied to and wasn't part of the conversation of what the person I replied to wrote, nor what I wrote in reply.  Typically this means that the person replying to me (you, in this case) just kinda skimmed the thread and probably had a preconceived notion of what the people were saying but didn't bother to actually find out.

In other words, what the heck are you talking about?  Are you just wanting to argue?

You can probably easily figure out what the less polite reply normally is.


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## lklawson (Nov 16, 2015)

JowGaWolf said:


> Schools like this always have a lot of students so I guess that type of martial arts is what most people want.


And, in the grand scheme, generally aren't causing any true harm.

Peace favor your sword,
Kirk


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## Tony Dismukes (Nov 16, 2015)

Kung Fu Wang said:


> If someone shows you this move (arm drag, single leg) and you like it, will you add it into your form?


That looks like an arm drag to a _double_ leg, not a single leg.


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## lklawson (Nov 16, 2015)

geezer said:


> Which brings us back to the whole question of why we do forms to begin with in TMAs and why aren't they used in competitve martial sports?


<cough>Judo<cough>...

Peace favor your sword,
Kirk


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## lklawson (Nov 16, 2015)

Tez3 said:


> If one is so undisciplined mentally that one cannot string a coherent sentence together so that people can understand what you mean I'm surprised you even get 'one dimensional' replies.
> What is a 'trophy bobble'? a bobble here is usually an elastic band used to tie hair up.


A "bobble" (misspelling) is an attractive yet ultimately low value piece, often used to refer to costume jewelry.  In this case a belt-rank which was unearned or a "participation trophy" given to an unskilled participant in a martial arts competition might be referred to as a "bobble."

_



			'coaching crutch needed to step up to TMA'
		
Click to expand...

_


> absolutely no idea what that means.


I'm guessing that he's referring to using belt ranks as a motivation tool by instructors, or possibly by students focusing too heavily on achieving the next belt-grade.  But it's hard to tell.



> You may think you are far above us in intellect and martial arts skills but sadly you are the only one that thinks this, we don't know how or what to answer you simply because we cannot read what you write. It really is as simple as that. It's English Captain but not as we know it.


I think he just wants to argue and has a lot of preconceived notions which include him being right about everything and everyone else being assumed to be both disagreeing with him and therefore, also, by default, wrong.

Peace favor your sword,
Kirk


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## TSDTexan (Nov 16, 2015)

Hanzou said:


> As a person who has studied styles with kata and without kata, I still struggle to find the purpose behind kata practice beyond a simple desire to adhere to tradition.
> 
> It's to the point where I actively avoid styles that practice kata.


Lol


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## TSDTexan (Nov 16, 2015)

Flying Crane said:


> My own experience has been that dancers struggle with martial arts.  While the points you cite above are true, they often have difficulty with grounding and root because they train to be light and to float.  The body connection is different, they struggle with full body connection in a martial methodology.  Of course different types of dance backgrounds may change this, one's mileage may vary.



The dance art has to square with the martial art.
Otherwise you get this..





The art is light on the feet, then the dance style must be as well. Dare I say vice versa.


Root and structure in Linde Hop dance




Root and structure in Judo





And then again you have things like capoeira(sp) which are a dance fighting style hibrid. And Chinese Lion Dancing.


As for floating... Western Boxing has both rooted and floating artists. Boxing is rife with dance parallels. In boxing we find boxers, coaches and trainers using terms like "beat","on the off beat","tempo" and rhythm. Boxing didn't have to create new terms but simply appropriate musical/dancing terms for itself.

I found it to be true in western boxing, there is an unconscious habit that I find myself and other boxers doing. Synchronized hopping. A common enough thing to find. Boxers on the bounce for mobility and to engage footwork for defensive or mounting an offense.
Eventually they begin to hop on the same beat.

Boxers dance.
Some float like a butterfly and sting like a bee


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## tshadowchaser (Nov 16, 2015)

ShotoNoob said:


> . if one is so undisciplined mentally that a trophy-bobble is what you care about, then how much of a coaching cr



I have tried to stay open minded about much of what has been posted in this thread  but I must ask:

What the Hell are you talking about.  Do you even know what your saying?


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## Flying Crane (Nov 16, 2015)

TSDTexan said:


> The dance art has to square with the martial art.
> Otherwise you get this..
> 
> 
> ...


That's a pretty funny video.

Regarding your comment about capoeira, do not make the common mistake of describing it as a dance/fight style hybrid.  It is definitely not.  There are cultural influences that lead to the inclusion of music and rhythm, but it most definitely is not dance.    It has always been a fighting method.  I spent a number of years training it obsessively, so I do have some direct and practical experience with it.  I just try to steer people in the right direction when it comes to this.


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## geezer (Nov 16, 2015)

Tez3 said:


> If one is so undisciplined mentally that one cannot string a coherent sentence together so that people can understand what you mean I'm surprised you even get 'one dimensional' replies.
> ...What is a 'trophy bobble'? a bobble here is usually an elastic band used to tie hair up.



I can help you with that one, Tez. He means "bauble":

bauble | an inexpensive piece of jewelry

Now, if only the problems I have in deciphering _Shoto's_ posts were all just a matter of  occasional typos or regional usage. That's easy to get past. It's the mixed metaphors and gaping chasms in his train of thought that confound me. Heck, some of those gaps make the _Grand Canyon_ look small. I mean I live in Arizona and have hiked across it successfully. Can't say the same regarding some of _Shoto's_ posts!


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## JowGaWolf (Nov 16, 2015)

TSDTexan said:


> The dance art has to square with the martial art.
> Otherwise you get this..
> 
> 
> ...


 Traditional lion dancing really isn't dancing.  It's like a continuous stance training exercise that goes on for 10 minutes or more.  A lot of the footwork that's in traditional lion dance can be found in actual fighting techniques in fighting system.  In terms of physical demand, balance, and leg strength.  Lion dancing is harder than Kung fu.


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## Kung Fu Wang (Nov 16, 2015)

Hanzou said:


> As a person who has studied styles with kata and without kata, I still struggle to find the purpose behind kata practice beyond a simple desire to adhere to tradition.
> 
> It's to the point where I actively avoid styles that practice kata.


I feel about the same way too. I have learned many forms. I have also created 3 new forms myself. Today if I want to train solo at home, I just pick up 20 combo drills and drill each combo drills 20 times instead.

Those drills are not in any forms that I have learned. For example combo drills such as:

- arm drag, single leg, inner hook,
- leg seize, reverse leg seize, forward kick,
- leg seize, twist and spring, outer bowing,
- leg twist, leg lift, leg block, outer twist,
- ...

I feel it's time for me to dig into the "combo - use one move to set up next move" level instead of just the "form" level.


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## lklawson (Nov 16, 2015)

TSDTexan said:


> As for floating... Western Boxing has both rooted and floating artists. Boxing is rife with dance parallels. In boxing we find boxers, coaches and trainers using terms like "beat","on the off beat","tempo" and rhythm. Boxing didn't have to create new terms but simply appropriate musical/dancing terms for itself.


Coincidentally, Fencing and related weapons disciplines from western culture use the same terminology.  

Peace favor your sword,
Kirk


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## geezer (Nov 16, 2015)

Kung Fu Wang said:


> I feel about the same way too. I have learned many forms. I have also created 3 new forms myself. Today if I want to train solo at home, I just pick up 20 combo drills and drill each combo drills 20 times instead.



Sounds like a productive way to train.

One of the things I like about WC is that the forms are _concise and few_. They serve multiple purposes, but lately I've been using Siu Nim Tau almost_ like an outline_, or a table of contents for a large textbook. Each section can be read like a chapter heading, reminding me of innumerable drills and training sequence that can be used to develop various practice attributes of the system.

So as long as I carry the form or outline with me, I have the key to an endless number of drills that relate to the structures and energies of any given section of the form. For practical purposes, I spend far more time doing these kinds of exercises and drill than the form itself.

Some might see this as a way in which non-literate or marginally literate practitioners in earlier times could codify and keep track of their system. I find it equally valuable today. You can't be looking at your phone for answers all the time, ya know!


----------



## TSDTexan (Nov 16, 2015)

geezer said:


> my old...Sifu pointed out the diverse applications..
> .found in the WC forms... beyond what you could...*see* in the forms, although once explained and *mastered*, you could easily _*feel*_ these potential applications.



Geezer... you are speaking genus stuff here.

proprioception. (prō'prē-ō-sěp'shən) The unconscious perception of movement and spatial orientation arising from stimuli within the body itself. In humans, these stimuli are detected by nerves within the body itself, as well as by the semicircular canals of the inner ear.

Once someone learns to hear their body speaking to them.
The voice gets louder and easier to hear.
Visual pattern recognition is hardwired into the brain. A week old child can register different faces between known and unknown.

However the 6th sense of body awareness is also hardwired but very undeveloped.  Once a person has finally developed "it" the patern reconstruction and recognition systems of the brain can engage and begin to analyze the data the body is telling it.

Eventually as your body performance teaches your brain, on an unconcious level, an occasional "pattern match" triggers memory of associated movements and you begin to develop gut feeling or hunches.

You feel the applications.


There is a thing called the cortical humunculus. It is an internal map of the body within the cortex. Two actually.  One handles motor function & the handles sense data.

Here is a visual map showing, by scale, how much of a given body part is represented in the cortex, with regard to senses and motor control movement.





It is interesting to note... this is able to be learned or programmed.

A person who has had a loss of both hands can learn to do a mind boggling amount of tasks with their feet. Like playing a guitar!

The feet of such an individual have an amazing amount of synaptic connection wrt their feet in the cortex


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## RTKDCMB (Nov 17, 2015)

TSDTexan said:


> Here is a visual map showing, by scale, how much of a given body part is represented in the cortex, with regard to senses and motor control movement.


That picture reminds me of the picture that shows the body parts sized according to their sensitivity..
http://i.imgur.com/ewtvoWM.jpeg


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## TSDTexan (Nov 17, 2015)

RTKDCMB said:


> That picture reminds me of the picture that shows the body parts sized according to their sensitivity..
> http://i.imgur.com/ewtvoWM.jpeg



Yep the cortex had two cortical homunculi. 1st. Is nerve input which increases with practiced awareness. 2nd. Is motor controls both voluntary and involuntary.

I chose a image that was less than perfect in anatomical correctness with regard to reproductive anatomy to stay in complete with forum TOS.

The greater one learns to control the body, the more the two models will look like each other.

Which kata helps in developing body awareness if one has an instructor with the requisite skillset.


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## TSDTexan (Nov 17, 2015)

@Zack Cart

E V E R Y     M O V E M E N T has meaning.

Combative Application of the Salutation as taught by this hanshi in following video by





I found this gem last night before bed. I'm happy he used the phrase term mnemonic in his video. For me it is Cosmic irony, local humility.


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## JowGaWolf (Nov 17, 2015)

TSDTexan said:


> @Zack Cart
> 
> E V E R Y     M O V E M E N T has meaning.
> 
> ...


Way too complex for me.  I'm glad my salutes are put into three categories.  1. I'm here in peace I do not want to fight,  2. A bow of equality. we may fight.  3. A bow of aggression meaning that we are about to fight.


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## Kung Fu Wang (Nov 18, 2015)

There is no form/Kata on earth that you can learn the "leg shooting counter" as shown at 0.30. The form/Kata just doesn't record every MA skills.


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## Tez3 (Nov 18, 2015)

Kung Fu Wang said:


> There is no form/Kata on earth that you can learn the "leg shooting counter" as shown at 0.30. The form/Kata just doesn't record every MA skills.



Do you think then that kata should 'record' every single technique a martial arts style has? What are your thoughts on Bunkai then?


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## lklawson (Nov 18, 2015)

Tez3 said:


> Do you think then that kata should 'record' every single technique a martial arts style has? What are your thoughts on Bunkai then?


It would certainly be a powerful argument in support of the "kata as a technique library" thesis.

Peace favor your sword,
Kirk


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## Tez3 (Nov 18, 2015)

lklawson said:


> It would certainly be a powerful argument in support of the "kata as a technique library" thesis.
> 
> Peace favor your sword,
> Kirk



Very difficult to use kata though if every single technique and all their variations were to be recorded!

While kata may be a 'technique library' for some, for many other's it's not so assuming every single move should be in every single styles kata is unrealistic as well as just incorrect. To keep saying why isn't this technique in kata, why isn't that technique in kata is pointless, it may well be in someone's kata, it may well be left to the practitioner to work out or it may not even be a technique used in a particular style. 
I don't think kata's are for learning techniques from however you think of kata, so if the 'leg shooting' move is in a kata, you would surely learn it first anyway.


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## donald1 (Nov 18, 2015)

IMO, I see no point in doing so.  Most of the people I see don't practice forms or any ma really. I usually will not discuss topics with a person who has no interest in what I'm talking about.


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## Tez3 (Nov 18, 2015)

donald1 said:


> IMO, I see no point in doing so.  Most of the people I see don't practice forms or any ma really. I usually will not discuss topics with a person who has no interest in what I'm talking about.



The assumption in the question really is how you would explain it 'if they asked', it's also a politer way to phrase the question 'what do you think kata is'. It's politer because the OP wants a discussion not an argument.


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## lklawson (Nov 18, 2015)

Tez3 said:


> Very difficult to use kata though if every single technique and all their variations were to be recorded!
> 
> While kata may be a 'technique library' for some, for many other's it's not so assuming every single move should be in every single styles kata is unrealistic as well as just incorrect. To keep saying why isn't this technique in kata, why isn't that technique in kata is pointless, it may well be in someone's kata, it may well be left to the practitioner to work out or it may not even be a technique used in a particular style.
> I don't think kata's are for learning techniques from however you think of kata, so if the 'leg shooting' move is in a kata, you would surely learn it first anyway.


The absence of any given technique in the kata of a system but which is within the curriculum of the system does not, by default, invalidate the thesis that kata is a library of techniques.  However, the presence of all of the system's techniques within the system's body of kata would, as I stated, be a powerful argument in the "kata as a library of techniques" thesis.

This, again, goes to my position that kata is many different things to different people and different systems.  I have several friends who practice Silat.  They tell me that there are countless discrete and independent "village styles" of Silat.  Many of these, apparently, are represented, in entirety, by a single form/kata which the village practices.  From what I can tell, to them, the form *IS* the system, inclusive.

And yet, in this thread alone, we've had 4-6 different descriptions of what kata "really is."  My conclusion is that "they're all right."  Kata can be any number of different things from teaching core principles, through choreography of a fight, to being a library of techniques.  Kata is represented by a set [a..z] in which nearly every potential description is represented.

There is no wrong answer.  Kata is a Rorschach blot.

Peace favor your sword,
Kirk


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## TSDTexan (Nov 18, 2015)

lklawson said:


> The absence of any given technique in the kata of a system but which is within the curriculum of the system does not, by default, invalidate the thesis that kata is a library of techniques.  However, the presence of all of the system's techniques within the system's body of kata would, as I stated, be a powerful argument in the "kata as a library of techniques" thesis.
> 
> This, again, goes to my position that kata is many different things to different people and different systems.  I have several friends who practice Silat.  They tell me that there are countless discrete and independent "village styles" of Silat.  Many of these, apparently, are represented, in entirety, by a single form/kata which the village practices.  From what I can tell, to them, the form *IS* the system, inclusive.
> 
> ...



Bah. Its so much more then a blot test.
In the blot, a viewer projects meaning unto an image of randomized shape.

The meaning of kata's movements were by design meaningful. The problem is the opposite.  People are projecting meaninglessness upon it.


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## Bill Mattocks (Nov 18, 2015)

I truly believe that people find what they want to find within kata/forms.

If they believe they are meaningless, then that is true for them.
If they believe they are a catalog of techniques and thus limited...
If they believe they are tools to teach basic movements...
If they believe they contain the core and basis of martial arts, to be developed by mindful repetition over time...


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## TSDTexan (Nov 18, 2015)

Bill Mattocks said:


> I truly believe that people find what they want to find within kata/forms.
> 
> If they believe they are meaningless, then that is true for them.
> If they believe they are a catalog of techniques and thus limited...
> ...



Then you believe kata is subjective.

I could be wrong but I think if we could go back in time, and had access.... if we asked every kata creator in Okinawa
If kata had meaning in and of itself or if the only thing to be found within kata was what the performer of the kata brought with him or her...we might see many old masters holding a view that kata is objective.

Perhaps very objective.

I hold to a position that kata is pretty flexible in some things, and inflexible in others. Kata is never without meaning, even if popular opinion of 7 billion humans were to change their mind and say it doesn't now, and it never has had meaning.

Facts don't change by popular demand. If they could, they wouldn't be facts... right?

So it could well be for someone that they go into kata practice and come away believing kata is meaningless,  and for them it is subjectively true, it doesn't change the objective reality that kata in iteslf is meaningful.


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## Balrog (Nov 18, 2015)

IMNSHO, forms are an excellent way to practice timing, focus, correct execution of technique, balance, etc.  They make us strive to improve ourselves in all those ways and more, so that we are continually practicing to overcome our worst opponent - ourselves.


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## Bill Mattocks (Nov 18, 2015)

TSDTexan said:


> Then you believe kata is subjective.



Not at all. I merely note that people who want to believe X about kata, will find X to be true.  Those who wish to believe Y will find Y.  In other words, people change the circumstances so that their conclusions support their beliefs.  It's natural.  I didn't say it was right.



> I could be wrong but I think if we could go back in time, and had access.... if we asked every kata creator in Okinawa
> If kata had meaning in and of itself or if the only thing to be found within kata was what the performer of the kata brought with him or her...we might see many old masters holding a view that kata is objective.
> 
> Perhaps very objective.



Perhaps.



> I hold to a position that kata is pretty flexible in some things, and inflexible in others. Kata is never without meaning, even if popular opinion of 7 billion humans were to change their mind and say it doesn't now, and it never has had meaning.



I agree.



> Facts don't change by popular demand. If they could, they wouldn't be facts... right?



Quite right.  However, we humans have different notions of what the 'facts' are.  The fact itself, if it is indeed a fact, cannot be changed by their alternate beliefs.  But it doesn't stop them from believing something other than the truth.  Humans are funny.



> So it could well be for someone that they go into kata practice and come away believing kata is meaningless,  and for them it is subjectively true, it doesn't change the objective reality that kata in iteslf is meaningful.



Again, I agree.  So there is indeed subjective truth - for the individual - and objective truth - which cannot be altered because someone believes X, Y, or Z about the kata.  It also doesn't mean that *my* understanding of kata is the correct one.  That gets perilously close to religion.


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## lklawson (Nov 18, 2015)

TSDTexan said:


> if we asked every kata creator in Okinawa


...we could ask him what the Chinese guy who he learned from said that forms were for?



Peace favor your sword,
Kirk


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## Tony Dismukes (Nov 18, 2015)

TSDTexan said:


> I hold to a position that kata is pretty flexible in some things, and inflexible in others. Kata is never without meaning, even if popular opinion of 7 billion humans were to change their mind and say it doesn't now, and it never has had meaning.
> 
> Facts don't change by popular demand. If they could, they wouldn't be facts... right?
> 
> So it could well be for someone that they go into kata practice and come away believing kata is meaningless, and for them it is subjectively true, it doesn't change the objective reality that kata in iteslf is meaningful.


Well ... meaning is _always_ subjective. Absent some conscious, subjective observer, things do not have an inherent objective meaning. They just are. A rock just is. An apple just is. A star just is. Even an original manuscript of sheet music written by Mozart just is.

All these things have meaning only in that they are meaningful _to_ someone. That apple means one thing to a starving man. It means something else to a junk food addict starting a new diet. The Mozart sheet music meant one thing to Mozart. It means another thing to a modern student of classical music. It means another thing to a librarian specializing in preservation of historical documents. It means another thing to a Britney Spears fan.

A given kata may have had a specific meaning intended by whoever originally designed it (although in many cases we have no way of knowing for sure what that intended meaning was). That original intended meaning may not be the same meaning it had to the various people who altered it as the kata evolved over generations. It may or may not correspond to any of the various meanings that it has to the thousands of people who practice it today. All those meanings are subjective. None of them are objective.


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## Dirty Dog (Nov 18, 2015)

Balrog said:


> IMNSHO, forms are an excellent way to practice timing, focus, correct execution of technique, balance, etc.



Agreed.



Balrog said:


> They make us strive to improve ourselves in all those ways and more, so that we are continually practicing to overcome our worst opponent - ourselves.



No, not so much. People who strive to improve themselves do so because that's one of their personality traits. They'd do the same thing if they practiced without forms.


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## Tez3 (Nov 18, 2015)

I imagine if we could go back to those who came up with the first katas they'd actually be shaking their heads at all the talk and be saying 'why aren't you training'


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## Koshiki (Nov 18, 2015)

Tony Dismukes said:


> The Mozart sheet music meant one thing to Mozart. It means another thing to a modern student of classical music. It means another thing to a librarian specializing in preservation of historical documents. It means another thing to a Britney Spears fan.



It's worth noting that, while modern students of classical music may study in depth the work of Mozart, many of the same pieces we study were not held to be of particular import back in the day. When Mozart wrote "Eine Kleine Nachtmusik," it was basically a background music pop-tune, designed to be inoffensive, and to blend in with the potted plants. Now people listen to it a staple of popular classical music and try to derive deep meaning.

Can the casual listener derive great enjoyment from Mozart's "Little bit of Evening Music"? Yes. Can the music devotee find deep meaning in the music? Of course!

Most importantly, can the student of music learn a great many important lessons from the formal structure, harmonic progression, melodic contours, etc? Why yes, yes indeed.

But Mozart didn't think it was anything special. I suspect he was more emotionally involved in his six part vocal canon, "Leck mich im Arsch."

There _may _be parallels between the progression of perceived worth as augmented by the weight of history in both music and kata...


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## TSDTexan (Nov 18, 2015)

Tez3 said:


> I imagine if we could go back to those who came up with the first katas they'd actually be shaking their heads at all the talk and be saying 'why aren't you training'



The irony of your point is that you have made it in a forum of talk but the content offered by you is paraphrased and echoed by the popular expression "Shut up and train".


But Motobu Choki makes it clear that someone who just trains and doesnt party and socialize has flavorless kata and art.*

I suspect that the response offered would depend on the time and place the question was asked.

I know that I wouldn't be asking the master's while class was "in session" but more after class, perhaps on the way to a pub-ish place for a drink.


*
*"It is necessary to drink alcohol and pursue other fun human activities. The art (karate) of someone who is too serious has no flavour."-Choki Motobu*


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## Dirty Dog (Nov 18, 2015)

TSDTexan said:


> *"It is necessary to drink alcohol and pursue other fun human activities. The art (karate) of someone who is too serious has no flavour."-Choki Motobu*



Necessary? Really? So you can't be a Karateka unless you drink alcohol?
The only people for whom it is "Necessary to drink alcohol" are alcoholics.

Pursuing other fun activities I agree with.


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## Kung Fu Wang (Nov 18, 2015)

TSDTexan said:


> if we asked every kata creator in Okinawa...


The Chinese wrestling has 24 solo drills. If link them together, it can be a form. The following clip shows the first 6 drills. Please notice that

- drill 1, 2, 3, 4 have only hand move.
- drill 5, 6 have only leg moves.

I have asked the form creator (my teacher). He told me that it was created to help beginner easy to learn. If you do this form exactly as shown in the following clip when you are 80 years old, you may have consider yourself as "beginner" all your life. The creator (my teacher) told me that after you have passed your "beginner training stage", the proper way to train is to add proper 

- leg move into drill 1, 2, 3, 4, and
- hand move into drill 5, 6


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## Kung Fu Wang (Nov 18, 2015)

Tez3 said:


> Do you think then that kata should 'record' every single technique a martial arts style has? What are your thoughts on Bunkai then?


IMO, your "door guarding skill" should be in the forms. This way it's easy for the future generation to teach to their students and not to be forgotten. Since your "door guarding skill" may be different from your teacher's, or his teacher's, or even the style foundation's, not to modify a tradition form can be a problem.


----------



## Tez3 (Nov 18, 2015)

TSDTexan said:


> The irony of your point is that you have made it in a forum of talk but the content offered by you is paraphrased and echoed by the popular expression "Shut up and train".
> 
> 
> But Motobu Choki makes it clear that someone who just trains and doesnt party and socialize has flavorless kata and art.*
> ...




The irony is that my 'point' was merely a joke, you know... a light hearted quip, a witticism nothing more.

 'I am not bound to please thee with my answer' Shakespeare


----------



## TSDTexan (Nov 18, 2015)

Tony Dismukes said:


> Well ... meaning is _always_ subjective. Absent some conscious, subjective observer, things do not have an inherent objective meaning. They just are. A rock just is. An apple just is. A star just is. Even an original manuscript of sheet music written by Mozart just is.
> 
> All these things have meaning only in that they are meaningful _to_ someone. That apple means one thing to a starving man. It means something else to a junk food addict starting a new diet. The Mozart sheet music meant one thing to Mozart. It means another thing to a modern student of classical music. It means another thing to a librarian specializing in preservation of historical documents. It means another thing to a Britney Spears fan.
> 
> A given kata may have had a specific meaning intended by whoever originally designed it (although in many cases we have no way of knowing for sure what that intended meaning was). That original intended meaning may not be the same meaning it had to the various people who altered it as the kata evolved over generations. It may or may not correspond to any of the various meanings that it has to the thousands of people who practice it today. All those meanings are subjective. None of them are objective.



A skeptic can contend that our knowledge is limited to the realm of our own subjective impressions, allowing us no knowledge of objective reality as it is in itself.

But intersubjective measure finds congruence with objective reality. Some have things have objective observed meaning in and of themeselves.

Hot object above in sky, burns pale skin red.
Violent water makes dead things.
Big Cliff falling kills animals below.

We are able gain purchase on obective reality, through combined sense data and communication.

Death is an objective reality that is universally understood by observation.

Even the innocent of mind gain meaning and understanding of it after exposure. Barring of course, the mentally infirm, and the children's mind before or about age 5. Perhaps they (2 types) cannot understand that when something dies, they stop moving and are no longer with those who are.

There are higher orders or states of significance within meaning.... and at that point I will agree with you that meaning becomes as subjective as the thought patterns and vocabulary to express them, of a group of individual persons.

Does something that once have had meaning, but the original intent or meaning has been lost or altered signify that this thing is now meaningless?






Dirty Dog said:


> Necessary? Really? So you can't be a Karateka unless you drink alcohol?
> The only people for whom it is "Necessary to drink alcohol" are alcoholics.
> 
> Pursuing other fun activities I agree with.



Well... perhaps you can discuss the matter with Choki Motobu at some point. I suspect the employment of hyperbole or overstatement by Choki here.


----------



## Tez3 (Nov 18, 2015)

Kung Fu Wang said:


> IMO, your "door guarding skill" should be in the forms. This way it's easy for the future generation to teach to their students and not to be forgotten. Since your "door guarding skill" may be different from your teacher's, or his teacher's, or even the style foundation's, not to modify a tradition form can be a problem.




What do you mean by 'door guarding' skills, I don't understand what you mean by that expression nor does it answer my questions.


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## TSDTexan (Nov 18, 2015)

Tez3 said:


> The irony is that my 'point' was merely a joke, you know... a light hearted quip, a witticism nothing more.
> 
> 'I am not bound to please thee with my answer' Shakespeare



Good. I am not interested in bound people for my pleasure.
As for jokes...I was prepared to tell you one about marmalade.... but now I won't. 

You would just spread it around.


----------



## TSDTexan (Nov 18, 2015)

Tez3 said:


> What do you mean by 'door guarding' skills, I don't understand what you mean by that expression nor does it answer my questions.


Open Door are open lines (unguarded) of attack to the body.





Getting someone's arm to move out of the way is opening a door/gate.

There is an ancient northern chinese proverb: "The arms are the swinging doors but the leg is the real weapon"


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## Kung Fu Wang (Nov 18, 2015)

Tez3 said:


> What do you mean by 'door guarding' skills', ...


"Door guarding skill" means the skill that you use it to guard your front door (your best technique). It may be in your forms, or it may not be.

For example, the "leg twist" was one of my teacher's best moves. It requires circular hopping footwork and leg twisting motion. It's not in any form that you can find on this planet. Also no matter how much imagination that you may have, you still won't be able to map any move in your form into this application.

IMO, if some important information is not in your forms and just a stand along piece of information, soon or later it can be lost through time. To me, form is a good place to record it. If people in the past didn't record it, people in our generation should record it.


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## Tez3 (Nov 18, 2015)

Kung Fu Wang said:


> "Door guarding skill" means the skill that you use it to guard your front door (your last line defense). It means the "major" MA skills that you have developed through your life time. It may be in your forms, or it may not be.



This I assume is a common phrase in your style? I've never heard it used in mine at all besides I'm not sure a front door would the last line of defence anyway  Nor am I sure the phrase makes much sense, perhaps it does to you but really, no, I've decided, it means nothing to me at all.


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## Tez3 (Nov 18, 2015)

TSDTexan said:


> Open Door are open lines (unguarded) of attack to the body.
> View attachment 19655
> 
> Getting someone's arm to move out of the way is opening a door/gate.
> ...



I've not done it in that way but it makes much more sense to me than defending actual doors!


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## TSDTexan (Nov 18, 2015)

Here is a hint about doors. Same proverb different version.


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## TSDTexan (Nov 18, 2015)

Kung Fu Wang said:


> "Door guarding skill" means the skill that you use it to guard your front door (your best technique). It may be in your forms, or it may not be.
> 
> For example, the "leg twist" was one of my teacher's best moves. It requires circular hopping footwork and leg twisting motion. It's not in any form that you can find on this planet.
> 
> IMO, if some important information is not in your forms and just a piece information here and another piece information there, soon or later it can be lost easily through time.


Ahh the inner door disciple of the kwoon. Different door reference. 

Yes.. often a great deal of the finer wines are not served to the initiate or outer-door/courtyard student.  Years of dutiful service in which trust by a master was established with a candidate typically preceded revealing the most dangerous or effective of techniques. 

In karate there are various levels of bunkai in which fine details are taught to students level headed enough to not go out using them unless nesscessity forced the issue, as well as... not running off with the secret sauce to a competing school etc.


----------



## TSDTexan (Nov 18, 2015)

Kung Fu Wang said:


> "Door guarding skill" means the skill that you use it to guard your front door (your best technique). It may be in your forms, or it may not be.
> 
> For example, the "leg twist" was one of my teacher's best moves. It requires circular hopping footwork and leg twisting motion. It's not in any form that you can find on this planet. Also no matter how much imagination that you may have, you still won't be able to map any move in your form into this application.
> 
> IMO, if some important information is not in your forms and just a stand along piece of information, soon or later it can be lost through time. To me, form is a good place to record it. If people in the past didn't record, people in our generation should record it.


Video don't work


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## TSDTexan (Nov 18, 2015)

Tez3 said:


> I've not done it in that way but it makes much more sense to me than defending actual doors!



No he isn't talking about a material door.
Or the first one I mentioned.

He is talking about inner circle disciple/master secrets.
About not having them in the showroom floor,  where anyone can learn them.

Inner door students guard the temple treasure. (Knowledge)
Outer door students guard movement... that which they are given to take with them.
Masters guard the highest treasure (Wisdom) which is when to move one student from outer to inner door.


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## Tez3 (Nov 18, 2015)

I keep a cricket bat by my front door!
I'm sure, in fact, positive kata is really not that complicated and really shouldn't be getting into that whole 'kung Fu Caine' stuff. I like my martial arts pragmatic not all mystic and full of pseudo Eastern saying, if I want them I ask my Gurkha friend who usually comes out with something delightfully short and pithy.


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## Kung Fu Wang (Nov 18, 2015)

TSDTexan said:


> Video don't work


It should work now.



Tez3 said:


> This I assume is a common phrase in your style? I've never heard it used in mine at all besides I'm not sure a front door would the last line of defence anyway  Nor am I sure the phrase makes much sense, perhaps it does to you but really, no, I've decided, it means nothing to me at all.


I assume the Chinese term is foreign to you as the Japanese terms is foreign to me.

看家本领 (Kan Jia Ben Ling) - door guarding skill" means "特别擅长的技能 your best skill".


one's speciality [special skill]
An ace up one's sleeve; to display the creativity; Ace up one's sleeve


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## Tez3 (Nov 18, 2015)

TSDTexan said:


> No he isn't talking about a material door.
> Or the first one I mentioned.
> 
> He is talking about inner circle disciple/master secrets.
> About not having them in the showroom floor,  where anyone can learn them.



Doesn't work for me nor most martial artists I know, we like things open and honest. No master, no disciples and no secrets.


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## Tony Dismukes (Nov 18, 2015)

TSDTexan said:


> skeptic can contend that our knowledge is limited to the realm of our own subjective impressions, allowing us no knowledge of objective reality as it is in itself.
> 
> But intersubjective measure finds congruence with objective reality. Some have things have objective observed meaning in and of themeselves.
> 
> ...


I'm certainly not questioning the existence of objective physical reality. (The limitations of our ability to directly apprehend said reality is another topic and a pretty deep one.) I'm saying that _existence_ is not the same as _meaning_. Imagine a universe with no sentient beings. What would a rock mean? A waterfall? A star? They would physically exist, but how could you say that they _meant_ anything without someone for them to mean something to?

Meaning is inherently subjective.


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## Buka (Nov 18, 2015)

Tony Dismukes said:


> I'm certainly not questioning the existence of objective physical reality. (The limitations of our ability to directly apprehend said reality is another topic and a pretty deep one.) I'm saying that _existence_ is not the same as _meaning_. Imagine a universe with no sentient beings. What would a rock mean? A waterfall? A star? They would physically exist, but how could you say that they _meant_ anything without someone for them to mean something to?
> 
> Meaning is inherently subjective.



I wish I knew how to do an emiticon of a no Bogarting Cheshire Cat smile from the sixties. That would rule.


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## TSDTexan (Nov 18, 2015)

Tony Dismukes said:


> I'm certainly not questioning the existence of objective physical reality. (The limitations of our ability to directly apprehend said reality is another topic and a pretty deep one.) I'm saying that _existence_ is not the same as _meaning_. Imagine a universe with no sentient beings. What would a rock mean? A waterfall? A star? They would physically exist, but how could you say that they _meant_ anything without someone for them to mean something to?
> 
> Meaning is inherently subjective.



Tony... my main man... I can imagine a great many things. 

However.... a universe without a even a single self aware being is beyond my wildest imagination.

My view is tempered with a number of ontological presuppositions that I cannot easily unburden myself of.

For example:
The Kalam Cosmological Argument as offered by 
Dr. William Lane Craig

 It may be formulated as follows:

1. Whatever begins to exist has a cause.

2. The universe began to exist.

3. Therefore, the universe has a cause.
(Therefore there is a Prime Mover.)


I won't jack the thread to venture beyond what I have posted above... and I would love to spawn a seperate thread to explore theory and opinions in what department is appropriate? 
 Tavern forum?
What forum is the navel contemplator/one hand sound clapping talks located?


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## TSDTexan (Nov 18, 2015)

Buka said:


> I wish I knew how to do an emiticon of a no Bogarting Cheshire Cat smile from the sixties. That would rule.


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## TSDTexan (Nov 18, 2015)

TSDTexan said:


> View attachment 19657


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## TSDTexan (Nov 18, 2015)

TSDTexan said:


> View attachment 19658


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## TSDTexan (Nov 18, 2015)

TSDTexan said:


>


Of course I prefer my Cheshire Cats mostly invisible.


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## RTKDCMB (Nov 19, 2015)

TSDTexan said:


> For example:
> The Kalam Cosmological Argument as offered by
> Dr. William Lane Craig
> 
> ...


This argument is usually accompanied by a case of special pleading.


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## Tez3 (Nov 19, 2015)

Kung Fu Wang said:


> I assume the Chinese term is foreign to you as the Japanese terms is foreign to me.



Yes, I have done a little JKD but not enough to understand CMA ideas and terminology. I try, on discussions like this which encompass many styles not to use phrases that only mean something to my style and/or have only meaning to karateka.
Assuming people know what you are talking about when using phrases from your own specific style leads to misunderstandings and confusion as we can see!


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## lklawson (Nov 19, 2015)

TSDTexan said:


> Open Door are open lines (unguarded) of attack to the body.
> View attachment 19655
> 
> Getting someone's arm to move out of the way is opening a door/gate.


Oh, the "gates."


















Peace favor your sword,
Kirk


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## TSDTexan (Nov 19, 2015)

lklawson said:


> Oh, the "gates."
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Yes fencing also has observed the same thing.


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## Tiger84 (Nov 19, 2015)

Zack Cart said:


> *Here's what I think would be cool in this thread. I don't presume to dictate the flow of conversation, but it would be interesting if members would post a description of their own view of forms and their use, in whatever style. Rather than a conversation on the subject, per se, but a focus on each individual's understanding. I realize people will have questions, comments, jokes, etc for each other, but a limit on long back and forth debate would be appreciated by me, at any rate.
> 
> That way, hopefully the thread will be a fascinating read through of well thought out perspectives, rather than a disorganzed conversation. I know that probably won't happen, but that's what I'm hoping for.
> 
> ...


I agree with some of what you said. In Parker Kenpo the first 4 forms are the "dictionary" forms for basics and excercise and aren't necessarily for specific attacks, although as you advance you will discover applications for those movements as well you should. All forms after that are fighting forms which teach principles of combat and are considered "encyclopedia" forms and contain graphed techniques from the system with some modifications. So aside from the given training elements they are a way to preserve information. That is why they should not be changed, there is so much info contained in them that by changing the forms your losing info from your system.


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## Bill Mattocks (Nov 19, 2015)

Well, that escalated quickly.


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