# Foreign Katas



## Seeking Zen (Nov 10, 2006)

Foreign Katas

  I train Goju. However, at my Dojo as we achieve higher belt levels what are referred to as foreign katas from other styles are added to the kata requirements.  From reading threads on some Goju sites I understand that many Goju practitioners stick to the 12 kata Goju Syllabus.  I am curious to your thoughts as to this.  Do you feel one should stick to perfecting your styles katas, or is the addition of foreign kata beneficial in creating a more diverse knowledge of various styles?


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## Andrew Green (Nov 10, 2006)

Depends on why you train.

100 years ago these stylistic divisions where not there, people trained in whatever kata the people teaching them felt like teaching to them.  Now there are rigid style divisions.  Do you want to preserve your style?  Learn karate in a more general sense?

There is no right or wrong answer here.


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## twendkata71 (Nov 10, 2006)

*I personally think that you should learn what ever you can. Not to take away from your style. This learning of kata from other styles was an openly accepted practice on Okinawa before karate was introduced to Japan. The Japanese way of thinking is what created the "one style, one way" mentality.*

* Now it is done more often in Japanese styles because of the sport WKF,JKF,karate theory of universal knowledge of karate for the betterment of karatedo competition.. And please do not think that Okinawans are Japanese. They might be governed by the Japanese, but the Okinawans and Japanese are totally different people, especially in how they look at karate.*
*On your point you can spend a life time just studying twelve kata of your style. There is enough in there to keep you busy.*
*And by the way kata, weither one kata or twelve kata it is still just kata. Not kata's. *


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## twendkata71 (Nov 10, 2006)

*Do you study Okinawan Goju ryu or Japanese Goju kai (Yamaguchi ha),? Even though most Japanese Goju ryu stylist still claim that they are doing Okinawan Goju, the styles are now much different in the way that they perform kata.*


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## JasonASmith (Nov 10, 2006)

Sounds like a good idea to learn from as many different sources as possible...


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## airdawg (Nov 10, 2006)

the more you learn, the more you can learn.


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## Seeking Zen (Nov 10, 2006)

twendkata71 said:


> *Do you study Okinawan Goju ryu or Japanese Goju kai (Yamaguchi ha),? Even though most Japanese Goju ryu stylist still claim that they are doing Okinawan Goju, the styles are now much different in the way that they perform kata.*



*Goju kai (Yamaguchi ha)

* *I personally want to learn as much as possible as with all things I am passionate about. If I had more time I would delve into as many arts as possible.
Further, to my original question. In reading and researching Karate there seem to be endless politicking with regard to style, lineage, kata, organizations etc...
Why is there such a power struggle within an art form that builds character, limits ego, and promotes courtesy.  What has happened the precepts that were to be the core? As someone that is new and just wants to learn it can hard to filter*


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## Robert Lee (Nov 10, 2006)

Geiki sia di iche, geiki sia di ni, geiki sia di san, geiki ha di iche , geiki ha di ni. kaku ha di iche, kaku ha di ni .  Then sanchin kata, tensho kata. sifa kata, seiunchin kata, siesan kata, siepi kata, siesochin kata, suparenpi kata, kurunfa kata, thats 16 kata from Okinawan goju ryu. Then you have the added tandaku kata, tandaku kata di iche. di ni ,  from Toguchis teachings.   Then 3 bo kata and to sia kata This about completes the Okinawan Goju format On kata.  I have seen some American Goju that had mixed 1 to 3 katas up and still call them The traditional name. And japan goju is slightly different not much.  Of course Bunki and kisokumite is part of the training to. Then the drills also. Adding other kata Is not needed just branches the tree out more. Kata is a tool for understanding. Then you must learn the uses. Less kata The better Kata have added to all arts over the years.


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## twendkata71 (Nov 10, 2006)

:asian: *That is because it has become a commercial commodity! For an art that you are supposed to put aside ego, There is so much ego in karate. It seems once people get a high dan rank and/or a position of power in an organization the head starts to swell out of control.*
*On the question of kata, research the original Okinawan Goju ryu roots of your style. The great thing about Yamaguchi's version of Miyagi Goju ryu karate is his development of jiyu kumite. Which at that time was almost nonexistant. Most of the training at that time was kata and yakosoku/kiso kumite. I have had the opportunity to train with Japanese Goju ryu/Gojukai karate black belts that came to our dojo.  sorry about getting off subject.  *
*So, if you Goju kai then you are familiar with JKF. If your dojo is affiliated with JKF, or WKF then you will be incouraged to learn the shitei kata of the WKF/JKF curriculum for competition. If you were Okinawan Goju ryu then you would not be incouraged to compete in sport and not to learn kata from one of the other 4 major styles of Japanese karate do. My personal experience with the USAKF and WUKO/WKF karate has led me to learn many more kata than required by my teacher in our school.*
*As far as what your teacher requires, if you are not confortable with what you sensei is requiring, then perhaps you should change dojo.*
*I would recomend that you keep an open mind. It is in the spirit of karate do that you learn as much from all styles. Your sensei is probably trying to give you a more complete knowledge of karate do than just one style of karate do. Peace, and keep on kicking and punching.*













Seeking Zen said:


> *Goju kai (Yamaguchi ha)*
> 
> *I personally want to learn as much as possible as with all things I am passionate about. If I had more time I would delve into as many arts as possible.*
> *Further, to my original question. In reading and researching Karate there seem to be endless politicking with regard to style, lineage, kata, organizations etc...*
> *Why is there such a power struggle within an art form that builds character, limits ego, and promotes courtesy. What has happened the precepts that were to be the core? As someone that is new and just wants to learn it can hard to filter*


:asian:


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## searcher (Nov 10, 2006)

I add several kata to my advanced students to learn.   But I have had the chance to study with several instructors and in several styles.   The kata I teach are not set by rank as much as by what the student can gain from learning a different kata/hyung.   I base what they are learning on what they need to become a better martial artist.

I am a firm believer in a principle that AG hit on.   I hate having to strict of a constraint because of style.   Yuo shouldlearn what you can from who you can and use it.   What you are learning should be to better your martial skill set, not to do something because it is "required."


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## terryl965 (Nov 10, 2006)

IT is absolutely nothing wrong in learning all that you can even if it is totally different themn waht you know


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## twendkata71 (Nov 10, 2006)

*I agree totally that you should learn from many sources. All styles and martial arts have value. I have always been a traditional karate stylist, but I have also had the pleasure to train with kenpo people, jujitsu,judo,aikido and shoalin kung fu people. In a few weeks I am going to a kuntao seminar. A new chapter in my journey. Keep an open mind and be creative in your efforts.*


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## exile (Nov 10, 2006)

I like the kind of openness that the posts on this thread are consistently showing in response to the starting post. My favorite story in all of karate lore is the one about Matsumura creating the Chinto kata on the basis of the fighting techniques he learned from the marooned Chinese sailor and MAist who he, as one of the King's high officers, was supposed to arrest and bring into custody, but whose freedom he wound up protecting in exchange for education in the sailor's combat system. That to me sums it all up. 

The old masters, they guys who created the arts we're the inheritors of, didn't have this sense of stylistic purity! They used whatever worked---in China, in Okinawa, in Japan and Korea. They looked _ exclusively_ at effectiveness---did it work? Look at the comment that Kenwa Mabuni, who founded Shito-Ryu, once made:

_There are no styles of karate-do, just varying interpretations of its principles.... People seem to place too much emphasis upon this style or that style... this has nothing to do with karate's ultimate aim._

That observation is applicable to every version of the MAs which share the same strategic world-view. In my TKD dojang, we learn a number of Japanese/Okinawan kata after reaching dan rank. My instructor believes there are significant useful applications to be obtained from these patterns and also from the stick fighting forms of Arnis. The French have a saying that seems to me relevant: `more royalist than the King'---this seems to be the attitude of a lot of people who, in the interest of tradition, seem to want to prohibit cross-fertilization amongst the arts. But the truth is, in the `old days' that we identify with tradition, people regarded it as the most natural thing in the world to borrow techniques from each other that did the job. Why shouldn't what was good enough for them be good enough for us?


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## Seeking Zen (Nov 12, 2006)

Thanks for all the great info everyone!


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## Haze (Nov 13, 2006)

My Sensei believes the more you have available to you the better. He has added more to the training than the goju 12.

Bo, sai, bokken/sword, some kata from other styles.

SometimesI think it's a little to much but I have some favorites that I will someday, hopefully, fully understand.


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## Shotochem (Nov 14, 2006)

So much to learn so little time. 

     I am all for learning katas from other styles.  It really gives you a whole new perspective on what you have learned.
     After the last few months of training in Kempo and a bit of BJJ, I spent an afternoon working all of my Shotokan katas. (So I don't forget!)  

    The movements felt different yet visually and effectively they were correct.  I envisioned different applications that I never thought of before It seemed like I was learning something new all over again.  My personal views on crosstraining and other arts have completely changed and I have become more openminded and apperciative of other styles.  

     I seem to have a bit of an identity crissis.  I don't think I'm Shotokan anymore but I'm not really fully Kempo-ized and I'm still dabbling in BJJ.

     I have decided to train for enjoyment and whatever rank anyone feels like giving me great.  I started teaching my Kempo friends any Shotokan katas they care to learn from me along with anything anyone else wants to teach me.

 This IMO, may be what MA are all about.


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## twendkata71 (Nov 14, 2006)

*I think that karate would be better off if we went back to the old ways of not really having styles. Perhaps schools of thought. *
*All kata have things to teach us. Hidden treasures. And a lifetime of learning. Mabuni Kenwa O sensei knew this, that is why he incorporated over 50 kata into his Shito ryu karate do.*
*The old masters did not just study one style. Funakoshi studied two different styles, as did Mabuni, Ohtsuka studied Jujitsu before studying karate , Konishi studied with many teachers from a variety of styles. Many of the Original Okinawan masters studied several Chinese styles, combining them to create their style.*
*So, learn learn learn.:asian: *


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## chinto (May 19, 2007)

I would say learn what your sensei teaches, and then later as you are higher rank you can make your desision as to what to add to what you know from there.  my sensei often will teach or have some one who is heigher ranked kyu or in the dansha.


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## cstanley (May 19, 2007)

twendkata71 said:


> *I think that karate would be better off if we went back to the old ways of not really having styles. Perhaps schools of thought. *
> *All kata have things to teach us. Hidden treasures. And a lifetime of learning. Mabuni Kenwa O sensei knew this, that is why he incorporated over 50 kata into his Shito ryu karate do.*
> *The old masters did not just study one style. Funakoshi studied two different styles, as did Mabuni, Ohtsuka studied Jujitsu before studying karate , Konishi studied with many teachers from a variety of styles. Many of the Original Okinawan masters studied several Chinese styles, combining them to create their style.*
> *So, learn learn learn.:asian: *


 
Please...Mabuni did not incorporate 50 kata. Those kata were brought in later and some very recently by modern people who incorporated kata from other ryu. Mabuni originally taught 28 kata. Then he created a few of his own much later. (See Mark Bishop, John Sells, and george Alexander.)


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## twendkata71 (May 19, 2007)

Thank you for the information. That goes to show that one always has something to learn. I should do more research.
I would ask you, Which are original Shito ryu kata and which were imported. I know of only a coulple that he created.


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## cstanley (May 19, 2007)

twendkata71 said:


> Thank you for the information. That goes to show that one always has something to learn. I should do more research.
> I would ask you, Which are original Shito ryu kata and which were imported. I know of only a coulple that he created.


 
Here is the list. There are a couple of kata that get argued over whether they were in the original Mabuni list or not. It is 26 or 28 depending on who is arguing. 

Pinan 1-5
Naihanchi 1-3
Matsukaze
Rohai
Sanchin
Jion
Jitte
Passai Dai
Passai Sho
Kosokun Dai
Kosokun Sho
Gojushiho
Nijushiho
Chinto
Wanshu
Seisan
Chinte
Sochin
Seipai
Seiuchin
Kururunpha
Tensho

Ten No and Chino (made by Nagamine and Myagi in 1937) were added for beginners. Some lists add Unshu and remove Tensho. But, you get the drift. Mabuni later developed a few of his own kata (Shinsei, Juroku, Nipaipo, Shihokosokun, etc) but these were not in the original group he taught. Hope this helps.


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## twendkata71 (May 19, 2007)

I have read that Mabuni Hanshi developed nipaipo from the older Chinese form of Nepai. Do you think that this was the case? I believe that I read that in one of Mccarthy's books.


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## stone_dragone (May 19, 2007)

While I agree with the general sentiment of the thread and that you should learn as much as possible, I recommend learning what your teacher is teaching.  If it happens to be Wing chun form at white belt, a TKD form at yellow, a shotokan form at Green, a Goju Form at brown and an Iado form for black belt, then go for it.

Incedentally, although I am all for eclectic curriculums, the one I mentioned might be a sign of something else entirely...


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## exile (May 19, 2007)

I think the critical thing with kata/hyungs/[insert appropriate word for `pattern' in CMA]  is that you should not just learn to perform them&#8212;something kata `collection' tends to go along with&#8212;but also learn the combat applications that they offer the practitioner. Bill Burgar, for example, spent five years studying and testing out applications of Gojushiho; his substantial book offers a detailed account of what he learned over that five year experiment. Choki Motobu made a similar lifelong study of Naihanchi. Each form/pattern has enough depth that it can be seen&#8212;and in the past, apparently, _was_ seen by the pioneers of modern karate&#8212;as complete stand-alone fighting systems; ; from what I can tell based on the comments of earlier karateka, the original curriculum might have consisted of only a few kata, studied quite intensively over a long period, with the practitioner expected to develop an increasingly sophisticated undertanding of the uses of the various components of each kata over a long period of time. The emphasis on kata performance, as opposed to kata application, is something Burgar notes as a consequence of the shift in training from the small-class, individual-attention nature of the training system to the large-scale kihon drill methods that Funakoshi and others introduced in Japan, with kata used as a grading criterion for promotion. The modern KMAs, rooted mostly in Shotokan, took over the mass-class Japanese approach as a matter of course. But this approach to kata reminds me of an episode in a Woody Allen movie, where he's bragging to some friends about the speed reading course he took that allowed him to read all five volumes of Marcel Proust's _Rememberance of Things Past_ over the weekend. One of the group asks him what happens in the work, and Allen's character, after considering the question for a moment, replies, `Well... it was about some Frenchmen.'

I think comparison of different variants of a single kata could probably be useful as a key to earlier forms of the kata, with possible clues there as to the intended application of certain moves, so familiary with a range of kata is useful for that kind of purpose. With TKD hyung, you wind up routinely comparing hyungs to kata, since the former so often represent `shuffled' versions of components of the latter (the Pinans show up in many places in the Palgwes, for instance). At my dojang we learn a version of Rohai which seems quite a bit more elaborate than some others I've seen, that I'm interested in comparing maybe with certain CMA forms to see if the latter have the sort of `spread/tipped wing movements and running step sequences that ours has. I know there are a number of different versions of Rohai labelled with the names of various earlier karateka who produced somewhat different versions of them, but I still haven't found one that looks quite the same as ours...


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## searcher (May 19, 2007)

twendkata71 said:


> *I think that karate would be better off if we went back to the old ways of not really having styles. Perhaps schools of thought. *
> *All kata have things to teach us. Hidden treasures. And a lifetime of learning. *


 


exile said:


> I think the critical thing with kata/hyungs/[insert appropriate word for `pattern' in CMA] is that you should not just learn to perform themsomething kata `collection' tends to go along withbut also learn the combat applications that they offer the practitioner.


 

I feel there is much wisdom to be taken from these words.   We have strayed so far from the masters of old and I, for one, would love it to go back to these ideals.    JMHO.


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## chinto (May 20, 2007)

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

I think the critical thing with kata/hyungs/[insert appropriate word for `pattern' in CMA] is that you should not just learn to perform them&#8212;something kata `collection' tends to go along with&#8212;but also learn the combat applications that they offer the practitioner.



I would very much agree with that statement! after all the kata were not designed or developed and tought as just a collection of preformances, but to teach the combat aplications and movement and principles in them.


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## tshadowchaser (May 20, 2007)

Learning is just that and is not or should not be placed in a cubical or sealed inviroment.  But thats just my personal thought


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## exile (May 20, 2007)

tshadowchaser said:


> Learning is just that and is not or should not be placed in a cubical or sealed inviroment.  But thats just my personal thought



I agree with this thought. But I also think there is such a thing as learning at various depths, and unfortunately, in the case of kata (and this is still more the case of TKD hyungs), there is some difficulty in learning at what I regard as the most fundamental levelthat of the encoded combat applications that the extremely experienced fighters who created these kata found effective and reliable in violent conflicts. 

We don't know what was in these pioneering karatekas' minds, of course, but we can apply robust, testable reverse engineering principles (of the sort itemized in a number of recent books on bunkai by practitioners who are serious researchers as well as advanced practitioners) to figure out some plausible interpretations that we can then `field test' for effectiveness. I've noted a number of posts by members who seem to refer to reverse engineering as though it were an obscene expression, but I have no idea why:  everyone from forensic scientists to prehistoric archæologists use reverse engineering to derive (testable) hypotheses about the purposes for which certain objects were designed. So in principle, we ought to be able to supply the fundamental level of kata understanding to students in dojos in order to help them develop their ability to use their karate training (including KMAs under this heading) in the way envisaged by karate's creators. 

But that's not what usually happens. Instead, depth of analysis is replaced by emphasis on kata-collecting, where the number of separate `dances' you can reproduce on command is way more important than what you can do with the sequence of movements the kata present you, and your ability to analyze those sequences to see the coherent sequence of combat _moves_ expressed therein. _That's_ the sealed environment that I believe has been imposed on the learning of kata/hyungs in their true depth, partly as a result of an instructional system which for the most part disconnects them from their fighting origins, and partly as a result of their incorporation in the competitive tournament model as a kind of performance art.

If that's all some want, fine. But the others should be able to get training in the understanding and combat usage of these forms, and the fact that these are still considered to be somewhat exotic, or marginal, isn't fine at all.


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