# Kata w/o Bunkai?



## searcher (Mar 4, 2009)

I was reading another thread and an interesting topic was mentioned in passing. The poster said that they place little to no emphasis on bunkai/application of their kata. This got me to thinking, do we Okinawan/Japanese karate-ka place to much emphasis on bunkai? I must admit it has me thinking deep on this subject. The Kaju guys use the kata/forms for training speed, balance, technique,.......

So, what do you all think? No deep interpretation? No missing or hidden techniques?


Discuss.


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## twendkata71 (Mar 4, 2009)

I think that without studying bunkai in kata, you may be missing the true meaning of many of he movements of the kata. There are many hidden aspect in the kata.  Without indepth study you may misinterpret what the moves are.


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## Haze (Mar 4, 2009)

What makes karate karate is the fact that the defensive and offensive techniques are handed down via kata. 

So if you have kata without bunkai why have the kata? You could just study and train technique and self defense scenarios as other systems/styles do.

I think we should teach bunkai/technique first and then show the kata that gives you a way to do some solo practice of those movements.

If we got into the angles of movement in kata and saw that these are not the angle that your opponent is attacking from but rather the angle you should counter from we would have a better idea of what kata may contain.

So much seems to have been lost when all this karate took on a competitive/sporting attitude


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## Brandon Fisher (Mar 4, 2009)

I agree without bunkai kata is really kinda pointless.


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## Tez3 (Mar 4, 2009)

Kata without Bunkai is pointless movement. Speed, technique and balance are all better trained as they are. I don't believe kata will teach you that, it won't hurt of course but thats not what they are for.
http://www.iainabernethy.com/articles/BasicBunkaiPart1.asp

This is the first of several very interesting articles on Bunkai.


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## astrobiologist (Mar 4, 2009)

When I was younger, my Tang Soo Do school did not train any applications for the hyung they performed.  Looking back now, I don't know why that school even teaches forms.  There's no point to having forms if you don't really have a martial application for the techniques.  It becomes just an art then; a form of dance.  I like dance, but I prefer martial training in my martial arts.

No bunkai = no need for kata


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## seasoned (Mar 4, 2009)

The people that dont like kata, are the ones that dont understand kata. Understand this, that the kata need to be old and traditional, not the modern ones that focus on punch, kick, and block. They need to be the old traditional ones that appear to focus on the punch, kick, and block. The techniques bunkai within these kata, were what people used to defend to the death. If people believe it or not, makes no difference, because it is well documented to be so. Bunkai based kata is what makes it an art, take this away and you have a sport.


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## searcher (Mar 4, 2009)

I am pleased with the discussion so far, lets keep this one going.


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## Uchinanchu (Mar 5, 2009)

I like to think of kata as being the 'blueprint', and the bunkai as being the 'hardware' or raw materials that are used in order to put it all together.  Of course, there are many other aspects to one's training, such as kihon, hojo undo etc...  But, without one or the other two aforementioned parts (kata & bunkai), then all you are left with is exercise that really leads nowhere.

This could be broken down even further.  Let's take a look at one technique in our kihon no renshu (basics practice).  Let's suppose that technique 'A' within your training regimin is worked hundreds upon thousands of times.  In fact, it can be found within most if not all of your systems kata.  Now, let's take a close look at your jiyu kumite- do you ever actually use technique 'A' while sparring?  If the answer is "no", then why not?

How about self defense practice?  Do you actually apply technique 'A' in your self-defense training?  If not, why?  If there is any technique that you are required to practice and supposedly "Know" and perform for testing, then why would you NOT use it in ALL aspects of your training?  Something to ponder.


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## Hand Sword (Mar 5, 2009)

I agree with all and I've made a thread about this topic before in another area. Speaking from a Kempo background and seeing all of the diluting that has gone on within the system I can attest to the need of Bunkai. It's better to have it and practice it, rather than guessing and summazing, then all coming to the idea that they're right and passing it along. I find it horrible that the answers have been lost or almost so. I feel that we get dumbed down as artists by becoming best guessers.


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## dancingalone (Mar 5, 2009)

As a teacher I sometimes wonder if it is time to abandon the concept of okuden bunkai.  Just teach all the building block movements openly and then spell it out in broad detail exactly each piece of each kata can mean.  None of us are getting any younger, and I'm afraid I see little interest in bunkai among the younger set.  The younger serious fighters seem to be gravitating to the jujutsu-derived arts since the training is both immediate and obvious.


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## seasoned (Mar 5, 2009)

dancingalone said:


> As a teacher I sometimes wonder if it is time to abandon the concept of okuden bunkai. Just teach all the building block movements openly and then spell it out in broad detail exactly each piece of each kata can mean. None of us are getting any younger, and I'm afraid I see little interest in bunkai among the younger set. The younger serious fighters seem to be gravitating to the jujutsu-derived arts since the training is both *immediate and obvious*.


 

I would hope you were wrong, but *immediate and obvious *seems to be the key elements that life, as we know it, is heading towards. As a civilization, we have come a long way, but somewhere along the way, we have forgotten where we have come from. This holds true with many things in life, but appropriately speaking, within this thread, it is kata, as we know it, that is being lost. Not as much about information, that&#8217;s for sure, because the internet is loaded with bunkai on every kata ever made. What I feel is lost is the love of the art, the feeling that we get when we are all alone, with any given traditional kata. The stillness as we do the kata, with no one around to score points, applaud, or play music. To know that as we perform the kata, we are treading where Masters have tread, and for a short point in time, to almost feel what they felt. This is what I fear is being lost. :asian:


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## Makalakumu (Mar 5, 2009)

dancingalone said:


> As a teacher I sometimes wonder if it is time to abandon the concept of okuden bunkai.  Just teach all the building block movements openly and then spell it out in broad detail exactly each piece of each kata can mean.  None of us are getting any younger, and I'm afraid I see little interest in bunkai among the younger set.  The younger serious fighters seem to be gravitating to the jujutsu-derived arts since the training is both immediate and obvious.



This is absolutely the key.  One of the most frustrating things that I experience out here in Hawaii, where there is good karate everywhere, is that it all is pretty much taught "traditionally" where you learn a set of basics that are pieces of the kata where the real application is hidden.  Even in the Okinawan styles that I've experienced, the actual self defense techniques are buried and are not taught as basics.  

This is tragic because students are being taught to focus on movements that are basically shorthand for other movements.  Kata were intended to be "Cliff's Notes" now the notation is being substituted for the real thing.  When you consider a jujutsu art, they teach a technique and then show how to apply it.  It's straight forward and it gives you information on self defense in a quick manner.  With karate, you learn a technique and then you learn (if you are lucky) a gradual set of principles that allow you to break the technique down into its basics.  Then (if you are lucky) you may also be given a chance to practice those basics on a regular basis.

The totality of how karate is taught has to change if kata application is going to have any practical value.


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## dancingalone (Mar 5, 2009)

maunakumu said:


> This is absolutely the key.  One of the most frustrating things that I experience out here in Hawaii, where there is good karate everywhere, is that it all is pretty much taught "traditionally" where you learn a set of basics that are pieces of the kata where the real application is hidden.  Even in the Okinawan styles that I've experienced, the actual self defense techniques are buried and are not taught as basics.



Yes, that's the frustrating thing about traditional karate where you don't get fed the good stuff until you've paid your dues, a process that can take decades!  Yet the same sensei who teach this way are often disappointed to see the proliferation of mediocre, punchy kicky karate.



maunakumu said:


> This is tragic because students are being taught to focus on movements that are basically shorthand for other movements.  Kata were intended to be "Cliff's Notes" now the notation is being substituted for the real thing.  When you consider a jujutsu art, they teach a technique and then show how to apply it.  It's straight forward and it gives you information on self defense in a quick manner.  With karate, you learn a technique and then you learn (if you are lucky) a gradual set of principles that allow you to break the technique down into its basics.  Then (if you are lucky) you may also be given a chance to practice those basics on a regular basis.



Perhaps this is the case because the old karate-ka just were more well-rounded fighters than we modern folk are and therefore the 'shorthand' is NOT shorthand to them.  I continue to study aikido today under my wife because her tutelage gives me insight into my karate.  As it currently stands, most karate schools I have visited in the Americas simply do not teach any movement patterns beyond punching and kicking and blocking.



maunakumu said:


> The totality of how karate is taught has to change if kata application is going to have any practical value.



I agree but I suspect the change cannot occur in an environment where the average student attends class for perhaps 4 hours a week if he is lucky.  Given my work and family obligations, I now train and teach about 6-8 hours a week.  Rationally, I would never have attained my current proficiency given this limited floor time.  In my youth, I studied upwards of 20 hours a week and I still felt I was missing out on learning.


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## Makalakumu (Mar 5, 2009)

A lot of the time good teaching involves maximizing your use of time and minimizing the things that waste time.  I think that if karateka focused on real applicable basics and put those pieces as they are applied in reality to the drills in the kata, real self defense skill CAN be taught in a short amount of time.  

I ran a dojo for eight years before I moved to Hawaii and as I started to analyze my teaching method, I noticed a marked change in my students ability to utilize purposeful technique.  I think that if I had stayed open longer after I had settled on a method, I would have seen even more results.

Basically, what karate arts need is some serious zero summing.  We need to clear the plate, start with our objectives and add the elements that will meet those objectives.  There are too many misunderstandings and deliberate obfuscations that are built into the traditional system.  So much so, that the product is diluted.


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## searcher (Mar 5, 2009)

dancingalone said:


> None of us are getting any younger, and I'm afraid I see little interest in bunkai among the younger set. The younger serious fighters seem to be gravitating to the jujutsu-derived arts since the training is both immediate and obvious.


 


Exactly why I was asking.    Many of my students, both young and old, are showing little interest in bunkai.    Many view the kata they learn from the exterior and not in what lies within.   After reading the post in the other thread, I had a serious conflict build up in my mind.   I wondered if I was fighting a losing battle.


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## exile (Mar 5, 2009)

searcher said:


> Exactly why I was asking.    Many of my students, both young and old, are showing little interest in bunkai.    Many view the kata they learn from the exterior and not in what lies within.   After reading the post in the other thread, I had a serious conflict build up in my mind.  * I wondered if I was fighting a losing battle.*



No. It needn't be. What you have to do, I think, is take one of the techniques, a really severely effective one, and show it to them as a stand-alone technique. Say, a grab to your shirt or arm. You cover the grabbing hand with your right hand, pull it towards you with a twist at the wrist while slamming your left forearm into their extended grabbing arm above the elbow, pivoting 90º towards the pin you've established, forcing the attacker's whole upper body down... down... down. When it's low enough and the attacker's balance is seriously compromised, slam the elbow of the pinning left arm into uke's head (using appropriate restraint, lol), continue the forward motion of the striking elbow so that the left fist is near your right ear, do a spearing elbow strike to the attacker's face, and bring the left fist down toward the attacker's still lowered head in a hammer strike to... oh, say, the nose, the jaw,... just about anywhere. Then step forward onto your right leg and punch uke in the jaw/throat region, for good luck.

Then show them the _first two moves_ of Taikyoku Shodan, which this sequence I just sketched is a realistic bunkai application for, and let them know that devastating attacking tactics like this are legion in the katas. My approach to teaching this stuff in TKD is, don't let them begin to learn the Kichos, which are the Korean cognate forms for the Taikyoku kata set, until they've seen some of the unbelievably harsh combat moves that are right there below the surface. When they see the combat application with uke, and then you demonstrate _in isolation_ tori's moves in the successful street combat scenario just exhibited,  and they can see that this is _exactly_ the sequence of movements that's supposedly nothing but a 90º turn, a down block and a front stance middle punch... it's going to give them a whole new level of respect for the kata. The key, I think, is in (i) demonstrating the kata by itself; (ii) doing the CQ combat contact with uki and tori along the lines I was sketching, and (iii) repeating the relevant part of the kata, so that they see the connection. If the light is ever gonna come on, _that_, I think, is the way to get it to happen.

The other thing that's crucial is to work the techs in one-on-one SD scenarios, relating them to the angles and movements shown in the kata. No one-steps, just realistic assault-and-counter movements instead: grabs, shoves, haymakers, the whole lot. Realistic, non-compliant training against an untrained, dangerous attacker, rather than competition dueling. Always remind them that the katas are full of hardcore, brutally effective SD treasures, and it's really worth studying them in detail to learn the best down-and-dirty methods for walking away from an unsought conflict in one piece. 

I mean... history is on your side here, eh?


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## Makalakumu (Mar 6, 2009)

In a nutshell, an effective method of teaching bunkai so that students really "get it" is as follows...

Basics - you need to have realistic set of basics that span a full range of techniques that would be found in a self defense situation.

Drills - you need to have a set of drills that uses the above set of basics putting them into motion so that effects and principles can be put into motion as well as good distance and timing.

Sparring - you need to have asymetrical drills where the outcome isn't known and techniques can be applied with varying levels of resistance.

Forms - You need to do this with every form you know.

For teachers, this is a huge job because it completely changes everything about how we were taught.  It also forces us to examine the holes in our own knowledge base and forces us to deal with them.  One of the reasons this has been so hard to change is simply because the bulk of teachers don't know enough to teach this way.

There are some very high ranking people who have said privately that they could never change in this way because what their students think they know.  Thus, the propagation of the punchy, kicky, chop socky, krotty continues as a function of ego.

Lest anyone think that I'm bashing anyone, I'd like people to understand that I do understand where many people are coming from.  One of the reason's I stopped teaching was that I felt that I need to work through this issue before I could be fully competent as a teacher.  I needed to learn more about kata and needed to think more about what I was doing before teaching again.

Once I flesh out a well thought out program that one can add and subtract material as new things are learned, I think that it will become time again to teach.

Anyway, I just hope that people understand that we can't go on teaching karate the same way we always have if we are to expect students to really understand and be able to apply bunkai.


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## exile (Mar 6, 2009)

maunakumu said:


> Anyway, I just hope that people understand that we can't go on teaching karate the same way we always have if we are to expect students to really understand and be able to apply bunkai.



I feel much the same way. Far from being able to teach effective karate (including TSD and TKD, the Korean manifestation of karate) without bunkai, we're going to find ourselves hard put to legitimately claim to be teaching a combat-effective art until we figure out how to make bunkai analysis and realistic, non-complaint training the very _core_ of our curriculum. 

In doing so, we're faced with the prospect of reversing the past 80 years-and-then-some of karate instruction and reconstructing something like an Okinawan model to replace the kihon/line-drill based program we inherited from Funakoshi. Obviously, that's a _huge_ job. I think there are people who've thought this through&#8212;I'm thinking of Iain Abernathy and the lads at the BCA&#8212;and one of my big hopes when I'm in the UK this summer and autumn is to get in some training time with them and get some ideas that I might be able to use in my own thinking about reconstructing the syllabus from the ground up. One thing I'm sure of: the current method of delivering material and of grading people for rank does not do the job...

This is actually quite a nontrivial issue. Kata (and hyung) performance have been used essentially as the key grading basis for rank promotion from the 1920s on in the karate-based arts. Prior to that, the masters used only a couple of kata as the basis for their own training,  since there were enough combat applications in that small number to handle pretty much any situation. If kata are now to be used as the basis for combat-realistic training, we're going to go back to that earlier practice... but we then have to rethink how grading for rank is to be implemented. And so on and so forth... once you change the premises about the point of training and the role of kata in it, you've got to go back to the drawing board and redo the whole story.


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## searcher (Mar 6, 2009)

The whole problem has been on the rise for the last few years.    When I first started teacking 15+ years ago students did not mind learning the application, but now I feel it has slid so far off that I can't get them interested.

Is anyone else having problems with their students?   I think the bunkai is important, can't seem to get the newer students, and some intermediates, to have an interest.


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## Tez3 (Mar 6, 2009)

I've just got our 15 year old MMA student into doing kata and Bunkai....and he wants to grade TSD now. Why? because he's seen what we do and believes it will help make him a better fighter. You know, I do too. It's all in the enthuisasm and the presentation. Show them how it works, every technique should produce an ouch from the Uke. Make each of them Uke in turn. Nothing like a bit of realism for the light bulb to light up in their heads.


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## Sukerkin (Mar 6, 2009)

I have never understood why this has slowly become an issue in martial arts.  

Without bunkai, as I think has been said in this thread already, all a martial arts student is doing is a form of rhythmic gymnastics.  If you don't understand the 'why' of something then you cannot effectively apply it.

For myself, I have ever been delighted by those moments when the connection is made between a sequence of movements and you understand what it can be used for.

As my avatar makes clear {}, I train in iai these days and the intricacy with which the technques interweave with each other is wonderful.  It's almost as if swordsmen have spent centuries honing the principles of how to use the weapon and encapsulating them within kata ... oh, wait ... :lol:.


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## Bill Mattocks (Mar 6, 2009)

My eye-opening experience in the dojo last night helped to solidify my opinion on this - kata requires bunkai to reach maximum potential:

http://www.martialtalk.com/forum/showthread.php?t=73843

I could not have learned in a book or on a DVD what I learned last night in one three-hour class.  Truly jaw-dropping in terms of seeing the potential practical application of a simple technique - just one technique!

Sensei said that in his opinion, many people are technically proficient, and have good, clean, kata - very snappy, very pretty, and not at all useful in actual self-defense.  He referred to it as _'surface karate'_ and said that in his opinion, you must _'live inside the kata' _and do good bunkai to _'get it'_.

After last night, I have to agree.


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## RoninSoul (Mar 6, 2009)

You are on it Bill! We do bunkai weekly. Sometimes Sensei will be demonstrating a technique and someone will reference something taught in bunkai weeks prior. Bunkai is not just Kata applications, it is, for me, just practicing Karate. Why is it that people seem to be at odds with tradition? Are these the people who are destined for a set of fatiques learning an "Ear Bar" or "Pinky Lock" at the "Lion's Den or "Dog Pound" or whatever it's called?


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## dancingalone (Mar 6, 2009)

exile said:


> The key, I think, is in (i) demonstrating the kata by itself; (ii) doing the CQ combat contact with uki and tori along the lines I was sketching, and (iii) repeating the relevant part of the kata, so that they see the connection. If the light is ever gonna come on, _that_, I think, is the way to get it to happen.



I'll be the Devil's advocate.  Why the need for kata at all then if this becomes our teaching model?  Teaching _specific_ combinations in response to certain scenarios is more in line with how the combatives people do it, like Krav Maga or even certain strains of Hawaiian MA.


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## jks9199 (Mar 6, 2009)

dancingalone said:


> I'll be the Devil's advocate.  Why the need for kata at all then if this becomes our teaching model?  Teaching _specific_ combinations in response to certain scenarios is more in line with how the combatives people do it, like Krav Maga or even certain strains of Hawaiian MA.


Because the kata serves as a catalog -- and also can teach rhythms and strategies, as well as collections of techniques.  And can be a useful way to practice alone.


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## exile (Mar 6, 2009)

jks9199 said:


> Because the kata serves as a catalog -- and also can teach rhythms and strategies, as well as collections of techniques.  And can be a useful way to practice alone.



That's it in a nutshell.

This is the way I think of it. It's a cliché (but only because it's true!) that for each _movement_ in the kata, there are several different plausible SD _moves_, depending on the interpretation of what moves the preceding and/or following movements are given. Let's say that each movement corresponds, on average, to any of 3 alternative moves. Then for any given three movement sequence in a kata, we have on average 3^3=27 different combat scenarios. High quality bunkai&#8212;the kind of stuff that Abernethy or Bill Burgar or some of the other people writing about the Pinan/Heian set and Naihanchi have published, or our own Stuart Anslow and Simon O'Neil in TKD &#8212;indicate that the way to look at forms is as a collection of short combat scenarios, possibly related by 'theme' (the way Abernethy sees the Pinans), but each involving a different attack/defense scenario. Let's say the average length of each such segment of a kata is three. That means that in a 30-movement kata, we have 10 3-movement subsequences. But since each such subsequence has 27 different interpretations in principle, it means that the kata is a summary&#8212;a catalogue, as jks put it&#8212;of _270_ possible    attack/defense scenarios. Let's be conservative and say that half of the combinations turn out to make no sense. That still leaves us with 135 possible attack/defense scenarios&#8212;more than enough to meet just about all of the 'habitual acts of violence' that Patrick McCarthy and others after him have identified as the statistically most typical attack initiators in street violence. So that means that each 30 move kata you've learns amounts to a collection of 135 short stories, each of which has someone attacking you in the first paragraph and _you _walking away _unscathed _in the story's conclusion&#8212;_them_, not so much! :EG:

I know that this is an idealization. But it gives you an idea of the order of magnitude of the information contained in a single kata. I've been to Hapkido seminars of one kind or another, and the combat techniques are many, varied and brilliant; but there is so damned much to _keep track_ of... not easy! But HKD doesn't have kata. And once you learn a kata, it's like a portable mini-encyclopædia that you can always dip into for new insights and fighting techniques. Not surprising that Funakoshi and Motobu are said to have relied primarily on the Naihanchi set alone for their theory of combat techniques, eh?

That's what I think the great advantage of kata is in practical terms. It's not that difficult to learn a single kata or hyung, in terms of time invested. But the technical _depth_ of those forms is great. So, for a relatively little bit of time, a very, very efficient yield in terms of results. The original karate masters were above all else practical&#8212;that's why kata were important to them, and should be to us too.


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## Makalakumu (Mar 6, 2009)

I think that the practice of kata all by itself has some benefit in the martial arts.  There are breathing, strengthening, and visualization exercises that can be extremely beneficial.  Without bunkai, however, this practice is over shadowed by the loss you experience.


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## seasoned (Mar 6, 2009)

exile said:


> That's it in a nutshell.
> 
> This is the way I think of it. It's a cliché (but only because it's true!) *that for each movement in the kata, there are several different plausible SD moves, depending on the interpretation of what moves the preceding and/or following movements are given. Let's say that each movement corresponds, on average, to 3 moves. Then for any given three move sequence in a kata, we have on average 3^3=27 different combat scenarios. High quality bunkai*the kind of stuff that Abernethy or Bill Burgar or some of the other people writing about the Pinan/Heian set and Naihanchi have published, or our own Stuart Anslow and Simon O'Neil in TKD indicate that the way to look at forms is as a collection of short combat scenarios, possibly related by 'theme' (the way Abernethy sees the Pinans), but each involving a different attack/defense scenario. Let's say the average length of each such segment of a kata is three. That means that in a 30-movement kata, we have 10 3-movement subsequences. But since each such subsequence has 27 different interpretations in principle, it means that the kata is a summarya catalogue, as jks put itof _270_ possible attack/defense scenarios. Let's be conservative and say that half of the combinations turn out to make no sense. That still leaves us with 135 possible attack/defense scenariosmore than enough to meet just about all of the 'habitual acts of violence' that Patrick McCarthy and others after him have identified as the statistically most typical attack initiators in street violence. So that means that each 30 move kata you've learns amounts to a collection of 135 short stories, each of which has someone attacking you in the first paragraph and _you _walking away _unscathed _in the story's conclusion_them_, not so much! :EG:
> 
> ...


Yes indeed, principles are multi faceted.


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## Haze (Mar 7, 2009)

searcher said:


> The whole problem has been on the rise for the last few years.    When I first started teacking 15+ years ago students did not mind learning the application, but now I feel it has slid so far off that I can't get them interested.
> 
> Is anyone else having problems with their students?   I think the bunkai is important, can't seem to get the newer students, and some intermediates, to have an interest.



This problem is solved by making the bunkai a requirement for grading. Learn the kata, learn the bunkai, demonstrate the kata, demonstrate the bunkai against various attacks. Don't know what the kata applications/movements are used for you really do not know that kata and can not be promoted.


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## exile (Mar 7, 2009)

Haze said:


> This problem is solved by making the bunkai a requirement for grading. Learn the kata, learn the bunkai, demonstrate the kata, demonstrate the bunkai against various attacks. Don't know what the kata applications/movements are used for you really do not know that kata and can not be promoted.



I agree heartily, Haze. But you realize that this is already a very radical, gonzo approach to promotion, eh? As soon as you make practical applicability a criterion for advancement, what you're saying is, artificial sport competition rules based on arbitrary point awards unconnected to actual street violence should _not_ be the basis for assessing technical competence in karate. Boy, is that going to upset a lot of Very Important People! 

The problem we're talking about is a complete Black Death plague in Taekwondo... but the situation is very similar, maybe indistinguishable even, in katate. I just finished a _very_ grim article in issue #12 (2007) of _Classical Fighting Arts_ by Harry Cook, the pre-emininent historian of the karate-based arts, 'The history and evolution of Karate-do kata, part 2', which makes it clear just how little relationship there between karate and combat use in the minds of the JKA, and many very high-ranked senior karate-ka. There's a gap in world view between what you and many of us are thinking, on the one hand, and what the Karate Establishment (whose idea of progress in the art is replacing TKD with Karate in the Olympics, lol) is thinking. 

Just two altogether irreconcilable points of view here. In the end, I'm willing to bet, the KMAs and JMAs will both split into completely different activities: revived combat-effective fighting arts on the one hand, and acrobatic/gymnastic display sports on the other. And never the twain shall meet again...


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## Makalakumu (Mar 7, 2009)

exile said:


> The problem we're talking about is a complete Black Death plague in Taekwondo... but the situation is very similar, maybe indistinguishable even, in katate. I just finished a _very_ grim article in issue #12 (2007) of _Classical Fighting Arts_ by Harry Cook, the pre-emininent historian of the karate-based arts, 'The history and evolution of Karate-do kata, part 2', which makes it clear just how little relationship there between karate and combat use in the minds of the JKA, and many very high-ranked senior karate-ka. There's a gap in world view between what you and many of us are thinking, on the one hand, and what the Karate Establishment (whose idea of progress in the art is replacing TKD with Karate in the Olympics, lol) is thinking.


 
I'd like to add to this by saying that right now, I have been training with two of the highest ranking karateka in the Shotokan.  Both are students of Kanazawa Sensei and both have over a century of karate experience between them.  While I hold both of these kindly old gentlemen in the highest regard, I must say that the tradition that they carry forth, is certainly not the highly practical self defense tradition that was originally present in the initial export of karate from Okinawa.  

On the very first day I could see this when the "stacked hands" movement in Heian Godan was reinterpretted as a kind of punch and the turning pulling down movement in the same kata was interpretted as an elbow to the rear.  Later when I asked Sensei and demonstrated the grabbing applications, I was told that they were familiar with that, but Kanazawa Sensei's karate is this so that is what they teach.

At the end of June, I will have a chance to train with Kanazawa sensei.  It is my hope that I will have a chance to question him about these applications to see what he says.


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## dancingalone (Mar 8, 2009)

Truthfully, Shotokan isn't the best style if you're into bunkai analysis.  But you know that.  I'd start off with learning an Okinawan style with as traditional of a teacher as possible and then if you feel like there are some gaps you need to fill, you'd need to cross train with some jujutsu/aikijutsu people.


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## exile (Mar 8, 2009)

dancingalone said:


> Truthfully, Shotokan isn't the best style if you're into bunkai analysis.  But you know that.  *I'd start off with learning an Okinawan style with as traditional of a teacher as possible *and then if you feel like there are some gaps you need to fill, you'd need to cross train with some jujutsu/aikijutsu people.



I agree, the best way to get a feel for the analysis would be to get as close to the Okinawan originals and way of thinking about the kata that Shotokan has increasingly come to reject. It's even more of a problem starting with Koreanized versions of the kata; the hyungs relentless translate foot techs into mid/high kicks across the board, regardless of their suitability. They also do a lot of embellishment that seems designed more for spectating than combat (e.g., the version of Rohai that I learned vs. the old Okinawan versions).

But I think it's also a good idea to teach people how to peel off the various layers of basically decorative (but combat-meaningless) motion, so that they can learn how to 'see' the original under the more prettified later versions. If I could find a suitable example, I think it would be a very informative thing for students to show them, first the Korean version, then the Shotokan version, and finally the 'original' Okinawan version, analyzing some of the combat content of the latter and then rolling forward in time again, indicating how the successive generations of later changes have camouflaged the combat intent of the Okinawan prototype. I've never heard of anyone doing this, but I think it would have a big impact on people who don't really see what the point of forms is. In a sense, it would help vindicate their point about the lack of combat utility in the way kata are currently treated&#8212;but it would also show them that the deeper fighting techs are still there, if you can figure out how to strip the modern forms of their pointless elaborations.


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## Makalakumu (Mar 8, 2009)

dancingalone said:


> Truthfully, Shotokan isn't the best style if you're into bunkai analysis.  But you know that.  I'd start off with learning an Okinawan style with as traditional of a teacher as possible and then if you feel like there are some gaps you need to fill, you'd need to cross train with some jujutsu/aikijutsu people.



I'm exploring a curiosity right now.  With so many high ranking people at my fingertips, I'm curious how much they know and what they actually teach.  I have a jujutsu dojo in mind that I wouldn't mind visiting for further training.  Also, I may have an opportunity to train with a direct student of Miyagi Sensei in Goju Ryu.  We'll see how that turns out.  The main thing is that all of this is part of how I am seeking to bring the bunkai out of the TSD forms I know.  I want to give back to the community somehow and I am very excited about the book I am writing on the subject.  Just finished another chapter last night!


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