# The Importance Of Kata



## MJS (Dec 12, 2007)

How much emphasis does your school put on kata?  How in depth do you get with the various applications of kata?  

For myself, I think its an important piece of the puzzle.  While kata is not the end all be all, I do think that it has its place.  Stances, offensive/defensive movements, moving while attacking, are just a few things that they touch on.

Looking forward to your replies!


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## RevIV (Dec 12, 2007)

My school puts a high emphasis on Kata bunkai.  I think I do this mostly because for years it was not taught in a lot of the schools that i attended, and a lot of the times when people asked what the meaning behind a move was instructors would make it up on the spot because they were never taught it either.  My original instructor (and still current) taught us Bunkai from our forms that he interpreted from his previous training in other systems. Unfortunely even the GM's teaching him SKK did not explain (or know) the actual bunkai. This seems to be the norm for the SKK people.  I have visited many of my friends schools who are in sub-systems of SKK (or the original) and they told me they never work the Bunkai's for any of their forms because their GM's never taught them either.  Once you start working the Bunkai's you can see the lineage of your art if you research enough.  On the other hand there are High level forms in SKK that were made up just to look good in the early 80's closed tournaments.  These are forms that i do not look deeply into because i know there is no depth - just show -- and that show ended a decade ago.
In Peace
Jesse


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## kosho (Dec 13, 2007)

Pat Kelly sensei breaks down all kata and in many different levels. I now myself teach kata and look into kata in a different way. so my students will be at a higher level then i was when i was at there rank.
I think kata is a strong tool. this is something that can go back and forth good bad etc.

I think it is GOOD. 

Kosho


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## kidswarrior (Dec 13, 2007)

RevIV said:


> My school puts a high emphasis on Kata bunkai.  I think I do this mostly because *for years it was not taught in a lot of the schools that i attended*, and a lot of the times when people asked what the meaning behind a move was instructors would make it up on the spot because they were never taught it either.  My original instructor (and still current) taught us Bunkai from our forms that he interpreted from his previous training in other systems. Unfortunely *even the GM's teaching him SKK did not explain (or know) the actual bunkai*. This seems to be the norm for the SKK people.  I have visited many of my friends schools who are in sub-systems of SKK (or the original) and they told me they never work the Bunkai's for any of their forms because their GM's never taught them either.  *Once you start working the Bunkai's you can see the lineage of your art if you research enough*.  On the other hand there are *High level forms in SKK that were made up just to look good* in the early 80's closed tournaments.  *These *are forms *that i do not look deeply into* because i know there is no depth - just show -- and that show ended a decade ago.
> In Peace
> Jesse


This is my experience, too, Jesse. Fortunately, I have cross trained in CMA for years, and also stumbled onto the current revolution to bring back the bunkai, so can do better for my students than was done for me. Sounds like you're doing the same. 



			
				kosho said:
			
		

> I think it is GOOD.


 Me too, Kosho. :wink2:


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## RevIV (Dec 13, 2007)

to Kosho and Kidswarrior -
My sentiments exactly.  I tell my students all the time that if they are in the arts as many years as i have been right now -- there is no way they cannot be better than me at this stage.  When i teach some of my students informatin at green belt that was not excessible to me at the time they will def. be better.  Some day it will be a humbling edxperience watching my students grow and go beyond me -- they just better remember that i will be older and waiting for the saying to come, about old people and treachory when they fight.. I'm sure if my brain was working right now i could remember the qoute - GM Pesare uses it all the time.
In Peace
Jesse
I  might be back on today because my school area is supposed to get hit with a nasty storm starting at noon and getting an inch of snow an hour.  THe school district my dojo is located in has already called for early dismissal-- ahh my back is already aching from just the thought of the shovelling to come this week.


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## Danjo (Dec 13, 2007)

I come originally from Shotokan, so I have an affinity for kata that many of my Kajukenbo brothers don't (like Prof. Bishop said, "If you told the Kaju guys in advance it was going to be 'kata night', you'd have maybe two people show up.") 

However, I feel they are important for the learning of basics and transitioning. Of course, we're talking about the basic kata, not the fancy acrobatic ones you see in tourneys done to music. (blech!)


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## exile (Dec 13, 2007)

For me, and for our dojang, kata/hyungs (we do many of the Japanese kata for promotion to, and after, shodan) are the textbooks of CQ combat. They are the answers to questions like

(i) What do you do to defend yourself against a straight punch or roundhouse thrown at your head?

(ii) How can you most effectively respond to a grab to your clothing to hold you in place for a followup punch or kick, or a double-handed grab to line you up for a head butt?

(iii) What can you do about a grab from behind?

The ordinary colored belt forms, read correctly, give you powerful weapons to use in hard, dirty street combat. Learn to think of the 90º turn that begin these forms as part of a wrist lock/pin combination, a `down block' as a forearm pin on the attacker's grabbing arm followed by an elbow strike and then a downward hammerfist to the throat; an `upper block' as a forearm strike to the attacker's layrnx/jaw, a `crane stance' as a combination beginning with a knee shot to the abdomen; a `180º pivot' as part of a throw bringing an already damaged attacker to the ground. This is `old school' karate, pre-sanatisation (as per Itosu's repackaging of kata at the turn of the century for school use)and it's what the bunkai that people here and on many other threads have been talking about are designed to recover. In the past ten years or so, we've gotten much smarterin the sense of more realistic, more inquisitive, more demandingabout our standards for kata bunkai. Take a look at some of the great work that's being done on the true fighting content of the Pinan/Heian kata, for example, and compare it with the `official' story from the previor era. 

This is really the Golden Age of Kata, I believe!


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## Jdokan (Dec 13, 2007)

There are 2 things that work on and keep close.  Combinations & Forms.  I believe that everything that you need to know is in there.  Focusing on that forms contain most of everything you need, forms are the mainstay of my system.  This does not mean I have devised a system; it just means that I do things my way.  I incorporate fighting aspects in each of my forms.  If what I was taught seems flashy or too fluid or more importantlyit wouldnt work on the streetI look to discover how it can be made toLike Jesse said earlier a lot of forms in the 80s were devised to look pretty.  I try and stay away from that, not saying that its wrong...just wrong for me.
Jeff,


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## LawDog (Dec 13, 2007)

The importance of Forms / Kata's is what a person can learn from them and not the Kata's themselves.
:ultracool


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## tshadowchaser (Dec 13, 2007)

When I was studying Kenpo we spent about a quarter of the class doing Kata. It might be explained that a certain part of the form was technique # x, y, or z but it was never broken down more than that. 
Not sure my instructor at the time would have known if there was more to it.


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## Live True (Dec 13, 2007)

First, my apologies for the intrusion, and I hope it's okay for me to post here, as I am not in Kenpo/Kempo.  I learned something interesting in my class this weekend that I thought kinda applied to the thread.

We were doing a basic Uechi Kata, and we spent a good part of the class going over the many things this particular Kata taught.  From the basic mechanics of rootedness (is that a word?) and step length to why do we hold our hand palm up as we start the strike and why XYZ...and this last is the part that I found most interesting:idea:.  Now, we are a VERY beginners class, but it gave me a clue that there is so much more in what seems like a simple repetition of form.  There are the basics to blocks, movement, balance, and the beginnings (at least for me) of tactical thought processes such as set up and planned movement.  It was an "ah ha!" moment for me, and I look forward to the many many things I will continue to learn......

From the prior posts, it sounds like the narrow/broad application of Kata might be universal across a lot of MA.  Yes?  Anywho, my .02.


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## Gordon Nore (Dec 13, 2007)

My two cents. Kata teaches the student to do everything in a traditional stance, yet at the same time teaches students that all stances are transitional, not static. That's just what's going on from the hips down. If you can do all the other stuff (blocks, strikes, etc) without looking at your feet, that's a good step forward. If you can do everything from the waist down and the waste up and only see uke (even though he isn't there), you're probably pretty damn good at kata.

That said, we've never done tournament kata -- we'd fail miserably. Over the years many of us have had to shorten our stances -- I'm talking about the older students here. Of late, my sensei, who is also sandan in Aikido, has explained that he has shortened his stances for the preservation of his knees.

I think kata is a good discipline, a walking syllabus of an art's wealth of techniques.


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## IWishToLearn (Dec 13, 2007)

exile said:


> For me, and for our dojang, kata/hyungs (we do many of the Japanese kata for promotion to, and after, shodan) are the textbooks of CQ combat. They are the answers to questions like
> 
> (i) What do you do to defend yourself against a straight punch or roundhouse thrown at your head?
> 
> ...



Not sure if I agree with the Golden Age comment but for those that spend time actually training for realistic applications in their forms - bravo... there has never been a time for more availability to explanations and applications than today.


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## exile (Dec 13, 2007)

Gordon Nore said:


> My two cents. Kata teaches the student to do everything in a traditional stance, yet at the same time teaches students that all stances are transitional, not static....
> I think kata is a good discipline, a walking syllabus of an art's wealth of techniques.



My own take on the stances in kata is that they aren't intended to be maintained; they are there to show you how to link your weight placement to a technique, at least so far as original intentions go. The front stance's importance is that it shows you where to project your weight into a tech: bringing your full weight to bear on an elbow lock, say. The back stance is part of a strike against an opponent whom you're using your back-shifted weight to immoblize or to bring _towards_ you into a strike, like a knifehand `block'. You don't `assume a stance' and fight from it, on this view of kata; what you're doing instead in using your weight to impose leverage at vulnerable points on the attacker's body to hyperextend his joints and thus to force compliance with your efforts to bring high-valued targets into range of your attacking weapons with minimal risk to yourself. I think it was the move to Japan which reified stances into fixed postures that you adopt and fight from, and it's not hard to see why: on Okinawa, kata were all about the combat techniques revealed by bunkai; in Japan, kata were part of the reinterpretation of karate as a kind of martial calisthenics, and bunkai were largely ignored (Gennosuke Higaki's useful book on the Pinan bunkai, _Hidden Karate: the True Bunkai for the Heian Katas and Naihanchi_, makes it clear that the Okinawan instructors had a kind of gentleman's agreement not to show their Japanese students the advanced combat applications concealed in the simple punch-block-kick camouflage that Funakoshi brought to Tokyo). Stances as the temporary byproduct of a movement to enforce a technique by using weight shifts to force a response from an attacker, an essential component of bunkai, were cut adrift from their tactical mooring as bunkai became more and more a lost art; they became instead a standard component of the mass line drill that Funakoshi introduced into karate training, and which has become a staple of the various Korean developments of karate emerging from various kwans in the liberation era. The more you emphasize bunkai in your training&#8212;not just the analysis it requires but the realistic partner training of the techniques it makes available&#8212;the less stances will have any kind of stable existence in your combat practice.



IWishToLearn said:


> ...for those that spend time actually training for realistic applications in their forms - bravo... there has never been a time for more availability to explanations and applications than today.



Well, this is in a way the crucial point of kata: they are the instruction manual, but they only tell you what to do and how to do it; they do not do it _for_ you! I'm always surprised at how misunderstood this basic point seems to be in the wider MA world.

Supposed you purchase a book on calculus or physics, as part of an effort to learn these subject matters. In each chapter, without fail, no matter how innovative or `modern' the approach, you'll always find the same thing: (i) a general discussion of a particular kind of problem, along with a description of how the subject matter of the textbook breaks the problem down into subproblems that the methods covered can solve; (ii) a couple of worked examples, showing how the material covered in (i) can be brought to bear on a number of seemingly disparate real cases to yield a complete solution, and (iii) a number of problems that you have to solve yourself&#8212;often very many; some of my university physics textbooks had as many as sixty such problems at the end of each chapter, of increasing difficulty. You couldn't really feel you had learned the material, really _grasped_ the basic relationships, till you were able to solve all of the problems, including the lethal, soul-destroying last five or so. The thing is, you could not possibly get to that point if you didn't fully understand the fundamental relations and mathematical techniques covered in (i), but by the same token, such understanding could never stand on its own, because it was only by doing the problems in (iii), guided at the outset by the models given in (ii), that you finally saw the actual connections sketched in (i).

OK: so, the kata, with their associated bunkai, are like (i) in the preceding analogy. The illustrations given by people like Abernethy, O'Neil and others showing how the techniques laid out in the bunkai can be used for effective defense are like (ii). And what's (iii)? It's you doing highly realistic, noncompliant, extremely unpleasant two-person attack/defense scenarios in which you actually use the techniques the kata teach you to impose unacceptable damage on your attacker. You cannot expect to learn actual combat use of a form-based MA by _thinking_ about the fighting applications of the form and no further (let alone practicing the form endless without trying to see its combat applications) any more than you can learn a mathematical discipline or branch of physics by simply reading the part (i) of each chapter without ever solving actual problems yielding results that you can then compare with the answers in the back of the book, or with the instructor's answer sheets. Thinking you know a MA because you can execute its forms flawlessly is like thinking that you know integral calculus because you've committed to memory, and can recite flawlessly without looking at the text, the passage in the book that describes how to find the area under a curve by summing the areas of a bunch of infinitesimally thin rectangles. The authors of the book certainly didn't think that was enough&#8212;that's why they put those sixty examples at the end of the chapter for you work on!

Fortunately, as IWTL notes, there is now a lot of material around that provides the equivalent of (i)-(ii) for you, and even explains how to go about doing phase (iii) training with better chances of not breaking anything or winding up in hospital. That's exactly why I characterized this as the Golden Age of Kata. But it's only so if you take your analyses to the dojo floor and test them out in hard, fairly brutal training sessions that simulate streetfights as realistically as possible without trips to the ER every week...


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## kidswarrior (Dec 13, 2007)

Jdokan said:


> There are 2 things that work on and keep close.  Combinations & Forms.  I believe that everything that you need to know is in there.  Focusing on that forms contain most of everything you need, forms are the mainstay of my system.  This does not mean I have devised a system; it just means that I do things my way.  I incorporate fighting aspects in each of my forms.  If what I was taught seems flashy or too fluid or more importantlyit wouldnt work on the streetI look to discover how it can be made toLike Jesse said earlier a lot of forms in the 80s were devised to look pretty.  I try and stay away from that, not saying that its wrong...just wrong for me.
> Jeff,


My take, too. 'Pretty' is for solo 'kata' (dancing in your jammies, as Iain Abernethy quips). But I've concluded that for my own practice, there's no such thing as solo kata--gotta have a partner, even if only temporarily imagined.


			
				Gordon Nore said:
			
		

> My two cents. Kata teaches the student to do everything in a traditional stance, yet at the same time teaches students that all stances are transitional, not static. That's just what's going on from the hips down. If you can do all the other stuff (blocks, strikes, etc) without looking at your feet, that's a good step forward. If you can do everything from the waist down and the waste up and only see uke (even though he isn't there), you're probably pretty damn good at kata.


And so, damn good at fighting. Gordon, I think your parsing of the legwork, the handwork, and then the combination of both into an unconscious movement, ultimately while visualizing the opponent, is a great job of sequencing how kata are rightly taught, learned, and used, imho.



> That said, we've never done tournament kata -- we'd fail miserably.


One reason I've never posted anything on video for others to see. It'd just look like the Ugly Fu it is without a visible partner to bear the brunt of the application. 



			
				tshadowchaser said:
			
		

> When I was studying Kenpo ... It might be explained that a certain part of the form was technique # x, y, or z but it was never broken down more than that.
> Not sure my instructor at the time would have known if there was more to it.


Yep. Seems to be some consensus in this thread that this is somewhat prevalent, at least in us old timers. :idunno: It's encouraging to read so many fellow MAists willing and able to make it better for their students.


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## IWishToLearn (Dec 14, 2007)

exile said:


> Fortunately, as IWTL notes, there is now a lot of material around that provides the equivalent of (i)-(ii) for you, and even explains how to go about doing phase (iii) training with better chances of not breaking anything or winding up in hospital. That's exactly why I characterized this as the Golden Age of Kata. But it's only so if you take your analyses to the dojo floor and test them out in hard, fairly brutal training sessions that simulate streetfights as realistically as possible without trips to the ER every week...



Aha, now your Golden Age reference perspective is cleared up. I'm with ya on that now.


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## Nomad (Dec 14, 2007)

I am in a very kata-centric dojo.  We do other things too, but it always comes back to the kata.  Aside from the basics like teaching stances, distribution of weight, transitions, combinations, kime, etc. the kata have so much in them.

One of my instructors made a statement in class a little while ago that over the past 8 years or so, teaching 4-5 hours a day to children and adults, he hadn't gone "outside" the kata to come up with combinations & partner drills & class "themes" to teach.  This includes specialized sparring and jujitsu classes.  Considering the huge variety I've seen in class, this statement is pretty amazing.


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## KenpoDave (Dec 17, 2007)

Katas, designed and performed properly, are the textbooks of a system.

I also believe that if you continue to properly practice kata as you age, you continually "reset" your system to your physical abilities.


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## donald (Dec 17, 2007)

I agree that good kata practice is very important. Its the shadow boxing of kenpo.

1stJohn1:9


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## Jdokan (Dec 20, 2007)

I also believe that if you continue to properly practice kata as you age, you continually "reset" your system to your physical abilities.[/quote]

I couldn't agree more!!!


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## exile (Dec 20, 2007)

Nomad said:


> I am in a very kata-centric dojo.  We do other things too, but it always comes back to the kata.  Aside from the basics like teaching stances, distribution of weight, transitions, combinations, kime, etc. the kata have so much in them.
> 
> One of my instructors made a statement in class a little while ago that over the past 8 years or so, teaching 4-5 hours a day to children and adults, he hadn't gone "outside" the kata to come up with combinations & partner drills & class "themes" to teach.  This includes specialized sparring and jujitsu classes.  Considering the huge variety I've seen in class, this statement is pretty amazing.



What's... not exactly discouraging, but somewhat disappointing, is how much you encounter this kind of point of view on kata. I've tried to point out in various threads (e.g. my reply to that post, here) that this is basically the wrong way to look at kata, and that it makes the mistake of demanding that the blueprint for a building itself _create_ the building on its own. But you see this same conflation of distinct ideas over and over again. And this in spite of the now enormous literature on both practical bunkai and on realistic scenario training protocols for the TMAs... sigh...


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## Gentle Fist (Dec 23, 2007)

Being someone who does Judo/Jiu-Jitsu 90% and Kenpo about 10% of the time....

I do NOT like kata and feel randori/alive training is time better spent.  But then again I am becoming less and less a Kenpoka.


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## exile (Dec 23, 2007)

fistlaw720 said:


> Being someone who does Judo/Jiu-Jitsu 90% and Kenpo about 10% of the time....
> 
> I do NOT like kata and feel randori/alive training is time better spent.  But then again I am becoming less and less a Kenpoka.



This is exactly the kind of thing I was commenting about earlier as a false opposition, a category confusion. `Alive training' is an absolutely essential component of kata-based MAs; Abernethy, in his book _Bunkai-Jutsu: the Practical Application of Karate Kata_, has a whole chapter on it, the last one in the book, and the kind of `alive training' that these British Combat Association guys do can give you a broken nose and fractured ribs, as Abernethy himself pointed out had happened to him in his article in _Black Belt_ from April of this year. But given that you are training `alive', _WHAT_ are you training? What, in any given defense situation, is the specific tactical expression of your art's strategic principles? _That's_ what the kata are guidelines for! Again, it's like saying, I don't believe in scripts for theatre; I think acting is more important... you need both: one tells you what works, the other makes sure you can _carry out_ those techniques in real time! 

There&#8211;is&#8211;no&#8211;contradiction....


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## Gentle Fist (Dec 24, 2007)

exile said:


> This is exactly the kind of thing I was commenting about earlier as a false opposition, a category confusion. `Alive training' is an absolutely essential component of kata-based MAs; Abernethy, in his book _Bunkai-Jutsu: the Practical Application of Karate Kata_, has a whole chapter on it, the last one in the book, and the kind of `alive training' that these British Combat Association guys do can give you a broken nose and fractured ribs, as Abernethy himself pointed out had happened to him in his article in _Black Belt_ from April of this year. But given that you are training `alive', _WHAT_ are you training? What, in any given defense situation, is the specific tactical expression of your art's strategic principles? _That's_ what the kata are guidelines for! Again, it's like saying, I don't believe in scripts for theatre; I think acting is more important... you need both: one tells you what works, the other makes sure you can _carry out_ those techniques in real time!
> 
> Thereisnocontradiction....


 

Well said!

So my next question for you would be this...

Do you like learning the lines for the play or perfecting your performance?


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## exile (Dec 24, 2007)

fistlaw720 said:


> Well said!
> 
> So my next question for you would be this...
> 
> Do you like learning the lines for the play or perfecting your performance?



Well... to answer that, let me make the following correspondences: the lines in the script correspond to the movements in the kata. The act of learning the kata, internalizing it, corresponds to actors learning their lines. The use of those movements as a series of combat moveslinked techniques, in other words, informed by solid strategic principlescorresponds to the performance of the play. 

Now I suspect that most actors actually prefer getting through the line-learning part as quickly as possible, using whatever tricks they use as performers to absorb their scripts (or, if we were talking about musicians, their scores); what they really enjoy is the interpretation, the real-time manifestation of those lines so that they have a kind of living reality for the audience. That's the actor's craft. In the same way, I think that MAists who train the applications of kata movement, kata which they've learned well and accurately, probably prefer the execution of the real techs that those kata incorporate over the repetitive performance of the kata as a kind of choreographed showpiece. That's certainly true for me. As Bill Burgar puts it in his book _Five Years, One Kata_ about the combat content of Gojushiho, the problem is that people focus on performing the kata, not studying them. If, once you've learned the movements really well, you stop working primarily on the performance and more on how (subsequences of) those movements translate into fighting scenarios, then you have the great satisfaction of having decoded what is, for most people, a rich instruction set whose existence they're unaware of; and if you then take that instruction set and train it under tough, realistic conditions with a noncompliant training partnersomeone who is going to do a very good imitation of a violent street attack on youthen you have the even greater satisfaction of seeing just how robust and businesslike the technical content of the MA you practice really is! But it's that last stepthe live training partwhich is the hardest and most intimidating, because that's where you have to take the information contained in the kata to the bank and really incorporate it into your reflexive combat toolkit. And the more realistic is, the better for you down the road, but also the more likely you are to get roughed up during your training...

Still, I have to say that for me the best part is working out the bunkai and testing it out with a good training partner. If only there were more of those around, eh? Someone who'll give you a rough enough time to be a credible imitation of an attacker, but with enough control that you're not going to get killed if you (or s/he) makes a mistake...


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## Danjo (Dec 25, 2007)

exile said:


> Well... to answer that, let me make the following correspondences: the lines in the script correspond to the movements in the kata. The act of learning the kata, internalizing it, corresponds to actors learning their lines. The use of those movements as a series of combat moveslinked techniques, in other words, informed by solid strategic principlescorresponds to the performance of the play.
> 
> Now I suspect that most actors actually prefer getting through the line-learning part as quickly as possible, using whatever tricks they use as performers to absorb their scripts (or, if we were talking about musicians, their scores); what they really enjoy is the interpretation, the real-time manifestation of those lines so that they have a kind of living reality for the audience. That's the actor's craft. In the same way, I think that MAists who train the applications of kata movement, kata which they've learned well and accurately, probably prefer the execution of the real techs that those kata incorporate over the repetitive performance of the kata as a kind of choreographed showpiece. That's certainly true for me. As Bill Burgar puts it in his book _Five Years, One Kata_ about the combat content of Gojushiho, the problem is that people focus on performing the kata, not studying them. If, once you've learned the movements really well, you stop working primarily on the performance and more on how (subsequences of) those movements translate into fighting scenarios, then you have the great satisfaction of having decoded what is, for most people, a rich instruction set whose existence they're unaware of; and if you then take that instruction set and train it under tough, realistic conditions with a noncompliant training partnersomeone who is going to do a very good imitation of a violent street attack on youthen you have the even greater satisfaction of seeing just how robust and businesslike the technical content of the MA you practice really is! But it's that last stepthe live training partwhich is the hardest and most intimidating, because that's where you have to take the information contained in the kata to the bank and really incorporate it into your reflexive combat toolkit. And the more realistic is, the better for you down the road, but also the more likely you are to get roughed up during your training...
> 
> Still, I have to say that for me the best part is working out the bunkai and testing it out with a good training partner. If only there were more of those around, eh? Someone who'll give you a rough enough time to be a credible imitation of an attacker, but with enough control that you're not going to get killed if you (or s/he) makes a mistake...


 
Excellent post. Memorizing the lines and blocking is only the first step towards a performance. Once the lines and blocking have been commited to memory, then focussing on the nuances of the character comes into play. Ensuring that everything you're doing is furthering the plot and not distracting from it. The better one understands the play and part, the better one is going to be able to ad-lib when a fellow actor forgets his or her line or if a prop is left off the set etc. etc. It all comes from rehearsal, rehearsal, rehearsal.


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## Perpetual White Belt (Dec 25, 2007)

I know my understanding of kata got better once I started FMA.  I was able to look at the bunkai differntly from what my American instrutor did.  They all did it with a block-then-strike-then-block-then-strike rythm and mentality as opposed to the blockstrikelockstrikestriketrap flowing type of thing.  The guys I trained with that trained in Okinawa and the Okinawan Grandmaster did the type of rythm I had gotten use to in the FMA's.  Block and counter at the same time.  Not one then the other.  The bunkai wasn't always strick to the kata movements.  Stancing and angles changed to adapt to the attack your opponent made.


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## MJS (Dec 26, 2007)

Almost forgot about this thread.  Great replies everyone!  

Interestingly enough, I was looking thru the latest BB magazine.  In it, there was a letter to the editor, in which the author was talking about kata, the importance of them and how many RBSD systems dismiss them.  The author proceeded to talk about various moves in kata and how they applied to actual moves that we'd use in a SD situation.

I feel that they are important, because they, if properly understood, really do contain alot.  I underlined that word, because its key IMO.  Too many times, we see people just going thru the moves, without any idea as to what they're doing.  

Love 'em or hate 'em, they are just a piece of the puzzle, just like everything else.


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## MJS (Dec 26, 2007)

Danjo said:


> However, I feel they are important for the learning of basics and transitioning. Of course, we're talking about the basic kata, not the fancy acrobatic ones you see in tourneys done to music. (blech!)


 
This is just one of the things, IMO, that gives a bad rep to the arts.  People take a perfectly good kata, and add a bunch of garbage to it, totally taking away any value to it.


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## Perpetual White Belt (Dec 26, 2007)

Yep, people see these gymkata routines and think that's what MA are about, so they gravitate towards the systems with out kata causing the slow dwindeling of the traditional systems.  I have backed out of the Okinawan arts to teach FMAs lately, but more and more I get the urge to return to the Okinawan arts if for nothing else than to have a small group of people that can carry the torch so to speak of how traditional kata should be practiced and *understood*, not just moves for the sake of making it look pretty or entertaining, but actual combat effectiveness.


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## still learning (Dec 26, 2007)

Hello, One wonders why only martial arts have "kata", and all the other sports do not?

Training by oneself is very important. We all need this...but using Kata is not the only way either.

Have you found working with a partner and exhangeing blows,block,contact gives a more real feelings to actual combat?

Off course..real fighing is the best way to train...one would not last or live longer doing this.

Kata may have a small part of the martial arts....Have you seem people move and fight like a Kata?  or in those patterns? ....

Can we learn the same things as in a kata without doing a kata? ...Yes!

PLease know the difference between a kata and other training methods...there is a difference.  That is why we call it Kata....the other stuffs another name.

Just my opinon and thoughts on this.....is it ok? for me to disagree? and have one's own opinion?

Aloha ( as time progress...looking and seeing things from a different point of view...) ...always asking....the "WHY'S?


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## Danjo (Dec 26, 2007)

still learning said:


> Hello, One wonders why only martial arts have "kata", and all the other sports do not?


 
Perhaps the idea that Kata was not designed for "sportive" purposes explains it. kata was a mnemonic device that allowed one to train in a specific fighting system by arranging the techniques and concepts of a system into a logical pattern that could be memorized and transmitted to others. The patterns were used to improve flow and the idea of constant attack. They were further designed to be used against common attacks and situations one was likely to encounter.



still learning said:


> Training by oneself is very important. We all need this...but using Kata is not the only way either.


 
True. It's not the only way. Depends on what you're training in.



still learning said:


> Have you found working with a partner and exhangeing blows,block,contact gives a more real feelings to actual combat?


 
Again, it depends. Are the partners training in a realistic way?



still learning said:


> Off course..real fighing is the best way to train...one would not last or live longer doing this.


 
I don't think so. Imagine if the only training one got as a boxer was on fight night. Would that be superior training? Are you saying that living a short life is the best way to train?



still learning said:


> Kata may have a small part of the martial arts....Have you seem people move and fight like a Kata? or in those patterns? ....


 
Well, the entire kata is not supposed to represent one perfectly correographed fight, but rather a series of concepts that allow one to put together combinations and concepts from a particular system. How large or small a part of a martial art depends on the person, instructor and the art itself.



still learning said:


> Can we learn the same things as in a kata without doing a kata? ...Yes!


 
Well, aside from the fact that you answered your own question on this one, I would ask a different one: Is kata the best way to learn what is contained in the kata? That it is not the only way, I'll concede.



still learning said:


> PLease know the difference between a kata and other training methods...there is a difference. That is why we call it Kata....the other stuffs another name.


 
I don't think anyone here suffers fromn a lack of knowledge about the difference between kata and other training methods. Not even sure you have a point on this one.



still learning said:


> Just my opinon and thoughts on this.....is it ok? for me to disagree? and have one's own opinion?
> 
> Aloha ( as time progress...looking and seeing things from a different point of view...) ...always asking....the "WHY'S?


 
Clearly you can have your own opinion. Not sure who you're disagreeing with, but even that is clearly allowed.


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## LawDog (Dec 26, 2007)

Many of the other contact sports deal with a one vs one interaction. Most Martial Arts will cover situations that deal with a two plus vs one interaction.
Tacticle theory, when dealing with one vs one is a little different than dealing with two plus vs one. Many of the one vs one presets are similar to many of the two vs one situations but their individual tacticle applications are very different.
Students must be taught how to properly apply a one vs one preset for a two vs one situation.


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## jks9199 (Dec 26, 2007)

still learning said:


> Hello, One wonders why only martial arts have "kata", and all the other sports do not?
> 
> Training by oneself is very important. We all need this...but using Kata is not the only way either.



Other sports do have prearranged exercises to teach their principles.  It's called swimming laps or doing compulsories or running routes, playing catch, fielding practice, etc.  

Don't forget that solo kata practice isn't the only way to do kata; many styles include two-person (or even, rarely, more than two person) kata practice.



> Have you found working with a partner and exhangeing blows,block,contact gives a more real feelings to actual combat?
> 
> Off course..real fighing is the best way to train...one would not last or live longer doing this.
> 
> Kata may have a small part of the martial arts....Have you seem people move and fight like a Kata?  or in those patterns? ....



Kata or forms are a catalog or index; they embody principles or teach a technique under an ideal condition.  Let me compare them to (American) football; in high school, I played on the offensive line.  We'd practice our plays in several ways.  While the quarterback and receivers were running their routes, and tossing a football, we'd be hitting blocking dummies or pads to practice our blocking assignment.  Later, we'd bring the entire offense together, and we'd run the play, without a defense.  (Sound kind of like kata practice for a team?)  Then, we'd run the plays against the defense.  (Gee... sounds a bit like something comparable to sparring, huh?)

But, other sports don't necessarily have a component similar to kata; they don't need it.  Part of the role of kata is to embody or index the underlying theories and strategies of a fighting system; you don't need that in soccer or football or baseball.  The team's strategies are included in other ways, like knowing where to throw with a man second, and two outs.


> Can we learn the same things as in a kata without doing a kata? ...Yes!
> 
> PLease know the difference between a kata and other training methods...there is a difference.  That is why we call it Kata....the other stuffs another name.
> 
> ...



Martial arts include many different ways to practice, as do other sports.  But you're going in the same circle, again.  In the end, your training is YOUR business.  YOU train the way you think will help you achieve your best results.


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## exile (Dec 26, 2007)

still learning said:


> Kata may have a small part of the martial arts....Have you seem people move and fight like a Kata?  or in those patterns? ....
> 
> Can we learn the same things as in a kata without doing a kata? ...Yes!



What strikes me, still_learning, is how many times you've posted messages almost identical in content to this one. And you've had repeated responses that try to point out to you the difference between kata&#8212;the 'script', the instruction set for real street combat under many different scenarios&#8212;and _training_ those instructions&#8212;what Danjo calls, absolutely on target, the _rehersal_. Repeatedly it's been pointed out to you (i) that you don't train the kata so you can 'look/move like the kata' when you fight; rather, you _study_ the kata to learn how the style in question teaches you to respond to a grab, a push, a punch thrown to the head&#8212;information encoded in the kata and available to you if you learn the rules of deciphering the kata; and (ii) that what you _do_ train is the combat response that the kata teaches you. All of this has been communicated to you, over and over again. And yet you still keep posting variations of the same post, the message of which is that you have not been able, or been willing, to address the responses you've been given along these lines&#8212;responses which fully address all of the points you've raised.

So here's my question: why do you not engage these responses that many people clearly have taken a good deal of time to offer you, reflecting a good deal of careful thought on their part? Why do you continue to post as though these questions you raise haven't already been answered, in detail, a dozen times or more? Why, if you don't like what you're hearing, do you not attempt to frame a coherent counter to what we're all telling you? Beating a dead horse is pointless; beating a very live, healthy horse is... well... just pointless cruelty!


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