Do We Make Too Much of Kata?

[Cri70]

Then why not drill simple movements and even have students make their own kata? ( being devil's advocate)

Indeed. The only reason is that kata speed up the process, by pointing out the stuff that works.

You can in principle reinvent all math from scratch, but you will take a lifetime and end up inventing the same math that you could learn in a few years, maybe with different symbols and names, but essentially the same.

The same is karate: human biomechanics is human biomechanics and the way you use to your advantage are already there. So it's just faster to learn them directly rather than reinventing them,

But the exercise of taking a solution and encode in a kata is a very good idea.

 

[E0richt]

Indeed. The only reason is that kata speed up the process, by pointing out the stuff that works.

You can in principle reinvent all math from scratch, but you will take a lifetime and end up inventing the same math that you could learn in a few years, maybe with different symbols and names, but essentially the same.

The same is karate: human biomechanics is human biomechanics and the way you use to your advantage are already there. So it's just faster to learn them directly rather than reinventing them,

But the exercise of taking a solution and encode in a kata is a very good idea.

I think kata as taught is for use in transmitting the system down the line to other students... if you take the kata apart and drill their components (need bunkai for this) then kata becomes useful in self defense.

 

[Cri70]

I think kata as taught is for use in transmitting the system down the line to other students... if you take the kata apart and drill their components (need bunkai for this) then kata becomes useful in self defense.

My $.10 is that we tend to treat these things as a movie, so to say, in which there is a story to tell and everything has a precise meaning or function to support the telling.

But they aren't. People use pencils to write shopping lists or a sonata.

Kata can be used (and made) by so many people for so many different intents. If I see or figure a combination I like when sparring/drilling, I often string it together in a kata just to remember it. A student will do that when the master shows something interesting.

But then if I want to show it to my son, I will use the kata as something for him to try, so suddenly it's also a way to transmit information (and should he remember and decide to pass it on to his children when the time will come, it will also become a way to pass information across generations).

I also do a "kata" of sequence I find particularly difficult, or when I want to optimize speed or momentum. I try different ways and when I find something I feel is better - there's my new kata!

I mean, people do stuff. They often have a sense there and then, but it's very rare they have a sense.

 

[HighKick]

My $.10 is that we tend to treat these things as a movie, so to say, in which there is a story to tell and everything has a precise meaning or function to support the telling.

But they aren't. People use pencils to write shopping lists or a sonata.

Kata can be used (and made) by so many people for so many different intents. If I see or figure a combination I like when sparring/drilling, I often string it together in a kata just to remember it. A student will do that when the master shows something interesting.

But then if I want to show it to my son, I will use the kata as something for him to try, so suddenly it's also a way to transmit information (and should he remember and decide to pass it on to his children when the time will come, it will also become a way to pass information across generations).

I also do a "kata" of sequence I find particularly difficult, or when I want to optimize speed or momentum. I try different ways and when I find something I feel is better - there's my new kata!

I mean, people do stuff. They often have a sense there and then, but it's very rare they have a sense.

Well said.
I often say the base pattern of a form is simply a framework. A starting point. As a person evolves in their training, what they 'see' and 'do' with a form also evolves. They see the countless options that be done in concert with the movements of the base form. And with continued practice, the list just keeps getting longer and longer.

 

[Haruhiko]

Excellent issue, this. Though related, I think it can be a topic on its own. Since it has given me an epiphany concerned with this causality, I'll flesh it out in a new thread to see it's worthwhile to share. I'll call it: Preset Bunkai - "If someone does this, you do this." (if you're willing, Simon, to allow your thought and words to be attached to a thread of perhaps questionable value)

Sen no Sen

Ahead/Before/Taking the Initiative There are many schools that use the term Sen in their teachings but it is clear that the interpretation varies considerably

www.rkagb.com

Good read

 

[Gerry Seymour]

Sen no Sen

Ahead/Before/Taking the Initiative There are many schools that use the term Sen in their teachings but it is clear that the interpretation varies considerably

www.rkagb.com

Good read

Can you tell us what you found useful in this? It contributes a lot to the discussion to know why you found it specifically appropriate to this discussion.

 

[Haruhiko]

Can you tell us what you found useful in this? It contributes a lot to the discussion to know why you found it specifically appropriate to this discussion.

As it pertains to kata? That there is a rhythmic instinct or "process" even within highly structured kata that without putting a name to it (like the article does, and Japanese sword masters have for centuries) would be too nuanced to put into words.

It's a delicate balance of "I know how this goes" and real intuitive reaction, where the kata doesn't exist anymore and you're absorbed by intuition.

So what I really got out of the article was a way to articulate that subtle shift from rigidity to flow, and from mind to instinct. It gave me vocabulary for something I’ve felt in practice but couldn’t name: that moment in kata where the form falls away and what's left is pure, intuitive rhythm: sen-no-sen.

It also goes into how, beyond the kata, there's an entire universe of attitude, anticipation, presence, pressure, and transcendence that I've only rarely experienced in the koryū I practise. Like a flow state, but intense and heightened.

Like the "strike of no-thought".