Does one's skill flow from the kata?

[Steel Tiger]

Very cool. I don't have any training in this stuff, but I've also found myself intrigued by these topics. I've felt the same way about Australian Aboriginal groups as well. I haven't had any opportunity to study these topics in any meaningful way, tho.

Well there is plenty of literature on the subject, most of it quite good. Same sorts of problems in Australia and America - When did the first people arrive? Lots of debate in both regions. And if you like languages you'll love the Aborigines, 500 different languages.

 

[Sukerkin]

ST, for a second time, the first one being in the subject area of your core research, you make me recoil at the gaps in my knowledge - 500 Aboriginal tongues :wow:! That counts as my 'learn something you didn't know' fact of the day I reckon :tup:.

I so wish that I could get some of the membership of MT around a table in the pub and just have an in-depth set-the-world-to-rights kind of skull-session.

 

[Steel Tiger]

ST, for a second time, the first one being in the subject area of your core research, you make me recoil at the gaps in my knowledge - 500 Aboriginal tongues :wow:! That counts as my 'learn something you didn't know' fact of the day I reckon :tup:.

I so wish that I could get some of the membership of MT around a table in the pub and just have an in-depth set-the-world-to-rights kind of skull-session.

I try not to think too hard about all I have learned merely to know how much I don't.

 

[chinto]

I agree it is perfectly valid to develop a new understanding if the original is lost. This may have to be the position we have to take with regard to the older kata. You can only interpret what you have, the rest is extrapolation.

One thing is for certain the old masters are not the only people who can or could develop effective techniques. It is the nature of assumed knowledge and implicit understanding that has us chasing back to the originator of the kata. Consequently, those studying Okinawan arts have an easier time than those studying the older aspects of Karate and TKD, because they have a more direct line to the origin.


As to your stereotyping of Aussies, well most do work in Australian archaeology, but from the first time I saw Teotihuacano architecture 20 years ago I was hooked. And it has spread. I have an interest in the native cultures of North America and their origins. a particular interest in the paleo-indian period (Clovis points and all that).

the thing you have to remember about kata is that if its a valid interpitation of the bunkai .. it is not a situation of "lost meaning"
after all if it is a valid bunkai to the kata it is part of the original meaning of the kata. for the old kata I have been tought that there are a minumum of five or more (I say again 5 or more) valid bunkai for every movement in the kata.