Kata bunkai for self defense

[ShotoNoob]

Now that I've put that to bed, I'll post a response to the Isshin Ryu Kata Bunkai vid re K=MAM later.....

 

[TimoS]

This is something a friend of mine has been saying for years: "karate isn't a method of fighting. It is a method to teach fighting. These are two different things". As he just happens to train Okinawan karate, we can substitute the word karate with kata, because like me, he considers karate = kata (okay, that is a bit simplified, but essentially that's how I see it)

 

[Tez3]

I don't have to I did not make that statement in a vacuum. It is in response to a conversation I was having.

So it would be specifically the people I am conversing with. There are other posters who have different views. Like kung fu wang who consider kata a mouldable tool.

Ian atherby might have a different view again.

You are the one who has jumped mid conversation and said that everybody is kata bashing. And again I think kung fu wang does kata.

I am not going to recap on every post just so people don have to follow the conversation it would be a painful way to discuss things.

Who is Ian Atherby?
I think that you don't actually read people's posts because I certainly DIDN'T say everyone is kata bashing and I don't see what KFW doing or not doing kata has to do with anything with a post I directed at you.

 

[Tez3]

If you have trained more than 50 forms/katas then you beat me.

Training any amount of 'forms' ( are they karate kata by the way?) isn't the point of learning kata, any of us could learn any amount of kata but it doesn't mean we'd understand them, far better to have learnt one kata and understand it thoroughly rather than be able to perform fifty but not understand them.

this is what Tsutomo Ohshima, one of Funakoshi's students says.

"One guy invents one kata. After five or ten years' practice, his students, ten students, make ten kata. By the next generation, a person wants to study karate, and there are ten thousand kata. Which one is the authentic one? They have trouble. Imagine one teacher in the United States makes up one kata. There are maybe 100,000 karate teachers in America, so maybe 100,000 new kata come out. That's the worst situation I can imagine. Before Master Funakoshi went to Tokyo from Okinawa, he visited experts to learn their kata. He knew that the general public would ask how many kata he had learned. Maybe he learned 60 or 80 kata and maybe he did each kata 100 times or 200 times, but not that much. If he did each kata 100 times that's 6000 times. So with only one or two years' preparation, he couldn't do each kata - 1,000 times. After a certain age, he said it's ridiculous to memorize all these forms. He never told me this, I never asked him, but I know. When I came here in 1955, people would ask me , "How many kata do you know?" I'd say ,"maybe 25". They'd say, "Only 25, I know a man who knows 30 kata".

They'd think that the guy who knows 30 kata is more an expert than the one that knows 25. I realized that the general public asks this kind of question - their mentality is variety, different kinds, the actual number. For the martial artist, it has to be completely opposite. We have to simplify, simplify, simplify. If you know 20, you have to make 10 kata better. If you know 10, you've got to cut to five, five kata that are really, really good. Even five kata are too many. Cut it to two. Each one performed 50000 times. Do them 100000 times, you realize that one kata is a little better than the other. Do the one that is better 50000 more times. When you reach 150000 or 200000 times, then I think that kata is yours."

 

[Kung Fu Wang]

Training any amount of 'forms' ( are they karate kata by the way?) isn't the point of learning kata, any of us could learn any amount of kata but it doesn't mean we'd understand them, far better to have learnt one kata and understand it thoroughly rather than be able to perform fifty but not understand them."

This is a Karate thread. I really should not talk too much about CMA. But since you have asked. I try to respond to your post to the best that I can.

You may need only 1 open hand form from any particular MA system. But I think 3 should be the proper number.

- 1 beginner level form,
- 1 intermediate level form, and
- 1 advance level form.

My major "long fist" system includes 5 branches:

1. 查 (Cha),
2. 花 (Hua),
3. 洪 (Hong),
4. 弹 (Tan),
5. 炮 (Pao).

You have to learn forms from all those 5 branches in order to claim that you have trained the "long fist" system. That's at least 5 forms there.

You will also need to learn at least 1 form for each different weapon that you have trained. My major "long fist" system requires 7 different weapon training such as:

1. staff,
2. Dao (single edge knife),
3. spear,
4. Jian (double edge sword),
5. dagger,
6. Miao Dao (similar to Japanese sword but longer),
7. Guan Dao (knife at the end of staff).

That's at least another 7 forms there.

For example, the staff weapon training is complete different from that Dao weapon training.

 

[Tez3]

You will also need to learn at least 1 form for each different weapon that you have trained. My major "long fist" system requires 7 different weapon training such as:

1. staff,
2. Dao (single edge knife),
3. spear,
4. Jian (double edge sword),
5. dagger,
6. Miao Dao (similar to Japanese sword but longer),
7. Guan Dao (knife at the end of staff).

That sounds enormously enjoyable! I don't have as much weapons training as I'd like.
I may be wrong but aren't Chinese forms somewhat different from karate kata in that they don't have or at least people don't train Bunkai from them?
It's believed by some masters that one only needs to train in one kata to have everything you need to defend yourself, that kata is Naihanchi, to be honest I can believe it. I know it well but still find more in it.

Our founder showing how Naihanchi should be done in Wado Ryu.

 

[Kung Fu Wang]

I may be wrong but aren't Chinese forms somewhat different from karate kata in that they don't have or at least people don't train Bunkai from them?
It's believed by some masters that one only needs to train in one kata to have everything you need to defend yourself, that kata is Naihanchi, to be honest I can believe it. I know it well but still find more in it.

The CMA forms don't always have "application" associated with it. It's up to the instructor to explain the application to his students. But some CMA forms are 2 men form. It was designed that the 1st half of the form can match to the 2nd half of the form. Forms like these are pretty much self explained. The "too many forms" is a serious CMA problem.

 

[ShotoNoob]

This is something a friend of mine has been saying for years: "karate isn't a method of fighting. It is a method to teach fighting. These are two different things". As he just happens to train Okinawan karate, we can substitute the word karate with kata, because like me, he considers karate = kata (okay, that is a bit simplified, but essentially that's how I see it)

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Artistically. I'm A-OK on that....

 

[TimoS]

If you are a master and recognized by the Rengo-Kai as such – go ahead, change the kata. But as soon as you do also know that you will be a ronin in the eyes of the Rengo-kai for breaking with tradition

I don't think it's quite as straightforward as this. Many of the Rengokai masters have modified the kata they learned, probably not dramatically, but they have changed them. If they hadn't, everyone's kata would look exactly the same, but now there are some differences, e.g. stances. Example, I know for a fact that Zenpo Shimabukuro sensei has changed the way kata Wansu was performed. Later on he changed it back to the way it was. Apparently he wanted to emphasize the usage of hips in a particular movement, that is to say that the movement shouldn't be performed with just hands, rather the whole body should be used in it.

 

[drop bear]

Who is Ian Atherby?
I think that you don't actually read people's posts because I certainly DIDN'T say everyone is kata bashing and I don't see what KFW doing or not doing kata has to do with anything with a post I directed at you.

You did say kfw was on the kata bashing band wagon.

It shows that people who do kata may have a different interpretation about it than you.

You post at kfw also included a response to me. So I am addressing it.

So yes I do read peoples posts.

 

[Tez3]

You did say kfw was on the kata bashing band wagon.

It shows that people who do kata may have a different interpretation about it than you.

You post at kfw also included a response to me. So I am addressing it.

So yes I do read peoples posts.

So you and KFW are everybody?

KFW does forms, in CMA not Japanese kata and you don't do either, you think someone called Ian Atherby does kata, he may well do but I've never heard of him

 

[Kung Fu Wang]

KFW does forms, in CMA not Japanese kata ...

Actually, I did spent 3 months and trained in local YMCA "Goju Ryu" Karate club (on the drag of UT Austin) back in 1972. I did learn 2 katas from that Karate system. I still remember the 1st move was:

- left arm downward block to left,
- right arm back reverse punch,
- ...

One of the 2-men drills was:

- Your opponent right punches at your chest,
- you slide to your left with both feet, left palm block his punch to your right, followed by a right back reverse punch to his chest.

Even if I'm still a white belt in Karate, I do have some Karate training.

 

[clautz]

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Exceptionally good @ what? Unfortunately we have the global, [I'll borrow a phrase-from-K-MAN] your "modern," Shotokan kata versions which tend to employ rigid tension & heavy physical force.
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Nonetheless, kata was never intended by the Master's to be trained with full physical strength. Kata is a training exercise, a developmental exercise, not a weight-lifting, resistive physical exercise of maximum aerobic output....where the body functions just takes over..... Never.
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The practitioner you mention may get good at a physical demonstration, yet one that doesn't even qualify for traditional kihon karate.

Kata is intended to be done with both full physical and mental strength -- what, you would go into a fight with 1/4 power, or 1/4 spirit, or half technique. Anything is less is academic or just dance. Way, way to many people teaching dance out there. This whole thread has been looking at kata from a physical aspect and not the phyiscial, mental and heart Way.

 

[Tez3]

This whole thread has been looking at kata from a physical aspect and not the phyiscial, mental and heart Way.

That is because the OP is about kata for self defence so the discussion is narrowed to that, if the OP had been training kata then the discussion would have included the physical and mental aspects.

 

[ShotoNoob]

Kata is intended to be done with both full physical and mental strength -- what, you would go into a fight with 1/4 power, or 1/4 spirit, or half technique.

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NOPE, NOPE, NOPE..... NOPE<NOPE<NOPE....

Anything is less is academic or just dance. Way, way to many people teaching dance out there.

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Dance is a physical, recreational objective seeking activity.... Traditional karate is a mental discipline. World's apart....
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Answer: read the Masters, get the curriculum & STUDY THE MANUAL, interview instructors, research the web.... it's up to you to get it....

This whole thread has been looking at kata from a physical aspect and not the phyiscial, mental and heart Way.

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AND???

 

[ShotoNoob]

That is because the OP is about kata for self defence so the discussion is narrowed to that, if the OP had been training kata then the discussion would have included the physical and mental aspects.

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AW Shucks, I thought the thread was talking KARATE bunkai.... my bad....

 

[ShotoNoob]

Even if I'm still a white belt in Karate, I do have some Karate training. ....

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Oh, how could YOU!!!!!

 

[ShotoNoob]

I don't think it's quite as straightforward as this. Many of the Rengokai masters have modified the kata they learned, probably not dramatically, but they have changed them.....

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I can't fathom all that lineage stuff (feel like Matt Bryers here). Yet the great irony (as you so accurately laid out) or contradiction is that the Master's who created kata, many were patterned off of another Master's (so-called) work. Master's of different styles obviously made changes & alterations, including kata....
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This argument can then go 'round in circles.... if one let's it....

 

[ShotoNoob]

The "too many forms" is a serious CMA problem.

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It's a traditional karate & related styles problem too. One Okinawan Master stated that learning the Pinon kata would provide all one need's to know to fight effectively. In principle, I largely (not quite) agree--if one believes traditional karate is broad enough a TMA style overall.

 

[drop bear]

So you and KFW are everybody?

KFW does forms, in CMA not Japanese kata and you don't do either, you think someone called Ian Atherby does kata, he may well do but I've never heard of him

So you are suggesting there is a difference between forms and kata?