OK you can't say sparring is detrimental if you are pro kata. not for the sake of realism.

[K-man]

I think I'm going to start doing Kata again. Who knows, maybe it will keep me off the damn computer.

:hmm:
Sounds like a great idea but it will actually add to your computer time. First you will spend hours looking at Iain Abernethy and Masaji Taira's work then once you get the hang of it you will spend countless hours trying to explain to ignorant people, like Hanzou, that kata is fundamental to karate and does work in street fighting. Then you will end up with funny marks on your forehead from bashing it against hard objects when he hasn't the ability to comprehend.

Perhaps it would be easier not to do your kata after all.

 

[K-man]

I may be misunderstanding the op. I don't think it's anti-kata. Rather, it's, if you are anti-sparring because it isn't "real", mustn't you also be anti sparring for the same reason?

Did you mean to write this?

 

[Steve]

lol, I meant anti-kata for the same reasons. It's early.

 

[Tony Dismukes]

While I don't agree with the confrontational way drop bear phrased this post, I do understand where he's coming from. I'll put it in the context of the thread it spun off of and hopefully be less confrontational about it:

Kong Soo Do claimed that sparring is a suboptimal training tool for self-defense because it does not include a host of real world considerations: de-escalation, escape & evasion, environmental factors, improvised weapons, etc, etc, etc.

Kong Soo Do claimed that kata is an effective training tool for self-defense.

Drop bear notes that kata does not include any of those real world considerations (de-escalation, escape & evasion, environmental factors, improvised weapons, etc, etc, etc.) that Kong dinged sparring for not having. Drop bear notes a certain inconsistency - how can you say training method A is not good because it lacks certain qualities but say training method B is good despite lacking those same qualities?

Drop bear may be (as several people in this thread have commented) completely ignorant of kata and its uses, but he doesn't have to know much about kata to question the inconsistency of the claims.

To take it out of the realm of martial arts - if I tell you that a Toyota Prius is a poor vehicle for getting around because it can't fly or go on water and in the next breath tell you that a bicycle is a great vehicle for getting around, you might be confused as to what I am thinking.

Now, I'm not any kind of kata expert, but I would guess the defenders of kata would say that kata does not need all those considerations (de-escalation, environmental factors, et al) to be useful for self-defense because it has a different purpose than scenario training and is just focused on conveying certain specific skills and knowledge. You can train kata to gain that knowledge and skillset, and then use scenario training to address other issues relevant to self-defense.

This, by the way, is the exact same argument I used in that other thread to argue for the value of sparring in self-defense training (see my 12:03 pm post). Sparring doesn't necessarily have to include all those additional factors that you can find in scenario training because it is more narrowly focused on training certain specific skills and attributes in more depth. I think Kong ended up agreeing with me on that after I explained my point multiple times in different ways.

BTW - I think we can have more productive conversations here if we can break the habit of treating everybody who disagrees with us as willfully ignorant.

 

[K-man]

lol, I meant anti-kata for the same reasons. It's early.

OK, I thought that was probably the case.

No, I don't think it is the same. I'm not anti sparring as such. Firstly it depends on definition. If sparring is defined like Hanzou defined it I think in the other thread then we all spar. If we are talking about sparring as punching and kicking without clinching like you see in sport based karate, then we don't spar. That is just a small part of sparring that I believe is not required in my training. It is essential for someone training for the ring. Whether you undertake that form of of sparring or not has absolutely nothing to do with your ability to fight on the street or in a more confined space like a pub. It is not that sparring in that way isn't real and it doesn't mean that it doesn't work on the street. In fact a lot of what you see posted is a real monkey dance scenario where the protagonists do fight that way. For me I don't need to chase someone to hit them. If they don't come to me then I am not interested in hitting them. If they do come to me they have to penetrate my defence and then there is more than a fair chance I will hit them. That is the way we train.

Now getting back to kata. I believe in the outside world only a tiny fraction of people understand kata or its value. Even here on MT where you have a lot of highly trained people only a handful are exploring its potential. People with no understanding, like Hanzou, bag it, ask for evidence against his biased view, then when it is produced claims what he is shown it isn't valid because in his limited world he had never seen it trained that way. I trained Japanese style karate for years before I saw the application demonstrated in a meaningful way. The result of that was me leaving what I knew, changing to the Okinawan style karate and trying diligently to understand more about the kata. Why would I do that if it wasn't real? More than that, if it wasn't what it is, I would probably be no longer training or teaching. I have many outside interests and limited time. But kata is addictive, a little like prospecting. Every time you get one little nugget you just know there has to be more.

Coming back to the OP. Is kata essential to your training? It depends on what you want to achieve. If you want to fight in the ring it has little if any benefit. If you want to use it on the street the way it is trained by probably 95% of karateka, again little if any benefit. If you want to study the kata and understand the application of the kata you have a street fighting system that is extremely effective. The application of kata is real. How most people train kata is not.
:asian:

 

[K-man]

While I don't agree with the confrontational way drop bear phrased this post, I do understand where he's coming from. I'll put it in the context of the thread it spun off of and hopefully be less confrontational about it:

Kong Soo Do claimed that sparring is a suboptimal training tool for self-defense because it does not include a host of real world considerations: de-escalation, escape & evasion, environmental factors, improvised weapons, etc, etc, etc.

Kong Soo Do claimed that kata is an effective training tool for self-defense.

Drop bear notes that kata does not include any of those real world considerations (de-escalation, escape & evasion, environmental factors, improvised weapons, etc, etc, etc.) that Kong dinged sparring for not having. Drop bear notes a certain inconsistency - how can you say training method A is not good because it lacks certain qualities but say training method B is good despite lacking those same qualities?

Drop bear may be (as several people in this thread have commented) completely ignorant of kata and its uses, but he doesn't have to know much about kata to question the inconsistency of the claims.

To take it out of the realm of martial arts - if I tell you that a Toyota Prius is a poor vehicle for getting around because it can't fly or go on water and in the next breath tell you that a bicycle is a great vehicle for getting around, you might be confused as to what I am thinking.

Now, I'm not any kind of kata expert, but I would guess the defenders of kata would say that kata does not need all those considerations (de-escalation, environmental factors, et al) to be useful for self-defense because it has a different purpose than scenario training and is just focused on conveying certain specific skills and knowledge. You can train kata to gain that knowledge and skillset, and then use scenario training to address other issues relevant to self-defense.

This, by the way, is the exact same argument I used in that other thread to argue for the value of sparring in self-defense training (see my 12:03 pm post). Sparring doesn't necessarily have to include all those additional factors that you can find in scenario training because it is more narrowly focused on training certain specific skills and attributes in more depth. I think Kong ended up agreeing with me on that after I explained my point multiple times in different ways.

BTW - I think we can have more productive conversations here if we can break the habit of treating everybody who disagrees with us as willfully ignorant.

Sport sparring is methodology, kata is methodology. They are both part of complete training depending on the training. I believe Kata is not at all useful in the ring and for me sport sparring has limited value on the street. To me, scenario training is a separate animal. It should be essential training for anyone serious about self defence.

As to the part about wilfully ignorant. We can all agree to disagree. The problem I see is where someone dismisses virtually everyone else's training as 'fraudulent' or 'sub optimal' etc. and keeps ignoring what others are saying to the contrary. Someone who does that constantly is wilfully ignorant. IMHO of course.

 

[Hanzou]

Then you haven't seen any of Iain Abernethy's work with Bunkai, absolutely practical work for self defence. Others do good work in this area too.

Kata is rarely good exercise and doesn't actually build character, the Bunkai on the other hand. Too many people don't actually know what kata is for and just go through the motions of following whatever their instructor shows them, it's a shame, they are missing out on so much.

Bunkai - Karate's forgotten 95% | Iain Abernethy

On the contrary, I'm quite familiar with Mr. Abernethy's work. While its interesting to watch him construct movements out of the kata, that does nothing to change their overall effectiveness as a training tool.

Simply put, I have yet to run across Karatekas or Kung Fu stylists who actually utilize Bunkai in their training on anything beyond the demonstration level. This is perhaps why you see so many Kung Fu and Karate stylists looking like kickboxers when they fight, instead of how Abernethy looks when he's breaking down the kata, or how performers look during a kata competition.

 

[Tez3]

On the contrary, I'm quite familiar with Mr. Abernethy's work. While its interesting to watch him construct movements out of the kata, that does nothing to change their overall effectiveness as a training tool.

Simply put, I have yet to run across Karatekas or Kung Fu stylists who actually utilize Bunkai in their training on anything beyond the demonstration level. This is perhaps why you see so many Kung Fu and Karate stylists looking like kickboxers when they fight, instead of how Abernethy looks when he's breaking down the kata, or how performers look during a kata competition.

If you are familiar with Iain's work I'm surprised you think of kata the way you do, I think you may be familiar with it in the same way I'm familiar with Capoeira.
Bunkai is for self defence not competition fighting. Karate ( can't speak for Kung Fu) fighters will often look like kick boxers, which is no surprise as that's basically where 'competitive' kick boxing, not Muay Thai, came from.

 

[K-man]

On the contrary, I'm quite familiar with Mr. Abernethy's work. While its interesting to watch him construct movements out of the kata, that does nothing to change their overall effectiveness as a training tool.

Simply put, I have yet to run across Karatekas or Kung Fu stylists who actually utilize Bunkai in their training on anything beyond the demonstration level. This is perhaps why you see so many Kung Fu and Karate stylists looking like kickboxers when they fight, instead of how Abernethy looks when he's breaking down the kata, or how performers look during a kata competition.

Oh boy! How can you keep spouting this kind of nonsense? You have not come across people utilising bunkai in their training. So wha? I haven't seen people breaking concrete blocks in their training either but I know there are some that do and that it requires a certain level of skill and training. We train bunkai that way every training session as I would assume does every other school with our style of karate. I am travelling to New Zealand in two weeks to train with the guys there, specifically bunkai. This type of training had nothing to do with fighting in the ring. Expecting to see it in the ring is about as optimistic as finding fairies in your garden. But you already know that, don't you?

 

[drop bear]

You are being dishonest with the members of the board that have thus far participated in this thread. You were not asked to start this thread. You began to derail another thread. I suggested the following:



Apparently, you did not follow that suggestion because this thread is a mish-mash of concepts. The goal of which:

• Is to hear yourself talk.
• To up your post count.
• To rail against a foundational concept of the martial arts that it is painfully obvious you don't understand.
• To try to link several concepts together to prove some justification to yourself that others obviously don't agree with.

You have absolutely no depth of knowledge on the subject of kata. But rather than opening up a conversation in which to seek information that would benefit you in your training, you open up this mish-mash of conflicting topics with a preconceived idea already stated clearly in the OP. You are not open to learning from those here with more experience in this area. You are here only to cause conflict. The fact that you don't 'get' something that is a valuable training tool does not automatically invalidate it's value.

All I can add is Don't Feed the Trolls.

The thread is not about kata. It is about katas relevance according to your set of standards. That was always the discussion. Does kata fail when subjected to your tests?

Just seems a bit illogical.

So you wanted this thread. You have it.

So do you do kata in a car?

 

[K-man]

If you are familiar with Iain's work I'm surprised you think of kata the way you do, I think you may be familiar with it in the same way I'm familiar with Capoeira.

I must admit, I know nothing of Capoeira either.

 

[Tez3]

The thread is not about kata. It is about katas relevance according to your set of standards. That was always the discussion. Does kata fail when subjected to your tests?

Just seems a bit illogical.

So you wanted this thread. You have it.

So do you do kata in a car?

I wasn't on the other thread so humour me, what do you think kata is?

 

[drop bear]

Okay, then let's do it this way…

Please explain your understanding of what kata is, and why the same arguments can be levelled at it as were levelled at sparring (for the record, they weren't arguments against sparring, they were highlighting limitations of common-term, "sports" style sparring). Every post you've made shows that you are not in possession of enough understanding to actually be in a position to discuss knowledgeably on this topic… but I'll await your clarification of your understanding first. After that, I'll go through and highlight why I believe you're entirely missed the point (based on current posts and evidence).

Oh, and it's not an ad hominem post if I'm highlighting the issues in the posts themselves… I didn't say anything about yourself or Hanzou other than that you're showing a real lack of knowledge in this area.

Kata is pretty much an arranged set of movements that tend to form the building blocks of a martial art. So it is sort of a resource that you take the core ideas and build from there.

What it isn't is something that allows the person the opportunity to de-escalate, escape, evade, use a weapon, improvise a weapon, use the terrain etc. Kata does not usually contain these and other real world elements (lighting, environment, multiple attackers, starting from a position of disadvantage.

 

[drop bear]

I do kata. I think that if one is going to do kata, that they should have an understanding of exactly what they're doing, otherwise, you're doing nothing more than half assed moves. As I've said in the other thread, I do feel that sparring/testing yourself is key, and some sort of testing, should be done, if you absolutely refuse to spar. As for the questions that you asked, which I believe were asked by someone else, in that other thread...I do the majority of that type of training, outside of the dojo. To clarify...when I say 'outside the dojo' I'm talking about when I'm training in the backyard or garage setting, with some of the guys I train with. IMHO though, I do feel that type of training should be done in the dojo as well. Yes, I understand the tradition aspect...hell, I train in a traditional art, with a teacher who was born in Japan, so the idea of the RBSD type of training might be frowned upon by someone like that, but nonetheless, I still feel that it's a key component to SD.

Yeah not kata based on its own merits. There are two preconceptions we are working with here. One training has to resemble fighting. And two in a fight you will revert to your training and fight like that.

These are important preconceptions because that is the base issue here.

 

[drop bear]

I may be misunderstanding the op. I don't think it's anti-kata. Rather, it's, if you are anti-sparring because it isn't "real", mustn't you also be anti sparring for the same reason?

It's a fair point, IMO, if I understand it correctly.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk HD

Yeah that pretty much.

 

[K-man]

The thread is not about kata. It is about katas relevance according to your set of standards. That was always the discussion. Does kata fail when subjected to your tests?

Just seems a bit illogical.

So you wanted this thread. You have it.

So do you do kata in a car?

Kata really has absolutely nothing to do with the set of standards listed. That makes as much sense as saying what has exploration in the Amazon got to do with Space travel. Obviously you don't do kata in a car. If that was a genuine question then I give up.

Kata by itself does nothing. It's a bit like a lock without a key.

So let's look at the applications of kata in the context you want to discuss it. For 'spar' I will assume that it means 'utilise bunkai' in this context.


Do you spar with the possibility that other attackers will join the fight?

No, because kata is designed for one attacker at a time. However, in the case of multiple attackers it may be possible to use the bunkai sequentially.


Do you spar with the possibility that the attacker(s) will have a weapon?

Again, kata in the karate sense is empty hand. Certainly some bunkai could be used against weapons.


Do you spar with the ability to use a weapon, conventional or improvised?

No, because karate means empty hand. Kobudo is for training with weapons.


Do you have the opportunity to de-escalate the situation so the sparring section doesn't even happen?

Certainly.


Do you have the opportunity to escape or evade the situation prior to or during the sparring session?

Certainly.


Do you spar only in a well lit, open space?

Not at all.


Do you spar with a specific rule set that both of you have agreed to abide by?

Yes. Don't injure your partner.


Do you spar only on a dry surface?

Normally but other surfaces are optional.


Do you spar only indoors?

No.


Do you spar on stairs, in an elevator, inside a car, in the parking lot between two cars, on a slippery surface that slopes?

We normally don't and bunkai which teaches angle and direction may not be appropriate in those situations.



Do you spar to a conclusion i.e. you have escaped the situation or the opponent is no longer able to continue the attack?

Yes.


Do you spar starting at a position of disadvantage i.e your opponent is standing over you or behind you?

That is not what bunkai is designed for. However attack from behind or the side is incorporated. Bunkai is not a ground fighting system.


So I think that demonstrates that unless you understand kata and what it contains, it is pretty much a nonsense to compare it to scenario based training or sport sparring. Kata is just one training methodology. For those of us that utilise it, it is far more beneficial than sport sparring and does not replace scenario training.
:asian:

 

[Hanzou]

If you are familiar with Iain's work I'm surprised you think of kata the way you do, I think you may be familiar with it in the same way I'm familiar with Capoeira.
Bunkai is for self defence not competition fighting. Karate ( can't speak for Kung Fu) fighters will often look like kick boxers, which is no surprise as that's basically where 'competitive' kick boxing, not Muay Thai, came from.

In all my years in karate, we rarely sparred for competition purposes, we sparred for training purposes. That was the laboratory to experiment on the techniques we learned, and for developing our personal fighting style. The same applies currently in Bjj, where we spar constantly. If you're not pulling these bunkai out during sparring, I highly doubt you could pull them out during a self defense situation. How could you? You never integrated those movements into your personal fighting style.

 

[K-man]

Kata is pretty much an arranged set of movements that tend to form the building blocks of a martial art. So it is sort of a resource that you take the core ideas and build from there.

What it isn't is something that allows the person the opportunity to de-escalate, escape, evade, use a weapon, improvise a weapon, use the terrain etc. Kata does not usually contain these and other real world elements (lighting, environment, multiple attackers, starting from a position of disadvantage.

Sorry, that is purely ignorance of what kata is and what it is for. If that is what kata means to you, don't waste your time practising it and please don't even try to discuss it. It is a bit like a kindergarten kid trying to discuss the finer aspects of brain surgery with a brain surgeon.

Yeah not kata based on its own merits. There are two preconceptions we are working with here. One training has to resemble fighting. And two in a fight you will revert to your training and fight like that.

These are important preconceptions because that is the base issue here.

What is kata based on it's merits? Kata by itself is like a box with a gun inside. Until you open the box and take out the weapon it isn't much use. If you train bunkai, then you fight as you train.
:asian:

 

[drop bear]

Sorry, that is purely ignorance of what kata is and what it is for. If that is what kata means to you, don't waste your time practising it and please don't even try to discuss it. It is a bit like a kindergarten kid trying to discuss the finer aspects of brain surgery with a brain surgeon.

What is kata based on it's merits? Kata by itself is like a box with a gun inside. Until you open the box and take out the weapon it isn't much use. If you train bunkai, then you fight as you train.
:asian:

I really don't think you understand my posts. You seem to be arguing a point I am not making.

 

[K-man]

In all my years in karate, we rarely sparred for competition purposes, we sparred for training purposes. That was the laboratory to experiment on the techniques we learned, and for developing our personal fighting style. The same applies currently in Bjj, where we spar constantly. If you're not pulling these bunkai out during sparring, I highly doubt you could pull them out during a self defense situation. How could you? You never integrated those movements into your personal fighting style.

And the fact that in another thread you said how you had thrown away all you karate training in favour of BJJ just about sums it up. You used your sparring in you junior years of Shotokan to experiment with your techniques and it was ineffective compared to what you do now. Bunkai is 'sparring' in the same sense that your training is 'sparring'. You never trained the bunkai so why do you keep making assertions about it when you don't have any knowledge of it?