Static lineage kata vs. individually adapted kata

[Makalakumu]

After looking at all of the versions of seisan out there and studying karate for a while, I was wondering why do we practice kata the same way this or that old master practiced it when this or that old master changed the kata to fit his own personal preference?

Wouldn't it be more traditional to learn the kata, learn the principles, and then practice the kata with the applications that work best for you in mind? What kind of kata do you practice, static lineage kata or individually adapted kata? Why?

 

[searcher]

After looking at all of the versions of seisan out there and studying karate for a while, I was wondering why do we practice kata the same way this or that old master practiced it when this or that old master changed the kata to fit his own personal preference?

Wouldn't it be more traditional to learn the kata, learn the principles, and then practice the kata with the applications that work best for you in mind? What kind of kata do you practice, static lineage kata or individually adapted kata? Why?

Very good question, IMO!!! I find it to be best to make the kata work for myself as an individual, rather than what worked for someone else. I go outside the boundaries of my primary style when it comes to finding kata that work for, not onlymyself, but my students as well. I have been fortunate enought over the years to have the chance to learn kata from several different systems and incorporate them into my class curriculum. I have also had to "prune" away some kata form what I teach completely. I have recently started working with the Ashihara Karate kata and they fit quite nicely into my school and they work very well for my students. I have never been nor will I ever be opposed to taking what we need from any system and using it to make ourselves better karateka. I feel that we cannot blindly stick to what was working 50-100+ years ago. I think the masters of old would agree with this concept.

 

[Makalakumu]

Very good question, IMO!!! I find it to be best to make the kata work for myself as an individual, rather than what worked for someone else. I go outside the boundaries of my primary style when it comes to finding kata that work for, not onlymyself, but my students as well. I have been fortunate enought over the years to have the chance to learn kata from several different systems and incorporate them into my class curriculum. I have also had to "prune" away some kata form what I teach completely. I have recently started working with the Ashihara Karate kata and they fit quite nicely into my school and they work very well for my students. I have never been nor will I ever be opposed to taking what we need from any system and using it to make ourselves better karateka. I feel that we cannot blindly stick to what was working 50-100+ years ago. I think the masters of old would agree with this concept.

Do you change moves in the kata to reflect what you would do with it? That's what I have been doing. It's still completely recognizable as the original kata, but I make little alterations that help me remember what I want to do with the move. Thoughts?

 

[searcher]

Do you change moves in the kata to reflect what you would do with it? That's what I have been doing. It's still completely recognizable as the original kata, but I make little alterations that help me remember what I want to do with the move. Thoughts?

On occasion, if the kata does not "feel" right to me I will make some minor changes. I might change a block or the orientation of a hand(ex. Isshinryu blocking or punching techniques). I have tried to change the tempo, but it seems that the tempo is timeless.

I setup my kata and sets by what the students need at certain ranks. I have been making use of sets from EPAK for a long time now, along with Hyungs from TKD, in addition to the kata from my base system(Chito-ryu) and a few of the kata from Isshinryu. Once I found the kata from Ashihara Karate, I feel like I have found the final piece to what I am teaching. This may not work for others, but it is working for my students and myself.

I tried to stay traditional and keep the systems I have had the privilage of training in seperate, but I have since decided that it missed what the early karate masters were doing. They studied what they could from anyone they could and incorporated it into their teachings. At least that is what I have come to believe. If you need to change a kata to be better for the times we live in, then I feel it is a good thing to do. If my students do that, I will applaud them for making it their own.

 

[seasoned]

I feel that this is what the kata were designed to do. By staying within the guide lines of the principles of structure, and movement, and not making the kata unrecognizable, we need to explore. Americans are built differently then our Oriental counter parts, so we need to make the bunkai fit us. Some of the best classes are those of freedom of expression.

 

[dancingalone]

Wouldn't it be more traditional to learn the kata, learn the principles, and then practice the kata with the applications that work best for you in mind?

Certainly in my opinion. Kyan reportedly taught his students differently according to their own strengths and weaknesses, resulting in several variations of kata, right?

What kind of kata do you practice, static lineage kata or individually adapted kata? Why?

Well, I am more than a little conflicted about this. I try to practice kata the way I was taught, although certainly I don't do every one exactly like how my teacher does. I believe forms should be preserved as much as possible, yet I recognize some of the Okinawan masters like Kyan believed the exact opposite.

Personally, the way it comes out in both teaching and my own practice for me is this: I play a lot more fast and loose with paired drills built from kata. IMO (currently ) it's there that individuality and personal adaptation should emerge from, rather than the kata itself.

 

[Makalakumu]

Well, I am more than a little conflicted about this.

LOL! This describes my mindset as well.

I attempt to balance tradition and interpretation. This can be very difficult with the altered kata, but studying the past kata has shown to be very helpful in understanding how things were meant to be.

When I change things, I often find myself changing things back to the way they originally were.

 

[K-man]

The kata are timeless and do not need to be changed for any reason I can think of. We have an obligation to pass on to our students the kata as it was taught.

Now having said that, as Searcher stated, changing the kata to match your interpretation gives ownership. How I view kata will be different to how others view the same kata and this is natural because some moves flow for some people and are awkward for others. If kata is to be applicable in a real life situation it must be natural, instinctive and it must flow. So by all means tweak and mould the kata to suit body type, age etc.

If we all take it on ourselves to change the kata, just a little, and we teach our modified kata to our students, they is turn may do the same thing and before you know it, the 'Chinese whispers' effect comes into play and the kata no longer resemble the original. I believe we deprive our decendents of the opportunity of interpretation we inherited if we change the kata we teach. :asian:

 

[punisher73]

At what point do you make the change? It is often pointed out that the "masters" made changes to the kata to reflect a student's ability and attributes. Those early masters were not concerned about passing on a "style" they just trained students to protect themselves. They were also very small classes and training was done almost on a one to one basis with those changes from instructor to student.

I think if you are passing on a style than you need to show the kata as is. Don't change it and pass it on intact. But, even if that is your concern create drills and such to show highlights of what can be done differently and reflect your own personal approach.

One of the things I think is that when we make a change to the kata to fit ourselves and then pass on that change, it may not fit other students, then they make a change from the change and so on until the original information was completely lost. For example, Gichin Funakoshi made changes to the kata that had NOTHING to do with combat effectiveness. They were made for aesthetic reasons etc, to give a concrete example, the kata "Wansu" is known for it's dump (fireman's carry throw) yet in the Shotokan version of Empi this was replaced with a jumping/turning movement. That information is now lost to future students.

I also think that people change things that they don't know what they are for. How many times have we seen a move in a kata that we didn't really like and then we see the actual application for it and then it suddenly makes sense? If we had changed that because we didn't like it or understand that then again that information is lost.

 

[Bill Mattocks]

I prefer learning the kata as taught by the founder. There are several reasons I feel this way.

First, I assume that the founder (in my case, Soke Shimabuku Tatsuo) knew more about what he wanted the kata to be used for (bunkai) than is necessarily taught at my junior (brown belt) level. I don't presume that I know more than he did.

Second, I can change whatever I feel I must change to adapt to my own abilities and inabilities (based on things like weight, age, flexibility, size, etc) after I've learned to do it correctly in the first place. I feel it is difficult to learn the 'right' way as defined by the founder after having decided to do it one's own way.

Third, I have respect for tradition. If our tradition was to spit before stepping into the dojo, I'd spit. I really don't feel the need to be an individual when it comes to that. I see no harm in following tradition for the sake of tradition.

I understand that different people have different capabilities and limitations. However, I also feel that sometimes there are very valid reasons why doing something a way that might not be comfortable has value. For example, I am naturally splay-footed; always have been. I have difficulty with a good Seisan stance, and Naihanchi is a real challenge for me. However, I see the value of the toes-straight and toes-in stances and I have some limited understanding of their application. I will continue to do it 'the right way' and hope that I can eventually modify my abilities, rather than giving up and trying to fit the style to my capabilities.

I have seen with my own eyes what happens as kata is changed by instructors over the years. I know that Isshin-Ryu is quite splintered and there are significant differences in the way certain kata are done. I cannot say if this is good or bad; if it negatively affects the application of the techniques contained within the kata or not. But I know I can see the differences.

I am told there is a group of students who trained under a Sensei of great girth. They are now themselves instructors. There are hundreds of students scattered across the USA who do Isshin-Ryu kata with huge sweeping movements which were not in the original kata; they do this to clear their enormous bellies which they do not have; but their instructor's instructor did. Does it harm the application of the kata? I have no idea, but I can't guess it does it any good, either.

To give an analogy...

The Jewish Torah is written on a scroll, and it is copied laboriously by hand. It is over 2,000 years old. Recent copies have been compared to known examples of very early Torahs, and they are identical.

By contrast, the Old and New Testaments of the Bible have been translated into many languages, and translations have been made of those translations, and different translations have been made when one group disagreed with the translations made by other translations. Although all versions of the Bible say essentially the same thing, there are still significant differences in some areas; significant enough to cause great turmoil and anger among some groups. They're all, for lack of a better term, doing kata the way they feel like doing it. Is it still the 'Word of God'? They say so, but does that mean it is?

 

[Victor Smith]

Admittedly most of us have an imperfect grasp of how Okinawan kata came to be used in the transmission of the Okinawan arts. Simply we haven’t spent 20 years training directly under an instructor who could share the oral history of their art as it was explained to them.

I believe it is logical a kata was developed with a distinct application for a distinct movement. At the same time all kata experienced tidal movement through time so uncountable variations came into existence (as in the 1979 publication on Patsai with 15 distinct versions – and only a selection at that).

Why, well for the transmission of non-documented arts, there are no rules. An instructor may prescribe rules, but in time they’re no longer in charge and change did, does and will occur. I believe most of the reasons change occurred in the past (pre tournament competition reasons) was likely due to a different application possibility the current instructor wanted to study, and the kata then followed the intetnt of the instructor. Been there myself many years ago.

I have a different take today. I really see kata as a study of movement potential and energy release maximization. In that without changing anything every movement of a kata has innumerable applications, to modify kata to study one use, you are focusing on the use.

Look at kata as a way to practice energy release, correct alignment study and movement flow. Separate the technique application analysis from the kata, and practice all of the variations you choose as separate entity studies to learn how to tap the energy developed in the kata. In turn you can practice many movements at full power in kata that you cannot really practice with a partner without damage taking place.

An example of kata technique application analysis can be found on my Isshin Concentration Art blog for The use of kata technique

This is a partial look at the opening of Seisan kata, not the full explanation.

01 http://isshin-concentration.blogspot.com/2010/12/normal-0-false-false-false-en-us-x-none.html
02 http://isshin-concentration.blogspot.com/2010/12/use-of-kata-technique-section-ii.html
03 http://isshin-concentration.blogspot.com/2010/12/use-of-kata-technique-section-3.html
04 http://isshin-concentration.blogspot.com/2010/12/use-of-kata-technique-section-4.html
05 http://isshin-concentration.blogspot.com/2010/12/use-of-kata-technique-section-5.html
06 http://isshin-concentration.blogspot.com/2010/12/use-of-kata-technique-section-6.html
07 http://isshin-concentration.blogspot.com/2010/12/use-of-kata-technique-section-7.html
08 http://isshin-concentration.blogspot.com/2010/12/use-of-kata-technique-section-8.html
09 http://isshin-concentration.blogspot.com/2010/12/use-of-kata-technique-section-9.html

Of course those posts represent a lot of work to follow, so it goes.

I covered part of this last Saturday in class for my son (home from college) and one of my long term students. My son keeping track told me about 12 minutes into the initial presentation he saw at least 162 variations on what we were exploring. Each one of which can pound an attack into submission.

If you separate the study of application potential from the kata, there is far less reason to change kata, and you have a whole ton of answers, one’s you’re probably not using but are also there too.

Minor note on change. All change has application potential, though many times very different potential.

Enjoy,

 

[stone_dragone]

I personally see value in a middle road. I feel that it is very historically important to know how a kata was intended to be done by its creator. In the cases of ancient chinese, old okinawan and newer japanese kata, I have no doubt that the creators had more knowledge about what chellenges that they faced and how to answer those challenges in the context of 1700's through 1800's.

I refuse to believe, however, that men like Itosu could forsee the conditioning and nutritional improvements, mindsets, social conditions and information availability that would change so dramatically in a few hundred years and a few thousand miles. Often the attack used in the application then is unrealistic to expect now. This does NOT give a free license to alter kata though.

In my opinion, you should not alter a kata until you know, for certain, what the accepted inteneded bunkai is for the form. Once you know what you are supposed to be doing and find it impractical after sufficient practice, then you should identify oyo that works for you and make it the bunkai, adjusting the kata as necessary. [For those not in the know, Bunkai meaning literal application and oyo being a looser interpretation of the movements...if I am wrong, someone please correct me!]

In short, to change a kata, IMO you need to 1) have a solid understanding of the kata and it's accepted bunkai and 2) have a solid and realistic understanding of your current threat set that you need to be prepared for.

As an aside, make sure that you also know what "traditional" means to you. Many of our "traditional" kata are less than a century old.

That is all.

 

[BigRich]

I've studied other styles where things have been changed and I now train exclusively with a sensai that takes painstaking effort in teaching the kata as historically accurate as possible. His teacher did the same and his teacher before him. He tells us to learn the kata as it was developed and teach it as it was developed but as time goes on we make it our own.

I like that attitude and it's one of the biggest reasons I've trained with him for so many years. I think everyone should at some point make the kata their own as long as they also practice and teach it the way it was developed. You never know if what you changed that works for you would work for someone you teach it to five or ten years later. You have to respect the masters and tradition.

 

[Ojisan]

"In my opinion, you should not alter a kata until you know, for certain, what the accepted inteneded bunkai is for the form. In my opinion, you should not alter a kata until you know, for certain, what the accepted inteneded bunkai is for the form. "

That's a great premise, but how do you know what the "accepted", "intended" bunkai might be? If using "bunkai" to mean application, then I have seen many accepted applications that either do not make sense from a self defense perspective or are overly complex or unweildly. It also assumes that there is one definative application for a move. That is very limiting.

I tend to side with Victor on the premise that kata primarily address movement and power generation. On the other hand, my study of application has resulted in a few very, very nice applications, some useful and reliable techniques, and a great many movements for which I do not have a clue as to their possible application.

I persued kata practice for useful applications and found principles of movement and power. Now I search application-based systems such as American kempo for techniques that I can identify in my kata.

I originally practiced a Shotokan based karate but over the last 15 or so years I have been back-tracking my kata to the older, Okinawan versions. Re-learning the kata and discovering alternative method helped me to see the kata in a different light.

I believe kata are useful for learning applications because the movements are deliberately ambiguous. You have to understand how the various kihon techniques might be utilized in self defense before you can recognize their possibility in the kata.

The solo practice of kata will inculcate correct principles of movement and the efficient generation of power. The analysis (bunkai) of kata movements with a partner will facilitate the recognition of usefull applications encoded within the kata movements.

I don't change the kata to suit me so much as the kata change the way in which I do them.

 

[Makalakumu]

In my case, I learned versions of the kata that were changed in Okinawa, changed when they went to Japan, and then changed when they went to Korea. In order to practice my art and find value in our kata, I have to study previous versions of the kata so that I can understand why various changes were made. When I do change something, I often end up changing to something that was done in the past.

In Tang Soo Do, for example, high level kicks were inserted in places where low level kicks used to be or no kick at all. Taking those out or changing the level makes sense because I want the kata to help practice valuable self defense skills.

 

[Victor Smith]

IMO it doesn't matter a great deal why changes were made to the 'kata' you study, though I'm as prejudiced as any to those I practice.

The key to understand how to work on any appliaction potential is to build up a set of underlying principles and use them. I address this in part in those posts I driected you towards on my previous message.

Take a High Kick like the inside crescent kick in my Kusanku kata. You may find great use in the first 12" of that kick, where you kick like you're doing the high version but after rising 12" it's slamming into someone's calf/lower leg).

My summary from Seisan shows part of the way required. IMO any movement has dozens of ways it can be used, and if you can't use it you need to direct your training to make it work. Essentially 99% of techniques can be inserted into any attack to disrupt it. The difference is practice, self belief to actually use it and the undestanding you have to practice it against any possible attack.

So don't change the kata, but as there are no rules you might use a technique from the kata but modify the stepping to make it work, depending. Just another example.

Start small, think large and keep practicing.

 

[TimoS]

After looking at all of the versions of seisan out there and studying karate for a while, I was wondering why do we practice kata the same way this or that old master practiced it when this or that old master changed the kata to fit his own personal preference?

Wouldn't it be more traditional to learn the kata, learn the principles, and then practice the kata with the applications that work best for you in mind? What kind of kata do you practice, static lineage kata or individually adapted kata? Why?

Are you talking about changing the kata itself or the just applications?
When we're taught the "basic" bunkai of kata moves, they aren't necessarily very practical in the way they are performed, but we learn them to understand some principles, e.g. how to apply force. These are usually quite fixed. Then, when it comes to real self-defence applications, there is more freedom in how to use the same principles. Everyone sees things a bit differently, so (some of) the applications I teach to e.g. Naifanchi 1 might not be the same that the other instructors would teach, eventhough we've all learned from the same instructors.
If we're talking about changing the actual kata, then I am strictly against it, for many of the reasons already stated here, but also because then it comes impossible for the instructors to keep track of things. Just an extreme, really a nightmare scenario: everyone is doing kata Wansu, but somebody decides that a flying kick is what in his mind should be there as the first move and someone else thinks that no no no, it simply has to be an ukemi followed by a punch to groin etc.

 

[Makalakumu]

I suppose if you smaller number of kata you practiced, you could always practice two versions of the same kata. One would be your interpretation and the other would be the interpretation that teacher passed to you. I guess the whole idea of changing the kata like they did in the old days is probably not going to sit well with people today. We've practiced styles for so long that the tradition of passing down master's movements ingrained. Still, I think there is something different to the way they seemed to practice kata back then. It strikes me as a fundamental difference, because rather then knowing the purpose of the kata and how they work, we've decided to hold onto the movements as well. From the material I've read, this wasn't the case in the days of the old masters.

Are we hyper focused on style and taking our eyes off of karate?

 

[K-man]

IMO any movement has dozens of ways it can be used, and if you can't use it you need to direct your training to make it work. Essentially 99% of techniques can be inserted into any attack to disrupt it. The difference is practice, self belief to actually use it and the undestanding you have to practice it against any possible attack.

So don't change the kata, but as there are no rules you might use a technique from the kata but modify the stepping to make it work, depending. Just another example.

So true, yet not at all well known. And what I have found for the 1% (or maybe slightly more) of the techniques that don't seem to work for any given attack, move back one step in the kata and see if including that part makes it work. To finish, sometimes you need to go one further step and if by some chance the technique fails, look to the next step as it will bail you out. In my experience that takes you to pretty much the 100% mark.

 

[K-man]

I suppose if you smaller number of kata you practiced, you could always practice two versions of the same kata. One would be your interpretation and the other would be the interpretation that teacher passed to you.

No need to do that. Practise the kata and, in your minds eye, use it for the applications that suit you. I show my students my interpretations but ask them to develop their own. If my moves make sense to them, they can use them with my blessing. If they find another explanation that works better for them, great. I might even pinch their application for myself!
Personalise the application of your kata. It is what works for you, not your instructor. That's why the masters taught different applications to different people dependent on their physical attributes.
I can understand why the masters didn't bother learning all the different kata. It is even worse teaching multiple kata for grade requirements because you could spend years exploring just one.