What's Wrong With Kata?

[GaryR]

Gary, I have watched your videos and was pleasantly surprised. The type of movement you are showing is very similar to what we do in out 'soft hands' practice. Your drill has a few extra flourishes but all in all, the concepts are the same. Well done!

Thank you very much K-man! I will likely be pleasantly surprised with your clips as well if you put some up.

That said, what you have posted is nothing to do with the value of kata. I am abandoning the previous edition of
'War and Peace' because it is just too hard for others to follow. I think where your hypothesis is wrong is that you are thinking Okinawan Kata and its Chinese equivalent which is much softer and fluid, are meant to be used, as they are performed. That is just not the case. If it were, I would agree with you. Get rid of kata, it is a waste of time! Unfortunately you have many friends who also cannot see kata beyond the lines of students parading up and down that you described in your first post. Fifteen or twenty years ago I might have even been arguing your side.

Lol, yeah it was getting a bit hard to follow for sure. Nothing to do with the kata value--ok, I can see that. I think my hypothesis can be situationally dependent (and it does after all apply to the majority of kata practitioners--not you per se from what I've read) " I said initially that "such mimicry is important for the very early stages of a student’s development, but beyond the beginner level of teaching the concepts, Kata has no place" -- I think once the kata is learned in the beginner stage, things like your bunkai, and breaking it up lead to the depth and understanding of the individual concepts contained therein. Unfortunately as we have basically agreed most schools do not do so, and it takes people like yourself to propagate such ideas and training methods.

In those cases, Kata is useful, the aforementioned individuals most certainly "break it up" as I said, and change it up, hence my point. Thus, I will somewhat rescind my comment "has not place" in some instances: At that point, once learned well in pieces, the longer form DOES have a use--getting to place of "no mind" with it can be helpful for mechanics and as a moving continuous meditation and get one "back to the basics": perhaps I should have done a "whats right with Kata section"?. It is just not the quickest way to combat viability to teach the long forms as a whole before the student understands the pieces, and the malleability of the pieces...which can done via drills like mine and your Bunkai. My critique applies also to vast majority of the practitioners of my main art, Taijiquan, as the majority tend to do the long forms, and on the way they are given snippets of application (if they are lucky), but don't drill them to be functional in any appreciable amount of time--if at all. I also think a majority do attempt to apply kata as it is performed, this does not seem to apply to you.

But, over the last 15 to 20 years an amazing amount of information regarding kata has been researched and presented by people like Patrick McCarthy, Iain Abernethy, Geoff Thompson, George Dillman, Kris Wilder, Michael Clark etc etc. if you choose to ignore the material available, of course you won't understand kata. Kata is not part of your system so to put out information that is not correct does your credibility no good at all. Give it a miss. Dissing kata is dissing all the styles of martial arts that practice kata. :asian:

In my syllabus I do include "kata", we call them forms. Most are shorter forms (xingyi fists, animals, bagua palm changes, short linear forms, the above "dai" clip as Marcus was showing.) I can agree with that, particularly in the case of Dillman, I can't remember who, but maybe a decade ago George (or Moneymaker) sent me a complimentary DVD for review. I was quite impressed by his use of application and Kata breakdown--unfortunately this is not the majority of Kata practitioners. I don't think Kata should be cut completely out of the curriculum at all. I think that it should be one of many tools, and one that should be not used as rank fodder, and the end-all-be-all like many think it is--and as I said I do not think it is to be used as a main tool for dynamic combat training situations.

I think once a kata is learned very well (after being broken up into pieces first and drilled as such) --and then reassembled, my Stop and Start: The Necessity of Continuous Movement section can be negated, i'll give you that. But as we agree this is done by only a minority of people in all styles. Many Taijiquan practitioners after many years can surely move through the long form without such stop start, and can also use each method in variable ways--this is better training, training most do not have.

Respectfully,

G

 

[Cyriacus]

Hey Cyriacus, just replied to your PM, thank you for the kind words.




Demonstrating at this range is much more effective video yes. This is where a word about ranges is appropriate – I have three stages, Red, Yellow, Green. Red is close up, as it a fist or an elbow can smash through your head, Yellow is where if you lift your arms up, I can reach up and grab and your wrist, or maybe elbow, but unless you step in a tad, you are just out of punching range. Green is when you are out of attack range – and green means GO, get the heck out of there. Yellow is the best case range for counter-offensive tactics. If the person puts their guard up to hit, you can move in , control their wrist/elbow, etc. and take them out. I like to start videos in yellow range, as that is where tactically I am set to engage. The student was a day one newb, instructed to just hit me, he was hesitant to move in on me so I made the best of it. I also wanted him to hit faster/harder, you can probably hear me say faster, faster, lol.





Thanks Brother, yeah the same movement can open or close, depends on angle etc.




Yes, that is a secondary component, the left hand is doing the thrust of the template, I wanted the second hand doing something simple. Other drills give other tools,this is just one. Also the movement can be used for much more than an upward wrist strike as I briefly touched on, it is a very good movement for teaching the concept of “Cai” or pluck from tai chi, intercepting and snatching the wrist/arm of an attack, and yanking them off their center. I didn't spend the time getting into that on the video . It can also move up and be sort of a “peng” or ward off in Taijiquan, I could do hours of video at least on the applications of just that movement




Agreed, it is quite static as shown, room was very limited in space, our training space was outside with poor lighting-thus didn't film there, student was new, the actual DVD filmed in a gym on matts working up to that level of contact will demonstrate a less static situation. Also for the initial learning phase it is more static, hard to teach something starting with too much chaos. It's not easy, but very very doable. This video was more about showing the movement in a continuous drill, and a handful of apps, not a real time demo.










Correct he is not, I also did not pop him with my strikes. I assure you at first contact I can hit hard enough most people wouldn't even get the second shot off. The elbow / head manipulation—around 2:34 happened after I already made two strikes – the latter to his carotid artery with my left palm edge before the neck/hook and throw. Keep in mind this all happens real-time in a flash, the neck shot (stomach 9 – in TCM terms) would likely render him unconscious at impact, and I would be tossing mush. The first shot, with the wrist could also create a KO if it jarred the head back fast enough kinking the brain stem. It was a cooperative demo to show how the motion drill can be applied a few ways. It was not meant to show how two people can together keep the drill going—it was his first day.




Thanks, yeah, it's a good block and many systems have a version of it or three. As for range, I see what you are getting at. That Bunkai range is a good one to work with for sure, we have many two-man drills at that range as well. As Erle Montaigue used to say “you have to be able to fight in a phone booth”.


I am glad you brought up leverage. Leverage is all about where you put the fulcrum. The ratio of output to input force is given by the ratio of the distances from the fulcrum to the points of application of these forces. This is known as the law of the lever.. If the distance a from the fulcrum to the point A where the input force is applied is greater than the distance b from fulcrum to the point B where the output force is applied, then the lever amplifies the input force. If the opposite is true that the distance from the fulcrum to the input point A is less than from the fulcrum to the output point B, then the lever reduces the magnitude of the input force.


If you will notice at the 5:32 point the fulcrum is where my left hand is placed it is acting like a fulcrum above his elbow, near his shoulder. My right hand is just before before his wrist. Also notice I am pulling his hand towards my center thus magnifying the force with that torque. The shoulder is really about the end of the lever, once the shoulder is pulled out of socket a bit his balance is surely mine for the taking, this also maximizes my lever from the fulcrum placement, sort of a dual use. Also if you notice the angle of my arms, they are at least a 90 degree angle, making my structure harder to collapse should he attempt to struggle or reverse. If my arms where less than 90, my arms would be a really good lever for the taking. Although it appears as if this distance between my arms and body may reduce my levers potential, not so--through the internal arts training/bodymethod, and as a product of good bio-mechanical structure, I can put more than enough force through that structure to the left hand to act as a very strong fulcrum and effectuate a break and throw. As I said before, the end of the lever is near my center to maximize torque (this isn't required for a more skilled practitioner to pull it off) I have tested this against a 300 pound guy, as well as a professional bodybuilder / power lifting champion.

Here is a clip from one of my teachers using leverage in roughly the same way to do more of a toss

Well, it's not, it's actually drilled in what Erle calls “dragon prawns” you have your partner throw very fast punches, two at a time to start at your head, then works up to throwing the second punch low, then changes it up. The waist turn to the left, then right is done as an explosive shake. The second block comes quite without thought and is done from the peripheral vision, which is the best method for reaction time. It actually feels off for a person to not throw the punch. The student hesitated here, and I had to pause and wait for it. Normally I would not wait for it (but it was a demo), whether they throw that punch or not the shake is already going, and that block would simply become a strike.




I agree there is less flow, was being careful, and it was a demo to show how the “folding” works, as well as the angle. The elbow strike happens less than a second from initial contact, his left would not have enough time, plus my angle is crowding him as I am moving in,my body turns so that even if that left did come it would have to wrap around my shoulders to hit my head, and there is not enough time for that—as I am very very fast. The left hand would not have time. Also notice I am crowding his body and effectively stuffing his left hand from a rabbit punch to kidneys. Unless the elbow is very ineffective, and unless he is trained in a one inch punch, he won't have the time nor power to put in a good strike before his is taken down. The elbow may not *look like a forceful blow here, but done full speed the momentum continues through it, and I am very much able to do a one inch strike from the elbow fist, ect, that is more than enough to render him unconscious. As for the take-down, it is quite workable, notice my right leg moves in behind his left leg. As the elbow strike drops through him as you can see his back is bent to the point of no recovery. This method is in about a second full force and speed, very tough to show without pads—as I said it is very effective.




Thanks! Yeah, most people don't for sure.



See above—my method happens in less than a second, crowding and striking at first impact as elbow folds at contact to strike, his haymaker would be neutralized, a second wouldn't land, if it did I would be turning to my right away from the strike as I took him down, even if impact happened it would be too late, and minimalized, as his right would be at a good distance from my head as I an turing, and I would have plenty of time to put up a structure/block as shown before w/left to intercept and throw/strike from that side w/the other hand.




Correct, he was not resisting enough. I would have to turn back to the right, but my foot is already trapping his, and I am crowding him, above addresses this as well.







Thanks, that is a good app, and one of many, as I said, this is a template, countless variations, and I love elbows to the back of the head, I have many drills just dedicated to elbows.




Well it seems from your kind PM you have re-watched and changed your mind a bit here, The solo drill is a continuous short drill, and the principal of such short continuous drill can be used with your own material-- which is a good alternative or even a supplement if you will. I will say no more—but I assure you I have pressure tested this stuff ad nauseam. I hope this post helps you further understand the material.


Thank you for the constructive feedback, I especially am glad you brought up leverage, I think that would make a good separate thread in and of itself, along with torque.
Perhaps you could share your thoughts on range? I think that in and of itself is another very good topic. Range control is HUGE!

Best,

Gary

That offers a bit of context. I suspect whats happening here is a blend of not agreeing with the way Kata is trained in alot of places. Your idealogy stands on its own two legs, but its also totally different. And a different mentality. I, for example, get more comfortable the closer to you i am. Therefore almost all of what i practice is either close, or involves getting close. Lastly, the leverage youre using works - Its the range i took issue to. Do the same thing up close and youve got a spinal manipulation.

I still think the second block is weird

 

[GaryR]

Thanks for the great reply Jason,

Looks like we agree on much more than we thought initially. I too detest rank really, and sparring is mostly a cancer! I look forward to comparing notes and research, feel free to email me anytime.

Best,

G