why do people hate kata

[Sukerkin]

You're far from alone, my friends, in feeling that way. I could almost list on the fingers of one hand the number of times I've performed a kata satisfactorily. That's why the sword is a lifetimes commitment.

 

[SageGhost83]

Hate Kata???? This does not make sense to me. Kata in and of itself, is time that I get to work on my form and in some cases it becomes somewhat spiritual for me. Most of the kata I have learned so far in my style (Uechi-ryu) have bunkai associated with them so that there is a practical application that they represent.

So both for the spiritual side and practical side I feel that kata is important and as a side note, I actually enjoy them. I also enjoy watching them performed. When done correctly...they are quite beautiful.

- Jeff -

A lot of people hate kata because they don't understand them and they don't teach people how to 'kick butt' from the very beginning. It takes time to learn them and understand them and let's face it - people do not like to put in the time and hard work to do anything these days. I deeply value kata because it is a valuable training tool in the ole' toolbox and it allows me to work techs and principles when I don't have a training partner around. It is also a form of moving meditation that just makes the stress melt away after a long day. Yes, they are beautiful when done right and they offer far more than just fighting utility. It is nice to see someone appreciate Kata :asian:.

 

[Xue Sheng]

A lot of people hate kata because they don't understand them and they don't teach people how to 'kick butt' from the very beginning. It takes time to learn them and understand them and let's face it - people do not like to put in the time and hard work to do anything these days. I deeply value kata because it is a valuable training tool in the ole' toolbox and it allows me to work techs and principles when I don't have a training partner around. It is also a form of moving meditation that just makes the stress melt away after a long day. Yes, they are beautiful when done right and they offer far more than just fighting utility. It is nice to see someone appreciate Kata :asian:.

Question, in Taiji when you do the form you are suppose to visualize an opponent, most don't, most just use it for moving mediation. Is there any part of Kata that is similar?

Note: There is no thought that in any fight that you will go through the form as it is practiced that is not what the visualization is for. It is for learning the internal however

 

[Sukerkin]

Visualisation and the accurate physical response to your visualisation is absolutely key to kata.

It is said that you know when your visualisation is good when someone watching you can see your opponent as well. I don't know if I'm that good yet but I do know that I can tell when someone is not visualising during their kata.

Another key and often misunderstood facet of kata is that part of what it is demonstrating is your ability to precisely target. The kata delineates where and when you are to move and strike for a given bunkai and you train to be able to do that.

People often say that "you fight what you train" and that is true. So if you perform kata to 'regulation' and do not visualise then you learn rote moves and this is what so many of the nay-sayers of kata-training latch onto in their criticism.

If you train with visualisation, then you are training to strike when and where you wish for your actions follow what you see in your mind's eye rather than a prescribed set of moves. Learn to do that properly and translating your mind's eye to your actual ones is simplicity itself.

EDIT: Just for clarification, the art I study is Muso Jikiden Eishin Ryu Iaido rather than karate (I just noted what forum this is in) but the principles are the same.

 

[chinto]

One of the things which overwhelmingly supports your point here, f., is that, as people have repeatedly brought up in these threads about kata, originally kata were regarded not as components of martial arts, but as martial arts, or styles of martial art, in themselves. Choki Motobu in his writings was very clear and explicit on this point. And for the karate pioneers, karate was for fighting (Motobu himself, Chotoku Kyan and a few others being infamous examples of masters who might have carried this tendency to extremes...) So for them, kata were handbooks of fighting methods: they were the style, not merely part of the style. Geoff Thomspon, the legendary English bouncer/club security expert, with a decade of work in some of Britain's toughest clubs to his credit (as well as being a 6th Dan in Shotokan, dojo owner/operater/chief instructor and cofounder of the British Combat Association), puts it beautifully in his modern classic on street defense, The Pavement Arena:

... for the karateka wishing to pursue knowledge of self-defense, kata are a treasure trove of hidden techniques that can be adapted directly to a street situation... All of the skills developed by kata are necessary when street defense is called for.... It's a matter of perspective—if you want to see them as unrealistic and impractical you will. If however you are perceptive enough to see, you will find that they offer enormous benefits to the street-oriented.​

(p.62). This from someone with several hundred documented violent encounters in the course of his decade as doorman/bouncer at clubs in the notoriously violent nightclub scene in Coventry. I'm inclined to believe what he has to say about the relationship between kata techniques, as revealed by careful bunkai, and street violence.

yep, the people who say kata is some how useless or not applicable to self defense in the modern world, just have no clue what kata is and how it should be used.
The men who developed the traditional kata of the traditional systems like Master Chotoku Kyan, were training themselves and others for real encounters that had the possibility of costing the persons life if they lost! Karate was not developed or intended for sport. If you work on kata with the intent and take the time to develop the insight to see what is hidden there, you will learn a lot of things that are extremely efficient and effective in real hand to hand combat on the street or where ever you are attacked.

that folks is not conjecture but fact backed up by history then and people who have been attacked today.

 

[Karatekid990]

I train in Shorin- Ryu.
I don''t know why some people hate kata, but I personally love it. Some of the katas I don't personally favor but I don't hate them.

 

[chinto]

I train in Shorin- Ryu.
I don''t know why some people hate kata, but I personally love it. Some of the katas I don't personally favor but I don't hate them.

out of curiosity which style of Shorin Ryu do you train in?

 

[nathanwc]

I think part of it is time. As a school manager, to get kids as students I don't compete with other schools but with other activities such as soccer, basketball, football, etc. With adults its work, family, etc. While people love the beauty they see in forms, they don't have the time to devote to learning and drilling the application of the form, much less remembering the movements and trying to look competent at them.
For example, I teach at the local community college where I have around 150 students each semester with forty or so repeaters. My students there love the forms and want more of them. These are all kids with time and there hands and it gets them out of studying and work (they still get credit for my class so its a college class they tell work they need off for).
At my studios we are blessed to have a wide range of programs due to a great deal of talent amongst the instructors. By far the most popular classes are Krav Maga. We have outstanding karateka instructing but the adults all basically say the same two things. "KM is easier to get with less work and still get a better work out then at the gym" and "I would love to learn karate but I don't have the time to learn all that traditional stuff."
Out of over 375 Black Belts we have, maybe 40 earned it as an adult, the others are or were junior rank BB when they earned it and have either continued on as they reached adulthood or left over time.

 

[Daniel Sullivan]

i am a blue belt in go-ju ryu and i always read articles that are so anti-kata.What is with you people kata have been preformed since the begining and they trained for real combat not like us who mostly do it for sport .What makes these so called reality based martial arts think they have it figured out .Kata are not preformed to teach self defense,but are used as a conditioning tool.Also to fine tune technique,teach accuracy and control.After all these methods have been used for hunderds of years and we dismiss them because we think we know it all.I think its a shame to see a black who does not teach kata ,but a guess i am a traditionalist . please fell free to give tour thoughts

Very few people that I know who hate kata have anything more than a superficial exposure to the martial arts; perhaps a colored belt rank and then quit or has a friend who may or may not be a dedicated martial artist. Generally, the arguements against kata are uninformed or immature.

I love kata. I consider kata. Kata are like scales in music; each scale contains notes in specific steps and in different combinations depending upon what note the scale is played in. Different scales lend themselves to different types of music because they contain combinations of notes that are applicable to different styles of music or for setting a certain mood, depending upon the piece. Nobody plays a scale from top to bottom and calls it a piece of music; they learn the scale and then can improvise from it. Mastering several scales allows a musician to improvise or write with greater color and versatility.

Likewise, kata provide the foundation for combinations of stances, blocks and strikes that can be applied to any situation, and thus are a valuable asset to the martial artist.

Daniel

 

[fuyugoshi]

I love kata. I consider kata. Kata are like scales in music; each scale contains notes in specific steps and in different combinations depending upon what note the scale is played in. [...] Mastering several scales allows a musician to improvise or write with greater color and versatility.

Likewise, kata provide the foundation for combinations of stances, blocks and strikes that can be applied to any situation, and thus are a valuable asset to the martial artist.

Hi Daniel

I got lost

 

[echelon]

My instructor (T. Alan Kelly) started TKD (Olympic then traditional) which is kata oriented. In the '70s he and guys like his instructor Dale "Apollo" Cook decided to forget about forms. They went PKA and started American Kick boxing. They "made" a bunch of fighting guys. Then came back to katas later in their MA lives. They decided their guys started getting sloppy...good fighters but sloppy.

 

[echelon]

that is...started IN TKD.

 

[Kwanjang]

i am a blue belt in go-ju ryu and i always read articles that are so anti-kata.What is with you people kata have been preformed since the begining and they trained for real combat not like us who mostly do it for sport .What makes these so called reality based martial arts think they have it figured out .Kata are not preformed to teach self defense,but are used as a conditioning tool.Also to fine tune technique,teach accuracy and control.After all these methods have been used for hunderds of years and we dismiss them because we think we know it all.I think its a shame to see a black who does not teach kata ,but a guess i am a traditionalist . please fell free to give tour thoughts

Kata or poomse is the essecnce of the art. To know ones form(s) is to know ones self.