Kata Question 2

[AngelaG]

In your opinion, what are the benefits of performing kata, and what do you think various kata are trying to teach us?

[Petek]

I can't answer the secand part of the question, because everyone has their own views on what the individual kata teach/show us.

For me, and it does sound like a very naive/simple answer, the main benefit I derive from performing kata, is time. I can easily/comfortably work on Jion, for instance, for 30 mins. But I find it hard to practice kihon for the same length of time, and feel I get the same benefit.

On a cross thread answer, I feel it is possible to perform kata in competition, and still keep it real. It is purely a question of benefit. What you derive/achieve from a kata can change everytime you do it.

There that = 2 pence

[AngelaG]

petek said:

I can't answer the secand part of the question, because everyone has their own views on what the individual kata teach/show us.

Exactly

[Mr. Precision]

angelag said:

In your opinion, what are the benefits of performing kata, and what do you think various kata are trying to teach us?

I think it depends on the interpretations you are seeing in the kata at the time.

e.g. Heian Shodan.

For me the first two moves are about directing the fight. At the moment I can see how directing a fight 90° to an initial attack can give me an advantage over an attacker. Change the gedan barai from a strike to grabbing an opponent's gripping hand, (left or right) and pulling sharply down and to the left will either force them over backwards or turn their arm into an arm bar depending whether it's the left or right. The gedan barai is a great way of applying torque, you get the leverage of your whole arm against the opponent's hand or wrist.

In terms of actually performing the kata, sport psychologists reckon that imagining doing something is almost as useful as actually doing it, so if you practice performing a kata with an application in mind you should be better when you come to practice it for real.

[random]

I have had a conversation with someone who doesn’t do ma with a foundation in Okinawa, Japan, (yawn) anywhere in the Far East.

They saw (and again their opinion not mine) that Kata is trying to teach us that which the illiterate and uneducated pheasants who kung fu and karate were originally intended, could never have understood from a book.

As you progressed with proficiency you learned more Kata/forms and therefore learned more of your system, but this had to be demonstrated not written down.

Part of our problem is that we do not tell stories anymore, not the type of macho bull one finds on forums, but proper tales, we no longer live in a feudal society where one often had to fight for ones land.

Therefore Kata is teaching us the manual before the manual was written, bunkai comes from the intelligent interpretation and dissection of the techniques learned over the years. Not thought up over a short period of time.

[searcher2]

This line of thought is typical of most people who view kata - and it is back-to-front.

The applications and tested uses of karate came first. These moves were then codified into a system for remembering the moves when training alone. They are also the only way you can practice the moves with full speed and power without damaging someone.

Karate was not practised by the illiterate peasants. They had too much on their plates with just trying to stay alive, subsistence farming in aland playing taxes to two countries.
If you name any part of the lineage of Karate's major styles you name someone with a position of authority. Even Funakoshi, the school teacher, was in a job that used to command much respect.

As for Kung Fu and peasants - I don't know enough about it, but I'll bet you find that each style lists a village chief or Shaolin monk as the primogenitor.

Japanese supremacy means that they regard anyone non-Japanese as a yokel. History has been coloured by this perception as the Japanese were responsible for the world-wide spread of Karate.

[random]

:)I’ll pass that onto the friend who came up with the theory, unfortunately he has a romantic vision of emancipating the down trodden with MA. History was never his strong point.

[Sionnagh]

What John said. Even in (comparatively) recent history, Funakoshi was a school teacher and is recorded as being born into samurai class. Itosu was also samurai class and was a secretary to the king of the Ryukyu islands (Okinawa). His master Sokon Matsumura was a palace guard, also samurai class.


Mick

[Aefibird]

searcher2 said:

As for Kung Fu and peasants - I don't know enough about it, but I'll bet you find that each style lists a village chief or Shaolin monk as the primogenitor.

It generally was the same as the Okinawa situation. The peasants were usually too busy trying to eke out a living and avoid becoming the object of displeasure of the local lord than to spend serious time practising MA or inventing new styles.

I suspect it's the same for most (traditional) MA's. Hwa-Rang-Do is often cited as being developed from the training used by the Korean Hwa-Rang, who most definately weren't illiterate peasants.

[tez3]

Regardless of the original point of perfoming kata one benefit I've found is that teaching kata to children with dyslexia and dyspraxia brings great rewards. They learn left from right (not a simple thing with dyspraxics) balance and confidence. Teachers have noticed an increase in concentration at school in those children who have been coming to the club. It is also effective with children with Aspbergers who can relate to the repetitive nature of the katas.

[dickclark]

sionnagh said:

What John said. Even in (comparatively) recent history, Funakoshi was a school teacher and is recorded as being born into samurai class. Itosu was also samurai class and was a secretary to the king of the Ryukyu islands (Okinawa). His master Sokon Matsumura was a palace guard, also samurai class.


Mick

Dear Mick, I do not mean this a a jab at you, but every time I read about the samurai, and folks being born into it and so on, I get a little hot under the collar because it is so wrong.

Samurai are a Japanese social class.

Okinawans are not Japanese, and have their own social ranking system.

None of the above could possible born as samurai as the are not Japanese.

However each were part of the upper social ranking system of Okinawa.

Itosu and Sokon Matsumura were of a higher class than Funakoshi (sorry folks).

His grandfather had been a scholar of some note, and taught the daughters of the king, which was a pretty big thing. One - the King felt his daughters deserved an education. Two - that he allowed a male to do it, as they would have lived pretty separate lives from the males, in the Chinese Model.

I guess he did a good job as he received the equivalent of a Bart. for the the job as well as some land, which his son, Funakoshi's father lost drinking and having a good time.

Sokon is also a name that has class connotations.

Matsumura acted as a body guard to the King. There was not really a place guard as the Japanese had really ran the country for decades.


Again, just a correction, and I used to tell the same story.

[Sionnagh]

Hi Dick,

No offence taken. I'm guessing then that whichever book I remember reading this stuff (pretty sure it was one of GF's but not 100% sure) probably related the social positions of these people to the japanese class structure to explain it --> calling the upper social class "Samurai". And possibly I've misremembered some stuff as well --> Matsumura as palace guard instead of bodyguard...

At least we agree that it wasn't a secret art practiced by peasants running around in their pyjamas in the middle of the night LOL. We do agree on that, right?


Mick

[AngelaG]

I think that's the general consensus on this board, but don't go to any other forums and state it. I recently got my neck ripped out for daring to suggest such a thing on another forum....

[pasmith]

I'll be honest and say that I'm still unconvinced about kata as a way of training to become better at fighting (all views will be considered though ).
I started out with an art with patterns (TKD) and I've been through various arts without patterns (Thai and BJJ). The arts without patterns generally produced better fighters (on average) IMHO.
I've met some very effective fighters that have never done a kata or pattern in their lives.
Clearly doing kata is not *essential* to building a competant fighter.
That said I cannot totally discount kata as a training method. It might not be "essential" but it could be "helpful".
It's been around far too long and endorsed by far too many people for me to discount it at this time.
Sadly I think that the vast majority of people that do kata get no beneft to their fighting skills at all and instead kata gets used as a way of judging getting better at "Karate" (which can be totally different to getting better at "fighting").
The "I can now do Tensho...I am better at Karate because of that" mentality.
Obviously I'm not saying this about any of you guys but as a genaral rule I'd say that most people do not go any further into learning a kata than merely learning the sequence of moves and then making them "look" right.

[AngelaG]

I agree pasmith. There are a substantial amount of dojo out there that use kata purely as a grading tool, or some aspect of sport to be judged in competitions to bring home the bling. Personally I wonder whether kata is a sport is wholly detrimental to the art - is it possible to have a kata that is pleasing to the eye, without discarding the principles and techniques running through the kata? I have my doubts.

And yes, certainly there are plenty of combatative styles out there that do not do kata, patterns etc. and get along quite nicely - although the majority still have a set number of drills that try and teach them some important core principles. Perhaps these drills are not so different from kata, other than the fact they are probably not misused quite so much. (Olympic Shadow Boxing??? lol)

As people develop in karate I believe they should be developing their kata with them and understanding the applications and principles behind them. Too many people collect kata, and are busy looking at the next kata ahead instead of revisiting their old kata, breaking them down, understanding them, and then drilling them with a partner. Pure performance of a kata leads us nowhere if we do not understand them, and then test them on a partner, gradually working up the resistance.

How many kata do we really need? This is open to debate, but traditionalism means we learn the entire syllabus, so that we can continue to pass them down. After all what works for me may not work for someone else, and vice versa. Perhaps though, once techniques and principles/concepts are learnt picking up new kata becomes a lot easier anyway, and then one can concentrate on using what works for them, and testing it out on a variety of partners - just keeping the shapes of the other ones in their memory.