Explaining Kata/Forms to Those Who Don't Do Them

[Koshiki]

How about create your own forms? This way you can create it to fit your own training need.

If you are a beginner and you say you are not ready to do it yet, how about 20 years from today? How about 40 years from today?

Kata is not a magical solution. Kata is not a definitive solution. Kata is not perfect. Kata is in all cases a training tool, however deep or profound the inspiration derived from it.

So I agree; why not?

If form is like book then someone has to write that book.

Exactly. Itosu took Channan and made it into something for young children. He asked Matsumura for more kata, and got another form, even simpler, again for young children. then he took Kusanku and made two more forms for children in school to get some exercise. Finally, he took a really old form (dare I say ancient?), Passai, and twisted it around willy nilly to form yet another exercise for schoolchildren to practice harmlessly in the schoolyard.

He did this over a short period of time, employing no miraculous understanding or deep wisdom. He, bowing to the hierarchic social pressures lingering from feudal Japan, consulted previous, established, respected forms to produce a kata suitable for children, derived from Okinawan martial arts, and without offending procedure and limitations on personal extrapolation in the contemporary culture.

Today many of us view these forms, the Piñon/Pinan/Heian as irrefutable dictations of the purest martial arts.

Or perhaps they were a creative invention to get school children in shape, many of whom, according to the Japanese military of the day, were scrawny and less physical than desired for purposes of combat. Depressing though that is, that is part of the history of the Sino-Japanese and by extension Korean/European American practice. The idea that new kata/forms//hyung should not be created is, well, not very traditional, by any historical view.

For us, at least (Okinawan basis, not Japanese), the kata do not change, there is no one authorized to change them.

True. My school teaches, basically, eleven forms. If you can find a functional form of movement not represented in those eleven forms, if you can find a sequence of functional technique which is not somewhere applicable, then by all means, create new forms. However, the need to do so, I feel, is highly limited.

As an aside, Bill Mattocks, I am more and more over the past couple weeks, short a span thought that is, begining to see why so many martial artists on this forum were excited by your return. You may only have a few years of training, but let us again remember the differnces between years training, capability gained, and understanding developed. I'm glad you're back.

None of my primary arts involve kata...

Perhaps the kata is just a way of reminding us - "this is how things should feel when everything goes just right."

Huh. Why is it that the guy who doesn't do forms has, to me, one of the best explanations, on a surface level, of forms?

I guess you always have a more objective view from the neighboring town...

 

[JowGaWolf]

If you have learned

- jab, cross, hook, uppercut combo from boxing,
- hook kick from TKD,
- flying knee from MT,
- single leg from wrestling, and
- hip throw from Judo,

will you add those moves into your forms even if those moves may not exist in your system?

Depends on how the fighting system draws it's power for attacks and how closely related the fighting systems are. What I've learned with Jow Ga is that boxing and TKD are not a good blend for Jow Ga kung fu. The knee form MT would fit well because Jow Ga has similar attacks with the knees, a single leg from wrestling would go against the teachings of Jow Ga concepts, the judo throw would work.

The problem with the boxing is that Jow Ga draws it's power from the waist and not from the pivot of the hip like in boxing. If I throw a boxing punch then I wouldn't be in a good position to follow up with a Jow Ga punch. Doing a boxing punch would make my Jow Ga weak. Doing a Jow Ga punch would make my boxing weak so the techniques won't be able to flow from one fighting system to another. Jow Ga is actually made from the combinations of 3 other fighting systems, but the techniques flow which means I can flow from one fighting system to another without destroying the effectiveness.

 

[lklawson]

So the Takeaway from this thread is this: Kata is what a person needs it to be. If they need it to be a "library" of techniques, then, to them, it is. If they need it to be a flow-drill, then, to them, it is. If they need it to be cardio, or to contain deep meaning, or "hidden" techniques, then, to them, it is. If a person doesn't feel the need for Kata the, to them, it has little value.

In other words, the meaning of Kata is 42.

Now that we have that deep mystery of life cleared up, can we move on to trying to figure out women?

Peace favor your sword,
Kirk

 

[Tez3]

Now that we have that deep mystery of life cleared up, can we move on to trying to figure out women?

If women came with instructions it still wouldn't do any good because we all know men don't read instructions!

 

[lklawson]

If women came with instructions it still wouldn't do any good because we all know men don't read instructions!

I considered asking for directions to where the instruction manual is but, well... you know...

Peace favor your sword,
Kirk

 

[Bill Mattocks]

If you have learned

- jab, cross, hook, uppercut combo from boxing,
- hook kick from TKD,
- flying knee from MT,
- single leg from wrestling, and
- hip throw from Judo,

will you add those moves into your forms even if those moves may not exist in your system?

No, I would not. The system is not mine to modify. Also, everything I need is in the kata, it is a complete system. It has most of the things you mention above already, I won't discuss which ones, but they are in there.

 

[JowGaWolf]

Woman are easy to figure out. Woman help men to become more peaceful. After dealing with a woman for a long time, man will naturally start to value things like peace, silence, and simplicity.

 

[JowGaWolf]

If you have learned

- jab, cross, hook, uppercut combo from boxing,
- hook kick from TKD,
- flying knee from MT,
- single leg from wrestling, and
- hip throw from Judo,

will you add those moves into your forms even if those moves may not exist in your system?

just to give an example of this many hard styles also practice tai chi or some other internal martial art to balance out the hard style. They learn another system to benefit and enhance the main fighting system.

 

[Tez3]

To be honest I'd rather explain women to you lot than have to go through posting about kata again. I'm tired of the constant arguments about kata, how it's useless, how it's just for people who can't fight etc etc. I applaud the OP and his wish for meaningful discussion but really I've had a bellyful of kata discussions on here, it's not so much the people who value kata for whatever reason but those that don't do kata/forms/patterns at all thinking it's fine to ridicule something they know nothing about. I don't feel qualified at all to make up my own kata nor do I see the point. Everything I want to say about kata has been pointed our and said by the person I learnt Bunkai from, Iain Abernethy. I wish the thread well though and hope it stays on track.

 

[Dirty Dog]

If women came with instructions it still wouldn't do any good because we all know men don't read instructions!

And there we have the fundamental issue.

 

[Tony Dismukes]

To be honest I'd rather explain women to you lot than have to go through posting about kata again. I'm tired of the constant arguments about kata, how it's useless, how it's just for people who can't fight etc etc. I applaud the OP and his wish for meaningful discussion but really I've had a bellyful of kata discussions on here, it's not so much the people who value kata for whatever reason but those that don't do kata/forms/patterns at all thinking it's fine to ridicule something they know nothing about. I don't feel qualified at all to make up my own kata nor do I see the point. Everything I want to say about kata has been pointed our and said by the person I learnt Bunkai from, Iain Abernethy. I wish the thread well though and hope it stays on track.

Hey, it's been two pages and the thread is still on track with no derails from kata haters. Keep your fingers crossed.

 

[Bill Mattocks]

Kata is not a magical solution. Kata is not a definitive solution. Kata is not perfect. Kata is in all cases a training tool, however deep or profound the inspiration derived from it.

So I agree; why not?

Speaking only for myself, three reasons.

1) As previously stated, I haven't the authority to change anything about the system I practice - and I never will have.
2) I do not understand the kata I practice well enough to presume that it a) doesn't have all the answers and b) that I am capable of extending it in any meaningful way.
3) I see no reason/desire/need to do so.

Exactly. Itosu took Channan and made it into something for young children. He asked Matsumura for more kata, and got another form, even simpler, again for young children. then he took Kusanku and made two more forms for children in school to get some exercise. Finally, he took a really old form (dare I say ancient?), Passai, and twisted it around willy nilly to form yet another exercise for schoolchildren to practice harmlessly in the schoolyard.

I am not Itosu.

He did this over a short period of time, employing no miraculous understanding or deep wisdom. He, bowing to the hierarchic social pressures lingering from feudal Japan, consulted previous, established, respected forms to produce a kata suitable for children, derived from Okinawan martial arts, and without offending procedure and limitations on personal extrapolation in the contemporary culture.

As far as you know, "employing no miraculous understanding or deep wisdom." I suspect that many people believe Itosu was quite wise indeed. Just because we do not perceive a deeper meaning, that does not mean it is not there. I am not claiming it is or is not, just that I do not presume to know.

Today many of us view these forms, the Piñon/Pinan/Heian as irrefutable dictations of the purest martial arts.

I could not say, those are not kata I practice.

Or perhaps they were a creative invention to get school children in shape, many of whom, according to the Japanese military of the day, were scrawny and less physical than desired for purposes of combat. Depressing though that is, that is part of the history of the Sino-Japanese and by extension Korean/European American practice. The idea that new kata/forms//hyung should not be created is, well, not very traditional, by any historical view.

Were I to presume that I was ready and desirous of creating a new system, I would also feel myself empowered to create any kata I wished, or to modify existing kata to fit the style I designed. However, that is not who I am, or what I feel I will ever become. I am a student of an existing style, one which I deeply believe is in need of no modification.

True. My school teaches, basically, eleven forms. If you can find a functional form of movement not represented in those eleven forms, if you can find a sequence of functional technique which is not somewhere applicable, then by all means, create new forms. However, the need to do so, I feel, is highly limited.

This is where I still seem to be miscommunicating with everyone in this thread. To me, whether or not a given kick, block, jump, throw, gouge, etc, is explicitly seen in a particular kata is of little to no consequence. It just doesn't matter if the system is encoded in the kata, which I believe mine is.

"But your X kata doesn't have Y application in it?" "Oh, doesn't it? Are you sure?" Speaking only for myself, I have yet to be able to answer affirmatively to that question.

As an aside, Bill Mattocks, I am more and more over the past couple weeks, short a span thought that is, begining to see why so many martial artists on this forum were excited by your return. You may only have a few years of training, but let us again remember the differnces between years training, capability gained, and understanding developed. I'm glad you're back.

Thank you for the kind words. I am merely a beat-up old Jarhead (240 years old today, you know) who knows little but says much. The opposite of wisdom, but I talk a good game.

Huh. Why is it that the guy who doesn't do forms has, to me, one of the best explanations, on a surface level, of forms?

I guess you always have a more objective view from the neighboring town...

When I started training, as the Zen saying goes, the mountain was a mountain, the river was a river...

You are familiar, I'm sure, with the story of the Blind Men and the Elephant.

Blind men and an elephant - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

I claim no Satori, no awakening, no deep understanding of kata. When I started doing kata, it was a set of exercises, patterns, that helped me to practice and memorize a set of specific movements. I began to learn the basics of breathing and balance. Over time, continued practice became a vehicle through which I could explore the possibilities of the movements as the related to time and opportunity to strike and defend, act and react. Continued practice began to provide me with what I believe to be a deeper understanding of rhythm and timing. Transitions and stances began to become more visible and important to me. Then I began to feel as if doing kata was a moving meditation, and finally (most recently), I began to see, though yet dimly-lit and far away, a notion that kata is not only the key to karate, but that it forms an essential part of the 'do' that forms the path I seek to be part of.

I don't know a lot. But I do believe I know that a bunch of exercises, it ain't. It's as if someone complained that a song didn't have all the possible notes in it. First, so what, and second, are you really sure? Change the song? Brother, it's not my song. Maybe someday I'll write my own song, but I doubt it. The song I'm trying to sing is going to take up all the time I have left on this earth and then some to learn to sing correctly.

 

[Kung Fu Wang]

everything I need is in the kata, it is a complete system.

I started my 1st sparring in very early training stage. In those sparring, one person played offense while another person played defense. The person who played defense could only block, dodge, he could not punch back. I learned my "head dodging" through that kind of sparring training. When I started to learn forms, I paid very close attention on "head dodging". I could not find any "head dodging" in those 50 forms that I have learned.

For example, here is one form that I have learned.

- Should "head dodging" be in the form? I think it should.
- Why it's not in the form? I truly don't know.
- Should someone adds it into the form? I think someone should.

 

[Tez3]

Should "head dodging" be in the form? I think it should.

I think that comes under the heading of 'use your common sense' rather than kata. Whatever else kata is for it isn't to teach you common sense when sparring, usually someone shouts 'duck stupid' and that does the trick.

 

[Bill Mattocks]

I started my 1st sparring in very early training stage. In those sparring, one person played offense while another person played defense. The person who played defense could only block, dodge, he could not punch back. I learned my "head dodging" through that kind of sparring training. When I started to learn forms, I paid very close attention on "head dodging". I could not find any "head dodging" in those 50 forms that I have learned.

For example, here is one form that I have learned.

I cannot speak for anyone else. For the sake of discussion I will answer the questions you pose as if they were directed at me instead of you.

- Should "head dodging" be in the form? I think it should.

I think I am not qualified to decide what belongs in my katas and what doesn't.

- Why it's not in the form? I truly don't know.

I don't presume to know that something is not in my kata, just because *I* cannot find it.

- Should someone adds it into the form? I think someone should.

I don't find anything missing from any of my katas that I feel someone should add to them. If I cannot find them, it could be that I am not yet capable of seeing them, or of using them even if someone else showed them to me. Just because I cannot see something in the kata, that doesn't mean it isn't there.

I see a lot of "I think the system needs X" and "the system is missing Y." I don't know you or your system, maybe you're right. I don't know my system as well as I'd like to, but I do know that I am far from qualified to decide what's missing in the system I study and what it needs or does not need. I guess that's the difference here.

 

[tshadowchaser]

I never asked to change anything in any forms but speaking as some one who was given permission (by the late Grand-master and his top student) to make changes in a couple forms within the system I had studied for many years I will only say that I changed a couple moves because of the possibility of the original move possibly causing more harm than good to myself. BTW: both approved of the changes and said they worked well within the form and that I could pass the form on with the changes

As for the Okinawan and Chinese forms in the system I was told never to change them but to instruct them as I had been instructed and to gain insight into what the moves and flow of the forms where.

As for new forms made up by myself, I was told I could do this (in my old system) when I had mastered all of the forms within the system. (Like that was ever going to happen)

before anyone asks I never questioned why I was told to make changes but have always thought it might have been some type of test of my knowledge of the fighting techniques of the system and my insight into the philosophy of the system

 

[Bill Mattocks]

I found this instructive:

4 karate masters from Japan hold New Paltz seminar

"Teaching karate to Americans is very different from teaching Okinawans, said Choko, who's a retired junior high school principal."

''"Americans question everything and always want to know why they're doing something, while Okinawans just do it. But Americans are open-minded and fun to teach," he added.''

 

[tshadowchaser]

As to how I explain forms:
they are a learning block constituting of proper stance, hand and foot techniques, balance, and the execution of technique . I have beginners do look, cover, step (correct stance please) the block or punch,kick,etc.
for those that have been with me longer step to "x" face "x or y" execute Z

 

[JowGaWolf]

I started my 1st sparring in very early training stage. In those sparring, one person played offense while another person played defense. The person who played defense could only block, dodge, he could not punch back. I learned my "head dodging" through that kind of sparring training. When I started to learn forms, I paid very close attention on "head dodging". I could not find any "head dodging" in those 50 forms that I have learned.

For example, here is one form that I have learned.

- Should "head dodging" be in the form? I think it should.
- Why it's not in the form? I truly don't know.
- Should someone adds it into the form? I think someone should.

The form isn't going to include everything little thing about fighting like moving your head to avoid a punch. Things like this will be naturally be worked in the form as you try to avoid being hit in the face. This is where the student changes from knowing how to do a form and actually understanding the form. The way that boxers dodge punches are not the same way CMAs should dodge. You have to keep in mind that boxers dodge and duck punching with the knowledge that they aren't going to get kicked or kneed in the face. CMA head dodges take into consideration that someone may kick you in the face while you are trying to duck or someone may sweep you while you are trying to dodge.

Based on what I see in the form it doesn't look like it would be necessary to add head dodging. I see a lot of clearing with one hand before attacking which makes moving the head like boxers unnecessary. There are also a lot of redirecting of punches which again would make it necessary to anything else.. All CMAs have a parry-punch where the one hand parries the attack and the head moves to the side for safe measure. For something like that there's no need to add it to the form. Those are things that a person will pick up as they spar.

 

[Kung Fu Wang]

Let's look at how some traditional form was modified. The following Lien Bu Chuan was used as the basic training form for the Central Guoshu Institute 中央国术馆 in China back in 1928.

This is the original form. Please notice that at 0.35 and 0.36, there are 2 "double palms strike" back to back. When this form was passed down to the Chin Woo system, it was kept as the original form. Nothing was changed.

This is the form that was modified by my teacher's tacher GM Han Ching-Tan. Please notice that at 0.30, the 2nd "double palms strike" has been changed into a back reverse punch. The reason that GM Han did that was because he believed the "back reverse punch" should be part of the beginner level training. Since Lien Bu Chuan was supposed to be a southern CMA for, if it is used as the basic training form for northern CMA system, the "back reverse punch" is a must.

Here is my question is, "If your teacher's teacher was allowed to change the form, why can't you?" Will you be someone's teacher's teacher one day?