Japanese Question--Kata?

[arnisador]

I came across this book while looking for a martial arts book:
Kata: The Key to Understanding and Dealing with the Japanese! by Boye Lafayette De Mente

It seems to be about Japanese business customs. He takes it from the word shikata. The first page, viewable on Amazon, lists several types of kata. Is this a different use of kata than in the martial arts?

 

[Andrew Green]

On the first page it translates kata as "form", which is the same as it translates to in the martial arts sense.

Thats my understanding of martial arts kata, its basically training "the way of doing things" or the "form". In karate it gets associated with a little dance-like routine of movements, but a kata is simply working on the form.

If you can find a copy of Shoshin Nagamine's "Essence of Okinawan Karate-do" (It's pretty easy to find) the first technical section is on "Kamae-kata" aka stances. Not routines of them, but stances in isolation.

 

[eyebeams]

I came across this book while looking for a martial arts book:
Kata: The Key to Understanding and Dealing with the Japanese! by Boye Lafayette De Mente

It seems to be about Japanese business customs. He takes it from the word shikata. The first page, viewable on Amazon, lists several types of kata. Is this a different use of kata than in the martial arts?

Kata (in the sense of prearranged routines) are used in many fields other than martial arts. Traditional fields such as Noh and tea ceremony have kata. There's also a usage that's broader than this, but I've normally seen it romanized as --gata.

This isn't just Japan, either. There's a Canadian who was profiled as the only foreigner to learn "crosstalk": the prearranged routines of traditional Chinese comedy skits!

 

[Andrew Green]

There's also a usage that's broader than this, but I've normally seen it romanized as --gata.

That has to do with what comes before it causing a phonetic shift.

 

[arnisador]

I knew of tea 'kata' but this seems more general than that--business mores.

My understanding is that it's kata used along (like keri, kick), but gata if prefixed by something (like mae-geri, front kick). Just a phonetic thing about the language. Perhaps someone who speaks it could explain this better?

 

[Shorin Ryuu]

I came across this book while looking for a martial arts book:
Kata: The Key to Understanding and Dealing with the Japanese! by Boye Lafayette De Mente

It seems to be about Japanese business customs. He takes it from the word shikata. The first page, viewable on Amazon, lists several types of kata. Is this a different use of kata than in the martial arts?

Yes. The "kata" in this case refers to a different word and kanji (chinese character) than the "kata" we associate with forms.

Shikata = 仕方 (less commonly 仕形　）

kata (forms) = 型

If you can't see the character above, switch your encoding to japanese.

As a sidenote, "Shikata ga nai" (literally, there's no way...) is a idiomatic expression meaning "Oh well" or "it can't be helped".


As far as the "k" changing to a "g", it really is a language thing. For example, Mae geri means front kick. But the words individually are "mae" and "keri". If you combine two separate words like this, you sometimes soften the second word in order to let it "flow better". Say "Mae keri" and "Mae geri". Mae geri just flows easier, and you have to do "less work" inside your mouth to make the sound.

 

[arnisador]

I can see it, and I appreciate this! It's just the sort of answer I wa slooking for.

 

[Shorin Ryuu]

I'm glad I could help. I remember looking that up specifically a few years back since I wasn't sure which "kata" was the one always used in karate, since there could be arguments used to support a couple of them.