In light of a discussion on another thread I thought it might be interesting to have a discussion on the correction of your kata. I am aware that many martial arts have kata and that kata has many forms. This thread is in the Karate section for that reason. I am primarily interested in discussing single person kata here.
This was the post that tweaked my interest:
There are numerous reasons for differences in kata across different styles but why are there differences within a style?
From my position, I am possibly a bit on the casual side when it comes to correcting kata. Because my kata is not for competition it lacks the 'flair' that you see in some examples but I am quite pedantic when it comes to certain things I see performed in kata, and in recent times I was shown where a technique I was performing in a kata I have been training and teaching for over 30 years was 'not quite right'.
I would like to discuss what you, as instructors, look for in correcting your students' kata and what you, as students, are corrected for and how you feel about that correction.
I will kick off the discussion with the two videos I posted on another thread. One is an old video of Morio Higaonna performing Gekisai dai ichi kata and the other is someone from Higaonna's organisation (I hope not Higaonna :uhoh: seeing I am suggesting it is NQR) performing the same kata but in a slightly different way.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=vKLX3tZN1JQ
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=xtOl_XULS48
There are at least three subtle but significant differences in the way these kata are performed. Can anyone, particularly Goju people, pick them.
Oh, and please, this is a technical discussion on kata .. not a discussion on the value of kata.
:asian:
This was the post that tweaked my interest:
Now for context, Hanzou explained that the 'twerp' was in fact a 12 year old brown belt and the training was in Shotokan karate.All of which came from my personal experiences with kata. I didn't like it because in my experience it wasn't being used for anything other than rank padding. We weren't being taught its usefulness, just that it was something we had to do to advance to the next belt. My experiences in TKD and TSD were largely the same. When I met a guy who practiced MMA, it really opened my eyes to what my training lacked; practicality. That same practicality is what drew me to Judo and eventually Bjj. There wasn't this twerp standing next to me pointing out how my foot wasn't turned the right way, or my elbow wasn't pressed against my hip properly. In the latter arts I could feel if I was doing things right or wrong, and I could just accordingly.
There are numerous reasons for differences in kata across different styles but why are there differences within a style?
From my position, I am possibly a bit on the casual side when it comes to correcting kata. Because my kata is not for competition it lacks the 'flair' that you see in some examples but I am quite pedantic when it comes to certain things I see performed in kata, and in recent times I was shown where a technique I was performing in a kata I have been training and teaching for over 30 years was 'not quite right'.
I would like to discuss what you, as instructors, look for in correcting your students' kata and what you, as students, are corrected for and how you feel about that correction.
I will kick off the discussion with the two videos I posted on another thread. One is an old video of Morio Higaonna performing Gekisai dai ichi kata and the other is someone from Higaonna's organisation (I hope not Higaonna :uhoh: seeing I am suggesting it is NQR) performing the same kata but in a slightly different way.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=vKLX3tZN1JQ
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=xtOl_XULS48
There are at least three subtle but significant differences in the way these kata are performed. Can anyone, particularly Goju people, pick them.
Oh, and please, this is a technical discussion on kata .. not a discussion on the value of kata.
:asian: