Is anyone interested in pursuing this thread a bit further?
twendkata71
Black Belt
What I mean is, the thread seems to have gone cold. But there has been a lot of recent work on using kata as the basis for practical fighting systems that still emphasize the striking strategy of Okinawan/Japanese and Korean karate (= TKD), but use locks, throws, entrapment and so on to set up the strike. Most people who complain about kata do so because of its supposed combat inapplicability, but with the recent high-quality work on combat applications, e.g. Abernethy's `bunkai-jutsu' stuff, you would think that people looking for a practical side to kata would have plenty to keep them happy. So if people still dislike kata, is it because they haven't encountered this line of analysis, or is there something else that they object to. I'm just curious...
twendkata71
Black Belt
Many martial artist were never taught any kata bunkai. Most were only taught kata for competition and belt tests. Many kata have many joint locks,throws, and nerve strikes. Many do not have the patience to study kata. Many of the hidden applications were never taught to the Americans bringing the arts back to the states. Many Japanese were never taught by the Okinawans (because the Okinawans didn't want them to know many of their secrets), The Japanese not knowing these secrets or unwilling to pass them on did not teach the Koreans that were studying in Japan and eventually went back to Korea to teach what they were taught, mixing it with the indigenous korean arts. Many of the US servicemen that started learning karate,taekwondo,etc. back in the 50's and 60's also wanted to learn the fighting, but did not see all of the value of kata. Mainly because they were not taught what secrets that the kata held. Remember we has for the most part just beaten them in the war and were gaijin (outsiders). I think that the Japanese and Okinawans were affraid that these much larger people might use their secrets back on them. Only a select few were taught any real secrets. At least that is my take on it from my research.
Yes, this is exactly my understanding of what happened, from everything I've seen. But there does seem to be a real resurgence of interest among certain parts of the `striking arts' scene---Abernethy's work and Kane & Wilder's in Japanese/Okinawan, and Simon O' Neil's in TKD. What I was wondering was, whether a lot of people who vies katas as routine drudgery to be gotten through asap for rank testing, or as pretty but useless choreography using MA moves, would change their views if they saw the kinds of results these guys have come up with in their bunkai analyses---especially now that there are some excellent DVDs showing the combat effectiveness of e.g. the Pinans and so on.
I just wonder how well known the existence of this work is in the Okinawan/Japanse MA community---on the Korean side, I don't think it's very well known at all. There was a very good article by O'Neil introducinng this kind of analysis in TKD Times last year, and making the `heretical' claim that if you want to use TKD for self defense you should limit kicks to set-up or finishing roles, and keep them low---that the frequency of kicking moves in the hyungs should be an indication of how the orignal kwan masters viewed them as combat techniques, and that even in the Taegeuks, that frequency is low compared with hand techniques. For a lot of TKDers. this is crazy talk, and many of them have no idea of the new bunkai analyses in Okinawan/Japanese karate that brings in grappling/locking/throwing, even groundfighting, as part of kata interpretation, and how much carryover there is to TKD forms.
JasonASmith
Black Belt
I LOVE kata.
Apparently I am also at a good school, because as soon as they started teaching kata to me there was bunkai included...
I say that because I have read on countless sites that bunkai is usually NOT included, because of a lack of understanding or just shear negligence...
All that I can say is this: Thank God that I found a Dojo and a Sensei that care...
MORE KATA, MORE BUNKAI! Give it to me!
Apparently I am also at a good school, because as soon as they started teaching kata to me there was bunkai included...
I say that because I have read on countless sites that bunkai is usually NOT included, because of a lack of understanding or just shear negligence...
All that I can say is this: Thank God that I found a Dojo and a Sensei that care...
MORE KATA, MORE BUNKAI! Give it to me!
The idea that kata contains groundfighting is quite a stretch. I have never seen it demonstrated from an Okinawan source, it is not present in the known precursor Chinese arts and Okinawans martial artists already practiced a separate grappling style that is now called "Okinawan sumo," but used to be called Tegumi. Kata contain standing holds, but that's not the same thing.
If you want to be a traditional karateka, study wrestling, as it's quite similar in intent and practice. I think 3-5 years of fighting is good preparation for learning a kata. Without free-fighting experience you'll interpret it badly.
If you want to be a traditional karateka, study wrestling, as it's quite similar in intent and practice. I think 3-5 years of fighting is good preparation for learning a kata. Without free-fighting experience you'll interpret it badly.
You're right, there's a distinction. But as Abernethy points out in his book on bunkai jutsu, it's a distinction that may not make a difference if it turns out that here are horizontal applications of techniques presented vertically in the kata. IA gives an example from Pinan Godan and comments that
In the [standing] choking technique [illustrated], the opponent is unable to breath because the airway is restricted due to pressure from the forearm. On the ground-fighting technique, the opponent is also unable to breathe because the airway is restricted due to pressure from the forearm. The principles being applied are identical, even when the physical position of the combatants is not. So whilst the principles can be applied vertically or horizontally, the kata prefers to show them vertically to encourage the karateka to remain vertical
He gives an illustration of this same point from Wanshu where the movement to a Crane stance, presented vertically in the kata, has a straightforward, essentially identical horizontal bunkai yielding a knee press on the down's attacker's head.
The crucial point that IA makes here and elsewhere is that there is a strategic difference in terms of ground fighting between karate and the spectrum of UFC styles---namely, kareteka will, given their core fighting strategies, want not only to avoid at all costs getting to the ground but also, if they do find themselves there, want to get vertical again as quickly as possible. So the adaptations to the ground he suggests from the standing kata forms, Ne Waza, are those which either conform to the one strke/one kill strategic principle while on the ground, or give you the best chance of getting to your feet quickly (in contrast to the approach in BJJ/wrestling/etc., where the fighter needs to stay on the ground to apply the system). In his book on kata-based grappling methods, IA gives many more examples.
I do TKD, which (so far as I can tell, anyway) is way, way behind karate in terms of sytematic, detailed analyses of the bunkai for individual hyungs; I only know of one person who is publishing results in this area. But Abernethy's take on ground fighting seems to me to make a good deal of sense...
Explorer
Blue Belt
I've seen a number of forms broken down for ground fighting. It might be somewhat rare ... but I don't think it's a stretch at all. Oyo would allow for such interpretation.
I agree that karateka for the most part want to spend as little time on the ground as possible. Here's what I tell my students ... bad guys run in packs. If you spend any time on the ground, especially if you're winning, you will catch a boot to the head from one of your opponent's buddies.
I agree that karateka for the most part want to spend as little time on the ground as possible. Here's what I tell my students ... bad guys run in packs. If you spend any time on the ground, especially if you're winning, you will catch a boot to the head from one of your opponent's buddies.
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Very good advice!
The thing is that this isn't really interpreting the *intent* of the kata. It's grafting on something new. And you have to ask yourself if that isn't better served by learning to grapple directly, the way Okinawans did (and do; tegumi is not dead, but it's very obscure. I read an article about marines in an "Okinawan sumo" match not too long ago).
Kata do include standing grappling and throws, but the strategy is meant to be supported with wrestling. Tegumi's rules set is excellent for this, because it's a kind of halfway point between freestyle and sumo. It's intended to help you keep on your feet.
I suppose that one reasonable conclusion from this would be, if you learn effective bunkai from the katas that you can apply to the ground if necessary, and if you add tegumi (which Abernethy does give a lot of attention to in his books), then you've got a great set of resources to both keep you off the ground and, if things go wrong, get you up off the ground if you find yourself there.
What I still find mysterious is that someone who was seriously interested in a striking-oriented combat-ready art would find anything hateful about kata. What's not to like? I can't help thinking that most of the problem has been the kind of approach to kata/hyungs that takes them to be aggressive-looking choreography or whatever. If the combat applications of the katas were instead emphasized, probably a lot fewer people would dislike them...?
kingkong89
Green Belt
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even in the begining of martial arts there were people who have hated kata. the main reason, they want to fight and not practice on their katas to improve the things they need to fight.HICH
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LOL! That's what I was going to say! I always used to hear, "I just want to learn how kick some but!"
It is funny, I believe that practicing poomse(tkd) or kata(karate) often actually makes you a better fighter. While you practice forms you are perfecting technique, you perfect technique then you have a better arsenal.
The thing is, there are so many good books and articles available now which show in detail the effectiveness of the combat applications hidden---but not always terribly deeply---within kata and hyungs. I just learned about a new book, by Stuart Anslow, which has already come out on the fighting techniques implicit in the ITF Ch'ang Hon forms, and Simon O' Neil's book on TKD bunkai (boon hae, I guess we should start calling it, since it's the Korean analogue) will be out next year. And there's a ton of stuff on karate bunkai that's come out during the past five years or so. If anyone genuinely wants to find out just what specific techniques and tactical approaches the katas/hyungs can contribute to their combat training, the resources they need are all over the place out there.
This has alot to do with schools adopting modernized techniques while retaining the kata from the past. When your sparring is kickboxing (or, in lesser schools, point fighting) you have to ask why are you practicing something that isn't like the sparring. The answer is ussually an evasive comment that alludes to hard work and tradition.
There are lots of other ways to practice techniques besides kata.
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I hear Ya! I've never been a Kata fan, but, I don't hate them either. I feel that they have a place.
I don't think the purpose of kata is to practice technique---though remember, for guys like Matusmura, Itosu, Funikoshi, and other master karateka of that era, kata were the primary training tool---it's gotten to be a tired old chestnut, but true, that Funikoshi studied and practiced the Naihanchi kata exlcusively, for nine years, as his primary training tool. But on the whole, I don't think kata are there for practicing fighting technique---they are the record of the fighting techniques. They contain all of the crystallized nastiness of the most hard-core attacking techniques in karate, but once you've studied the kata and extracted the combat methods embedded in them along the lines of guys like Abernethy, Martinez, Wilder and Kane, Rick Clark and so on, you need some way to train yourself to carry out those techniques automatically. Abernethy, in his book Bunkai-Jutsu: the Practical Application of Karate Kata, devotes his final chapter to a detailed description of his method of training the highly effective fighting methods embedded in the kata by realistic application of these methods to non-compliant opponents in a variety of scenarios, at all combat ranges. I would urge anyone interested in how kata can benefit the martial artist's effectiveness in real-world violent conflicts to read IA's book and to consider the training method he outlines for programming oneself to use kata-based methods in real fights.
There has been I think a lot of misunderstanding of kata due to the tradition, started by Itosu, of simplifying their interpretation to dilute what is, when you look at it, an extremely violent content based on a very sincere belief in the `one-strike/one-kill' approach to combat management. If Abernethy is correct---and I think his arguments for the plausibility of his kata interpretations are extremely persuasive---kata are a record of fighting systems with damage potential that I myself find kind of unpleasant to contemplate. But that's all they are---catalogues of systematic fighting methods. To be able to use them on the fly, to make them immediately available combat tools, you have to train the moves (and responses to moves) that they conceal by simulating actual combat as closely as possible, as frequently as possible. Those training methods aren't the kata themselves.
What I guess I'm saying is, you can simultaneously believe that the kata are very important to the combat effectiveness of karate (as a repertoire of tactical scenarios, i.e., blueprints for counterattacking in the face of a variety of aggressive moves by an assailant), on the one hand, but that they aren't themselves very as real-time training procedures. Abernethy has some very interesting ideas about the latter---his website is a very good place to check out, because he thinks a lot about this sort of thing himself (and does a lot of `experimental' work on kata interpretation and training to base his ideas on), but also has guest columnists and MAists from an extremely wide variety of MAs, from Okinawan karate and TKD to BJJ, MMA and various RBSD systems. The man is nothing if not open-minded, and I think a lot of people in that `movement'---I think it's not out of line to think of it that way---are of the same mind.
IWishToLearn
3rd Black Belt
My only issue with Kata is the reinforcement of the "one hit, one kill" methodology. That's a VERY large gamble with a VERY large downside if you bet wrong. 
