tallgeese

This last point brings up an interesting topic. I'm not sure I agree with the idea of being able to demote a student. What would the criteria be? When age means that he can't physically do the things he did to earn that rank do you take it away? What if he gets an injury that has to vastly change the way he does things, is this a demotion? Most people would say "no" most likely. But how is any of those different, in the end result, than the guy who can't train for 6-8 months due to work or family requirements? For me, once someone has earned that rank, it's theirs. They did what they were required and deserve to keep it. Now, it's on them to keep up. If they leave they might have quite a long time on their return to get back to that level, but they still earned it. I don't think it's fair to demote them AFTER they've attained their rank. I haven't used the bachelors degree I earned in years, but no one has come to take it off my wall yet. By a similar token, I had to spar for an hour straight with heavy contact to earn my black belt. I probably can't do that anymore, at least not with the ferocity that I did at 23. My coaches haven't deemed it necessary to come take my first Dan grade back. Nor have they deemed it necessary to do so despite the fact that 95-99% of my martial training time now revolves around BJJ. It's not an indictment of what I've done before, just where my interest and passion is right now. However, depending on the criteria, one could make an argument that demotion is in order since I don't spend a great deal of time training in my base are these days. It goes back to the trick bag I think we get into if we start into the idea of demoting people.

3/28 Light jog, mat work to warm up. back/bis abs

The base arts I came out of were of the "formality" group. No one actually tested until they were actually going to pass. I like this process. It lets one have the actual artificial stress inducement that a test gives (due to the formality) for the student without wasting a bunch of time scheduling testings. The BJJ school I'm out of now days is even less formal. Coach thinks you're ready, you get the next belt (or stripe). No pretense of testing at all. I think this is largely to the "live" feel of BJJ. You're always working live and "testing" yourself. No need for a formal test. That said, plenty of BJJ schools do test. I don't think they are wrong, it's just not the way we do it. Being the less formal guy I am, I happen to like it.

3/27 Light jog and mat work to warm up Chest/tris/ shoulders abs

3/26 Drilled the butterfly guard passes from the last couple of weeks in sequence. Each ending with an armbar from the dominate position. 6, 2 min rounds of eyes closed work butterfly v. pass 35 min free roll

For me, it goes back to the concept of matching my weapons to the target in the best possible manner. There's not right or wrong answer to the vertical fist, there are just better and less that adequate application. Someone mentioned using it to split the upright guard, that's an ideal application. Sometimes up in a clinch, it lines up better. Other times at range, I am better served by a rolling motion to a horizontal fist. Often, this will line up better with the opening and range mechanically. I've seen it in a lot of systems. For me, it's a tool to fit a given need.

3/24 Drilled arm wrap spider guard sweep to bicep compression lock. Moved to doing the same lock from single leg. Then side control. 60 min free roll.

Welcome aboard! Looking forward to hearing your take on things!

3/23 60 min free roll

3/22 Drilled torrenando pass to knee in. Moved on to mount to americana. Finished with half guard to sweep work and flow drill from modified spider. 60 min free roll.

Guys, I do miss those outdoor summer weapons beat-fests. 3/21 abs back/ bis

Congrats!

3/20 2.5 mile run. Back outside at last. Chest/shoulders/tris Abs

Right. That seems like the smartest play available.

Agreed. Nitobe's book is an excellent work. It should probably be required reading for martial artist.

Is this the fund raising event for Cancer that you've planned to go to this fall? The one you asked me to go to?! Really?!!!................... Can I just send a check? That said, just wow. I'd get some more armor myself. Maybe take a page from the SCA handbook and wrap a leather lifting belt around the the kidneys and lumbar spine for a bit of protection.

Congrats on getting into class and getting started on the path. Also, welcome to KF. Justice brought up some great points. I'd really focus on losing the smoking and the idea of getting some sort of exercise each day. Almost all of us can do better with our diet. You've gotten some great advice on all already. Just let me say as well about how you feel like you're not good at a skill yet...this is normal. We were all there with every martial skill at some point. DOn't be discouraged by any of that. It's part of the process. Progress will come, just keep coming back working. You'll probably look back a year from now and be amazed at how far you've come. You won't notice day to day, you're just too close to it. Over time though something will happen that will just show you the great distacne you've covered. Good luck and keep us posted on your journey. Please don't let your newness keep you from posting on other threads as well. Everyone here remebers being new and values views from all angles.

3/19 Drilled pummel work. Moved into torreando pass to knee in with arm bar finish. Drilled arm bar from mount. Finished technique with passing the butterfly guard via two differnt options. 30 min free roll.

Here's one version: Matsubayashi Ryu And here is another: Wado Ryu http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cbs-nJklcHo Sojobo It is technically beautiful. However, I don't think it changes my response.

Prearranged sequential patterns of movement appear in every martial art and are still employed in the most modern martial arts training known to man, as is the push-up which is even older than Chinto and Kusanku. Traditional katas are sequential fighting technique from the yoi position to the return. They are absolutely no different than stringing a punch, kick, body turn and sweep together and practicing it over and over and over again. Techniques have multiple functions, just as they do in drills you string together. Drills, kata, etc will never train you to respond to random attacks, they aren't designed to do so. You may think that drills you are learning are some great modern invention, but they are no different than kata forms hundreds of years old. I haven't seen a kata performed differently each time to account for a different set of attacks. I haven't seen it (by and large I know two man exist) that deals with an attacker actually endeavoring to hit the performer with a focus mitt. I haven't seen variability in the accounted for attacks. I haven't see then move and cut angles unexpected before or after each series that breaks the pattern. It's not the same. Drilling and kata. I'm not saying the tactics are different. I'm saying that the method of learning them has changed, or can be changed, since the development of kata.

I have no idea what Chinto is or looks like. However, I will say that most of the time I get asked this I go back to the premeditated nature of kata. Doing the same movements in the same order at the same angles each and every time does not mimic combat. In fact, it's about as far from it as you can get. When you're doing drills, or even half a drill (minus the partner) you should be varying angles, cutting different directions, circling and working different motions that you are comfortable with into the mix, different targets that you visualize and different attacks to deal with. It should be organic, not a set of motions repeated the same over and over each time it's done. That randomness is at the heart of training. You can't get locked into committing a sequence of movement each time. If X happen I do Y. What happens when X doesn't happen? Or happens at a different angle? You suddenly foul your own OODA loop. Not good. Kata almost encourages this. If your drilling solo, you should be varying both gross and finite movements to account for this. That's what's different.

I would concur 100% with this. Especially the "unclick" concept. We change and circumstances change. This mandates a change in our martial outlook. It's just as important to be able jettison certain clicks as to pick up new ones. It's also important to constantly re-evaluate what our needs are as fighters and adopt our training practices to those. It's one of those things that will most help us enjoy training and therefore keeps us training longer.

By this definition, I do a lot of kata. Agreed. However, I'm not sure that it fits the connotative definition, or even the more official ones, of "kata". If we say that any movement related to martial endeavors constitutes kata then it's about all we do and I'm even pretty sure I do it every night when I load my duty weapon. I think the original question probably related to the definition everyone actually thinks of when someone says "kata"-the pre-arranged floor movements one.

SCARS training is based on repetitive two person drills, so in effect the exact same thing as yakosuko kumite and bunkai. We are talking about a method to train full time combat soldiers who live their life as such, surrounded by others with the same training. There is in effect no need for solo kata practice for these individual, as they can always grab a buddy and train. Most of us do not have this luxury. If they were to train these drills without a partner, they are performing kata. I've always found that it was more useful to cultivate partners to work with in the off time for this exact reason. Cross training with guys from other arts has allowed me to expand my combative horizons. There's no reason non-military guys can't set up the same sorts of things outside of class. Barring that, I'll go to the bags.

The modern training methodology you put forth is really no different from the training I have experienced in a very traditional Okinawan system with its foundation being kata. Kata is not training in a vacuum and if you believe this and the fact that you believe application isn't immediately recognizable, you have not experienced proper instruction in its use. Every move, from a strike to a turning from one technique to another and even the movements in between and from the side that isn't apparently attacking or blocking has a direct application to fighting. The deeper you go in studying kata (especially advanced ones), the more brilliant you discover them to be. Think about it, kata has been used for hundreds of years. Do you really think the thousands of martial artists who spent decades upon decades of training for real combat (on a level you and I can fortunately only imagine) would waste their time with a superfluous dance? Their very lives depended on their empty hand training, as they could be literally be attacked by a sword wielding opponent at anytime and we are no smarter today than they were in 1700. For the first part, you're talking about digging deeper into a drill to find what I need to. No thanks, I'm a proponent, if you haven't guessed, of the adult learning model which says that people learn better by immediately seeing a need for what they are doing AND seeing how it applies directly to them. I can take that time digging into kata to correct my angles and footwork against a moving opponent firing shots back at me. I see the good in that, it's applicable RIGHT NOW to what I many have to do. I did have great instruction in kata by the way. I just don't care to learn that way. Not when there are more applicable methods that more immediately apply to combat. For the second part, I in no way say that everyone's wasted their time dancing. However, I will point out that this TOOL for learning (a tool, not a sacrosanct ritual) was developed in the last century. Look at what we've learned since. We don't train professions of arms with it now to go out and deploy against force (ie. it's not how cops and military train- there is a reason for this). A lot of kata goes back to post WWII era at best (when some of the Goju kata were created). We've come along in learning since then. We don't physically condition like we did then, we shouldn't train to fight like we did then either if something more efficient has come along. Further, the Pinan's were created in the early 1900's (and as I've said many more were developed in the 1940's or after) in their current form. Look at the dates, all post-Tokugawa development. Meaning that despite what everyone says, many of today's kata were not used by pheasants to defeat sword wielding opponents. I'll grant, experts will seem to agree that some forms of kata do go back to 1600's Japan. However, systematized fighting in Japan with a warrior caste goes back to at least 500 AD. with no mention that I have seen yet to kata being part of this tradition. Which to me says that as a training modality is came into the picture due to what they knew at the time of learning and by need of social pressure. If systematized fighting arts didn't use it in their country of origin and then added it to the syllabus I see no reason that those say systematized arts can't remove it or use other, more modern, modalities in it's place. Bear in mind, and I've said it before here. I don't have a problem with kata. If people what to do it because they like the ritual or history of the art or if they learn fine that way, then do it. Heck, do it if you just like to do it. I'm not saying all of karate should do away with it. I'm just saying that my answer to the OP's question is that- yes, you can have karate without kata. I look at it from a purely combative angle. There are faster, more efficient ways to learn that account for a more realistic feel that more quickly, for me, train me for winning a street level conflict. It's just about mimicking the environment that you'll be operating in. Which everyone who's done the leg work in such matters will agree is a primary factor in developing the ability to functionally deploy violent skills.