todome

Couldn't have said it better myself. cheers!

I didn't say it doesn't prepare you for combat. I said it isn't combat training. Due to lack of a partner? Sorry if I'm sounding short. I'm afraid I have little patience the topic. Probably should have stayed out of it. Not because it doesn't have a partner. Rather because it is formal defense against formal attacks. The movements are chosen for their teaching value, not their effectiveness on the street. It's not meant to be scenario training. In the Shotokan syllabus scenario training is called "self defense", in English anyways, and is treated as something other than kihon, kata and kumite. btw, anyone in here agree that the guy is using his hips all wrong doing his turn to the left? You're not supposed to square the hips off left and then execute the block with reverse rotation. That is slow and weak. It should have more of a flowing punch feel to it, learning to power off the pivot leg directly to stance. Learning to turn on the inside with the turn of the head and moving straight out from the base that's formed from that. Seems to me his time would be better spent learning that than teaching ill-advised throws. Turning into someone like that will only get you choked out. Demos like that annoy the hell out me.

I didn't say it doesn't prepare you for combat. I said it isn't combat training.

If we are talking about the "Bunkai" demonstarted in the vid posted by the OP - as being a good "basic" example -I'd have to disagree. K. nah. I'm talking about the bunkai it's trying to replace. IMO, it really is more than adequate. It's the movement skills preserved in the kata that really matters. Application is given to get the feeling of the movement across. A lot of the modern bunkai seems to be more interested in describing scenarios that justify the kata's existence. That, to me, misses the point.

Well, it's not directly combative maybe - but it's a step on the way there, if you don't understand what you are doing, before you know it, you are heading in the wrong direction! K. Exactly. In which case the simplest explanation is the best and that would be the same old boring bunkai which this thread has put under the microscope.

Kata is NOT combat training. By the time you've figured out how to actually do the very first move of the very first kata properly, and I'm talking YEARS and quite possibly not ever, you really don't care that the bunkai for it is oversimplified.

Team Kata? Timing, timing, timing. Nothing stands out more (or generally costs more in deductions) in team kata that synchronization errors. You can somewhat hide weaker technique if things are synced well. Spend a LOT of practice time working on rhythm and sync. Use a metronome if you have to. Three mediocre in sync will score higher than three really good and no sync. Good technique will gain you 3 or 4 points at best but a few sync errors will cost you a penny each and reduce your points-before-deductions. IMO DON'T use tekki shodan. I'm not alone in judging tekki harshly in tournaments. It's actually much more difficult to do properly than most colour belts think.

Just karate, right? If the gorilla rips up a tree use, does he get to rip up a tree, too?

I'm not. I have a soft spot for Theater of the Absurd. Wish the guy was on Big Brother.

Superior intelligence aside, ask him how many kata he figures the gorilla needs to learn before it has a fighting chance.

Anyone that concerned about it should be advised to just stay indoors the next time it rains gorillas.

First thing up for debate in this situation would be the superior intelligence of anyone finding themselves squared off against a gorilla.

hot water and someone who knows what they're doing. Check the technique of the senior students. If that's what you think karate should look like, go for it. Don't worry about belts. They can discourage you from switching dojos once you know better.

Shotokan so in tournaments embusen would have cost you a stack of points. You need to finish where you started. ITKF allows the first turn from back stance to pivot on the back leg now, so there's a stance to the front. It's a bit more challenging but very educational. ITKF also allows a half-stance shift from the sweeping blocks to the first knife hand block. That buys you a half a stance back to the left. Don't give up your back legs shifting from back stance to front stance at the end of the knifehand block series and the kick needs a more focused target. there's a tendency for the side stances to be deeper than the back stances in this kata so that would account for some of the finishing behind the starting point. bassai-sho is traditionally a deep stance kata so look at staying deep in back stance rather than shortening up your side stances. Cat stance is an inside pressure stance. I don't feel anyone's knees squeezing together. good though. but you know that already.

Whether the tires are spinning horizontally or vertically totally changes what the drive train needs to do. I'm more familiar with a horizontal fist so maybe its just what I'm used to that makes me notice a marked lack of downward pressure at the core required to finish a vertical punch.