cathal

I was chatting with a fellow martial artist today regarding kata. He mentioned he felt that most kata's changes over the years seem to favour athleticism over practicality of the techniques. I'm interested in hearing your opinions on this topic. Consider the kata you know...the changes which have been made...and how you feel about them. What do you think?

Very good article. Well written and definitely very informative.

I also practice Shotokan and while we do train with that one-punch approach, we also know that one punch may not necessarily kill...but at least allow us the opportunity to remove ourselves from the dangerous situation.

I agree, staying calm and not worrying about passing the test seems to be the best way of going here.

In fact I do. For example the people who work in pit crews for race cars have it down correctly. They work so very fast because they practice extremely slowly. Almost painfully so. That way when the moment comes, they have speed and get the job done. Such is the way with Martial arts, I find. We practice in no many ways: power and speed, no power and no speed, no power with speed, etc. After practice you have the movement down pat, the muscle memory, and the power to back it up. Then you move on to the heavy bag and get the proper feel for resistance. As you can see, this in of itself is not a different philosophy or training methodology from full contact. It's simply the same training, just different application. In many respects a bag is going to have the same resistance a human body is going to have, especially if it's coming at you in a fight. Full contact training is merely the reverse...training against a bag or human body with full speed and power. That is how they learn their techniques. It is up to yourself to decide if one method is better than another, but I say that - just like in many respects in martial arts - it all boils down to the individual.

When learning the kata we have preset attacks. As you become familiar with the kata you develop your own bunkai techniques, different applications etc. So when you present it to the class you do it twice: the first one you learned and the second your interpretation. A third is usually performed much later, where none of the attacks are the same in the previous two versions. This forces us to be creative and to adapt.

Wow so do I. Very cathartic isn't it? LOL

IMHO the full contact vs. no/light contact debate has almost been done to death on this website. For what it's worth I feel that one should not completely discount the other point of view on this topic because there are many pros and cons to this.

You're welcome.

It seems to be a style formed by a man named Shihan Hayes who has decided to teach Taijitsu and ancient Ninjutsu to a modern north America/Europe. It was formed in 1996, and has only been in either of these places for a short time. They have 16 belts leading to Shodan, and the Shidan promises a black belt if you go through his training videos. I'll reserve judgement on that until I learn a little more.

No problem bushido_man96. You basically perform your kata but rather than being alone you have a few people with you that attack. Rather than sparring you will be only going through the kata so it is very much like a choreographed fight scene. In doing this you will appreciate why a technique is being applied at a certain time, and even have different attacks and blocks when you go through it, which teaches you to be adaptive to the situation. After going through the bunkai several times you will realize you've got a much deeper understanding of the kata and of course its practical applications.

Insomuch that I feel you did a good job, I don't think it is a problem with them being rednecks per se....alcohol was a factor was it not? That is always going to be a major contributor to a fight in a situation like that. The person who was yelling at your friend Eric may seem to have taken it as an insult.

I can't speak for the other styles but we definitely take it quite seriously.

After checking it out, looks like it is To Shin Do.

The adrenaline shakes are a side-effect too...no matter how afraid you are (or not afraid) we tend to have a few shakes. I'm glad you didn't have to fight.

I'm in the same boat as Menjo, haven't learned it yet but definitely want to.

For me the toughest was my 6th kyu grading. There were about 12 of us doing the kata simultaneously (because there were so many of them). Since a few of the others were screwing around during the test we all ended up having to do the exam three times in entirety, and the kata (Heian Yondan) four times in a row.

In what way do you feel it sets you apart?

Most definitely. I don't think you can truly understand a kata, or it's intent, until you go over several aspects of the techniques and their possible applications.

Hello Andy, and you venuswarrior...have fun!

Welcome to the forum I had a Border Collie mix who was too smart!

So what was your most difficult/challenging grading? What were you asked to do, and did you overcome the challenge?

So do you teach Tai Chi as well?

We do that as well, starting at 5th Kyu and up. It really helps to do that because they will enhance their knowledge of the kata (and the related techniques) when they realize they have to pass that on to us, as though we had never seen those techniques before.

We do it every time we learn a new kata. We do a set bunkai given to us by our sensei, after 3 months we are asked to perform another bunkai of our own interpretation. At least once per month we practice a random bunkai, as well as the 5-Kata kumite...a bunkai of mixed sections from the five Heian katas.