klock

I see that there are some bruce lee lovers on here...lol I can understand why some people would think kata aren't useful in fighting. But if you know and understand the bunkai, then kata are so obviously useful. If you just go through the motions, then, yes, they are totally useless. But if you are doing your kata this way, then are you truly learning the kata?

I'm a blue belt with a white stripe. I'll be testing for green in January. Only 7 belts until black after that

Sorry G95, but you're wrong here. My school uses a mainly Shotokan style, and we don't start the Heian Kata until our brown belt to red belt test (2 belts before black belt 1st dan). Up until then, we use Tae Kwan Do forms, which as most people here probably know, were Karate forms in the first place. Anyway, the forms that I know the names of are as follows: White to Yellow: Chon Ji Yellow to Orange: Tan Gun Orange to Blue: To San Blue to Blue with White Stripe: Won Hyo Blue/White to Green: Yul Kok Green to Green/White: Chung Gun We have a Purple belt and a Purple/White belt after that, then brown, red, red/black, then our black belt. I don't know those kata names yet. We also have 3 sparring combos and 3 one step sparring moves with each belt.