forms competitions

[plainwhitets]

I have a couple questions about forms/kata competitions. how long would it take to train for a novice division competition if you are willing to work at it like 6 days a week? also, what styles of MA are better suited for forms/kata competitions?

 

'thanks

[Shorinryu Sensei]

I have a couple questions about forms/kata competitions. how long would it take to train for a novice division competition if you are willing to work at it like 6 days a week? also, what styles of MA are better suited for forms/kata competitions?

 

'thanks

 

A lot of it depends on how hard you work, how fast you learn, and how tough your competition is going to be at the tournament you want to compete in.

 

I had a yoiung lady with no prior weapons experience, ask me two weeks before a tournament if I would help her make up a bo kata so she could enter taht part of the competition. We worked pretty hard on making up a decent kata, and you know what? She got 2nd place out of 8 competitors. 6 of them were black belts, and my student was a green belt (not even half way to black belt). I wa VERY proud of her, and she was jumpin g around the floor afterwards like her feet were on fire!

 

So anyway, yes, it's possible to do well at a tournament with just a little prep time. But the more you have and the harder you work..the better your chances will be.

[aefibird]

Generally, the more you work at forms/kata and the longer you practice each one, the better you will do in competition.

 

Many styles have forms/kata/hyungs as part of their training. TaeKwonDo, TangSooDo, Karate and many styles of Kung Fu incorporate forms into their training.

 

There can be competitions solely for that martial art, or it can be an 'open' competition, where the categories are often split into 'traditional' and 'freestyle' forms.

 

Traditional forms are the traditional forms practiced within a long-established style (such as karate kata). They can be performed either empty-handed or with weapons.

 

Freestyle forms are ones which are usually created specifically for competition purposes. They can be empty-hand or weapons forms, either set to music or not. Many 'freestyle' forms incorporate tricks and fancy kicking techniques, although not all of them do.

[XxpengwynxX]

It all depends. When I was a yellow belt (In my style it goes white, orange, yellow...) I wanted to do heian godon in a tournment (which was about 3 weeks away), because I had seen the kata done, and I thought it was awesome. But at my dojo they don't like us learning katas out of order, so I had to learn heian yodan first. So I learned yodan in about a week, and then learned godan by the tournment. I learned it in class a few times and practiced it like 5-10 times a day outside of class and more during class, and I ended up taking first place in the tournment.

 

So yea. The timing is different for everyone. But if they are dedicated to learning it, katas can be learned very fast. (For some people, depending on how fast they learn things.)

[miguksaram]

What you will find in the competitions is that people find one form, regardless of the rank of the form and do it on a consistent basis. That is the one they focus on the most. So choose a form and practice it daily. A trick we do is that we break the forms down into three sections. You run each section seperately 5 times each. Then you break it down into halves and do that 5 times and then run the full form 5 times. What you want to do is focus on your stances and techniques when you do the sections and then the moment and flow when you do the halves and full form. This has been a very successful formula for us as we have created a couple of world champions, not to mention some regional champions by doing this.

[plainwhitets]

miguksaram, your profile says you study shorei-ryu, can you tell me about that style of karate?

[granmasterchen]

maintain focus....dont look around.

 

and work on the form of all your techniques in your particular kata/form or whatnot....make sure that your stances are good, punches, thumbs aren't hanging out, fists are tight, make sure that each movement is clear, and the judges are able to see what you are doing, also intensity, imagine it is a real fight, and you are being attacked and countering attacks...like in a real fight...also make sure you spend the same amount of time on each technique...dont run through some punches and go slower on others...and make loud kias! kihap or what ever noise you prefer...as long as it is non offensive.....lol

[dinesh]

You have to be dedicated to it , and take the kata peice by peice. It took me about 2 months of good training before I went to a tournament semi confident about a kata...got matched up against the #1 person for kata probably in the country and lost.....heh

 

I've also helped someone formulate a weapons kata in 5 minutes , just going through some random movements and telling him how to throw in what where etc, and he took 2nd at a tournament recently.

 

He really did it kinda crazy IMO,and the funniest thing was someone walked up to him and told him it looked very traditional, very japanese , lol