Do you still remember and practice the early kata?

[DKizzle]

Exactly. Kenpo has a white belt technique called Japanese Stranglehold. It's really basic, but I'll still see the Black Belts practicing it sometimes, because it's the foundation of many other techniques.

[Saotome]

Korin, people may bite off more than they can chew, but it also depends on your philosphy. I have heard Bruce Lee hated kata.

If you ever pick up "Tao of Jeet Kun Do", you'll see that Bruce did hate kata. He thought that kata was ultimately limiting to the best martial artists, since it trains into the muscle memory a limited set of responses.

He realized that for a lot of martial artists, who wouldn't ever be top-tier world-class level, kata was a good thing. He just knew it wasn't good for him, and didn't think it was good for people with the ability to 'rise above' the programmed moves of kata training.

* * *

Asking if we still do the beginner kata...? Heh. The list would be a lot shorter if you'd asked "Who DOESN'T still do basic katas?". Never good enough...

[kenttiensankari]

In renshinkan you have to know all the lowrank techniques also and then your own level techniques too. Why bothering even to train early katas and kihon if you are going to forget them anyway? It is still easy for me since I have to remember only three katas. But in higher rank there is lot to remember, those guys and girls with black belt truly are worth of their belt. Ive trained a little those highrank techniques and I must say that they were tough ones.

[Freddy]

yea i love Taikyoku Shodan its very complicated http://www.ozwebart.com.au/kua/forms/Taikyoku%20Shodan.gif

[karategirl06]

I agree with all the other posts..

[baronbvp]

Great posts by all. I had to leave my dojo when I went on deployment, then I moved across the country this year. I am switching to kickboxing and BJJ because they are offered nearby. We'll see if I miss doing kata...

[bushido_man96]

I can still do all of my lower rank forms. It is all about memorization, and repetitions.

[Shotokan-kez]

We HAVE to know all the lower belt kata's. For instance in a grading evening, if there is only one or two yellow belts then they will go up with the red belts and be expected to do the red belt kata, because it's below their own.

In black belt gradings we are told to perform a lot of the lower grade kata's. So in our club it's essential to keep training with the lower grade kata's. There are times when i'm practising them and have a little mental block and forget the odd move, personally i feel it's very important to keep up with them.

[cross]

At the club i used to train at it was a grading requirement to perform all kata that you know. Meaning you build up a large number of techniques to memorise. The problem was that bunkai for the said kata was taught on "special" occasions only and glanced over in comparision to the time spent doing the kata.

Thats what you get from styles that focus on techniques over tactics. Enjoyable for some, not my kind of thing.

[baronbvp]

My Shorin-Ryu dojo used kata as a way to determine early belt advancement. Unfortunately, some people who were good, natural fighters were not very good at memorization of a sequence of moves and it took them longer. More absurd is someone with a medium grade belt who knows and can execute some smart kata but can't fight very well.

I don't personally care much about belts. I do care about fighting prowess. If kata help improve that, then practicing them is good. I did get a certain sense of satisfaction from correctly executing them. But I never did them long enough to put my own style signature on any of them.