Too many kata

[Jay]

i have 26 and i know 12 i have been training for 7 years so that is 1 year and about 7 monthas per kata ill hopfully be 40 whwen i kno them all but hopefully ill know them in a few years i teach myself the katas from videos so i know where i am going so when it comes to learning them i am one step ahead of everyone else

[24fightingchickens]

How many kata in a system is too many? I have heard of styles with upwards of 20+ kata. Can anyone truly expect to really learn (meaning bunkai) that many kata and be proficient in them? Would it not be better to concetrate a few kata and really be able to learn them? By learning I don't mean perform them well, I mean to actually be able to apply the bunkai. The true bunkai,not the multiple opponent blocking overhead strikes bunkai.

Goju has twelve,but IMHO I still think that's too many.

It depends on how long you have been doing karate and whether or not you enjoy kata. It also depends on how fast on the uptake you are with new kata.

I tend to view kata as just being scripted basic techniques. Some of the techniques might be "rare" in that they aren't typically done marching up and down the floor (such as the head butt in Gojushiho), but they are still just techniques. Add to that a rhythm of performance, and you have yourself a kata.

When I first started training, I found the syllabus of having to learn Taikyoku and Heian daunting. How could anyone remember all of that. Then came the time when I later thought that those kata plus Kanku and Bassai would be the death of me.

But now it has been a long time, and eventually, I learned all 26 of the Shotokan kata well enough to have someone randomly name any of them and I could do it on an exam or tournament. I'm no Osaka Yoshiharu, but I can hold it together OK.

At some point beyond that one, I started to fall out of love with some of the kata. I guess I never really considered whether or not I liked them. I just thought it would be cool to know all of them, and I wanted that on my resume, so to speak. So I had set out to know them all at some point and finally accomplished it.

These days, I avoid a few of them because I don't really enjoy doing them, and I don't like what they have to offer. They aren't my style.

But I have looked over the fence at Shito-Ryu, and they have some that appeal to me (not all, but some), and I have swiped their Sochin and their Seisan for my use. I enjoy those two kata mightily, and so I keep up with them while Enpi and Gankaku gather dust on the shelf. And good riddence!

I was fascinated by a lot of reading I did on kata a few years ago in a book by Harry Cook called Shotokan A Precise History. In that book, he carefully points to the kata as originally being from China, and each one being "the form" of a style in China. The Okinawans used to go over there and learn them, and the Chinese used to go to Okinawa and teach them.

So, it is not surprising that you will have a favorite kata. Mine is sochin. It suits my style. I also like some others that suit my style. Funny thing is, the Shotokan Sochin is *not* from China but is native to Japan. Funakoshi's son invented it after learning the Shito-Ryu sochin and deciding it wasn't for him but maybe something in it could be used for his own purposes.

Unfortunately, these days, the concept of "personal karate", where you train with whomever you want, and you learn whatever you can from whomever you can, decide what you like, dump the rest, and come up with your own method, has fallen out of favor.

We in the West learned our karate from the post-war Japanese, who had heavily militarized the practice so that people did everything in groups marching around in lines and patterns together trying to be a team instead of the sort of personal instruction the Okinawans enjoyed.

So, I can say that in my experience, early on, it seemed there were too many. Later, it seemed that I raced through them easily. Then later, I thought it was too many again, and I started to whittle some out. I guess in the end I decided that life is short... too short to live it by other people's needs and so I do what I enjoy and work to build my own karate for myself that works the way I do.

[SenseiMike]

Sanchin31:How many kata in a system is too many? I have heard of styles with upwards of 20+ kata. Can anyone truly expect to really learn (meaning bunkai) that many kata and be proficient in them? Would it not be better to concetrate a few kata and really be able to learn them? By learning I don't mean perform them well, I mean to actually be able to apply the bunkai. The true bunkai,not the multiple opponent blocking overhead strikes bunkai.

Goju has twelve,but IMHO I still think that's too many

well, I don't know. I teach 15 kata to reach shodan, that's about twice what most shotokan schools require. But my classes are 1 hour & 15 minutes, at least 3/4 of that are spent on bunkai, no matter your rank, we start with heian shodan and work it up from there. So yes, I think it's possible to perform the bunkai well for 50 or more kata.

[kivikala]

When I first started, I was fortunate to be able to have several teachers who collaborated on my "education". Kata was the life blood of this growth. Between Goju, Shotokan, Pwangainoon, Shitoryu and kobudo I had kata growing out of my ears. I followed the more-is-better method for quite a few years until I realized I can not do ALL of them as well as I should and there isn't enough time in a year to do justice to the whole set. A wise teacher told me to now just pick one and don't worry about the rest. Now my life is happy, and I even have time in my day to watch Inuyasha! Your mileage may vary.

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Join kataholics annoymous... One kata at a time.

[patusai]

How many kata in a system is too many? I have heard of styles with upwards of 20+ kata. Can anyone truly expect to really learn (meaning bunkai) that many kata and be proficient in them? :

IMHO In a lifetime...yes one can be expected to really learn that many kata.

[Fairfax_Uechi]

How many kata in a system is too many? I have heard of styles with upwards of 20+ kata. Can anyone truly expect to really learn (meaning bunkai) that many kata and be proficient in them? Would it not be better to concetrate a few kata and really be able to learn them? By learning I don't mean perform them well, I mean to actually be able to apply the bunkai. The true bunkai,not the multiple opponent blocking overhead strikes bunkai.

Goju has twelve,but IMHO I still think that's too many.

As others have said. Uechi has 8 kata which is plenty to learn. Mastering Sanchin takes a lifetime, and that's the first kata. So I can't imagine what it would talke to master all 8.

[Fairfax_Uechi]

Uechi Ryu has eight kata. That seems to be enough for most people.

Actually it's more than most people will ever learn in Uechi!!!! If you think of the number of people that start Uechi and those who make it to 2, 3 and/or 4 Dan and finally learn all 8, it's very rare. Afterall, at Shodan, most Uechi folks only have learned the first 5 right??!!!

[unknownstyle]

Hohan Soken knew 114 kata, and was proficient. maybe not in all but you can take aspects from a form and apply them to your fighting and make something good. the way i look at it more isn't less, don't just stick to one thing. crosstraining is the best way to keep yourself open minded about it

[marie curie]

I think that loading too many on the front end of training (know 4 katas for yellow, 4 for blue, etc.) may hinder learning all aspects of the art, but as many have pointed out, just having the katas in the system translates to having more for the people who have trained for years to keep working on

[shotokanwarrior]

Another thing to consider, from what I heard. the 5 heian kata were infact one kata and were broken down into 5 and simplified for teaching at school. What funakoshi learned is different from what now is.