Team Kata

[papaschtroumpf]

A couple of us are interested in forming a kata team for the local shotokan spring tournament. None of us has ever done tram kata before. any pointers?

[faido]

when my team and i were getting ready for our first competition our sempai recommended we stand as close to our kata formation as possible during kijon and try to work on our synchronization there, as well as work through all the kata we know together. both of these helped us to be more in tune with one another and our sense of group timing. we took first in the competition.

[Drgnslyer]

Another thing with team kata...in my own opinion, avoid 'messy' or 'complicated' formations when moving up to your starting points on the mat...

The one time I've competed in team kata, I was an orange belt, with a green, and a blue belt in our group...our kata was *spelling?* ni sei shi (renshikan karate/chito-ryu)

we spent days infront of large mirrors as a group going through the motions, and during initial training did each technique to a count, just to feel the rythim of us doing everything in sync.

We ended up doing the same kata as a group with two black belts, and a brown...they had a very complicated setup to their start positioning on the mats, and one of them was half a step out during that initial process, and it threw their group off at the beginning.

When I went up in our group, we were already in position, and simply walked up to our spots, announced our kata, and let our training take over from there. We didn't get the gold, but in my opinion, we stole the bronze from the two black belts and the brown.

Simplicity is wonderful, not the only reason why we placed...but it certenly helped.

[ncole_91]

I have seen some of my seniors do team Kata (Kanku Dai) and it really looks awesome. One thing you need to do is Breath, when you breath you let everyone else know where you are in the kata, it really helps.

Good luck with it

[faido]

Breathing, I hadn't thought of that but now that you mention it you are right. When ever I was facing away from my team I did listen for their breathing to let me know where they were in the kata. Thanks for pointing that out.

[karatekidmatt]

I used to compete in team kata quite often, and we always used to have someone (usually a students parent) sitting in front of us to tell us their opinions, and where he/she thought we were not quite up to scratch.

[NidaninNJ]

A couple of us are interested in forming a kata team for the local shotokan spring tournament. None of us has ever done tram kata before. any pointers?

Does this help? I just ran some Google searches and found it.

http://www.jkasv.com/article0210.html

Nothing new in that article, but I think it sums it up pretty nice.

I've been on winning kata teams before. In a few of the tournaments, we practiced together before for MONTHS until we had it down. In a couple of tournaments, we didn't practice at all before and got lucky...or not as the case may be... lol.

Use a video camera to help you if you can. You can see things from another angle that way.

[Killer Miller]

Four critical tips to train for team kata:

1. Practise slow and understand each movement/technique. Must use breathing timing.

2. All three of you come to the same agreement and understanding of the kata application. Then all three visualize the same application of technique. If all three have different interpretations of the kata, you will never become in sync.

3. Practice breathing slowly, then as fast as practical for the application. Keep repeating, slow, then fast.

4. Learn the kata together as "phrases" and have syncronized pauses at the ends of various phrases of the kata movement. As if your were a classical guitarist learning a new guitar piece, or as a quartet would learn a new piece.

The inside/outside movements are easy by your self. As a threesome team, it's a whole nother story! You could have three magnificant karate-ka as a solo performer, and rotten together as a team in sync...

- Killer -

[Menjo]

lol i think about a year ago i had to learn a kata(jion) the day of the tournament, we got bronze also.

[NidaninNJ]

2. All three of you come to the same agreement and understanding of the kata application. Then all three visualize the same application of technique. If all three have different interpretations of the kata, you will never become in sync.

I don't see the point of this. Understanding application is great for individual training, to get the most out of the kata practice. But for team kata all you are being judged on is how you look and application is not considered at all by the judges. You really don't have to have a clue about what the applications are. You just have to show good form and have good timing with each other.