The Uselessness of Kata

[NinTai]

Personally I believe the usefulness of something is not dictated by the movement but by the perception, attitude, and mentality of the person doing the movement.

You could teach someone everything they need to know about surviving a street altercation, they could be the fastest, strongest person on the planet. However without the proper mindset and willingness to survive at all costs then what they learned is pointless.

I think when people are taught the "depth" of kata and they have the proper mentality then the usefulness or uselessness of a given movement will be easily seen.

My opinion...

I have heard of this happening to some people who take "self defense" classes.

When they realise the damage that the are about to inflict (i.e. eye gouge)

There tends to be a response of "but that will hurt the person".

The seriousness of the threat just dosen't seem to sink in.

If you can steal someones will to fight, then you win.

[Shorin Ryuu]

Personally I believe the usefulness of something is not dictated by the movement but by the perception, attitude, and mentality of the person doing the movement.

You could teach someone everything they need to know about surviving a street altercation, they could be the fastest, strongest person on the planet. However without the proper mindset and willingness to survive at all costs then what they learned is pointless.

I think when people are taught the "depth" of kata and they have the proper mentality then the usefulness or uselessness of a given movement will be easily seen.

My opinion...

A good point, but let's not forget that even the most well-meaning and fighting-focused student who is learning poor technique (read: bad karate) will not get too much fighting ability out of his or her training.

But I agree with you. There is something to be said about having a fighter's mentality. I once asked my instructor about how people in developed countries who train in martial arts rarely have the opportunity to experience true fighting and how real fighting experience is hard to get (I don't consider sparring to be real fighting experience). He said the answer was simple. "If it walks like a duck, if it looks like a duck... So if you walk like a fighter, if you train like a fighter, if you think like a fighter, then you will be a fighter." Looking at it, most people act like a fighter as opposed to being a fighter.

Give my reguards to Terry.

I will. He's actually living on Okinawa now.

[bushido_man96]

I would have to agree with Shorin Ryuu about the goals of the martial arts being to fight. I don't think that means one should go looking for fights, but it does mean that being able to defend yourself should be a side-effect of the training.

James, you make a good point about the mentality of being in a fight as well. It is a very important trait, and not one that is easily trainable.

There are many good fighters out there that have no technique. However, they know what the fight itself is like, and know what to expect, and how to deal with it. This is very important when it comes to self-defense.

[baronbvp]

There are many good fighters out there that have no technique. However, they know what the fight itself is like, and know what to expect, and how to deal with it. This is very important when it comes to self-defense.

I agree with Bushido Man. I have seen people with beautiful form who can't fight for real. I have seen people with horrible form who fight very well. As much as I'd like to look pretty doing it, I'll take effective and efficient fighting skill over form and kata any day.

[lordtariel]

I feel you need both. Just because you're good in one area doesn't mean you should neglect the other. What you're not good at is just as important as what you are good at. Truth be told, someone who is good at both kata and fighting is probably going to be better than someone who is good at one or the other.

[James Bullock]

I feel you need both. Just because you're good in one area doesn't mean you should neglect the other. What you're not good at is just as important as what you are good at. Truth be told, someone who is good at both kata and fighting is probably going to be better than someone who is good at one or the other.

I completely agree.....100%

[baronbvp]

Truth be told, someone who is good at both kata and fighting is probably going to be better than someone who is good at one or the other.

While I agree with you, I think that if two people of equal skill have two months, two years, or five years to spend training, the one who spends it strictly learning to fight will end up "better" than the one who spends half of it learning kata.

I believe that the old karateka changed the "syllabus," if you will, when they needed warriors faster and couldn't wait for someone to train for a decade. Fewer forms, more sparring. I think two similar guys who started training tomorrow from scratch at age 15, one in MMA and one in a kata-heavy form of karate, would have drastically different skill sets at the end of five years. I would argue that the one who spent it learning to fight in all four areas - striking, trapping, clinching, and grappling - would more likely win over the guy with pretty kata.

[baronbvp]

Of course, I still like kata...

[lordtariel]

You make a good point. I was assuming equal fighters of equal experience. It just went to reason that with experience being equal, the person with the better technique would win.

[Shorin Ryuu]

Again, I take issue with this faulty logic that training kata is not training to fight.

There seems to be some sort of logical error that assumes just because many people who do kata cannot fight, the reason why they cannot fight is because they do kata. There is never even a single thought assigned to the possibility that the kata they do are simply bad or that they don't know how to train their kata properly. I do understand the temptation to mistake correlation with causation. It is a common statistical fallacy.

This thread is about the uselessness of kata as a training tool, regardless of the quality of the kata is. From my perspective, most people are choosing as example people who are supposedly great at kata, but in my mind aren't. What passes for great kata both in jazzed up demonstration kata as well as even the most "traditional" schools usually isn't.

It's not enough to have good forms to learn; you must also have a good teacher. Furthermore, the student must be competent as well.

There is a rather simple analogy that can explain this.

Crap In = Crap Out

In -> System -> Out

Crap -> Good/Bad System -> Crap

Quality -> Bad System -> Crap

Quality -> Good System -> Quality

Statistically, there is a lot of crap out there. But that's not going to convince me to turn down quality when I see it.