Adjusting other MA katas...

[some0ne]

Just my two cents worth....

An orange belt needs to be concentrating on the existing materials taught by his instructor. I highly doubt that Kain has perfected his (her?) existing material to the point where he can consider experimenting with other styles' katas.

IMO, until he is brown or preferably black belt he needs to focus on the materials that he is taught to the best of his ability, doing many repetitions over and over, and once he has developed the skill and understanding that only time and hard work can provide, then he will have achieved a level of perspective to "adapt" other kata.

Kain, though I applaud your desire to better understand karate, at orange belt you simply don't know enough about your style to "adapt" other kata to Shotokan. Ask your sensei what he/she thinks, and I'll bet you get a similar answer. In fact, you should have asked him before you asked us.

With respect,

Sohan

I have to agree with this and was going to post something along the same lines.

I had a sensei that bombarded me with many kata too soon(IMO, anyway)before I could really get one down. He was a great sensei for Kumite but the quality of kata wasn't where I wanted it to be but the quantity sure was. Maybe he fealt I was ready, who knows? I did what he told me to but what I'm trying to say is that I had enough material, kata wise, to be going to other styles to learn kata and trying to adapt it.

[vashogun]

Kain.

To many times, people leave out the last word in the term martial ART.

I think what you want to do is wonderful. Play. experiment. Do whatever you think will help you learn. Unless your sensei is unhealthily controlling he won't have a problem and what does it matter? You can do this in your own time. Your sensei is a teacher and a guidepost not your master or your god. It is an art. Express yourself. Learn all you can.

That said it is good to concentrate on the course material. But worse case scenario is you learn a better way to do what your doing now later on. I am amazed this subject has so much controversy.

You certainly DO have business as an ornage belt learning from other styles around you and adapting it to the one you love.

Remember something, only you are going to know whats best for you. Everyone thinks their style and their way is the best. Ignore it. Your not learning in a millitary setting do whatever you like. If you love it, do it.

I would love to hear how this turns out for you and what you learn from it.

[Shorin Ryuu]

Kain.

To many times, people leave out the last word in the term martial ART.

I think what you want to do is wonderful. Play. experiment. Do whatever you think will help you learn. Unless your sensei is unhealthily controlling he won't have a problem and what does it matter? You can do this in your own time. Your sensei is a teacher and a guidepost not your master or your god. It is an art. Express yourself. Learn all you can.

No offense, but I disagree with that perspective 100%. The "art" in Martial Arts is the same "art" in Sun Tzu's Art of War. It isn't meant to be "art" in an aesthetic sense, but in the sense of something requiring skill. They don't use the same Chinese characters, of course, but that is the meaning they are trying to portray.

When aesthetics becomes a reason for doing something, your karate will suffer.

On the other hand, I am a little cynical. I think most of even well-intentioned traditional martial artists have lost the original meanings behind and methods of executing their kata anyway.

[lordtariel]

When aesthetics becomes a reason for doing something, your karate will suffer.

I sort of agree with this. If you're doing something for usefulness in martial arts, then aesthetics has no part in it. If you're doing it for your ENTERTAINMENT though, then it's no big deal.

[JWLuiza]

I think VASHOGUN was trying to say, that to develop skill you have to experiment, try new things out in order to create a living art and be more than just a technician.

Koryu students practice kata and waza and use their technical ability to develop an artistic (skillful) understanding of how their weapon works... Same should be true of the karateka.

[NinTai]

Kain.

To many times, people leave out the last word in the term martial ART.

I think what you want to do is wonderful. Play. experiment. Do whatever you think will help you learn. Unless your sensei is unhealthily controlling he won't have a problem and what does it matter? You can do this in your own time. Your sensei is a teacher and a guidepost not your master or your god. It is an art. Express yourself. Learn all you can.

That said it is good to concentrate on the course material. But worse case scenario is you learn a better way to do what your doing now later on. I am amazed this subject has so much controversy.

You certainly DO have business as an ornage belt learning from other styles around you and adapting it to the one you love.

Remember something, only you are going to know whats best for you. Everyone thinks their style and their way is the best. Ignore it. Your not learning in a millitary setting do whatever you like. If you love it, do it.

I would love to hear how this turns out for you and what you learn from it.

I'll have to agree with Shorin Ryuu.

Even “ART” has rules.

Poems are judged buy set standards of rhyme and meter, painting and sculptures are divided into categories based on realism, medium and so forth. A great sonnet would be a horrible haiku. We even judge who can or can’t sing on American Idol.

“Your sensei is a teacher and a guidepost not your master or your god.”

Yes, and if you go against your teacher’s instructions or wishes when why go to them at all?

[rant] This seems to be a pervasive attitude in the U.S., “If it feels good it is good…”

and so with that standards and quality go out the window. [/rant]

It’s pretty simple in my view. You change the way a kata is done you lose what it has to teach.

People often point to Bruce Lee as their inspiration to explore and come up with their own interpretation of things but they miss 2 big points:

1. He completely misinterpreted the meaning of the arts he was bashing.

2. He was not that good in Wing Chun so he had to make up for his shortcomings.

I think I’ve reached the point where I’m just rambling. I’ll collect my thoughts and maybe post something more cohesive later.

[bushido_man96]

How do we know that Bruce Lee was misinterpreting the arts he learned? He may not have liked the way things were presented, and felt that time could be better spent on other facets of the arts. The same goes with many other styles that don't incorportate forms/katas.

The Martial Arts are not the same that they were when they were conceived, no matter what style we look at. People get so caught up in what a form is that they forget what else there could be. They worry about "tainting" their "style" and don't want to go against the grain. In the end, it stagnates learning.

I am not a proponent of what I am going to say, but think about it. Take two individuals. Put one in a Martial Art to study for two years. Put the other on the street to fight for two years. Who will be more the Martial Artist at the end of the test period?

[Shorin Ryuu]

I am not a proponent of what I am going to say, but think about it. Take two individuals. Put one in a Martial Art to study for two years. Put the other on the street to fight for two years. Who will be more the Martial Artist at the end of the test period?

I don't believe in just saying "put the other on the street to fight" as a valid argument. All too often people tend to use the term "street" to be some sort of ultimate authority in training matters without carrying things to their conclusion.

If someone were to fight on the street for two years, what exactly would that entail? Would they have a bar fight once a week as their practice? Two or three times a week? At some point, wouldn't they have to have some sort of training by someone NOT out to hurt them in order to facilitate the learning process or to coach them?

Certainly being in fights like that would expose them to the reality of violence, but they can't learn things like the mechanics of power generation when being thrown in such a confusing situation. They would need the extreme luck of winning nearly all their confrontations in order to continue their training. Alternatively, they would have to be fighting people who really take it easy on them, because I'm assuming the kind of street fighting you are talking about easily leads to multiple concussions and broken bones. The people that lose these street fights usually end up in the hospital; not what I would call an atmosphere conducive to training. It'd be a trial and error method of learning, but messing up might just end all experimentation.

In the best case (your hypothetical fighter survived two years without any debilitating injuries or brain trauma), you'll have a fighter who keeps his cool under pressure, but he may not be better than the "average brawler" in terms of fighting skill because he hasn't had training to really emphasize the basics of how to generate power or to dominate distance so he can close in and finish the fight.

[NinTai]

“How do we know that Bruce Lee was misinterpreting the arts he learned? He may not have liked the way things were presented, and felt that time could be better spent on other facets of the arts. The same goes with many other styles that don't incorportate forms/katas. “

From my reading Lee did not study many of the arts he bashed in his books and teachings. As for his “misinterpreting” you just need to look at his original book when he talks about all the “traditional” stances and how they would not be effective ways of fighting. If he had taken the time to learn the systems he would have understood that you don’t “fight” from these stances (another thread in and of itself) they simply represent a body position that occurs during a fight, you are not standing like that waiting for an attack.

”The Martial Arts are not the same that they were when they were conceived, no matter what style we look at. People get so caught up in what a form is that they forget what else there could be. They worry about "tainting" their "style" and don't want to go against the grain. In the end, it stagnates learning.”

You are correct. But the people who made those changes made them for specific reasons and after they reached a certain level of understanding. When Itosu created the Pinans he did so after many years of study, and for the purpose of introducing karate into the school system. He did not just learn a kata because he liked the way it looked then change the moves to resemble moves that were in his style.

”I am not a proponent of what I am going to say, but think about it. Take two individuals. Put one in a Martial Art to study for two years. Put the other on the street to fight for two years. Who will be more the Martial Artist at the end of the test period?”

Who will be the more Martial Artist?? Well, that depends on you definition of a Martial Artist. For me the person who just fought on the street of that time became a fighter and probably nothing more. The person who trained (And here’s the other debate in what, who was the teacher etc) should have not only leaned how to fight but also a “professionalism” or “bearing”.

For example take the professional soldier. If you drop one person in the middle of a war and place the other person in boot camp who will be better in the long run?? From my point of view the person who you “dropped” in the war really only has one goal, to survive. The one that went to boot camp will have learned to survive also but will also have been taught about team work, leadership, etc.

My point about the original post was if your going to take the time to learn another systems kata then do it right and learn what it has to teach you. Don’t try to fix what’s not broken.

[bushido_man96]

I agree, Shorin Ryuu, that street fighting everyday would not be a healthy way of learning to be a warrior. However, what we deem as "traditional" Martial Arts training cannot always be viewed as the ideal, either.

In the best case (your hypothetical fighter survived two years without any debilitating injuries or brain trauma), you'll have a fighter who keeps his cool under pressure, but he may not be better than the "average brawler" in terms of fighting skill because he hasn't had training to really emphasize the basics of how to generate power or to dominate distance so he can close in and finish the fight.

I think that he could be better than the average brawler. I agree that he won't be able to fine tune some things like power generation and the like, as training in a class environment would. However, he will learn so much more than can be taught in a class environment, such as dealing with the adrenaline, and staying cool.

Neither is ideal. I just think that all too often forms are taken too seriously, and are looked at as something that cannot be improved upon or altered.