Rediscovering how to use kata moves in a fight.

[Wastelander]

Wouldn't it be great if once and for all we could pick apart a kata and know exactly how to execute all the techniques in it in a fight? Would it be worth while if we picked one of the Pinan katas (since they seem to be so universal) and broke each move down until there was some majority opinion on each and every move? Some applications of kata are obvious, some are mysterious and it makes sense to me to put our collective heads together to figure them out.

I understand what you are trying to do and I know you're getting irritated by people not replying in the way you want, but the concept is flawed--many of the techniques in kata were intended to be used in multiple ways so to specify that "this is the one and only way to use that technique from that kata" isn't going to work. Take the low block/high block combinations at the end of Pinan Shodan, for example--the very same movements can be used to:

Block a kick, break someone's grip on your wrist, strike someone in the groin or bladder, dislocate someone's elbow, catch a kick and break the ankle, or throw someone (depending on the move prior, of course) and then you can follow that up by blocking a punch, breaking someone's grip on your shirt, striking with the forearm/elbow, or break someone's grip on your wrist from behind you--and those are just the examples I can think of off the top of my head as a kyu-ranked student.

In other words--to say that there is only one application for a given movement is to cut out a very large section of your art and would be similar to saying that there is only one way to remove a bottle cap.

All that said, it is possible to form "standard bunkai" to a degree, but that is usually reserved for dojo curriculum to make it easier to teach and grade people. My dojo back in Illinois, for example, has standard bunkai for every kata that everyone has to know, but it is very base level bunkai. A block is a block, a kick is a kick, a punch is a punch, a throw is a throw. It isn't until you've been training for a couple years that you start getting introduced to other ways of using the very same or very similar movements so that you can apply different bunkai. This is a good way to teach beginners solid, standard applications for basic techniques but it doesn't do much for the more advanced students. If you are wanting to come up with a list of standard applications then I think the only way for you to really do that is to do the most basic level application for each technique but even then there are some techniques that will be open to interpretation. I don't think it's going to be very easy for you to get a general consensus from people on one use for each technique because different people are going to apply it differently, so the closest you will get is the "a block is a block, a strike is a strike" method.

[brickshooter]

Wouldn't it be great if once and for all we could pick apart a kata and know exactly how to execute all the techniques in it in a fight? Would it be worth while if we picked one of the Pinan katas (since they seem to be so universal) and broke each move down until there was some majority opinion on each and every move? Some applications of kata are obvious, some are mysterious and it makes sense to me to put our collective heads together to figure them out.

On youtube, this Cannuck gives me a pretty good interpretation of Kata apps.

[sojobo]

Wouldn't it be great if once and for all we could pick apart a kata and know exactly how to execute all the techniques in it in a fight? Would it be worth while if we picked one of the Pinan katas (since they seem to be so universal) and broke each move down until there was some majority opinion on each and every move? Some applications of kata are obvious, some are mysterious and it makes sense to me to put our collective heads together to figure them out.

IMO kata are not designed to deliver the answers this way.

Kata are designed to train correct body mechanics/movement and as a result power.

If you want to get good at the techniques that are in the Kata - you have to train them repetitively as part of a different model (well in most modern schools anyway).

The best way to do this is by joining a good Jujutsu club - you will not get it from your Karate club.

Sojobo

[Ueshirokarate]

Wouldn't it be great if once and for all we could pick apart a kata and know exactly how to execute all the techniques in it in a fight? Would it be worth while if we picked one of the Pinan katas (since they seem to be so universal) and broke each move down until there was some majority opinion on each and every move? Some applications of kata are obvious, some are mysterious and it makes sense to me to put our collective heads together to figure them out.

On youtube, this Cannuck gives me a pretty good interpretation of Kata apps.

I actually believe that these moves in Pinan Shodan and Pinan Yondan are a good example to look at. There are so many interpretations on them, yet as we train them using cat stance, I believe they are training a hip throw as in this video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RLM6C9ICQo8

I think it is completely impractical in any fight to block with both arms at once. That said, in one the hands are in a fist and in the other they are open hand. What do you think?

[Dobbersky]

Some excellent discussions on this topic, I feel that none are incorrect or disagree with any of you

I use Pinan/Heian Sandan (parts of) when sparring with traditional karateka!

Try it you'll surprise yourself

OSU!

[Ueshirokarate]

Some excellent discussions on this topic, I feel that none are incorrect or disagree with any of you

I use Pinan/Heian Sandan (parts of) when sparring with traditional karateka!

Try it you'll surprise yourself

OSU!

Anyone who has trained for a while would certainly use parts, but there are parts that you don't. So why? What is their application? This is the point of the thread.

[Dobbersky]

Some excellent discussions on this topic, I feel that none are incorrect or disagree with any of you

I use Pinan/Heian Sandan (parts of) when sparring with traditional karateka!

Try it you'll surprise yourself

OSU!

Anyone who has trained for a while would certainly use parts, but there are parts that you don't. So why? What is their application? This is the point of the thread.

You question tends too fall into my topic/thread - Kata, What's it for!

I use Ashihara. Kata so ours are Modern Jissen kata so everything in our Kata CAN be used in sparring or Real Fighting

Generally to everyone I suppose its how Open or Closed your mind is on what kata is about. If you think Kata is useless quit Karate and take up Freestyle or Kickboxing instead

[sensei8]

Wouldn't it be great if once and for all we could pick apart a kata and know exactly how to execute all the techniques in it in a fight?

This is all I do; over and over and over and over and over...

Would it be worth while if we picked one of the Pinan katas (since they seem to be so universal) and broke each move down until there was some majority opinion on each and every move?

Majority opinion? In Kata? I don't see that happening because we're all different across the board. To many things to lose and very little to gain concerning the majority. What's effective? What's not effective? The summation of 'why' is to the summation of 'because'!!

Some applications of kata are obvious, some are mysterious and it makes sense to me to put our collective heads together to figure them out.

I dream for the day when our collective heads can figure them out, but, imho, that day is far away.

[todome]

For the most part I don't fret about the immediate practicality of any one move in kata. You don't have to have a lot of schoolyard scraps under your belt to be justified in thinking that a large part of what's being practiced isn't going to happen on the street.

Thinking the moves of kata will never see the light of day outside the dojo and that's the end of that misses the point. In fact, I see a lot of styles, including my own, losing track of what the bankai is about.

Take Hangestu, for instance. Learning how to do that half-moon leg swing properly isn't about learning how stomp. The bankai is/was taught as it was, I believe, to communicate to the karateka the lines of force that can be generated and should be realized with practice. Once you start to catch on to how the transition from inside pressure stance (hangetsu) to outside pressure stance (kokustu-dachi) affords such control you can actually be pressing down on an arm or a leg without concern for balance, you discover once again these "unpractical" moves that have been handed down and refined from generation to generation would be a shame to lose.

[sojobo]

The problem is the diversity of the art – and the differences in approach between styles.

IMO you are asking too big a question, I,m not sure you will get very clear answers.

Take my style (Wado-ryu) for example, we do not utilise the process of “Bunkai”, but that doesn’t mean to say that the techniques that are found within Pinan nidan have no combative function – far from it. However, to grease the wheels of the thread – let’s try this:

In our Kata pinan Nidan – the last 4 moves are demonstrated in the kata as nukite strikes in shiko-dachi this. In application however this represents an exercise in Irimi and the opening of the body.

This action itself has a number of possibilities. On an “omote” level the leading arm deflects an incoming punch by sliding along the punch as it is travelling toward its target. The key to making it work is the rotation of the body (double moment) at the point of performing the block.

This is however still rudimentary, as under the surface – it is the entire body movement that is more useful, when combined with correct “ma-ai” (distance) “sen” (timing) and combative processes such as “Noru”)(riding techniques) etc. When you get to this level – you’ll be cooking on gas!!

Is this more what you are after?

Sojobo.