Probably an repeatedly-asked question (sorry)

[29Bill]

I have been taking Shorin Ryu for approximately 2 and a half years. I begn taking it as somewhat of a confidence booster... I'm not your biggest guy, but I'm not the smalliest either (about 160 lbs, 6 ft tall, and 33 years of age).

Anyhow, enough history, on to my question... my interest in Karate is knowing how to handle myself in physical conflict. The school I attend is taught by a guy who's been in Shorin Ryu or it's sport version for approximately 30 years and he constantly goes to seminars etc... so I'm sure he's very informed...

The basic elements of what we do seems to consist of: kata, one-steps (attack and response schemes), self-defense (breaking away from grabs and joint locks), and kotiate (sp... body hardening).

I really don't anticipate being physically attacked many times in my life... ( I try to avoid trouble) although I'm not precluding the possibility.. however, I'd like to spend my time in Karate doing things that feel practically useful... and the honest truth is that I've had difficulty finding the practical use of Kata (especilly bo and sai) and get VERY bored with hours of kata. Sometimes I can see a point to kata (maybe in teaching the body to reflexively move certain ways) while at other times it seems a useless waste of time.

I honestly get very bored with kata... I have spent so much time recently practicing a particular bo and empty hand kata... bored .. just so I can move up in belt and learn the other hand to hand stuff. It becomes frustrating at times when I've had friends playfully come up and grab me from behind and nothing I've learned comes to my mind... in that moment... it's like my mind freezes in panic... not that they're actually going to harm me... because they're friends who are just playing... but in frustration that I don't feel that I've learned anything that reflexively comes to mind.

I feel that I spend so much time doing kata... that I don't spend the time in hand to hand interaction... which appears more practically useful. Now, with that said... I don''t mind spending years refining skills... if some sort of hand to hand proficiency is in the future... but I spend a lot of time deliberating the value of what I'm doing (Kata and bored)...

I'd like to take Krav Maga or some other reality based system and spend the vast majority of time in learning and practicing hand to hand and weapon defense skills (instead of spending hours refining a Kata) but I'd have to drive 70 miles to do so... which is not easy considering my schedule. Any suggestions? The choices in my area, as far as I've researched, include: Hapkido, aikido, Kenpo, Shorin Ryu, Judo, and a strip-mall karate school that teaches a lot of flashy sport Tae-kwondo and some Mixed Martial arts/ Grappling (they also offer Hapkido and have a guy who teaches Kali and a guy who used to have his own dojo and claimed to teach Jeet Kune Do concepts).

[Zaine]

Shorin Ryu is a great system, I've dabbled in TKD, take Longfist and Mantis, and Shorin Ryu is still by far my favorite, and it is defiantly a practical system that will teach you to defend yourself if you train it right. Now, when I first started Shorin Ryu I hating kata training. I had joined because I had a bully, and I was tired of getting the crap beat out of me, so I joined to learn how to defend myself, and to me the kata portion just didn't fit in to that mold.

It wasn't until I reached my 6th kyu that I started to realize what katas were worth. I was never the best at katas, but I knew them, and I knew the moves well enough to go through them but there were anything but

"crisp and clean." I was sparring with a bigger guy in class and I realized that I was starting to use moves from the katas that I had learned, and as I was talking to my instructor about it he told me that katas were anything but useless. They teach to drill moves into your head until they become muscle memory. So in a way, it's like the one step drills and the sparring, they're teaching your body to react in certain ways in certain situations. Once I realized that, I started moving faster through the ranks because I got it and I started practicing Shorin Ryu as a whole and not just the things that I liked. I still didn't like practicing katas, although now I love it, but I pushed myself to everyday take some time and go through the list of katas that I knew.

Now, I never had a problem with a weapons kata because I love learning them, but I can see where you're coming from. Look at the bo and the sai as extensions of your body that you are trying to learn to control (what is a kata if not a drill in controlling your body?) and that may make it better. The Okinawan's used the weapons they used to defend against swords because swords were outlawed if you were an Okinawan native, so they improvised. Clearly this is not necessary today, no one is going to come at you with a katana (most likely). So the continued practice of using weapons is part tradition, part control. Once you start using the weapons you learned with some proficiency you are going to be amazed by how much control over your body you have as opposed to how much you did before. Shorin Ryu is rarely going to teach you something that is going to be useless. Stick with it, it's a rewarding system with a great history.

Good luck on your training!

[sensei8]

First off...Welcome to KarateForums.com 29Bill.

Imho, recommending a style of the martial arts is like recommending anything...it'll end of being more of a hit and miss because "tastes" aren't the same from person to person.

However, I think Zaine offers up some concrete recommendations that you might want to explore. Travel is a major concern of joining anything because of time restraints and such, but not out of the question.

If a school has what you want and need, travel just has to be figured into your decision. Will you be challenged across the board for the things that you want and need from the martial arts? If not, another plan is called for.

If you don't want to worry about Kata in any shape, way, and/or form, then Shorin-ryu isn't for you, and for that fact, most, if not all Japanese and Okinawan arts aren't for you.

Any, if my memory serves me correctly, "contact" Karate styles might be out because they're going to have Kata within their curriculum. I don't know of many, if any, Karate styles that don't have Kata in their curriculum.

Do any Chinese styles, they're more than likely going to have "Forms" in their curriculum as well. Most, if not all, Korean styles will more than likely have their share of "Forms" in their curriculum as well.

Can one avoid Kata/Forms in the martial arts? Sure! Boxing doesn't have Kata. MMA doesn't have Kata. Savate doesn't have Kata. Wrestling doesn't have Kata. BJJ doesn't have Kata. Aikido and Judo don't have Kata, to a small extent, although they've Randori training; Kata is the laboratory, while Randori or free practice, is the testing ground. Jeet Kune Do doesn't have Kata. Krav Maga doesn't have Kata. The list of Kata-less forms of the martial arts are out there, one just has to research them and then find them and then are they within ones acceptable travel area.

Good luck with your search and I look forward in hearing what you decide when the time comes.

[29Bill]

Hey, thanks for the welcome and replies. It's not that I'm totally resistant to kata... i mean, I can see the benefit of establishing certain movements within muscle memory, I'd just like an art that either doesn't put as much emphasis on it... or at least incorporates as a meaningful part of the whole... where I curently attend, they speak of bunkai or also the interpretations of the kata... but we rarely practice or spend time learning the interpretations. Kata seems like an independent thing that we just do... and obsess over obscure details of hand positioning etc... the irritating thing is that I've been to several Shorin Ryu schools and everybody teaches the details of the same Kata's differently and have reasons for doing do... so I'm thinking, if everybody has reasons for the variations... then what's the point of being so dogmatic about how it SHOULD be done?... when actually it's all subject to interpretation... using the opening moves of the Wansu kata as an example... in one school, i was taught to place my first two fisted knuckles beneath the first two knuckles of the opposite bladed hand... the other school taught to place the two fisted knuckles beneath the wrist of the opposite hand... I've been corrected on this minor positioning error several times and am unsure of the practical significance of this hair-splitting... and this is only one example of the many positioning errors that are repeatedly obsessed over for hours on end

Edited December 24, 2011 by 29Bill

[sensei8]

I'm of the methodology that Kata without Bunkai is nothing more than a dance; pretty to watch but ineffective and without substance.

[MasterPain]

Our school has moved away from kata mostly for that reason. I had the opportunity to see some good bunkai of Geki-something-Ichi from our organization's more traditional teacher. It gave me a new appreciation of the kata.

And kyusho Jitsu mixed with karate and FMA really hurts.

[sensei8]

MP, I'm glad to see that you've had a chance to see the effective side of Kata; Bunkai. And that what you saw was effective indeed.

As a Karateka, I understand the disdain for Kata for the varied reason(s), but as a proponent of Kata, which includes effective Bunkai/Oyo Bunkai, my temperature reaches a boiling point when I read/hear negative comments about Kata as a whole, and it's because of what has been done in many of the martial art styles that just don't teach Bunkai along with the Kata/Form at all...this I don't like, and this I don't understand. I don't teach dancing, no, I teach Shindokan Karate-do Saitou-ryu.

Ok...I need to lay down for a moment or two.

[Wastelander]

Hey, thanks for the welcome and replies. It's not that I'm totally resistant to kata... i mean, I can see the benefit of establishing certain movements within muscle memory, I'd just like an art that either doesn't put as much emphasis on it... or at least incorporates as a meaningful part of the whole... where I curently attend, they speak of bunkai or also the interpretations of the kata... but we rarely practice or spend time learning the interpretations. Kata seems like an independent thing that we just do... and obsess over obscure details of hand positioning etc... the irritating thing is that I've been to several Shorin Ryu schools and everybody teaches the details of the same Kata's differently and have reasons for doing do... so I'm thinking, if everybody has reasons for the variations... then what's the point of being so dogmatic about how it SHOULD be done?... when actually it's all subject to interpretation... using the opening moves of the Wansu kata as an example... in one school, i was taught to place my first two fisted knuckles beneath the first two knuckles of the opposite bladed hand... the other school taught to place the two fisted knuckles beneath the wrist of the opposite hand... I've been corrected on this minor positioning error several times and am unsure of the practical significance of this hair-splitting... and this is only one example of the many positioning errors that are repeatedly obsessed over for hours on end

People do get very nitpicky about kata and it is usually because they are trying to pass it on the exact way they were taught in order to preserve it, but somewhere along the line, somebody in their lineage changed it to suit there needs--which is exactly what a person is going to do when they have trained for a long time. Have you asked your instructor if you can work more bunkai and have you expressed your concerns about not getting enough practice with the use of bunkai against resisting opponents for self defense applications?

[Zaine]

Have you asked your instructor if you can work more bunkai and have you expressed your concerns about not getting enough practice with the use of bunkai against resisting opponents for self defense applications?

Super solid advice! An instructor is there to instruct and that is no easy task, trust me! There is so much to teach at each rank that it is really easy to let bunkai slip. When I was teaching (unfortunately I moved away from the location, and I miss it) I made sure that my students felt comfortable with coming up to me with any questions they had because I knew that I was likely to go over something to fast or skip something entirely. Instructors love nothing more than to see their students strive to grow and learn, and I'm sure that your instructor is no different. Go up to him and ask for some good bunkai applications, and also ask if there can be a class dedicated to one stepping your forms.

[29Bill]

These are good thoughts... thanks... one more question though... what are your thoughts on the systems that don't use kata? the United States military teaches soldiers to fight and doesn't use kata... they repeatedly teach attack and response attack and response... Is there enough to be learned from Kata that it's worth all the time devoted to it? Didn't Bruce Lee even compare Kata to learning to swim on dry land?

I apologize for this thread... I know that this has to be a discussion that has been hashed out a thousand times on here. Thanks for responding.