Do you compartmentalize your art?

[The BB of C]

I wouldn't consider it compartmentalizing. But Isshinryu is mostly based on kata. The experience I had was to learn the kata for purpose of drilling basics, footwork and building endurance. Kata was then applied using Bunkai. I learned about how different moves can be translated a dozen different ways into application of kata. Master Motobu believed there were over a hundred ways to apply Naihanchi alone.

Though we didn't do this in the school where I learned Isshinryu, I believe I'd like to do this should I ever have my own school. The sparring would be based around self defense and actually applying the Bunkai to sparring.

So it is all intertwined. But sometimes one or the other does need to be worked individually.

[ps1]

I wouldn't consider it compartmentalizing. But Isshinryu is mostly based on kata. The experience I had was to learn the kata for purpose of drilling basics, footwork and building endurance. Kata was then applied using Bunkai. I learned about how different moves can be translated a dozen different ways into application of kata. Master Motobu believed there were over a hundred ways to apply Naihanchi alone.

Though we didn't do this in the school where I learned Isshinryu, I believe I'd like to do this should I ever have my own school. The sparring would be based around self defense and actually applying the Bunkai to sparring.

So it is all intertwined. But sometimes one or the other does need to be worked individually.

So anytime you're drilling bunkai, you're practicing the application of Kata. This is still training kata. When you break it down and are just doing pieces such as footwork and individual strikes, that's kihon or drilling. Kumite is any point where two foes practice techniques (compliantly or otherwise) on one another.

To me, "self defense" is trained either as movements from kata or in kumite format.

[Liver Punch]

I replied with yes, but I think a more appropriate response would be "sometimes." That is that, 90% of the time, we're training wrestling for example, with the threat of knees, or striking with the threat of take-downs. That other 10% of the time, however, it's behooving to break things down and ignore everything else for the sake of betterment of that specific technique.

[Wastelander]

We do have specific "self defense techniques" that are just short response drills to certain types of attacks, so in that way we do compartmentalize. That said, just about every technique in those drills comes from kata and we do explain that. The idea behind this is that it can take a long time to break down a kata and become proficient at its application and being able to use the application in self defense, but we can teach some basic defensive techniques from the kata that they can use right away.

But if it's just broken down kata, why not call it Kata. Even call it kihon. Why displace it from the rest of the art and create a new label?

Well, I don't feel that it particularly matters what you call it. Most people who train martial arts are recreational martial artists and they don't really care what it is called as long as it helps them reach their goals (fitness, self defense, competition, etc.) and so if you told them they were going to work kata and then just had them work a small piece of it against an attacker, maybe they would make the connection and maybe they wouldn't. If you tell them you're going to work self defense techniques and that the techniques they are working come from kata, they don't have to make the connection because you just told them what it was. I suppose it is kind of silly, but that's just the way I see it

[bushido_man96]

We do have specific "self defense techniques" that are just short response drills to certain types of attacks, so in that way we do compartmentalize. That said, just about every technique in those drills comes from kata and we do explain that. The idea behind this is that it can take a long time to break down a kata and become proficient at its application and being able to use the application in self defense, but we can teach some basic defensive techniques from the kata that they can use right away.

But if it's just broken down kata, why not call it Kata. Even call it kihon. Why displace it from the rest of the art and create a new label?

I don't like this component of the style I am in. If we have "self-defense" techniques, then what did we spend the whole class working on? Curriclum should have a function other than providing learning material for the next rank test, in my opinion. I like to pick some things out of forms that I could make work into applications, but I rarely get to experiment with them with partners. I think separating them out all the time takes away from what the style could really be.

[wagnerk]

Can't speak for MA training outside the UK, however in the UK you will get the occasional self-defence lessons per year. The law in the UK is complex especially when you also have EU law involved, eg even though you may be the person being attacked you can face legal action if you use more than "reasonable force" against an attacker.