Karate without Kata?

[sojobo]

I don't think that simply looking at karate as a systematized form of violence is unwarranted at all, or that this is in some way negative. It's a spelled out method of teaching someone to fight. One can add all they want to it, but before all the connotations with karate came to be in the modern era, it was a method of fighting, codified and systematized by the soldiers using it so they could be better at it. We added everything else to it later.

.

WE - didn't add anything to it, it was there from the beginning.

If anything WE in the west have stripped that away in the ill gotten belief that it was some mumbo jumbo "zen" hippy stuff that was added by people wanting to be more mystic about it.

Not the case.

Sojobo

[/b]

[MasterPain]

If you define a martial art by what it simply IS, then it is a system of violence.

If you instead choose to define it by it's periphery benifits, it is much more. To me, baseball is just a game. I wonder what baseball is to a little league coach, or someone who went to see games with their grandpa when he was still alive.

[sojobo]

Perhaps those benefits Masterpain, shouldn't be viewed as being "peripheral" but rather as one of the main objectives.

Sojobo

[Sainthood]

I have never really thought about the reasoning behind kata or how many there were and sitting here reading posts of people saying their style/dojo have 18 I find myself thinking wow that's a lot of kata! Long story short I went to my dojos site and counted how many kata's we must learn and we need to learn 22!!! That's crazy and I suddenly feel really behind.

[Groinstrike]

Perhaps those benefits Masterpain, shouldn't be viewed as being "peripheral" but rather as one of the main objectives.

Sojobo

Everyone is going to look at things differently. If one wants to find a system of fighting thats what they will find. If someone wants to find something else, they to will find it.

People have different reasons for practicing martial arts, have i found camaraderie and family through martial arts? yes i have, was it my initial goal? No, i wanted to learn how to defend myself. To each his own, Karate means different things to different people.

[tallgeese]

I don't think that simply looking at karate as a systematized form of violence is unwarranted at all, or that this is in some way negative. It's a spelled out method of teaching someone to fight. One can add all they want to it, but before all the connotations with karate came to be in the modern era, it was a method of fighting, codified and systematized by the soldiers using it so they could be better at it. We added everything else to it later.

.

WE - didn't add anything to it, it was there from the beginning.

If anything WE in the west have stripped that away in the ill gotten belief that it was some mumbo jumbo "zen" hippy stuff that was added by people wanting to be more mystic about it.

Not the case.

Sojobo

[/b]

Some one added it.

Ratti and Westbrook, citing Dreager define a martial art, at it's most basic level, as an art developed for battlefield usage. For one soldier to use against another for success in combat. In fact, we can assume as well that unarmed bujitsu was, in all probability, a minor factor in this view of martial development at the time. Being a secondary form of combat on the battlefield.

It wasn't until later, the 1600's and the advent of the Tokugawa period that the martial arts became heavily influenced by the concept of bushido. The concepts might go back to medieval history, but it wasn't codified until the Tokugawa period by Soko and then Tsunetomo in his work, "The Hagakure" (reference the preface of the 10th edition of Nitobe's "Bushido, the Soul of Japan").

Farris, in his text on early Japanese military history "Heavenly Warriors", states that there was a fairly highly evolved level of military technology and corresponding skill with them in Japan already at 500 AD. This would mean that some system of fighting, or their roots, had already developed prior to the time of the first influx of Buddisim into the islands. These were arts for the sake of warfare.

[sojobo]

Wow, when I said it was there in the first place - I wasn't actually going to go as far back as the 6th Century.

I think it would take a better man than me to pull apart something that has undergone over a 1000 years of development.

Sojobo

[tallgeese]

And that thousand years of development is at the heart of my point.

Karate, or it's unnamed forerunner, was developed to fight on the battlefield if a soldier lost his primary weapon (and likely secondary and tertiary weapons as well knowing most fighting types). This became more and more systematized as we move thru history so we could train larger and larger numbers of soldiers.

It adapted as technology and weapons and armor changed, but it retained it's focus on combat.

It moved into a more peaceful (if in fact it was peace enforced at the point of a sword) era where social and political functions made certain changes, probably not overtly, that altered the focus of the arts and infused them with bushido or mandated that movements be hidden in kata. But they were still using combat maneuvers and hence, about fighting.

As we move into a modern era, with newer equipment and learning science understanding, it's a logical step for those practicing to reevaluate and revolutionize the way karate is trained. But again, it's dealing at it's core with ways to hurt another individual. Perhaps not on the battlefield (and perhaps so depending on ones profession) but more likely for self protection.

It's this sort of evolution or revolution that occurs that can, and in some cases has already, led us to forms of karate without kata. But the constant factor is the underlying fact of training for combat. Otherwise it's dance.

It's important to note that this evolution goes both ways. The three traditionally quoted pillars of karate are the kihon, kumite, and kata. We forget that at one time, no one had heard of kumite. It was a relatively modern addition by Funikoshi (the 1920's I believe off the top of my head) that caused quite a bit of controversy at the time of it's addition to the Shotokan syllabus.

But sparring, despite being new at the time and rooted in many reasons, was still centered around teaching one individual to deploy skills against another to cause him harm.

It was a new training modality.

Now, if we look at the evolution of karate and will agree that a training modality can be added due to it's usefulness, it's not a stretch to assume that one can be removed due to the evolution of the martial arts past it.

Again, leading us to karate without kata.

[tallgeese]

Now, just to soften my stance a bit, or at least make sure everyone understands where I'm coming from, if someone wants to be involved in a system that does kata, then by all means they should do so.

There are plenty of good reasons why this might be the case. One might like the historical preservation aspect of it. One might like the aspects of bushido that it embodies. One might view the idea of ferreting out bunkai as a challenge in and of itself. One just might like to do it. All of those and probably a thousand more are legitimate reasons to do kata.

I come at this from the standpoint of learning karate (or any other martial art) from a self defense standpoint. From the core idea that all the trappings of it's evolutionary steps and revolved around-fighting.

When one looks at that I think a solid argument can be made for excising kata from the art. However, I've always said that this is not the only lens thru which one can view martial arts. Nor is it more legitimate than any other. It's just the standpoint that, historically, the martial arts have had at their core.

[sojobo]

Tallgeese, we are both singing from the same Hymn sheet.

Sojobo