How do you 'bridge the gap' between kata and a fight?

[RJCKarate]

Hi all,

In karate, I believe it's important to bridge the gap between kata (and subsequently kihon and kumite) and a realistic self-defence situation, or fight.

I was wondering, how do you all do it? Here are some points to generate discussion:

- do you only practice kata?

- do you think jiyu kumite is enough, and does it do the job or not?

- do you do yakusoku or step kumite?

- do you practice bunkai or oyo (analysis and application) and if so, what does this consist of?

- do you find you, or your students actually able to do the bunkai/oyo when pressure testing the movies in a realistic confrontation?

- do you have drills or self-defence responses pulled from the kata that you practice regularly, and what type of attacks are they practiced against?

- what about traditional elements of karate, such as hikite (chambered hand), and how are they utilised to bridge the gap?

- do you do kotekitae or kakie, our anything similar?

To start the conversation off, here is some of my thoughts:

Yes, we practice kata. I believe the kata process is the ‘gateway’ and foundation to realistic fighting. In my opinion, kata forms ways to naturally respond to someone’s attack. The response is generated from the position you are already in, or forced into when attacked, and that illicits the kata ‘to come out’ and form the response. This gives your body (and mind) time to think about what to do next, rather than getting caught out on the initial attack. Your defence from this point consists of your generic skills, which might continue to be kata, but from different ones, or different segments depending on positioning etc.

We do have sets of yakusoku kumite which are practiced both against karate attacks, and then from guard position with realistic attacks. Bunkai and oyo is an integral part of our system, and each student is required to recognise what the move means, rather than just doing the move. We ‘bridge the gap’ by taking segments of the kata and practicing them against realistic attacks (lapel grab, wrist grab, push, haymaker etc and combination of those). We also do forms of kotekitae and kakie which incorporate ‘feeling’ the attack, and then responding in a natural way. All of our drills and responses are related to kata, kihon or kumite and we don’t have separate self-defence sets, as I think this only adds too much to learn. We incorporate the use of all traditional elements of karate in our self-defence situations, such as hikite and use it as a pulling hand, guarding hand, and much more and don’t just use it as just an opposite move to the other hand to generate power.

Throughout our lessons, I always make reference to segments in the kata and what their application is. Sometimes we go into practicing it as a drill, sometimes it’s simply to highlight the point to allow the students to visualise it. We don’t practice jiyu kumite in the way most karate styles look at it. We do a form of free kumite, but it’s usually where one person is designated the ‘aggressor’ and one the ‘defender’ and it is based around a scenario. Our lessons are generally half kata, and then half application of kata.

Look forward to everyone’s thoughts and continuing to contribute to the discussion,

RJC.

[Wastelander]

We do practice kata, and it is very important to how we teach, but it isn't always part of class because kata practice is really for when you don't have a partner, so if you are in class and have partners you should be spending time working with them. The application of kata is very important to our karate, and we explore it often. Everyone starts off with simple applications the can be learned and applied quickly, and over time we work into more difficult applications.

My instructor likes to start off working the movements in the air (extracted from the kata) first, then we move on to non-resistant partner drills with it, then we include padwork, and then move onto resistant drills or sparring. If I'm perfectly honest, I wish we would do more resistant drills than we do, but it gets a bit difficult to do it safely with beginners and teens. Scenario training along the lines of what John Titchen does with his DART program is something I would really love to do. As it is, I can make most applications work against a resistant partner, and my instructor can make all of the ones he teaches work against a resistant partner, but every technique doesn't fit every student so we are open to adaptation and cross-training.

We do practice 7 yakusoku kumite sets, because they are required curriculum in our organization. They have a couple good techniques scattered in them, but I find practicing them in their entirety to be a waste of time. Our sparring for adults/teens is medium-contact, all targets legal and grappling allowed, but we have our younger students stick to point sparring. Supplemental drills like kakie, ude tanren, hubud, lop sau, etc., are thrown in on occasion, but not all that often. Hikite is definitely an important technique in our applications, though, so I would like to do more live trapping practice and kakie-type drills.

[Groinstrike]

Sparring....a lot.

[RJCKarate]

re Groinstrike

That's good - but what type of sparring is it, could you expand?

[cheesefrysamurai]

- do you only practice kata?

Yes. Its essential for progression. I consider it more of form practice and moving mediation then training for a fight

- do you think jiyu kumite is enough, and does it do the job or not?

No, jukumite isnt enough in my opinion. But it helps.

- do you do yakusoku or step kumite?

We upper body and lower yakusoku. My teacher

- do you practice bunkai or oyo (analysis and application) and if so, what does this consist of?

Yes we practice bunkai, basically he shows some prearranged punches and kicks that line up with the kata. Its cool stuf

- do you find you, or your students actually able to do the bunkai/oyo when pressure testing the movies in a realistic confrontation?

I am not sure

- do you have drills or self-defence responses pulled from the kata that you practice regularly, and what type of attacks are they practiced against?

usually defending punches and kicks, and pushes

- what about traditional elements of karate, such as hikite (chambered hand), and how are they utilised to bridge the gap?

?

- do you do kotekitae or kakie, our anything similar?

We do kakie. Helps to focus on the tanden, to understand changes in movement of your opponent builds up punching muscles too.

[CredoTe]

I was wondering, how do you all do it? Here are some points to generate discussion:

- do you only practice kata?

- do you think jiyu kumite is enough, and does it do the job or not?

- do you do yakusoku or step kumite?

- do you practice bunkai or oyo (analysis and application) and if so, what does this consist of?

- do you find you, or your students actually able to do the bunkai/oyo when pressure testing the movies in a realistic confrontation?

- do you have drills or self-defence responses pulled from the kata that you practice regularly, and what type of attacks are they practiced against?

- what about traditional elements of karate, such as hikite (chambered hand), and how are they utilised to bridge the gap?

- do you do kotekitae or kakie, our anything similar?

We have a pretty balanced regimen between kata, kihon, and kumite, but most of our training during a given lesson probably falls under kihon. Our kihon is structured in two main ways: 1) standing or walking drills that combine elements, waza, bunkai/oyo, movements, etc from kata; 2) standing or walking drills that "warms students up", usually to get them ready for a particular set of moves that we want to cover for the lesson. In either case, we utilize bags, target mitts, striking shields, etc to help develop full power execution and get a feeling for what it's like to strike a resistive object with full power.

After going through standing or walking kihon as individuals, whether the kihon was type "1" or type "2" from explanation above, we pair them with partners to practice the moves just performed during kihon. These "partner drills" are first practiced slowly with controlled power to develop proper technique. As we work through these partner drills, we gradually speed up and apply more power. This approach makes a good transition into step-sparring or Yakusoku Kumite, depending on which way we want to go for the lesson. Sometimes we substitute step-sparring or Yakusoku Kumite with kakie-like drills (I wish we did true kakie... )

We train in kata only a little less than kihon. There's two avenues we take for kata training, also, both equal in training value for us. First, we have our students perform kata for purposes of observing their accuracy, development, and endurance. We like to have them perform kata in succession without much downtime in between to see how well they still do when they start tiring out (do they stay true to form, power, etc, or do they get sloppy?). Second, we have "kata days" in which we, as a class or in groups, do in-depth instruction in bunkai/oyo. I suspect this way of kata training is common with a lot of dojos.

We train in kumite the least (unfortunate IMHO), and we have several approaches to this. We don't divide it into step kumite, jiyu kumite, etc (step-sparring and Yakusoku Kumite are more like partner drills / kihon for us, so that's where we put them). Our kumite could be placed in three categories or methods, with the third being a combination of the first two: 1) kumite / sparring using all stand-up waza, elements, movements, etc with purpose of simulating a real situation (NOT tournament sparring) and to develop ma-ai ; 2) "no strikes allowed" kumite using elements of the traps, locks, bars, throws, grappling that we train in to develop these skills (gleaned from both bunkai/oyo from Matsubayashi-Ryu kata and my instructor's skill in these elements); 3) kumite that combines methods 1 and 2 - "no holds or strikes barred" kumite executed with some control to work on the "full cycle" of real situations / fights. This "full cycle" starts from the usual stand-up distance sparring, then using skills developed with ma-ai, move into opponents to in-fighting (Iri kumi) techniques (elbows, knees, short-range punches, shutos, or other strikes), then finish with locks, bars, takedowns, grappling, etc (tegumi / tuite). It does take several months to a year or more for our students to really start using waza in kumite according to bunkai/oyo; it may only be a few waza here and there at first, but that's the way it starts for them. Our advanced kyus might be able to perform half-a-dozen or a dozen waza as shown from bunkai/oyo.

Key in all of our training, we instruct our students to keep a simple question in their minds whenever they're training: Does what I'm doing make fighting sense? When bunkai/oyo get too complicated or tedious, or to look cool in a tournament, then chances are they don't make fighting sense and will not work on the street (i.e. they'll get their rear-ends handed to them). Simple is better, simple is more direct and will work in a real situation.

[sensei8]

do you only practice kata?

Yes!!

do you think jiyu kumite is enough, and does it do the job or not?

Nothing is enough, and I'll never learn enough before I die. There's always something new/different/effective to learn.

do you do yakusoku or step kumite?

Yes!!

do you practice bunkai or oyo (analysis and application) and if so, what does this consist of?

Yes!!

-

do you find you, or your students actually able to do the bunkai/oyo when pressure testing the movies in a realistic confrontation?

Yes...and then some!!

do you have drills or self-defence responses pulled from the kata that you practice regularly, and what type of attacks are they practiced against?

Yes!! We cover quite a large gambit to address many, many types of attacks...to large to post here. Just suffice it to say...we address quite a lot!!

- what about traditional elements of karate, such as hikite (chambered hand), and how are they utilised to bridge the gap?

Yes!! We teach that a technique, as seen in kata, isn't always what it appears to be. A chamber is a lock/throw/etc when applied during Bunkai/Oyo. The gap MUST, imho, be gapped, otherwise, ineffectiveness absorbs the practitioner.

do you do kotekitae or kakie, our anything similar?

Yes!!