Too much speed in kata

[sensei8]

In our affiliation, karateka's are timed performing kata as our senior Dan grades set an allocated amount of time one the practitioner begins the movements.

I think this is good for time management and regulation during kata; it also is good for bunkai.

I've seen that in the JKA! Each Kata in the JKA syllabus has a determined time that said Kata must be performed in; not too fast and not too slow, but just exact.

In Shindokan, our Soke was more concerned in the exacting entirety of each movement/technique, than he was with how long a Kata should or shouldn't take to execute from start to finish.

[bushido_man96]

I think there is some good that can come out of this kind of time regulation, but I also think that a certain amount of forms performance is the practitioner's interpretation of it, including timing, rhythm, and technique combinations. So, some is good, but too much regulation can take away from the practitioner's expression.

[Titanium]

Agreed, I am a member of the UKKW which is timed kata, this is Wado.

The KUGB dedicate karate to form only and no timings are in place.

My personal thought is, form first, speed second.

[ninjanurse]

Technique first, then speed. Technique + Speed = Power

[SaiFightsMS]

We focused more on having beginning students learn their katas with power rather than speed. Moving slower and focusing on the correct technique done with power helped build strength and endurance. Speed increased later as a natural result after several years of training and achieving doing kata with strength and power. Those who went for speed first were rather lacking in power. The videos linked for examples were also wonderful examples of the combination of power as well as the speed. I would practice katas at a slow pace focusing on technique then do it at power then repeat the process until I basically ran out of gas when I worked out by myself. The pacing of the kata for me evolved naturally over time and a lot of practice with attention focused first on learning proper technique then adding more and more power as the movements became ingrained.