mouko_yamamoto Posted July 25, 2003 Posted July 25, 2003 what are these kata things I been hearing about? Tang Soo Do/Tae Kwon Do....Oh yeah, and unofficially...KENJUTSU"There are five possible operations for any army. If you can fight, fight; if you cannot fight, defend; if you cannot defend, flee; if you cannot flee, surrender; if you cannot surrender, die." ~ Sima Yi
Kirves Posted July 25, 2003 Posted July 25, 2003 In many arts there are choreographed fights, predetermined combinations of basic techniques. In karate these are done solo (against imaginary opponents) and they call them kata. They last for a couple of minutes and include about a dozen or more imagined pre-choreographed fights against imaginary opponents, much like shadow boxing but with karate basic techniques (block, punch, turn, block, kick...). In Japanese arts (jujutsu, bujutsu, aikijujutsu, judo...) they use short two man forms, also called kata, where there's a short pre-choreographed fight between an attacker and the defendant. These are used to train the basic techniques when the students are not skilled enough for free sparring, or when the techniques used are too dangerous. In Chinese kungfu they use both, the long solo forms like karate kata, and also long two man forms (dozens or hundreds of moves but with a real opponent as in Japanese kata), but the Chinese have their own word for them, kata is a Japanese word. Usually it is translated in English as kata=form. You can see some karate kata (solo forms) performed in pictures and in video at: http://www.kyokushinkata.com/ (click on kata, then choose a kata, then click video...) PS. Some people can't get by that link, so they go there from here: http://www.kyokushin.at/deutsch/kata.htm
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