most complete fighting art

[MuayThai Fighter]

you don't care for forms because in your opinion, the highest point in martial arts is in a ring of some sort.

 

in that case, the forms have no point fot you.

 

this does not mean that they are useless.

 

we've have been through this with you before and i know that it is pointless talking to you about it because you will not see beyond what your instructor tells you.

 

and no, katas are not to hide techniques? where did you get that useless piece of information?

 

Shows how little you know about martial arts if you can actually say that katas are not to hide techniques.

 

Katas are pre-arranged movements with hidden techniques.

 

My instructor has nothing to do with my way of thinking,unlike traditional arts we don't get brain washed a certain way.I speak my own opinion from my own experience in both Goju Ryu Karate Do and Pankration.

[Drunken Monkey]

um, no they do not hide techniques.

 

it is a catalogue of techniques.

 

everything is there for you to see.

 

if you cannot see then either you are a bit stupid or have a rubbish teacher.

 

seeing as you say your instrutor has no bearing on your opinions then only one reason remains.

[Tal]

this is a matter of opinion, because no one can go back in time and ask the original formulators of the kata if they intended to hide techniques in them or not. many people, including top masters, believe the kata are intended to hide techniques. i believe it too, although i think that with study and an analytical mind you can uncover the hidden techniques. this is still just an opinion, but there are good reasons for it.

 

in old times in japan and okinawa, the MAs were practiced secretly and sometimes illegally. one school didn't want its techniques to leak out because other schools might discover them and gain an advantage. many of the best MA schools then where family run things. a family could trust its most secret techniques to only the family itself and perhaps a few very trustworthy friends. anyone else would have to learn watered down techniques.

 

there were three levels of teaching given; shoden, chuden and okuden. shoden was tought to pretty much anyone; it was the basic generic techniques found among all schools. chuden was more advanced and specialised, and tought only to worthy students. okuden was the highest level knowledge and only given to family and trusted friends.

 

in that time, any sensei would only want students that were worthy of his teaching. to prove his worthiness, a potential student would have to spend long periods of time doing chores and menial tasks. the student might have to spend moths practicing a single technique or stance to prove his determination. this could be happening in the same dojo where the advanced students trained. those practicing okuden level could be just on the other side of the dojo doing their secret techniques. how does the sensei cover up what they are doing so that the unenlightened shoden student cannot make sense of the okuden techniques? if the techniques in the okuden kata were obvious, the shoden student could go and tell them to a rival school.

 

the answer was to hide the real techniques in the kata. any treacherous student could go and show a rival school what he had seen the okuden students doing, but he or the rival school would not know the true meaning of what they had seen, because the real techniques are hidden in the kata.

 

i, and a lot of top masters, believe that the kata are constantly changing perspective. one second they are representing the attacker, and the next they are representing the defender. directional movement in the kata could be interpreted as turning to face attacks from different directions, when in fact it is showing how to orient oneself in relation to an attack. in some kata movements, one of the practicioner's arms could be representing the attacker, while the other represents the defender. parts of the kata could show where, on the practitioner's body, to strike an opponent. a fist could represent a grasp on an opponents wrist, and an open hand a grasp on their elbow. finally, there is the matter of pressure points. a lot of kata movements, especially karate and kempo kata, make a lot of sense when you have pressure points in mind. the angle of the arm movements in the kata are perfect for the manipulation of pressure points, yet this is hidden unless you know of the pressure points before hand. early pictures of gichin funakoshi practicing bunkai on others always show him gripping and/or striking pressure points, yet this is far from obvious in the kata.

 

as i said to begin with, it is a matter of opinion and all we can do is give reasons for our opinions. what i have written are the main reasons for believing that kata hides techniques, and it makes sense of the many unexplained or incompletely explained movements in kata.

[Drunken Monkey]

but how do you hide something in a kata/form?

 

isn't it just a case of people not knowing why something is there?

 

i don't believe anything is hidden. the form is tehre for you to see and do. isn't up to you to decide what everything is for? that is what training is for after all, to try things and see if it works.

[Drunken Monkey]

it all sounds to me like you are saying that if you don't know what it is for, then it is hidden.

 

isn't it up to you as the student to think for yourself and apply everything you have learnt? to put your pressure point knowledge, grips, joint locks, stances, turns, positions into everything and ultimately, your katas.

 

after all, if you are just going through the motions then you are only doing half of the work.

[Tal]

i exlpained some of the ways techniques can be hidden in the 6th paragraph of my last post.

 

people do know why kata movements are there. they are there because they represent techniques to be used in combat. what people don't know is what the actual techniques are - they are hidden.

 

modern day martial artists must 'decide what everything is for'; they have no other option; the orginal forumlators of the kata are not here to tell them.

 

"it all sounds to me like you are saying that if you don't know what it is for, then it is hidden."

 

not really. i'm saying that if you don't know what its for, then what its for is hidden, i.e. the bunkai is hidden not the actual movements. and its not just bunkai. i believe the kata are full of misleading movements and changes of perspective to mislead people who watch the kata and try to interpret it. i believe the kata are designed to make you assume incorrect or inneffective bunkai.

 

"isn't it up to you as the student to think for yourself and apply everything you have learnt? to put your pressure point knowledge, grips, joint locks, stances, turns, positions into everything and ultimately, your katas."

 

yes, that is correct. and that is what many masters have been trying to do for decades: to put everythign they have learnt to try and discover the original bunkai of the kata. if someone who knew what the kata orginally represented, they wouldn't have to spend decades. this just shows the success of the kata design: okuden students can be told what the kata represent so they can learn quickly, while rivals or potential rivals must spend years trying to interpret it for themselves.

[Drunken Monkey]

but i still don't get how it is hidden.

 

it all just sounds like bad teaching.

 

this might sound a bit silly but could you explain bunkai to me.

 

i should let you know that i am making my statements on this assumig that your karate kata are like kung fu forms...

[Tal]

some kata movements represent the opponent's actions, not just the practitioner's actions. that is a way of hiding techniques/misleading an observer. people assume that kata movements are all representations of the practitioner's movements when in fact some of them are representations of the opponent's movements.

 

some movements show the actions the defender takes, some show, on the practicioner's body, where to strike on an attacker's body.

 

kata changes points of view constantly, one movement showing the attacker, the next showing the defender, yet mots observers would assume the kata is representing one person throughout. which person each movement represents is hidden.

 

by definition kata movements follow a sequence, yet this might not actually correspond to the sequence of movements to be used in a fight.

 

the direction of movements in kata can easily be assumed to represent the direction from which various attacks originate, when really they may be showing at what angle the practicioner should position himself in relation to an attacker.

 

these are all ways of misleading observers and hiding techniques in kata.

 

i'll use an example of a technique that i think is hidden in kata. many kata start off with the performer placing right their fist in their left palm and holding their arms up over their chest. the fist and palm are then pushed down until the arms are locked out. this is commonly believed to be some sort of salutation. as intented, the movement misleads the observer and hides the true technique. this movement is not entirely representing the performer's body. the right fist is in fact representing an attacker's fist, and the left palm is representing the defender who applies a pressure point manipulation to turn away the attacker's fist. or at least, that is what i believe.

 

in a way it is bad teaching. intentional bad teaching by the eastern masters who tought the americans that went there. to the okinawans and the japanese, the americans were gaijin - foreigners and barbarians - and invaders of their country. why would they teach the americans their secret techniques? instead of teaching them the okuden material, they tought them the watered down shoden stuff. the kata they tought the americans had the same movements as the kata the okuden students learnt, but the what those movements really represented was not revealed.

 

bunkai simply means application. basically how to apply a kata movement to actual combat.

 

i know very little about kung fu and its forms, although from what i do know i believe they are very similar to okinawan forms in philosophy and intent. i.e. they were meant to hide techniques from anyone who was not meant to know the techniques.

 

anyway, as i said right at the start, this is a matter of opinion. no one can go and ask the formulators of the kata if they intended to hide techniques or not. if you don't believe they are intended to hide techniques then fine, as long as you have reasons for it. all we can do is give reasons for what we believe.

[Drunken Monkey]

well that's the thing.

 

kung fu forms do not hide anything

 

they really are just a way of organising moves so that you can practice different movements.

 

the chinese styles generally acknowledge that without training, knowing the forms mean nothing. that is the very meaning of kung fu; hard work.

 

about a movement in kata showing both sides of the move (aggressor/defender).

 

in kung fu we specifically have two man forms for that purpose (you train in both to learn how one might match your moves).

 

also in some forms, when we learn one move, we also learn the basic countermove (this is for basic sparring). if you look at the whole form it is always changing from attack to defence. it isn't about hiding, it is more about learning attack and defence.

 

but why does it have to be intentionally hidden?

 

it could just be that over time, people simply forgot.

 

or perhaps they just weren't told so they in turn go and say it is hidden.

 

it all sounds like a mcdojo's way of keeping a student hooked ("come to us and we will show you the hiden techniques")

[Drunken Monkey]

and another thing

 

i've always believed that katas were never meant to be used as practiced.

 

that is why it always puzzles me when i hear guys say they used whatever combo from whatever kata.

 

kata/forms are just a way of organising your training.

 

after all, by the time you have learnt one form completely, the movements will be in your head and you can then start to practice how they can be used.

 

i think much of your saying that katas hide techniques stems from you taking them to be fighting forms as opposed to them being training forms.