kata application helpful for real fighting?

[Malkosha]

I think forms are an excellent way to learn and solidify basic movements. When done correctly, they develop the base needed to perform proper punching and kicking techniques. When I first started, I noticed that we didn’t fight in the same manner as we did using forms, but I also noticed that I was able to adjust my body to deliver max power on the fly … because I knew what the correct alignment felt like. I knew this because of forms training. Could I have learned this another way? Probably, but you use the cards your delt with and run with it.

 

Does it help you fight? Yes, in the same way that drills help you fight. In the same way that bag work helps you fight. These might be different methods that develop different aspects but they all add up in time.

 

On the same hand you don’t need to do forms to learn how to fight. Some arts have no forms at all and they can also be effective. I wonder sometimes if some people put down forms in order to make light of the old style MA’s in favor of the latest fad. People are funny. To me forms like many other types of training are about tool building that prepares you for fighting.

 

When I say fighting however, I don’t mean that “so called” all out stuff that they show on pay-per-view. I mean REAL fighting like Motobu(sp) used to do. He spent his time wandering the worst neighborhoods for the sole purpose of getting into a real fight. No mats, no rules. Eye gouges, knee crackers, groin shots, etc … everything was fair game. Unless you fight for real, everything else is just training. This includes wrestling on mats, light contact sparring, full contact sparring, forms and bag work. Regardless of how brutal you want to make it, all these things are just tool builders that lead to the main event … real life combat. Real combat is spontaneous. Real comabt unpredictable. That is something that can never be duplicated in a school.

 

Besides, there is a certain satisfaction in perfecting a form that you have worked hard on. It’s fun for me but to each their own

[Kirves]

I mean REAL fighting like Motobu(sp) used to do.

 

Yeah, but he did it in an era when kata training meant bunkai training, not the kind of aerobic solo dancing waving your arms in air, like it usually means today.