Ever do kata "mirror image?"

[Shorinryu Sensei]

When I teach kata, facing the class, I have found that doing them myself as a mirror image to what the student is doing, is an effective way of teaching them sometimes.

 

Nahachin kata work especially well for this, as I can stand about 3-5' in front of them and they can see very easily what the movement is and how to execute it.

 

I can do all 5 Pinan kata and the 3 Nahachin kata this way.

 

Anybody else done this, or am I the only whacko in the room?

[stl_karateka]

Nope I made a point of knowing how to mirror katas when I started teaching.....

 

(then the fiirst time our school introduced pairs kata at a tournament -- I was able to do a mirrored Seisan --- sweet!)

 

And I use it with kids as well as adults. Rather you know your right from your left, its just one less thing to worry about when going thru moves.

 

Kita

[SBN Doug]

I do occationally. We are taught to "balance" ourselves by practicing everything on both sides. However, we are only required to learn it the one way. We practice the mirror only after we already have it down on the required side.

[TangSooGuy]

I've done it quite a few times actually...

 

you can get really fun and do all kinds of things:

 

try doing it backwards, do the last move first and the first move last, moving backward the whole time (generally)

 

try doing it with opposites: everything done with the right side, do with the left, etc...

 

it makes some of the easier forms quite challenging...and themore complex ones I thought I 'knew' far more difficult...

 

as long as you continue to practice them the "right" way, I feel these methods are valuable training tools as well.

[monkeygirl]

I did it quite a bit when teaching classes. I also used it as a training tool for my students to reinforce their knowledge of the katas. It's even more fun to have students face each other...one does the normal kata and the other does the mirror image. Not only does it look cool, it forces each of them to use their own knowledge, rather than relying on the person next to them for help.

 

I love mirror katas...always have. They just add another layer of difficulty, which is something I always looked for

[hajime]

2nd Dan in my style included demonstrating all Katas in mirror image as good as in standard format

[G95champ]

A few times but I dont like it as good as I do just chainging up the speed or timming.

[SaiFightsMS]

I did most of my techniques mirror image as well as kata. And working bo techniques on both sides really improved my bo handling skills.

[Shorty]

Sometimes the instructor will have us do a kata, and then when we are done, we have to do it backwards. Most of the students get confused and start messing up.

[aefibird]

Yep, we do mirror image katas in my club.

 

My sensei also sometimes gets us to perform a kata backwards (ie starting from the last move and working back to the beginning).

 

We occasionally do the 'regular' kata and then have to work straight back to the start again, basically like doing 2 katas back to back. Its pretty interesting with the katas other than Heian and Tekki, I can tell you! Try it someday with Gojushio-Sho...

 

Sensei also makes us perform the kata with our eyes closed too., which is highly amusing for those watching, but not quite so funny when you're actually doing the kata.

 

For a bit of fun and a bit of strength training too, he's also made the adults do a kata (usually a heian or tekki kata) with one of the kids sat on their shoulders! You only do the stances, not any of the arm techniques. Its a good bit of fun at the end of a long hard, training session.