Karate Katas.

Posted by: White Lotus

Karate Katas. - 11/19/05 11:17 AM

About the Karate katas.

You all guys knew that the japanese changed them?
They changed most of the techniques inside them and
some positions, because when they teached them to others, they didn't want their secrets to be revealed,
and this is why i feel stupid to do them, since their real meaning has been changed..
I just don't like doing them when i know that it's not the real one.

Of course some original ones are known, but they are from some karatekas that has studied in Okinawa, but most of katas have been changed.

Argh. This didn't make any sense, did it? No? Thought so.
And excuse the bad english.

( I am not saying that Katas aren't good, just changed from the original form )
Posted by: Mark Hill

Re: Karate Katas. - 11/20/05 01:12 AM

Enpi was thrice changed.

Kuan Yin Yang Po--->

Wanshu---->

Enpi.

Each time it changed, some advanced applications were lost.

However, if you study kata for applicable realistic bunkai, it can still work.

I think Victor Smith has a story on how the bunkai of the two older versions has been reverse engineered into the latest version by some schools.

I have three or four good applications, and a whole kata's bunkai againts a sai or kali stick. (Something I did for my Nidan-Ho grading).
Posted by: hedkikr

Re: Karate Katas. - 11/20/05 04:01 AM

(Don't worry about your English. It's fine)

Poor excuse for not liking kata. You don't need an excuse. Do what you prefer, it's not wrong or bad.

But just because something was changed doesn't make it bad or ineffective. There have also been other bunkai in the kata that Okinawans didn't know/use. They weren't the formost experts. Karate evolves whether you like it or not.

If you want to learn the kata as close to original as possible, I think it's an admirable goal. If you wish to disregard bunkai that are totally silly, I admire that. But your excuse sounds just immature.

BTW: All the MA you listed in your bio are not original.

owari
Posted by: Mark Hill

Re: Karate Katas. - 11/20/05 04:19 AM

Quote:

Enpi was thrice changed.

Kuan Yin Yang Po--->

Wanshu---->

Enpi




Erm, that would be twice!
Posted by: WuXing

Re: Karate Katas. - 11/20/05 09:11 AM

Kuan Yin Yang Po? I would love to see that, or have the differences explained. If the actual Chinese origin of the kata is known, what style is is from?
Posted by: Mark Hill

Re: Karate Katas. - 11/20/05 07:32 PM

Half tiger and crane ( I think).

Today it is practiced by Won Hop Loong Chuan www.wonhoploongchuan.com/ whom I am not associated with.
Posted by: cxt

Re: Karate Katas. - 11/21/05 04:40 PM


Want to guess if there has been any "drift" in the Chinese kata?

Look at the various lines of Tai-Chi or the the various schools of Hsing I.

Point is that many arts teach from principle--so the fact that some changes may or may not creep in is less important to me than the abilty to convay the principle behind what is being the taught---the "why" rather than the "how."

Course each application should have a actual, good explanation behind it.
Posted by: Ironfoot

Re: Karate Katas. - 11/23/05 11:53 PM

The Okinawans changed them, too! Not uncommon for one master to teach it differently than his teacher in the early days. And when a kata is done by say 20 different styles - some Japanese, some Korean, some hard, some soft - there will be vast differences. Blocks, stances, strikes not the same, let alone bunkai.
Posted by: Victor Smith

Re: Karate Katas. - 11/24/05 05:40 AM

The only constant that exists in karate history has been one of constant change. Each generation did their best to make their art strong.

And people being human always deride all change but their own. With humility I would point out that Funakoshi Ginchin ordered his students not to change kata, of course he had changed or watched over all of them being changed anyway.

Other note, it's more likely he was talking about beginners not advanced students.

As for the premise Japanese versions are less worthy, with good secret stuff missing, Balderdash!

Any one anyplace who makes such a claim knows absolutely nothing about kata. The Japanese versions are just different and as a result have differenet application potential. That's all.

That and of course many systems don't explore kata except as exercise. And that's ok too, different perceptions.

I spent 10 years training with a great Indonesian Shotokan stylist with incredible layers of application 'bunkai' in his art. Perhaps it's not the same as other Shotokan, but it works.

There are no short cut answers. Styles or kata versions are what anyone makes of them.

The rest is 'yak', deriding others and proclaiming oneself the only true arbriter of 'right'.

Pleasantly,
Posted by: Mark Hill

Re: Karate Katas. - 11/24/05 07:35 AM

Victor: I still stand by my statement that advanced applications werre not passed on.

That doesn't stop the research to continue, or from you going to the source....and those who have successfully built up a self defence system aroud kata...just like Master Sustrino!
Posted by: kyushoguy

Re: Karate Katas. - 11/24/05 08:02 AM

Quote:

The only constant that exists in karate history has been one of constant change. Each generation did their best to make their art strong.

And people being human always deride all change but their own. With humility I would point out that Funakoshi Ginchin ordered his students not to change kata, of course he had changed or watched over all of them being changed anyway.

Other note, it's more likely he was talking about beginners not advanced students.

As for the premise Japanese versions are less worthy, with good secret stuff missing, Balderdash!

Any one anyplace who makes such a claim knows absolutely nothing about kata. The Japanese versions are just different and as a result have differenet application potential. That's all.

That and of course many systems don't explore kata except as exercise. And that's ok too, different perceptions.

I spent 10 years training with a great Indonesian Shotokan stylist with incredible layers of application 'bunkai' in his art. Perhaps it's not the same as other Shotokan, but it works.

There are no short cut answers. Styles or kata versions are what anyone makes of them.

The rest is 'yak', deriding others and proclaiming oneself the only true arbriter of 'right'.

Pleasantly,




Hi

According to Nakayama, Funakoshis successor, Funakoshi did not teach bunkai.

It is debatable whether he knew them or not.

But on Okinawa he only taught school children.

Shotokan was a derivative of Itosus school boy karate.

Nakayama said he (Nakayama) was not interested in Bunkai till the Americans started to demand explanations for the Kata.

(They were where the money was.)

So he devised Applications based on his knowledge of Geometary?

The JKA guys did not know about bunkai or fighing, according to Nakayama in one of his last interviews.

JKA was and remains childrens no contact competition karate.

It is us Westerners that are reverse engineering to discover bunkai.

But as the rochac(sp) tests prove you can see anything in anything.


The rest is YAK


KG
Posted by: Mark Hill

Re: Karate Katas. - 11/24/05 08:09 AM

I've devised applications from Shotokan kata which are quite effecitve against larger, resisting opponents.

By chance, some of these turned out to be some that Sensei Mc Carthy showed me later on.

What's wrong with this?

What is wrong with reverse engineering - say I learned the original form of Nepai and the bunkai as taught by Fujian Shaolin. Great!

If I study the body dynamics and apply martial theories and my own experiences, and make up more bunkai which is effective, is this wrong as well?
Posted by: Victor Smith

Re: Karate Katas. - 11/24/05 09:02 AM

Mark,

I don't believe there is anything wrong with your creating your own answers.

Nor do I accept the closed minded opinions that anyones karate is useless, such as the falacy of school boy karate.

The problem with today's world is everyone want's instant gratification. Theres a lot of material that you can't really learn until you've trained in enough depth to be able to receive it. Just becasuse you personally want it doesn't mean you're capable of receiving it.

So lots wasn't presented until somebody could actually accomplish those skills. Of course I've actually trained people for decades and have some basis how human performance works behind my claims.

Karate has always been just karate, not some modern definition of what someone want's karate to be. It's use depends on what the instructors needs are, no more no less.

If people weren't presented with kata applications, it's likely they didn't need them. Only a technique snob really believes one answer is really better than the next. Technically any proficently delivered answer should be sufficent.

So if presented with an attacker, a lunge punch that is delivered with power and corect timing, isn't better than using the technique for an arm bar lock, nor is it better than using the technique to break their leg.

In that end they're all technique.

The larger issue of couse is plain envy of what others do and then spending a lifetime declaiming their existence instead of working on one's art.

We don't re-fit an art to discover its uses. We use the art as our needs dictate.

The only true art I learned from my instructor was never to let anyone, anywhere, anytime do your own thinking, including them. And that is the most important thing I try to share with my students, that even they must not let me do their own thinking.

Live your own path, love your art and use it as you need.

That's far more powerful than the continual attempts to re-write the reality of martial history to feed the current zeit geis of todays world.

Pleasantly,
Posted by: Victor Smith

Re: Karate Katas. - 11/24/05 09:15 AM

Lo' again Mark,

Were advanced applications passed on?

In my art Isshinryu I was taught absolutely no applications from my first two instructors who trained on Okinawa 10 years apart.

So from my persepctive there are no applications for karate, as I was trained. When I suggested there were, one of my instructors took great umbrage with me being a young upstart.

I can see it from many sides. One school of people currrently training on Okinawa study that applications are not taught, but expressed as requrired when needed from kata study.

On the other hand one of the people who shared only a few hours of his life with me, the late Sherman Harrill, shared 800 applications in those few hours from the 8 Isshinryu kata, and that was only a small part of his art and work. And he trained with my original instructor and was taught no applications in 59-60. He got his inspiration from the 40 or so self defense techniques taught, separately, realizing they came from the kata, and then went to work over then next 45 years using them.

He always maintained the techniques were not what was important, rather the principles behind the techniques, principles that could be used anytime on any kata section. A simple example was what defined a kate technique. Many times he would completely use only a tiny piece of what was considered a kata technique, to its fullness.

On the other hand the 10 years I spent training with Tristan Sutrisno, his incredible bunkai to his Shotokan, did not follow todays's bunkai analysis approach. Instead in his fathers art (his father had studied in Japan in the 30's and trained under Funakoshi Sensei), kata were and are a mnemonic reference to thousands of wazza, really great techniques to disrupt an attacker. Any one of which is a complete defense, forever.

And in the end, the simplest basic, with full knowledge how to interrupt any attack with it is as advanced as the most subtle deriviative kata application.

I strongly believe that is why applications were often not stressed. Why spend time on such if you don't develop the ability to truly apply the basics correctly.

And that is often, IMVHO, a much greater task than most today want to address.

And if you really want to learn arts, I strongly recommend the entire range of Northern Chinese arts, Shaolin, Mantis, Eagle Claw, Crane, etc. Their challenges make all karate combined look like kindergarten.

O that I could be a child and start learning again.

Pleasantly,
Posted by: Ironfoot

Re: Karate Katas. - 11/24/05 10:30 AM

Quote:

...If I study the body dynamics and apply martial theories and my own experiences, and make up more bunkai which is effective, is this wrong as well?




It's the most "right" thing you could do! Just before we made shodan 2 friends and I would challenge each other. Each Monday at class we had to come up with a new bunkai for the kata we were studying. I sincerely believe by the time we became yudansha we had more bunkai than our sensei.

If no new applications were "discovered", the art would just get weaker as some were lost.