Posted by: founderofryoute1
Context of Kata - 03/27/06 06:19 PM
Recently I and Ed Morris had an interesting discussion concerning the context of kata. I argued that you shouldn’t assume a context when analysing kata because it biases the analysis (which is true). He argued that you have to assume a context otherwise you can’t make any progress (which is also true). So this would appear to put the kata investigator in a bit of a difficult position in that he can’t make progress without some direction, but the direction he takes will bias his analysis. This has led me to suggest the following:
You may if you wish without being illogical and bias propose a hypothetical format /hypothetical context. However, before attempting to use it as an assumption for further analysis you should test it somehow. I propose the follow tests:
1. Create principles that are useful within the hypothetical format / context.
2. Create techniques entirely based from those principles.
3. Generate a kata or possibly several from those techniques.
4. Perform a stylistic comparison of the kata you have generated to the kata you are proposing to investigate.
5. If they are different stylistically then it would be unwise to assume that the kata you are proposing to investigate relate to the hypothetical format that you have created.
Even if it turns out that you made a bad guess you’d still be left with some very useful kata. So good can come from bad!
What does everyone reckon?
Martin
You may if you wish without being illogical and bias propose a hypothetical format /hypothetical context. However, before attempting to use it as an assumption for further analysis you should test it somehow. I propose the follow tests:
1. Create principles that are useful within the hypothetical format / context.
2. Create techniques entirely based from those principles.
3. Generate a kata or possibly several from those techniques.
4. Perform a stylistic comparison of the kata you have generated to the kata you are proposing to investigate.
5. If they are different stylistically then it would be unwise to assume that the kata you are proposing to investigate relate to the hypothetical format that you have created.
Even if it turns out that you made a bad guess you’d still be left with some very useful kata. So good can come from bad!
What does everyone reckon?
Martin
that seems much better. It's reiterative, but not recursive like your previous system (or the way you were previously describing it).