Free Style Kata Vs Standard Kata's

I was just wondering which of the two you feal, shows off more of the participants skill level at a tourney. Personally I think the free style shows your skill better, cause its what you've come up with in x amount of weeks/days and you've supposed to perfect it already. As opposed to, having a form and studying with an instructor correcting all your movements. Also you are able to come up with unique moves to even further show off your understanding.

I was also wondering what you thought about free style forms set to music. Is it just a clever gimmic for the audience, or do you think that it's even harder than free style without music (just cause u got to keep up).

ALso what are your fave songs to do the forms too?

[QUOTE]Originally posted by keyboardsamurai:
I was just wondering which of the two you feal, shows off more of the participants skill level at a tourney. Personally I think the free style shows your skill better, cause its what you've come up with in x amount of weeks/days and you've supposed to perfect it already. As opposed to, having a form and studying with an instructor correcting all your movements. Also you are able to come up with unique moves to even further show off your understanding.

I was also wondering what you thought about free style forms set to music. Is it just a clever gimmic for the audience, or do you think that it's even harder than free style without music (just cause u got to keep up).

ALso what are your fave songs to do the forms too?[/QUOTE]

Sure, for tournaments only. It always makes me cringe when someone does a kata or demo to music, never liked it..but it seem more and more schools /dojo's do demo's that way to please the spectators. As for freestyle kata's, who cares long as you don't bring it in the dojo, it creates to many question from the other students and will drive your Sensei crazy.

[This message has been edited by schanne (edited 06-23-2004).]

Originally posted by keyboardsamurai:
"I was just wondering which of the two you feal, shows off more of the participants skill level at a tourney. Personally I think the free style shows your skill better, cause its what you've come up with in x amount of weeks/days and you've supposed to perfect it already. As opposed to, having a form and studying with an instructor correcting all your movements. Also you are able to come up with unique moves to even further show off your understanding."

The freestyle kata i have seen at tournemants have all been about being flashy. It reminds me more of gymnastics. It does not show you have a great understanding. It just shows you are a good GYMNAST. I dont consider these to be kata. Maybe im wrong, but i dont think a great amount of study goes into the application...

I was also wondering what you thought about free style forms set to music. Is it just a clever gimmic for the audience, or do you think that it's even harder than free style without music (just cause u got to keep up).

clever definately not, gimic yes.

ALso what are your fave songs to do the forms too?

ummm...who let the dogs out??

Original post:
"I was just wondering which of the two you feal, shows off more of the participants skill level at a tourney. Personally I think the free style shows your skill better, cause its what you've come up with in x amount of weeks/days and you've supposed to perfect it already. As opposed to, having a form and studying with an instructor correcting all your movements. Also you are able to come up with unique moves to even further show off your understanding."

I believe that tournament kata such as this has no value at all. All these kata show is the persons ability to be a good gymnast as stated before. We need to make sure that our students have a basic understanding of the traditional katas before they go about making up there own. Ask a competitor at a tournament what the bunkai to the traditional kata they are performing is and I bet 75% of the time you will not get an answer at all. Before we go making up our own forms let's perfect and study the ones before us.

Traditional kata definitely shows off more skill freestyle shows what you know traditional kata shows what you don't know. If you make up a form you can always leave out the techniques that you are poor at but with traditional kata you have to work through your weaknesses. I think for me the perfection of Naihanchi is one of the most difficult tasks that exist in the martial arts, to perform those satnces perfectly with stone solid and stone still legs with no knee movement and to still perform the hand techniques with good hip and sharpness that would show higher skill level than anything I could make up.

Bah. I wish general bowel discomfort on the inventor of kata competition, point sparring, and musical forms.

And that power ranger who founded the xma. I hope he gets anal warts at some point.

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Stampede:
Bah. I wish general bowel discomfort on the inventor of kata competition, point sparring, and musical forms.

And that power ranger who founded the xma. I hope he gets anal warts at some point.[/QUOTE]

There is nothing wrong with it as long as you realize it is a seperate sport and not really karate-do. It is a game that uses some of the most basic karate techniques.

Well now we have opened a can of worms. I also feel that tournaments in general are no good for the martial arts. Tournaments go against mostly everything that the martial arts stands for especially the theory of no first strike.

[QUOTE]Originally posted by chinto01:
Well now we have opened a can of worms. I also feel that tournaments in general are no good for the martial arts. Tournaments go against mostly everything that the martial arts stands for especially the theory of no first strike. [/QUOTE]

Nothing wrong with tournaments long as you seperate the quality time you spend in the dojo and the time you spend practicing your tourament stuff. This has been previously debated and is on other forums. EOM

[QUOTE]Originally posted by chinto01:
the theory of no first strike. [/QUOTE]


A bit OT, but . . .

Generally speaking, the rule of No First Strike is a note on social interaction as opposed to fighting. It means to not look for trouble, or not to start trouble. Doesn't rule out bustin' someone in the chops if they're gettin' ready to fug you up.

The issue of tournament versus non-tournament karate goes back to the inception of tournaments. There are positive and negative aspects for tournaments.

Among the strongest positive is when you compete you burn at a higher rate than anytime else. I'm referring to the energy outlay in kata or kobudo competition, or kumite for that matter. Long careful training interspaced with tourmament competition helps one gain layers of ability in execution.

On the other hand tournaments aren't fair play. There is nothing to be gained besides doing it. For if all the judges are idiots and they give you first place, what are you?

When you realize that tournament judging in all events always has been anarchy, for when judgment with no real standards inforcing the judgement takes place other variables enter. Judges are human, they have their likes and dislikes. They're influenced by outside influences (like Senior judges, the audience approval, etc.) all of which is human for people who aren't paid, trained and even want to be judging.

Then add playing to the audience and the juke and jive set takes over.

If you go back in to the late 60's and early 70's people like Hidy Ochai added very good gymnastics to traditional kata technique for showmanship, and he was doing moves almost nobody else could do.

Then Jhoon Rhee added classical music to custom built TKD forms, with great performers.

In the late 70's Garry Michak did a custom built kata to the 'Superman' movie theme, one of the most custom corregraphed highly skilled kata performances I've seen.

Up through that point the performances all were focused skilled, even in the dymamic gymnastics involved.

Sometime after that flow becaame more important. High levels of screaming (perhaps a good idea to practice as most of those screaming techniques would leave em screaming when they were taken apart), poor gymnastic integration, and strikes that couldn't break wet paper bags.... and you're almost to the lower level of today's tournaments.

The older skilled performers weren't hanging around, and the tournament circuit began to be built towards those who all were doing the same thing.

Well it's fine. If that's what you want. great. On the other hand, regardless of thier claims, it doesn't define more tha. 0.0001% of the totality of karate or martial experience.

If you don't want that, train hard at something else.

And if they want to practice screaming, it gives you reason to practice to learn how to make their screams a reality....

More's the pity,

Victor Smith
bushi no te isshinryu

I feel that free style forms are cool to watch but speaking from a judges standpoint there is no way to judge them fairly.Find a sensei that knows enough about your style to keep you busy with the real budo.Dont waste your time practicing incorrect technique and learn what the masters realy have to offer.Tournaments can be a very good place to compare your abilities to other people and styles,but dont try to compare your technique with what Motobu ,Mabuni , Shimabuku ,Itosu ,Higashionna or Matsumura for example (not to exclude any of the masters I cannot think of right now).As far as the music,I prefer the sound of the sanchin(Okinawan 3 string instrument)to set the proper ambiance for my kata training.Gambatte

quote:
Nothing wrong with tournaments long as you seperate the quality time you spend in the dojo and the time you spend practicing your tourament stuff. This has been previously debated and is on other forums. EOM

The problem is that people cannot seperate tournament training from their traditional training. I believe it is 2 different schools of thinking. Kata is not meant to be taken apart and put to music or dismanteled and performed with a bunch of flashy moves for the sake of a trophy. Some things should be left well enough alone.

[QUOTE]Originally posted by chinto01:
quote:
Nothing wrong with tournaments long as you seperate the quality time you spend in the dojo and the time you spend practicing your tourament stuff. This has been previously debated and is on other forums. EOM

The problem is that people cannot seperate tournament training from their traditional training. I believe it is 2 different schools of thinking. Kata is not meant to be taken apart and put to music or dismanteled and performed with a bunch of flashy moves for the sake of a trophy. Some things should be left well enough alone. [/QUOTE]


I think Funakoshi put it best in His autobiography Karatedo My Way of Life "Kata should be practiced with your teacher or by yourself untill you can't stand up any more then when you recover practice again" Kata is one tool to training to make it a competition sport makes it into an end unto itself which it was never meant to be. Instead of training in kata in a tournament a better training would be to go in your basement draw the shades and parctice alone by yourself with shorts and a T-shirt on. The gi can sometimes trick you into thinking you are better than you actually are. Only by practicing by yourself and being brutally honest with yourself can you improve.

[QUOTE]Originally posted by WADO 1:

I think Funakoshi put it best in His autobiography Karatedo My Way of Life "Kata should be practiced with your teacher or by yourself untill you can't stand up any more then when you recover practice again" Kata is one tool to training to make it a competition sport makes it into an end unto itself which it was never meant to be. Instead of training in kata in a tournament a better training would be to go in your basement draw the shades and parctice alone by yourself with shorts and a T-shirt on. The gi can sometimes trick you into thinking you are better than you actually are. Only by practicing by yourself and being brutally honest with yourself can you improve.[/QUOTE]

Wado, your right, a Gi sure makes you look better.

God, I hate made-up katas! First of all, very few people are qualified to create a real one. After 30 years I know I'm not.
Maybe a 22-year old knows better, huh?

They should be entered in gymnastic contests, not karate tournaments. Truer words were never spoken than the point about the excessive screaming. Makes me want to.
What the hell is the point of screaming for 8 seconds AFTER your wimpy strike?

And setting them to music? Doesn't this mean the moves were tailored to the beat rather than actual bunkai??

If I sound like a grumpy old fart, sorry. I'm kinder when judging this. I ignore the non-karate parts and will give a good score if some skill besides cartwheeling is shown.

Key

"Free style kata" esp to music has no place. in martial arts comp.

Belongs over in the gymnastic section--except that most teenagers can do more impressive routines--with higher degrees of difficulty.

And they look more graceful doing it.

Its rubbish.

[This message has been edited by cxt (edited 07-16-2004).]

[This message has been edited by cxt (edited 07-16-2004).]

I still love "JohnL's" explanation of introducing yourself to the tournament judges for kata...very funny post, but true.