Memory impairment...and kata

This weekend:

Teacher: 'You're demoted.'

Me: 'You can't demote me...I don't even have a white belt.'

Teacher: 'Five years and you still can't remember the katas?'

Somebody pipe in here for me...I'm starting to really think I've got some kind of memory impairment. How long, or really, how much practice does it take to 'get a kata down'...and how often to practice...to keep it?

thanks for any feedback

Harlan-san

I can usually pick up a kata within around 3 lessons including home practice.

Its then making it your own that takes the time.

Funakoshi stated it takes 1000 days to become adequate but 10000 days to become proficient

You should practice the Kata every 2nd day atleast to prevent you from loosing them

I get upset when I have to re teach Kata to students who should have already 'graded' for the kata they have forgotten

The one thing I can say is if the person is not willing to devote the time into practicing what has been taught then what is the point in teaching it in the first place.

Karate is like hot water, you have to give it heat (keep training) constantly to keep it warm or it will go cold again

Hope this helps

5 years and forgetting your kata is quite unusual! Have you tried going through them in your head at night? Once learnt, you just have to keep repeating them (for real), at least every few weeks (once solidly learnt) and more if you want the techniques to be smooth and solid. Then you can worry about learning and absorbing the applications...

I have a reasonable head for kata and I can hold 27 or thereabouts in my head provided I practice them all over about three months. Obviously the ones I practice more often look better and I understand better than the ones I practice infrequently or just to be able to still perform them (like Sochin for example).

Forgetting them even after a lot of practice is not unusual though for some people, especially under stress. We have a perfectly solid brown belt who sometimes gets stressed and forgets midway through Bassai dai and Kanku Dai, kata he knows well enough when he is relaxed. Again, a bit of quiet mental revision would probably help him...

Ben

I agree-it is annoying to find people have learnt a kata for a grading then instantly forgotten it, never mind trying to see any deeper meaning. This has been a problem I have seen at all levels including dan grades. Even worse, we have a student currently, absolutely terrible so stuck at his 5th kyu grade for the last couple of years, but keeps wanting to learnt higher kata with the black and brown belts when he can barely perform the most basic kata satisfactorily...

Ben

For me...they are all the same. Show me a piece of one...and can't tell you which one it is...unless I do the whole thing. It's like...I don't have any sense of what comes first, or what is after...until doing it.

It took months, and months and months to learn my first, beginner bo kata...and I still forget it unless (as stated in one reply above) I practice it twice a week as well. And then...there is 'the wall'. After a few years of training in the same direction, I finally mentioned that the minute I turn to the wall on the right...that whole 'side' of the kata drops out...I freeze. And related to it...trying to perform kata in unfamiliar surroundings...I realized I had 'keyed in' to direction and location. We work on that now by changing up training in different directions.

Just practice I guess-try visualising if you get a few minutes spare though, it might help. Which art is it that you are studying?

Ben

Goju and kobudo.

How the heck do people find the time to go to work, rear kids, go to class a couple times a week, and work on keeping stuff fresh at home, while still trying to practice the new stuff/kata/drills/etc....never mind trying to fit in a bit of exercise??? Two hours every day just doesn't seem to cut it.

I mean, someone said they know 27 katas???? How many hours a day does it take to keep those all current?

Practice one kata each day. By practice I mean go through the whole thing a few times to warm up. Then break it down, extract the waza and drill them, hit stuff with them, think about their application, shadow box with them, etc. Then go through them again all the way through a few times at the end to cool down. Do this every day with a different kata and they will be "yours."

That was me (27 kata) but I did learn them over a long time. I practice them as having learnt them I do not want to lose them. I know it sounds like a lot but it is not that hard in practice.

Ben

Hi Narda,

I think the issue is we don't all remember the same way. I don't know the details of your memory issue, but it's not you alone. I've know individuals who've trained in good schools remain brown belts over 10 years simply because of similar issues. They enjoyed their training but their personality didn't lend themselves to performing under pressure.

One can only keep trying and working hard. Keep believing in yourself and practice frequently.

Then let the chips fall where they may.

I think initially you have to do them very often,but after doing them for so long it's hard to lose them.

Sometimes I can't remember until I start doing it.

Writing down the movements in a manner that willhelp you remember can also help. I am one of those that can pick up a kata and have it down after only having it shown to me 3 times. This used to frustrate the heck out of my sensei, because he said he used to struggle.

Collectively with karate and kobudo I probably have about 60 kata in my head. I am a big advocate of quality over quantity. I may be able to do about 60 traditinal emptyhand/weapon kata, but there are only about 2 that I really truly study. I study their applications, I know them in and out forward and backward and I really try to make those 2 kata my own. The rest I just brush up on periodically so that I can teach them to my students. It looks kinda bad, IMHO, when a teacher is teaching a class a kata and forgets the movements halfway through.

Repetition is the only way to make a kata a part of you. the more repetitions you can fit in, the better. When first learning a new kata, once you can get from start to finish without any help, I'd say do it at least ten times a day, every day. Once in a while when you're not busy, stop yourself from whatever you're thinking about and go through it in your imagination, see yourself doing the kata. Do this for a couple months or so and you should have it down pretty well.

Some of it depends on how instruction is structured (and how your own nature responds to that structure), as to how long it takes to get it down. How long does your instructor spend in each class teaching the movements of the kata? How does he/she introduce you to it and break it down? How long is spent on one kata before moving to the next? These are all pertinent questions. I personally learn fastest when I can break a form down into small parts. I repeat the first part many times until I can do it correctly with no help, then move on to the next part. Then I put part one and two togther, and repeat them several times before going to part three, etc. By the time I'm at the end of the form, there have been many repetitions. Doing it this way, I can remember the movements of a form after a few hours of instruction (depending on the length of the form). This is only remembering the movements, of course, not learning all the principles and applications. But we're just talking about remembering the kata, right?

when you get to a new kata, the others hopefully have been practiced enough to not need so much repetition to retain them. You can get by doing the older kata a few times each, while you do ten or more repetitions of your new kata. This can generally be accomplished with a half hour to an hour of time put aside every day (outside of class). When you have a large number of kata, some of them might only be practiced once a day, or not even every day, but by that time they should be so ingrained in you that it won't be lost. People run into trouble when they learn too many forms too quickly, because you don't have the time each day to practice them all.

Hello Harlan:

Several people have jumped in on this one already.
1st "Demotion" is impossible IMO! Not remembering kata is not a sufficently good reason.

People have lives, stress, the purpose of an art is to enhance us not "reduce us" in that way! You will only carry on what you can remember... you will only practice when you are able.

To remember a kata in its entirety takes 3 months maybe. To do it with confidence, absolute certainty, presence, skill, requires quite a bit more practice. Partial to decades as an answer personally.

Keeping "it" is not the problem, keeping IT and the other 15 active, alive, scrutinized which compose the ~entire art~ is the challenge.

Unarmed kata 9, armed kata 6

Hard to keep them ALL sharp... how much do you want to practice? How much time do you realistically have to practice will answer the how often questions.

Jeff

Harlan:

Get a three foot long, one inch thick stick and PRACTICE with that instead !!!! Bo kata are hard to remember if you cannot find the room to do them...

Shorten the weapon and the practice is really easy to do...
Jeff

Personally, I have a helluva hard time learning them to begin with, but I can "keep" them pretty well once I do. It takes me probably 6-8 classes to learn a new kata, and I have to take notes and draw diagrams. I do practice most of them (all, if I can swing it) several days a week unless I'm preparing for a tournament, in which case I'll do the one/s I'm planning to use more times instead of doing each one. If I stop practicing, I forget pieces of them. I know 10 at the moment--9 empty hand and 1 tessen.

Some good techniques to "cement" them: 1) eyes closed, hands only (keep your feet still); 2) feet only; 3) quicksand kata--do it as sl-o-o-o-o-wy as you can with the most tension you can muster; 4) underwater kata--do it very slowly and with as little tension as you can manage. These work for me; I think because they give me an additional goal and redirect my frustration with not having the kata perfectly memorized yet. Or maybe that's not why, but they work, especially if done with a partner stopping you periodically and adjusting your position.

Stac3y

Thanks, all, for the suggestions. I don't think I need any more feedback at this point, and if inclined, you can close this thread.