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#292610 - 10/12/06 01:59 PM
Re: Chen Destroys the kata myth
[Re: Chen Zen]
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Professional Poster
Registered: 01/18/05
Posts: 3260
Loc: Midwest City, Ok, USA
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I find all this interesting and see it as different ways to the same end accord to how deep you want to go. I condone Kata training because its a good way to transfer basics thoughts, concepts of a system and ideas that have fighting intention along with other training methods. What I find contradicting is I've attended Escrima/Kali, Silat, Wing Chung and JKD classes and they all have what I consider Kata or form/dance or a perferred way to do things (Except JKD unless they are teaching the Kali/Silat, its seems to follow more of a boxing concept but do use two man Kata that builds to free form Chi-Soa). Anyway my point is that the Silat and Kali system that JKD is so fond of teach what could be called fighting dance/forms that are in some system thought to be exact appilcations once the dance is taken out. So what is the different in Okinawan Kata and Kila/Silat dance/forms?? Nothing except one starts with the extreme application and the other is built upon. As for Shadow boxing if you take all the principles that you know and apply them free form so you respond to the imaginary assault Kata application (not the entire form) could be included in the session. Even to the ground and standing. Kata is not taught free form, though you can train it that, way its puyrpose is to teach system principles and flow, not just fighting. One of the benifit of Kata is it is knowledge retained. Have you ever tried to have a old boxer show you his best combination or defensive counter. What you see is a shadow of maybe faded shadow of what was, all that talent and knowledge can all be talked about or even explained maybe, but not repeated, in a manner that it was when he was young. You almost feel like catching them before they fall bc their weak movements are barely recongnizable as boxing more like stumbling. Kata records the techniuques of a great Master or fighters in his prime and past it on for generations to see. Everything is not about fighting in the ring, but with understanding things can come full circle. I end by pondering, How can one dance be so Deadly and the other Unless? Maybe the answer is in number of Karate dojos vs. the # Kali classes, humm how can we change that. One dance is deadly the other is unless. No they'd never fall for that, but would they??? Dance is Dance isn't it??? While some not all of the old boxers stumble around trying to reproduce their youthful moves. There are old Karate/Kung-fu/Kali/Silat men still doing powerfully and gracefully Katas/forms/or dance. Is Kata unless? I say no why reinvent the wheel? Kata teaches basic, system flow and techniques of once great Masters with or w/o the use of Video or DVD. 
_________________________
DBAckerson
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#292611 - 10/12/06 02:43 PM
Re: Chen Destroys the kata myth
[Re: nahate]
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Professional Poster
Registered: 09/11/03
Posts: 5767
Loc: USA
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nahate And with all due respect, your post is a perfect example as to why many people have such a poor opinion of kata. Its largely important sounding psuedo-scientific near jibberish. Might "sound" good, but your not actually saying much at all. How in the name of god (small g) does one get a kata metabolized??????"  More to the point, your simply wrong. Kata were NEVER supposed to be some sort of stand-alone training method. Kata were used IN CONJUNCTION with strength training, resistive drills, bag/makiwara, etc. As Patrick McCarthy observed (my paraphrase) kata were used to practice/rehearse skills already developed by other means. As has already been established--many times. Not practicing kata is no more damaging to ones ability to defend ones self than practiceing them are. It all comes down to the person----always.
_________________________
I did battle with ignorance today.......and ignorance won.
Huey.
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#292613 - 10/12/06 02:53 PM
Re: Chen Destroys the kata myth
[Re: harlan]
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Professional Poster
Registered: 09/11/03
Posts: 5767
Loc: USA
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harlan Hey, what can I say, I'm a "middle of the roader" when it comes to kata. I see value in it, I see gains from it, and I enjoy its practice. But other people don't and I would NEVER recommend that people use ANY methods where they don't see gains. By the same token I don't hold kata in some sort of relgious awe either. That too is an extreme position---and one not supported by the facts. Kata is just a tool, one of many. Just an opinion, and at the end of the day, worth exactly what people paid for it----exactly nothing
_________________________
I did battle with ignorance today.......and ignorance won.
Huey.
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#292614 - 10/12/06 03:04 PM
Re: Chen Destroys the kata myth
[Re: cxt]
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Professional Poster
Registered: 08/25/04
Posts: 3012
Loc: Torrance, CA
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Wow! An ardent fence sitter. Funny!  It's like Monty Python's Quest for the Holy Grail: "I fart in your general direction...."  Except in this case, "I pass gas on both sides of the wall, but am still above it..." -B
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#292615 - 10/12/06 03:13 PM
Re: Chen Destroys the kata myth
[Re: nahate]
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Professional Poster
Registered: 02/24/05
Posts: 4115
Loc: California
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I wanted to keep out of this discussion because it didn't seem to be related to my training but clearly it's become muddled by some high terminology, twisted justifications and circular logic which needs to be scrutinised. Quote:
The kata myth is being reinforced rather than destroyed here, at least the one that misunderstands kata as a mnemonic string of techniques or moves. Kata is in reality not about moves or techniques. It is about movement and technique. It is dynamic, not staccato bursts of unrelated actions.
I'm afraid to agree with you here because I'm about to contradict what you are going to say later. However, I do agree that in principle, kata are developed to be a string of dynamic techniques.
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The misunderstandings about kata are the result of poor instruction by those who never had solid grounding in their art. That is why so much that passes as kata today is best described by T.S. Eliot in his poem The Hollow Men: "Shape without form, shade without colour,
Paralysed force, gesture without motion."
There may be much moving the limbs around in air, there is little of martial value.
Actually, kata today are practiced very differently from kata in the old days. Way back when, kata were often simply single techniques, usually practiced between partners. They were similar to sparring in that sense and usually lead to the more dynamic application of those techniques to sparring afterwards. This same technique of using kata to progress to sparring is still used in Koryu Jujutsu today.
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Miyagi Sensei taught beginning students body conditioning and kata solely. No free sparring was attempted until someone had at least ten years training according to one of his students, Toguchi Sensei.
Miyagi Sensei, despite his reputation, is only one of many Sensei out there. Many other Sensei have used non-kata training to great effect (Jigoro Kano anyone?).
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Premature and overuse of sporting and so called "realistic" methods is counterproductive and hinders genuine knowledge.
I'm not sure what qualifies this statement. What proof do you have of this apart from someone else's word?
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If I can bounce around on my toes on the periphery, I don't need to be fighting at all.
What on earth do you mean by this? What does bouncing on toes have to do with fighting?
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Bunkai suffers because people perceive combat to be like sparring.
Real combat suffers from being unpredictable, unlike kata, which is very predictable. You can't learn how to deal with the unpredictable by training with the predictable.
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Most of the kata in GojuRyu involve close quarters and serious fighting,seizing and controlling and unbalancing the opponent and ending the confrontation with devastating force against vital areas.
Most of my sparring involves such techniques too (although I don't do the techniques full force of course, then again nor do you if you are only hitting air with them). If you're training sparring in any other way, you're doing it wrong.
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There are no tournament championship winning
techniques here.
Clearly, punches and kicks are not part of your kata.
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And self defense techniques extracted from the kata will be less effective if the practitioner hasn't internalized and metabolized the movement principles crystalized by the kata.
This I again reluctantly agree with. If you don't understand your kata, bunkai is all but useless. However, this doesn't affect the effectiveness of your sparring training for self defense.
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You won't learn these skills faster using focus mitts and sparring. You won't even grasp what they are.
I think I can grasp what a punch and a kick is after doing them 10000 times against a heavy bag. If you can't manage that, you've got some problems with how you're hitting that bag. If you can't understand how to use a technique against someone after using it in sparring, you've got little hope of knowing how to apply it against someone by any other means.
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A person first trains kata under a good instructor, then the kata trains the person. Anyone with four healthy limbs can kick and punch. Let them start sparring early in their career and they might get better at punching or kicking within that setting, but they've learned nothing from or about genuine karate.
This is what it all boils down to, "genuine karate", isn't it? If "genuine karate" isn't at least partly about "getting better at punching or kicking" within the setting of someone trying to punch and kick you and trying to stop you from punching and kicking them, then what is it about? I thought karate was a martial art and you're telling me that you've learned nothing from or about "genuine karate" if they've learned punching and kicking?
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I have heard race horses described as athletes. But if I try to imagine what running is like for a horse, my imagination cannot truly capture four-footed locomotion. Classical karate uses the same familiar bipedal body but in new and unfamilliar ways.
There are only a limited number of ways in which the human body can move. This is why there are so many similarities between martial arts in the world. If you've not trained anything other than Karate though, you would not know this.
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The inwardly experienced orientation to martial movement, the instinctive awareness of alignments and force vectors and neuromuscular recruitment developed from kata are alien to anyone lacking the kata experience and cannot be learned from any other source.
True, learning kata will teach you how to do kata well. What it won't do is teach you how to fight. In order to learn how to fight, you've got to come as close to fighting as you can, hence sparring.
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If kata training hasn't profoundly altered the way you use and experience how your body moves in space then martial arts concepts such as ki, mai, and tae sabaki, will appear esoteric and your understanding and application thereof will be confused and misguided.
Actually, you can learn about those through any technique in a martial art. They are not exclusive to kata at all and can be practiced in sparring to good effect.
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Heavy bag work, partner drills, and the rest are important. But kata does not exist to sharpen these ancillary training methods. They are employed to bring life and realism to kata training.
I believe that these kinds of training have separate goals and are less related than most people think. Bagwork builds muscular strength and develops full punching force against a resisting surface. Partner drills develop response times and accuracy. Sparring develops technical application, strategy and timing. Kata develops spatial awareness, technical control and automated response.
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"The secrets of the kata are in the kata." So said Chojun Miyagi. So say those who have trained and been trained by genuine kata.
I think you misinterpret this quote, but I'll not shake the foundations of your beliefs by trying to challenge it with my own opinions.
Edited by Leo_E_49 (10/12/06 03:15 PM)
_________________________
Self Defense(Website by Marc MacYoung, not me)
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#292616 - 10/12/06 04:44 PM
Re: Chen Destroys the kata myth
[Re: Leo_E_49]
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Professional Poster
Registered: 11/04/05
Posts: 6768
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Quote:
What on earth do you mean by this? What does bouncing on toes have to do with fighting?
meaning if you only had a fraction of a second to react to an attack...you wouldn't be bouncing on your toes as in sparring.
sparring is ok as long as it's close-in and fast. not the kind of sparring where you have time to use games like stalking each other, faking, false timing, setups, rapid-fire with no power, pulling punches, etc - it can be fun...but it's not working several key aspects, imo.
theres no time for the head-game strategy based sparring if you are working self-defense from the standpoint of: incapacitate your opponent as quickly as possible. causing death or serious injury is inconsequential and safety is not calculated into application. of course safety is a concern for training, but that safety doesn't detract from the principles that are trained.
From what I've read and seen, I'm convinced the Chinese captured the essence of such applications, and forms were made as their capsule. given the right combo of instruction/commitment/dilligence, kata are brutal and deadly....and why wouldn't they be.
do you need kata? no. you don't even need MA...just buy a gun.
this method vs. that method, bla bla bla - find a reality you are comfortable with and enjoy.
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#292617 - 10/12/06 04:52 PM
Re: Chen Destroys the kata myth
[Re: Ed_Morris]
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Free Rhinoplasty!
Prolific
Registered: 11/25/04
Posts: 15629
Loc: York PA. USA
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Ed -
I'm curious to see what you would think is good sparring. Do you have any video?
_________________________
"In case you ever wondered what it's like to be knocked out, it's like waking up from a nightmare only to discover it wasn't a dream." -Forrest Griffin
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#292618 - 10/12/06 05:34 PM
Re: Chen Destroys the kata myth
[Re: Ed_Morris]
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Professional Poster
Registered: 02/24/05
Posts: 4115
Loc: California
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Quote:
meaning if you only had a fraction of a second to react to an attack...you wouldn't be bouncing on your toes as in sparring.
I'm sorry, bouncing on your toes in sparring? That's a very strange idea to me. I've seen it done in videos and even in some tournaments, but my sparring looks nothing like that.
Quote:
sparring is ok as long as it's close-in and fast. not the kind of sparring where you have time to use games like stalking each other, faking, false timing, setups, rapid-fire with no power, pulling punches, etc - it can be fun...but it's not working several key aspects, imo.
Please tell the guy who knocked me out in sparring that he was pulling his punches. You ASSUME that sport sparring always involves pulling punches. I guarantee you that if you've only encountered sparring which does, you've been to all the wrong sparring tournaments.
Faking, stalking and setups are also very important for self defense, especially when dealing with weapons. If you reveal your intentions to an attacker with a weapon, you're as good as gutted. Faking helps you conceal your intention and the best way to learn how to use such a psychological tactic is in sparring.
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theres no time for the head-game strategy based sparring if you are working self-defense from the standpoint of: incapacitate your opponent as quickly as possible.
I'm pretty sure that in sparring, when KO is the primary mode of winning, you're learning how to incapacitate an opponent much better than learning by kata, where you imagine you are going to incapacitate an opponent.
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causing death or serious injury is inconsequential and safety is not calculated into application.
When do you cause death or serious injury in kata? I could say the same things you are saying about sparring in the context of kata training.
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of course safety is a concern for training, but that safety doesn't detract from the principles that are trained.
Principles such as distancing, timing and reading your opponent are definitely taught by sparring.
Quote:
From what I've read and seen, I'm convinced the Chinese captured the essence of such applications, and forms were made as their capsule. given the right combo of instruction/commitment/dilligence, kata are brutal and deadly....and why wouldn't they be.
I have no doubt that the kata appear to be brutal and deadly, but have you ever seen anyone mauled by a kata? I've seen people badly injured in tournament sparring. I've been concussed myself for the better part of six hours. If that's not "brutal", I don't know what is. Kata is a nice and friendly training method by comparison.
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do you need kata? no. you don't even need MA...just buy a gun.
Hah, good expression. I'm not arguing against the value of kata. I'm arguing against the supposition that kata does what it doesn't do, which is teach you the dynamics of fighting. It gives you the tools you need to fight and tells you what you need to be aware of your environment but it doesn't tell you how to use those tools or how to gauge their effect on your opponent.
Quote:
this method vs. that method, bla bla bla - find a reality you are comfortable with and enjoy.
Good, I'll stick with my reality which acknowledges both sparring and kata and doesn't go all PC about what is valuable about both.
Edited by Leo_E_49 (10/12/06 05:35 PM)
_________________________
Self Defense(Website by Marc MacYoung, not me)
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#292619 - 10/12/06 06:03 PM
Re: Chen Destroys the kata myth
[Re: JKogas]
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Professional Poster
Registered: 05/10/05
Posts: 2662
Loc: UK
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JKogas said -
'When I walk into a karate school to watch training, I see what is in my opinion, garbage for 90 percent of class time.'
Oh my we absolutly agree on something at last ! LOL
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