I agree CXT. Its not about winning or losing, its about improvement.

Crab, thanks for the info. There base is mine.

No cxt, they are just two ways of doing the same thing.

Butter side up!

(But not really diametrically opposed like butter side down or the commies).

Mark

Nah, the only time it should be "butter side up" is when your makeing grilled cheese sandwichies--otherwise the butter gets all over your hands--ick.

If you drop your bread on the floor--you should throw it away regardless of the side it lands on--according to Mythbusters the old rule (3 or 5 seconds depneding on whom you ask) is bogus.

I was thinking more like Dr Seuss.

Well, first off i'm very sorry if this post offends anyone and that is not my intention my intention is to tell what i think works best and most practical for self defence training and self defence alone. Also people should not be offended by this because everyone has the right to say and believe what they want and what they think is right so please read all of this with a open mind. And if you don't agree with me thats fine but please do not get mad at me for my freedom to think and express my own thoughts.


And also i'm making this clear first ' I believe forms have their purposes mainly technique memorization but punching the air can not make someone profient in self defence in my opinion but even if it could it would takes many years for it to work and why spend so many years solely on kata when you can add sparring and be profient in a very short time considering the alternatives ' .

I believe the idea of ' Traditional kata ' making someone a profient self defence expert is due to traditionalism and kung fu movies. I use forms myself to memorize techniques but nothing more then memorization, like i said they have their purposes .

I believe forms were passed on to simply memorize techniques quickly but with time people started turning forms into some evident truth because people tend to do that to things in life.

The truth is the only way to become profient in combat is to fight people realisticly and practically. To me that seems very clear and direct almost like common sense. I think people should train kata but they should also do realistic sparring and at least full contact sparring sometimes.

Of course sparring can not replace real experience but its the closest thing you can get to a real fight in terms of training in a generally safer manner.

In conclusion i'll say this , kata do have a good purpose in training and that is to memorize techniques precisely and to increase speed of movement but kata training alone is no way to train for self defence. I agree that people should do kata to learn alot of techniques but for self defence they should full contact sparring with others and two man drills also are good for self defence training.

You should first learn the kata then take your kata techniques into free form full combat sparring, doing both of those is good for self defence but kata by its self is not. In life to be good at anything you need to know the proper balance and kata without sparring is the abbsence of balance. If you do kata and spar and drills then i would say balancing those three tools will help make someone good at self defence.

And when i say all this its completely without thought of traditionalism or philosophy, this is all based on how to scientificly and practiclly train for self defence.

If you do it for philosophy that is good to i also study philosophy but in self defence it should be mostly scientific in my opinion.

Anyway i'm completely sure alot of people will not like my opinions but just like everyone else i have the right to freely decide what works and what does not but i'm not telling anyone they have to believe this, only that it is what i believe to be the most practical self defence training methods.

Ronin

Good for you!

People should make up their own minds about things and do what works for them.

Training methods that don't show gains for the individual should be abandoned.

For me kata works--but then again, I do a lot more than just kata.

And so did the students back in the day.

Sorry found this rather late.

Kata, well it is a good way of sorting students for grading, size and build matter in sparring so that isn’t a very fair test for who gets a grade and who doesn’t, but Kata is a good leveller.

The appeal to learn something new and complex is also a very strong appeal for Kata, I do find that to much of karate mystic wrapped up in Kata, excessive Bunkai really winds me, wrist grab here, eye strike, shoulder throw with jump,,,, FFS its rubbish.

As for the constant practice of a pre arranged sequence of moves , to program the students instincts in the event of a real world attack…. Please don’t tell me that your instructors tell you that OMG NO!!!!!

Practicing Kata makes you good at ONE THING ………. Any idea? KATA!!

Now before the Karateka jump on me, I hold a 5th dan in karate, I can perform
{very poorly now} all but 2 shotokan kata. I did enjoy practicing Kata.

But I always acknowledge that the time I spent practicing kata was time I wasn’t practicing martial arts, I was practicing dance….

BUT, what someone wants to do is their own business, and may they enjoy it, I just don’t like aspects of training being miss sold to gullible students

Regards

Mark

PS: Chen I remember you from this forum years ago, you still talk a lot of sense, my respect to you

I am a late bloomer to this thread, too. This is not an attack against the posting to whom I am replying, I agree with you, so don't take offense. I am still figuring out how to work this forum thing. This is more of a general message to whom it may concern. Now that the caveat is out of the way here goes my two cents:

If you like training kata then train kata, if you don't then don't. It is that simple. The problem seems to be that people want to take their own opinion and force it upon everybody else as an ultimate truth. Is kata useful? It is up to you to decide that for yourself. Everybody has their own opinion, and that opinion is perfectly valid - for that individual. If you think kata is necessary then fine, it is necessary - for you. If you think kata is a complete waste of time then fine, it is a complete waste of time - for you. Either way, your opinion only applies to you and not everybody else, so everybody needs to stop trying to jam their opinion down the ma commmunity's throat. It is okay to have different opinions on things, especially on something as free and open as this. There is more than one way to skin a cat, either way the cat is going to be skinned, so you should skin it in the way that works best for you. Does kata help you? For some people yes, and for some people no. It all depends on what YOU make of it. It will help you if you decide to use it in a way that is going to help you. After all, personal responsibility comes into play at some point, something will only help you as much as you use it to help yourself.

So what is my opinion? Yes, kata is a valuable training tool - for me. I can't speak for you or for anybody else. However, I can speak for myself, and I can tell you that training kata has improved my overall focus and balance. I think of it as moving meditation, fists and feet are flying on the outside while everything is quiet and serene on the inside. Kata has taught me how to be calm amid the chaos, and for me, it really paid off both in sparring and in other areas of my life. I don't know if that is true for everybody who trains with kata. I don't even know if everybody else trains their kata with that mindset. I can only speak for me.

Does kata prepare you for a real fight? Heck no! However, nothing prepares you for a real fight but ACTUAL EXPERIENCE IN A REAL FIGHT. No matter how much sparring and "aliveness" training you do, you are not preparing for a real fight unless you engage in a real fight. That is one of those things where only experience can teach you. There is a big difference between sparring or rolling around with someone in a gym and actually defending against a sudden, unexpected attempt made on your life, god forbid. That's a whole other ball game. Everything changes when it is for real. You can do all of the live fire exercises you want to do, but it is never going to prepare you for actually fighting in a real war. A military veteran taught me that little fact.

So should I or anybody else stop practicing kata because it doesn't prepare for me for a real fight? If yes, then we all should stop practicing martial arts period and start going around and getting into real fights with everybody, because the only way that we can truly prepare for those conditions is train under those conditions. Punching and kicking the air won't help, but neither will sparring or rolling with an opponent who is not going to go all out to harm or even kill you, which is what the scenario would be in a real fight. Either way, it is unrealistic. However, sparring and aliveness training will help you out in certain ways, and that will improve your chances in a real fight, which is all that any of us can ask for. Kata will will help you out in certain ways, too. I know that it has helped me to focus and be calm amid the chaos, and that will certainly improve my chances in a real fight. They both are valuable training tools, so there is no need to tear down one or the other. Heck, you can do both. When I first learned heian shodan, sensei made the senior student actually run up to me and attack me at full speed during the kata. I nearly wet myself and my rhythm was all off, but it really helped with my kata training. It got really fun when the senior student started adding even more variations to his attacks and forcing me to adjust the timing, rhythm, and direction of the kata. If only it could've been recorded on video, a first place entry on funniest home videos !

So, do what works best for you. The only myth is that something can't help you out if you seriously train it. We can all benefit from any form of training, so we should all be open to every form of training. It is called humility.

Bump.

Longest thread in the history of FA?


-John