Must be good for a fight.

Kata obviously. Bunkai is not an Okinawan term and was developed by some (not all) of the Japanese systems to explain uses for kata technique. Then migration of the term to the states and then from the states to Okinawa actually got some Okinawn's using the term.

Ignoring the development of the term Bunkai, all answers as to which came first are in the relm of science fiction. The seniors conspiciously did not document their systems and succeeded, nobody has any proof of the chicken or the egg of the issue.

pleasantly,

Pish posh, Victor. Wasn't asking for proof...just opinions.

Harlan,

I WANT proof! <GRIN> because I really have no idea how this material evolved. If they really didn't originate the ideas, but borrowed them from the Chinese, then the kata would be first, technqiue) and application later or a close second.

In the case China technique is the core you have to go back a long ways to answer it.

I disagree.

We are talking about the techniques not the exact term bunkai, right?

The techniques were developed first and then later the kata was formed as a way to pass these techniques along, in my opinion.

Yes...the techniques. Chicken or egg: did kata evolve from techniques (assume folks considered them effective probably from having had to use them)...or did kata come first and techniques 'discovered' later via bunkai?

The way the question is worded, I agree with Victor. To have Bunkai implies that kata existed first. I actually agree with BrianS overall, though. The techniques existed long before kata did.

I do not know but I wonder if kata might find it's origin in war dances and retelling stories of battle. Which came first? war and battles or the retelling of the story. For some the battle came first for others watching others do dances that recounted battle might inspire and begin to prepare them to face conflict themselves. People watching the re enactment of a battle done as folk dance may just see dance others with different experience see the story of the battle. I imagine there were even tribesmen that originated dances but had little or no experience in battle themselves.

now that will start a fight,lol

i'll throw this idea out....

as far as the chicken or the egg thing, i think that life had to have come around first in some form, as they are both forms of life. therefore, i believe that fighting was around befor either, and kata/bunkai came about as forms/ways of fighting.

harlen, what posessed you to start this??

yours in life