I agree that every fighter needs grappling skills..at what point did I say otherwise, at what point did I say that using exclusively karate would work in an MMA match? All I am saying is that Shotokan can be used as an effective stand up art in MMA. That is all. I'm not claiming superiority in anything. Machida is the Light-Heavyweight champion, and if you read the interviews I linked to above he states quite clearly the karate is his primary fighting style, and that BJJ is his secondary. I'm not making this up you know.

Our dojo has a heavy bag and we train with full resistance. Sorry, but you're idea of what traditional shotokan is, is wrong.

Fact: Machida is the Light-Heavy weight champion of UFC and he uses Shotokan karate as his stand up style, in fact as he says himself, it is his focus. Look at the interview I linked to.

Fact: Machida does kata and thinks they are useful. He has included some in his MMA training video.

Does this mean that kata will turn you into an amazing fighter? No. Does this mean that Shotokan is better than other arts? No. It means that when combined with good grappling skills Shotokan can be used as an effective stand up style in MMA. I really don't understand what the problem with this statement is...

You won't be getting your free guide to Shotokan kata. I can feel your disappointment from here!

The problem with that logic is that even most kata practitioners have stated that kata practice is not anything like what they would actually do in a resistive situation. I would more likely believe that his footowork came from karate-type sparring, not from kata.

Kata's value is at the very bottom of the list, IMHO.

I think this is really as far as this discussion can go I suppose. Beyond agreeing that Machida does kata as a part of his training and that he himself sees a purpose in them, as I do, we can't say much else. Certainly saying everyone should do kata, or that everyone would find kata useful would be silly.

Getting away from the great kata debate here's a link to a video of some of his drills for footwork, quite interesting:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S-uw15ygdBU

As I said before, he isn't my favourite fighter (yet!) and he still has a bit to do to truly get to the top. I do like his tactical style, it's got brains behind it...and of course I do like him because he does shotokan!

HOLY COW. You are grasping and things are slipping away for you. I can train timing and footwork all I want with an imaginary opponent but something changes when you put a real person in front of you and that kata bull$hit goes out the window. You need a live and breathing opponent (many in fact with different fighting methods) in front of you who does move and does what you do not expect. Everything changes when that person is trying to hurt you; something a kata can't. You want to work on timing and footwork then stop doing kata and do more sparring.

Pretty sure Anderson Silva doesn't do Kata

Kata can not teach you timing. Timing is individual to your oponent, and who dictates the fight. A counter-fighter will have different timing to an aggressor, and your, and your oponents, choice of tactic will blend and your timing will come from how well you react and adapt to that individual situation.

That is why pro fighters like to get tapes of upcoming oponents, and try and get sparring partners who exhibit similar traits to them.

If it was '1 routine fits all' then sparring would be obsolete, as it is, Machida himself says he uses 'sparring to simulate a fight'.

Please note that he does not say the same about Kata.

Quite the contrary, the "A" and "B" scenario IS meaningful you just choose to not want to believe it.

Let's get one thing straight, Machida may have been raised on Karate; he may even practice Karate still as is apparent with his katas. BUT training Karate is NOT training as a fighter; two different things. People who train Karate are NOT fighters. Fighters training fighting and that is what Machida does. Again he may keep ties with Karate as that was where he started but don't even think for once that when Machida is training for fighting that he is still training Karate.

Look back at earlier UFC and other MMA events, many "Karate" people tried their hand and they got their a$$ handed to them. Pretty sure they were practicing kata; got them NO WHERE and no where fast. While the Gracies mopped up the floor even their way of fighting started to become obsolete as fighters started to train all aspects of the game. They started training like MMA fighters. That is what Machida is doing as well. Karate may be his base but he is still training MMA.

MMA is not one way, MMA is many ways. Many have foundations in other arts such as Judo, Boxing, Wrestling, BJJ, Kickboxing, Muay Thai, TKD, Karate, etc. But then they mix and match to find a combination that works for them and train as a whole. Those that don't train as a whole don't last long and those that don't change or adapt eventually become obsolete and retire or fighting in smaller venues.

Machida is no different then my own Instructor was. He taught TKD and BJJ and he did patterns. But when he trained and fought MMA he trained as such. To say that his patterns were a core or instrumental in his success is absurd; just like it is with Machida.

Keep grasping.

i've been practicing shotokan for a few years now and i think i've herd prety much every argument for and against kata there is by now.

my 2 cents would be that kata is at best a jumping off point point for further development. people find all kinds of "applications" of kata and then they get stuck by talking about them and demonstrating them like noobs. at best i think learning a technique froma kata is like being told about it or maybe shown once how it works. and thats just not enough. so what i know 3 hips throws from one kata, you don't KNOW how to hip throw until you can toss someone who's trying to knock your block off. and you get that skill from sparring (big suprise).

saying that kata is your base for fighting knowledge is a huge stretch. i can see the merit in someone saying that they learn different techniques from a kata, but their so damn abstract that it dosen't really count. i have some instructunal dvds on gracie jiu jutsu, that ammounts to a hill of beans if i go fight in a BJJ tournament. i'd rank kata's revelance to fighting as a slightly smaller hill of beans than the dvd's.

anything else i think is just someone playing up their martial art. this from a guy with a shodan in shotokan, their going to burn me alive, lol.

Kata training is more than kata performance! You can't learn to box by shadow boxing alone, hitting the pads alone, etc. And you can't get good at fighting very fast by sparring without learning proper techniques, combos, fighting strategy, etc. For all of those who try to seperate simple kata performance from karate's other training methods, its no wonder you turned to MMA. That's kids class stuff.

It seems like many of you guys are saying that the more sparring one does the better fighter one will be. So then are you saying the one who spars the most will be the best fighter? If that is so, then why do pro fighters do A LOT more than just spar?

I'm going to go with Student more so

kata won't teach you timing because you need a partner for that

kata/forms serve as a basic instruction tool. This is how you move and pivot, this is how you block, this is how you punch, etc etc. You can practice basic and simple techniques together when you are by yourself. Simple body mechanics. again this is basic stuff so the resistance you experience will be at a lower level. Stuff like simple application drills.

As you advance in skill and in your training, then the resistance you encounter should also increase. More sparring and etc.

But you have to start somewhere, and thats what kata helps with. I think kata is a good learning tool, does it teach you everything? no. And eventually as you get better and better the effectiveness of kata on your skill starts to plateau because you already have down the body mechanics and the techniques for the most part. Unless the kata's you do start to change focus. For example, just hitting the air with punches and kicks vs something like San Chin which is more like strength development.

but like I said, at some point in your training the effect of forms will start to plateau, imo at least