Re: Kata....what is it good for?
- From: Sutemi <ericroessler@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sun, 30 Sep 2007 00:30:52 -0700
On Sep 29, 11:15 pm, "Greendistantstar"
<pde63539Oremovet...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
I've been reading an article by a well regarded martial artist who also happens
to be a Bjj bb. He talks about kata. I won't re-write it right here, right now
(it's a long article, not on the web and would take a long time to type, but I
will quote the bit I've mentioned) but I'd like to know.....kata....what is it
good for?
Cheers
--
GDS
"Let's roll!"
I feel unusually well-qualified to answer. I've gone from Shotokan to
Wing Chun to BJJ to Silat. I also do IDPA and IPSC pistol shooting
competitively. I feel the value of kata depends on how you define it,
how you use it and what you expect to get from practicing them.
My BJJ instructor used to have us do what he called "shadow boxing"
before class as a warm-up and at home to keep grappling fresh when you
had no partner. They were just common movements from rolling. Miming
setting up armbars from the mount, upas, elbow escapes, hip
drills...often strung together in a sequence. Usually the shadow
boxing he had us do before class was related to what he taught us in
the class. Is shadow boxing kata? My instructor would correct our
mechanics but didn't quibble over minute points of form. He also
didn't claim that shadowboxing was an adequate substitute for randori.
But, in my experience, it did help, if only by keeping my movement
fresh and keeping mat rust at bay when I couldn't train every day.
In Shotokan, the kata were an end in themselves. You could do kata
"wrong" by not using enough drawhand or raising your back heel, things
that everyone does as a matter of course in sparring. The techniques
in the katas were either not used in sparring or not used as
practiced. Kata was consided essential to becoming a good fighter but
it was hard to ignore the fact that the top kata competitors were
seldom top sparring competitors.
In Wing Chun the forms were presented as more of a lexicon of
techniques than an actual working combination. You referred to the
form for *how* to execute techniques but it was chisao and sparring
practice where you explored when and against what you used the
techniques. Forms were considered an important reference but good
execution of forms wasn't considered a guarantee of fighting skill.
The forms I do in Silat are facinating. They remind me strongly of the
forms I did in Shotokan in their physicality but there is *no*
disconnect from the execution of the forms and the execution of
techniques in sparring. Silat has helped me understand what a lot of
the techniques in Shotokan katas were intended to accomplish. In
addition, my Silat instructor doesn't discourage me from using any of
the techniques I've picked up along the way. I don't feel confined or
limited by doing the Silat forms, on the contrary, I feel like for the
first time I'm not trying to "do this, not that". The forms in Silat
are utilitarian. They exist to reference certain body mechanics that
can only be fully internalized on a non-compliant opponent. My
exposure to Silat is limited and my instructor assures me that there
are *lots* of instructors who've gone the way of Shotokan in elevating
the status of forms practice. I can understand why; when my Silat
instructor says, "ok, lets practice a few techniques from the forms" I
can count on a three-advil night.
In my pistol shooting, I do hours of drills; dry firing drills,
drawstrokes, reloads, dryfiring while transitioning from target to
target, shooting and transtioning on the move, reloading on the move.
If I was rich, or good enough to get some big gun company to sponsor
me, I'd probably do a lot more of these drills with live ammuntion,
but it's simply too expensive to practice this stuff live all the
time. There are qualifier stages that I could run through dry that one
could consider kata, I suppose. Or I could string some drills together
and call them IPSC kata. I'm sure the top shooters have such drills,
but none of them are cynical enough to try to sell them to the lesser
shooters like myself with promises that if I practice them diligently,
I'll someday become Brian Enos or Robbie Latham.
I think forms are useless as an end in themselves. I think there needs
to be *real* non-compliant combat experience in order for the forms to
be relevant. I think the originators of forms were professional
killers and ass-kickers who needed a way to keep their skills fresh
and do some reps without having to kill anyone or subject themselves
to the risk of death. But "imagining your opponent" as they told us to
do in Shotokan was useless if your frame of reference didn't include
ever having *had* a formidable, non-compliant opponent. It's like
telling someone that grew up in the desert, "imagine being up to your
nose in water", then trying to teach him to swim by pantomiming the
movements of swimming. Disconnect.
.
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- From: Greendistantstar
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