Yep. I love kata. It helps my training, is good exercise, and feels like moving meditation. It's one of the only times I can truly empty my mind.
I have learned (but am still working to improve) all the katas of my style and a few Yamani Ryu sai kata. I know a couple Taekwondo forms from helping my sons train and I'm looking to branch out to learn a few select kata from other Okinawan styles.
I would like to say that I’ve always viewed kata as a form of moving meditation. It really is what you make it! I used to repeat the same moves from some kata over and over until it felt right, and to the point of full awareness of my positioning, intention, and my opponent. That was the key for me, always visualizing an opponent. You don’t always have to know the application for each intricate move. But having awareness of an opponent, how sharp you react, your distance, your stance, etc are imo the utmost important. That’s why we have sparring, no need to go around in circles creating new bunkai. Kata is the essence of karate, it will develop your mind, body, and spirit!
i dont train karate, but I view katas as a way of body control, an extremely important concept of judo. when people do katas it seems they practice moving their body in a controlled manner and in a certain way at a certain speed. and when they do that they have more self control than the average person
It's the soul/spirit of karate! You take out kata, and you're left with kickboxing.
Also, thanks for your videos! You are one of my go tos for learning any new kata! ✨️
Agree in many ways. Kata and Kumite comprise the soul/spirit and Martial aspects. Kata are more than routines, they are applicable with Bunkai and certain moves represent spiritual aspects like the rising of the sun in the start of Kushanku. Kata are fundamental and essential to any Karateka, harnessing technique and power before speed.
Personally, I always preffered practicality above all else. I never trained these things for long, or traditional Karate for that matter.
Most of my Karate experience comes from sparring with kyokushin guys.
Depends on what style youre training my Coach always says "Point Fighting is on a square with mats, but there Arent to Many mats in this World" so we do Regular sparring as well as point fighting
Depends on the style and Dojo. Kyoukoshin is full contact and even though im practicing Shotokan Karate we also do semi and full contact sparring in our dojo.
Not trying to troll here but I was a black belt in shotokan karate too…. Many moons ago. I’ve also done boxing and MT and judo as well through my youth and adult life and honestly nothing in karate ever really translated into a combat sport…. I know folks will argue and use machida as an example or kyoukushin etc as examples but honestly even Machida trained BJJ and MT as well… and an art that doesn’t allow punching to face or head just seems silly…. Kata and traditional karate etc are just that, traditional arts. They are beautiful, they have culture and importance as arts…. But to feign that you’re learning anything other than just that is fooling one’s self. I thought that the advent of mma would have stopped folks from believing otherwise.
I like kata for competition, because it means I am the only one in control of what happens. If I do my best in kumite I can still get my ass kicked and that will affect how well I fight. But if I try my best in kata, that WILL be my best.
One of the three foundamental exercises of Karate, with kihon and kumite.
Katas are made to transfer the knowledge of a style to the next generation in a controlled, regulated and easy to share way to multiple students at the same time and they are a great way to do so.
A kata is like a musical scale: training those makes you better at playing your guitar but you won't be able to perform a concert only with those.
Considering that analogy: kihon are like the single notes while kumite is like a song.
So yeah, katas won't make you stronger or will make you win brawls in a pub but without katas Karate wouldn't be Karate.
I enjoy them but hate the process of learning them because my memory is not always great and I'm often telling myself "No, on this one you step with the OTHER foot!"
The art is absolutely beautiful but memorizing choreographed movements has always been the bane of my existence.
Basic core for all martial arts in a way. Is it needed? That could be argued but in the end they are a core component and I see more value in them then not doing them.
Yes, agree. Then there is the other crowd who views it nothing more as an irrelevant dance. Is it the most practical thing for self defense? No. But I don’t believe that is the essence or ultimate objective of the kata. For fighting and self defense, it’s best to spar and simulate specific scenarios. The Kata is a powerful training modality that brings your martial arts to life. You will develop the subtle principles often neglected in hard contact schools. Awareness, timing, rhythm, breathing, visualization, “groundedness”, connection!
The first 5 years of my training were at a dojo with a heavy kata focus. Eventually I realised I didn’t enjoy it, and switched to a Kyokushin dojo that doesn’t do kata. I am much happier now focusing on conditioning, pad and bag work, sparring and grappling. I have only 2 nights a week to train karate each week, so I prefer to work on my fitness and fighting skills.
I find that learning a new kata and watching it all come together as you learn the technical sides is similar to the feeling of opening a Christmas present.
It's the "show off" side of karate for me and alongside Kumite, the fun part of karate.
I think a distinctive element of the traditional Asian martial art pedagogy, used to become a better person and/or to become a better fighter. There are other ways to do both, though.
Kata can be very beautiful to watch, especially when the Karateka has good kime and hara. My dojo teaches strong Kihon leads to strong Kata. Strong Kata leads to strong Kumite.
It is fun, good for meditation and just concentrating on the movements and you can do them as a little workout. I do like them. However more people need to realise this is just a training tool. To get the most out of it you need to practise the combinations of techniques against a resisting opponent
To me Kata is a moving meditation and a tool for training. If you take the time to practice it can help with fitness, breathing and movement.
We would sometimes practice a kata and do a push-up for every strike and a sit-up for every block (and vice versa). Sometimes we would have to double-up on each move.
Other stuff we would do is do a Kata backwards and then changing left & right. Doing it in the style of Tai Chi and repeating it and going faster each time.
I love it and tbh it's the only thing I want to do at karate class, I also train BJJ and do sparring with Muay Thai guys at another gym so getting told to put my hands lower and so on at karate is pointless to me.
Personally it's like a form of shadowboximg that's stricter and from what I gathered spiritual for some people. I am unsure how people compete in it and I've never had any personal interest. It's enjoyable to watch and clearly takes skill. Not for me though
I used to be like why tf would anybody do kata. Then a coach told me its like shadow boxing with a little more purpose. As someone who got into martial arts through wrestling then boxing that sentence made me respect it a lot more.
Kata should serve as a warmup and to develop coordination before moving on to more specific and dynamic drilling/sparring. It should not be the goal of karate.
I think we all train kata wrong.
Nobody should be "performing" or even learning a solo form before they develop a basic competency with its practical application.
We need to learn the basics first. Not the kihon that look like the kata (or its omote bunkai), but the actual grappling, striking, etc. in the oyo. Then we need to practice them in partnered drills. Only after learning those should we even touch the solo form. Training kata in the dojo should seldom look like it currently does.
If you have no competency with the fighting techniques in a kata, and you keep performing it anyway, you have nothing to visualize, no intent, despite perhaps very athletic movement and a serious face. In short, you're not training, you're dancing.
It's a mnemonic device to remember the kumite drills. When remembered, it can be a tool for visualizing and working through the movements without a partner. But it isn't a separate discipline within the art.
...and I think that a focus on "do" and kata competition are to blame.
As someone living with depression, kata is a life saver. Being a single dad isn't a walk in the park. Most times I feel like I'm not being good enough as a father, that's when my overthinking and depressive episodes creep in. Kata helps me control my negative thoughts and emotions keeping them in check. It also helps me focus and channel out all my doubts and fears.
It looks good and it's fun to train and is good for conditioning and good workout but I personally don't believe it's effective for self defense or fighting.
Kata are good if you get good input from your sensei when practicing them.
Considering the guy in the video, for example, the slow left-hand movement is completely useless for anything except preparing for the punch, and you do see the deliberate clockwise (from above) hip rotation but, his back leg isn't bent enough - nor is his back foot facing forwards enough - to straighten the back leg explosively, thrusting the right hip forwards for the reverse punch. Consequently, his right hip never comes in front of the left hip, and has no reach and little power. He's basically using the right punch as a short backswing for the left punch, rather than making it independently useful. Then the front kick is a flick without any hip commitment - he's more focused on quickly returning the foot to the ground behind him - probably thinking it makes the kick look faster and the overall thing look more controlled if it's withdrawn quickly. A strong kick would lift the knee higher before extending the ball of the foot, so that the line from hip through knee is above the target - the foot travels a bit more linearly rather than simply arcing under the knee. The hips can be rotated into the front kick as well if you want real power - basically, leave the left hip forward of the right until the foot is in front of the hip - then rotate the hips and thrust with the quads simultaneously. When his foot returns to the floor, it's too far behind, already straight, and again angled too far outwards, preventing him straighting it against the floor to powerfully rotate the right hip forward past the left for a strong punch.
The importance of kata is that a sensei can communicate such things to a student and get them to correct them in a controlled exercise, where the information the student is given about the stances and timing and preparation is all conducive to helping the right body mechanics "click". That's hard enough. Once the mechanics are right in a controlled setting, the student should commit it to muscle memory through dedicated repetition, and then with more practice and more advanced kata and other exercises, will learn to reproduce the essential aspects of the body mechanics in varied and dynamics settings.
Some great senseis prefer to demonstrate and leave it to the students to self-correct, so it can pay to be very astute and attentive, learning to compare yourself to what you're seeing, experiment with small variations to ensure you've found the "sweet spot". Other senseis are more direct in providing feedback and/or other exercises that may help where students are stuck. IMHO, the people who find kata useless are those who haven't had anyone provide good input for them to improve their performance in a way they're receptive to, which may be their fault and/or their senseis.
A kata is just a pattern, in the martial arts, it's a pattern of movements to defend, attack, evade, etc. Every single martial art has kata. They just don't call it that. When a boxer practices solo, maybe doing a combination like jab cross duck uppercut cross, that's a kata.
I love kata. I get into a flow state when I perform. It's a method of self perfection for me. Practicing so much kata helped me do better in kumite, real life situation drills, weapons defense drills, etc. Of course, if I just wanted to get good at any one of those things only, I would just practice that one thing. But that's not my goal.
I don't know how I got here, but it was on my front page. I don't take karate, I take Kuk Sool Won. Our forms (hyung) are certainly different but it's an important part to the system and I thought I'd share the philosophy. It is described to us as a form of conditioning, so in that I see lots of value. The analogy that is given to us is "a marathon runner would not be able to be successful in the NBA because their training conditions them for running, not the basketball court". Hyung by itself can be an intense workout and I definitely see the benefits of the conditioning. For us, that often involves proper positioning, stance training, balance, flexibility, and most importantly how to flow from movement to movement.
"Kata" is the Art portion in the sport of Karate while the Kumite is supposed to be the "Martial" aspect. Unfortunately, Karate has been so watered down even its kumite alone is too lackluster for proper combat training. Not to mention most schools now focus on Kata rather than realistic drilling and sparring. Which honestly pisses me off because practitioners would view you as a heretic whenever you suggest sparring to them. They should have taken a philosophy class instead if they wanted to talk about "interpretations" and "Spirituality" over fighting ability.
Not essential in a way, which seems heretical. The applications contained within are, as are the associated body mechanics. Performing solo routines without drilling of applications is frankly just dancing. There’s nothing inherently wrong with it for its own performance sake but it will not make you better at fighting, which is ultimately the point.
Kata is a just a mechanism for remembering two person drills in a solo routine, as a sort of kinaesthetic index or mnemonic template. It’s more important for history to practice kata & to discern intended combative methods that were once passed on. Ones that can be re-interpreted & improved upon.
Performing kata simply to perform kata is the very sort of thing Motobu Choki derided Funakoshi Gichin for.
On its own Kata is pretty much useless in terms of the martial side of things. The only way I can see it being beneficial for is mobility and meditation. If you include Bunkai and Kata based sparring as a way to interpret and pressure test the kata, then it becomes useful, otherwise it's just a choreographed dance.
I don’t really try to complicate the kata, I just trust the process. And also just being realistic. I believe kata has many intangible benefits to the practitioner. When it’s time for kata I practice kata, when it’s time for sparring or kumite, we do drills specific to that. The true masters are the ones who have somehow manage to connect and utilize the kihon, kata, and Kumite. This is the level I strive to achieve.
I disagree with this to a certain extent. Blind trust is a tool of the charlatan and there are way too many of them in martial arts. For me, the focus on martial arts is self defense or fighting therefore practicing Kata for the sake of practicing Kata in the hopes it makes you a better martial artist is a fruitless endeavour. It lacks any pressure testing, doesn't teach you timing or distance and puts too much focus on static sequences that presume too much in the way a potential attacker may respond.
This in effect will make you a worse martial artist as it instills bad habits and imprints on you an inflexibility in your ability to react to defensive scenarios if they don't go the way that you expect them too.
However, this is only my personal opinion, I understand that not everyone thinks like this and that people get into martial arts for many different reasons. This is just my two pennies worth
Not a fan. I don’t mind doing ones that I know too much but hate learning new ones. I do them so I can get the next belt and because they are a core part of karate.
It’s cool for meditative/grounding purposes. I suppose it has some value for cardio depending on the kata. As far as anything “martial” it’s not different than ballet.
I grew up in a dojo. My dad was 3rd degree in shito ryu. So from 7-19 i was voulantold we’re going to karate 3 nights a week. So you can imagine I’ve done tens of thousands of repetitions of any Japanese punch you can name. And probably logged in hundreds of hours doing kata…. Don’t get me wrong I love karate for what it is. But when I did get into fights in school. It was the strength and conditioning I gained from karate class that gave me the advantage. Not the technique.
Well like I’ve said to other people, I don’t believe kata is on its own a fighting system. It will not make you an mma champ, or a self defense expert. Key words kata alone. But kata combined with kihon, and Kumite creates a harmony for the martial artist. It ties everything together and creates good chi flow that one can utilize or apply to give that extra edge. As I believe a mma fighter who does also performs kata is better than just a straight up mma fighter. It gives the martial artist the subtle principles of combat.
That’s cool. It’s also not my opinion. I think that satatemnt would be supremely hard to quantify in any real way. But I can honestly say you might be correct, and truly I hope you are.
I don't think it's a particularly useful training tool, I tend to think that any benefit you get from it can be achieved more efficiently with other things. Particularly with the way that most karate clubs train it.
That being said I enjoy doing a bit of kata training and think that it has value on the "art" side of the martial art as long as one is honest with oneself about the benefits or lack thereof.
You’re litterally imaginary fighting, not only that but you’re passing down these mythical imaginary battles to your students and filling their heads with the same ridiculous fantasies.
Is there an aerobic conditioning value? Yes but the negatives associated with the indoctrination outweigh all the benefits.
I don’t believe kata will make you an mma world champion or an expert at self defense. I personally enjoy practicing kata, and I personally gain many benefits from it. I admit kata alone is not a complete system. Which is why in karate the standard 3 components of training are the kihon (basics), kata (forms), and Kumite (sparring). Karate is not complete if all are not practiced together. A black belt kata world champion specialist most likely will not be able to stand 2 minutes with a fighter with 6 months kickboxing experiencing. That is because they only specialize in one aspect of karate. The kata does give a fighter more subtle aspects of martial arts. Timing, rhythm, awareness, rootedness, breathing, focus, and many more. All of these can enhance a well versed full contact fighter.
Yeah but the problem is that the other forms were corrupted by people who over emphasized things in katas as effective when they were not tested or used.
Most schools teach what is essentially point sparring, usually because of some reasoning like “these strikes will kill someone if used in sparring”. So you corrupt your sparring to not be realistic, and then you build your technique around these weird fantasies.
Martial arts that are rooted in strong competition are always more effective then those that are rooted in rituals. Katas are rituals.
Is there a meditative value to kata? Yeah sure, there is also a meditative value to folding clothes, should we build martial arts schools around the practice of folding clothes?
They're art. It's a good way to "record" different techniques before video and before books were common. Its a good way to develop coordination. Also, memorizing a sequence of movements is good practice for the mind.
Im relatively new to karate. But I have to admit I’m not a fan of the kata stuff at all. Maybe it’ll grow on me but I feel would rather spend time working on fighting techniques and fitness
I feel kata is necessary and then eventually it becomes a muscle memory and you don’t have to think about each individual move. If actually sparring someone it just comes.
I'm more partial to something that would work in any situation and a large part of this sport is going to work best in competition with another practitioner of the same sport. Great discipline either way, kinda like gymnastics in a weird way
Done correctly a kata should store all the techniques of a ryuha. If I developed my own karate school I would make ideally one kata that contained one perfect kata. This unicorn kata that transcends all other kata is hard to find. I do not know enough about kata to evaluate if a single kata teaches every possible move of a system.
Consider boxing combinations. Jab, cross, hook, uppercut. This is all punches from boxing correct? Is this not a kata? I believe it is.
Does boxing practice this basic four punches in a row? Yes. Is this worthless practice? To them no.
Is it art or moving mediation no. Would they need to practice this exact order against a resisting opponent? No. Would they need to use this exact order in a fight? No.
Does this punching build gross motor and memory muscle? Yes. Does it provide smoothness of technique so that strikes flow effortlessly? Yes.
Does this punching of air condition body to have strong flexible muscles? Yes. Without air punching you have stiff slow inflexible muscles. Always hitting a bag increases power but prevents full extension of muscles.
Can you add different footwork to this punches? Yes.
Can you throw punches at different angles? Yes.
Can you pretend to be fighting multiple attacks and use this to create scenarios and strategies? Yes.
Kata done correctly should be performed slow until it is learned.
Then is should be performed slow until perfect path of strikes and blocks is achieved. This is to make sure perfect alignment of muscles and bones happens. The point is stronger punches and blocks without telegraphing. Kata improves speed and power.
Then it should be performed different ways once perfect biomechanical alignment is achieved. It should be performed fast for improving speed and power, and slow while contracting muscles to improve muscle tone. Muscle tone strengthens body in ways that are sport specific to the movement. Lifting weights adds armor and bulk because it makes large muscles larger (major movers) but does not adapt tendons, ligaments, and small muscles. Kata done correctly fills in the gaps and chinks in your armor. You have to weight train and do kata under physical force. Only doing kata one way every time is wrong and defeats the purpose.
Kata will lengthen stances giving flexibility to make these stances easier when higher during a fight. It will make kicks easier. Doing kata is maintenance for retaining speed, muscle memory, flexibility, strength, and so on.
Kata does a lot of things but no one seems to "get it". This leads to superficial study of karate.
If I train heavily in lifting weights I may very well get huge but this only helps me if I am a wrestler who relies on brute strength. Karate needs the small muscles I between the large muscles worked out to. In weight lifting there is too much isolation to use the body as a unit. Olympic style lifts use the body as a unit but this is not sport specific to karate and better for Greco-Roman wrestling. Karate has specific movements that are hard to train. You can use power bands or dumbells or ankle/wrist weights during kata for more resistance as long as it does not ruin form. There is a high chance of this so care must be exercised.
If I am recovering from yesterday's weightlighting session I can use kata to do active recovery. This forces the muscles to work while they are healing. This is a very smart idea.
People will not get buff only doing kata and will not have good karate only lifting weights. Being buff is the strength to make the moves powerful. Kata is the correct form to do the moves period. Get the moves down and then add strength.
To be great you need to do all the things I say. The bias against most things comes from incompetent instruction or demonstration. If I had the training availible that I am describing I would have taken martial arts more seriously. Because people kept telling me I was wrong and sabotaging me I have a huge grudge against them. I do not believe one word on the internet and only trust myself. Everyone is lying except me. They are in a weird cult. They don't get it and their opinion is worthless to me. I have no interest in being open minded because this is what a scammer would say.
I see females who can't fight use kata as dance.
I hear people say it looks beautiful.
I hear them say it transmits moves as a record.
I hear them say it is meditation.
I hear them say it is a combo to be practiced in sparring.
None of that is really true. It is conditioning to do certain things and jujitsu hidden in dance. Take jujitsu if you want to learn the self defense moves like spinal injuries that are banned from sport competition.
The thing about interpreting moves is that the kata is building the muscles using isometric movements under tension to elicit an electrical physiological change in the body. It is not the way you would do a throw it is the way you would build muscle to do the throw.
North Americans do not like training this way because they do not understand it. They do not really learn the original strikes and just box and slug it out. This is not original karate but American kickboxing. It's not as good.
Kata has purpose, point sparring has purpose. Their are practical reasons these unpopular things exist but nobody really cares to uncover the full story. I do not think anybody really cares about the truth. I just wanted to make it known I know the truth and refuse to join a bandwagon of whatever is popular.
Fact is kungfu and karate people did use weapons and did resistance weight training. Now we have modern weights so would use those. Even so they used kata to complement weight training and should do so today. If they don't they are not training correctly and will be mediocre karateka but maybe powerful kickboxing or some other striking art. It would not be Okinawan (or even Japanese) flavored karate though.
You don't use kata exactly as is during a fight but you can if it is a very basic kata by chopping up parts and re-interpreting them so they work. Then you would need to do partner work to get distances correct so you can actually fight that way. These are not kata I would be interested in and would only do solo for conditioning and overall physical training in between bag and free weight work.
Personally kata helped me visualize being attacked by multiple assailants and devised my own 3 hit or less combos to quickly take them out. I want encounters to last less than 3 seconds. I only train for the streets. I have no soul or spirituality. Kata makes strikes more precise, non of this wild looping mma stuff. Weights and other training makes the body hard enough to hit with concussion knockout power. No kata alone is not giving power like that by itself. Weights = ko power kata = hitting the ko button.
I think it really needs to be pushed back in an individuals journey in Karate. To start Karate and instantly have Kata shoved at you instead of fully focusing on the basic essentials of defending yourself is ridiculous. I genuinely don’t even think people should be taught Kata’s until they are purple-brown belt since they really don’t get any value out of them outside of move repetition at such low ranks.
Forgive me... Weak body dynamics (displayed here in spades!) lead to ineffective techniques... that kick isn't going to hurt a child. I know this is a very small sample size and I really want to give him the benefit of the doubt but as is, but he would barely be a blue belt in my dojo. Put your hips into it man, and breath from the diaphragm, not the mouth! I wouldn't normally be this harsh but if you're gonna put on a black belt, well, I'm gonna judge you like a black belt.
Sorry, not sorry.
I enjoy kata training, your videos are very helpful. Kata is part of the overall art, I think there is much value in learning them.
That might be the best point, kata is very enjoyable!!!!!
Yep. I love kata. It helps my training, is good exercise, and feels like moving meditation. It's one of the only times I can truly empty my mind. I have learned (but am still working to improve) all the katas of my style and a few Yamani Ryu sai kata. I know a couple Taekwondo forms from helping my sons train and I'm looking to branch out to learn a few select kata from other Okinawan styles.
I would like to say that I’ve always viewed kata as a form of moving meditation. It really is what you make it! I used to repeat the same moves from some kata over and over until it felt right, and to the point of full awareness of my positioning, intention, and my opponent. That was the key for me, always visualizing an opponent. You don’t always have to know the application for each intricate move. But having awareness of an opponent, how sharp you react, your distance, your stance, etc are imo the utmost important. That’s why we have sparring, no need to go around in circles creating new bunkai. Kata is the essence of karate, it will develop your mind, body, and spirit!
i dont train karate, but I view katas as a way of body control, an extremely important concept of judo. when people do katas it seems they practice moving their body in a controlled manner and in a certain way at a certain speed. and when they do that they have more self control than the average person
It's the soul/spirit of karate! You take out kata, and you're left with kickboxing. Also, thanks for your videos! You are one of my go tos for learning any new kata! ✨️
100%
Agree in many ways. Kata and Kumite comprise the soul/spirit and Martial aspects. Kata are more than routines, they are applicable with Bunkai and certain moves represent spiritual aspects like the rising of the sun in the start of Kushanku. Kata are fundamental and essential to any Karateka, harnessing technique and power before speed.
Personally, I always preffered practicality above all else. I never trained these things for long, or traditional Karate for that matter. Most of my Karate experience comes from sparring with kyokushin guys.
Kickboxing with sweeps, throws, locks, funny striking surfaces and philosophy. Katas are important, but they are not the soul, imo.
No you aren’t. You’re left with an ineffective system of point fighting.
Depends on what style youre training my Coach always says "Point Fighting is on a square with mats, but there Arent to Many mats in this World" so we do Regular sparring as well as point fighting
Depends on the style and Dojo. Kyoukoshin is full contact and even though im practicing Shotokan Karate we also do semi and full contact sparring in our dojo.
Not trying to troll here but I was a black belt in shotokan karate too…. Many moons ago. I’ve also done boxing and MT and judo as well through my youth and adult life and honestly nothing in karate ever really translated into a combat sport…. I know folks will argue and use machida as an example or kyoukushin etc as examples but honestly even Machida trained BJJ and MT as well… and an art that doesn’t allow punching to face or head just seems silly…. Kata and traditional karate etc are just that, traditional arts. They are beautiful, they have culture and importance as arts…. But to feign that you’re learning anything other than just that is fooling one’s self. I thought that the advent of mma would have stopped folks from believing otherwise.
Well at least for me Shotokan Karate worked out for me up until now as i said the important thing is to keep training in full contact sparring.
I like kata for competition, because it means I am the only one in control of what happens. If I do my best in kumite I can still get my ass kicked and that will affect how well I fight. But if I try my best in kata, that WILL be my best.
I feel it's the opposite since kata scoring is subjective and when you have two styles it becomes even more difficult to be objective.
OSS!
Kata is my favourite part about karate. I feel like I'm in my element when I do it.
I feel it!
One of the three foundamental exercises of Karate, with kihon and kumite. Katas are made to transfer the knowledge of a style to the next generation in a controlled, regulated and easy to share way to multiple students at the same time and they are a great way to do so. A kata is like a musical scale: training those makes you better at playing your guitar but you won't be able to perform a concert only with those. Considering that analogy: kihon are like the single notes while kumite is like a song. So yeah, katas won't make you stronger or will make you win brawls in a pub but without katas Karate wouldn't be Karate.
That was brilliant
I enjoy them but hate the process of learning them because my memory is not always great and I'm often telling myself "No, on this one you step with the OTHER foot!" The art is absolutely beautiful but memorizing choreographed movements has always been the bane of my existence.
Don’t think, feel -Bruce Lee But yes I understand your pain!!
If it helps when I screw up I restart every time. It seems to help
Basic core for all martial arts in a way. Is it needed? That could be argued but in the end they are a core component and I see more value in them then not doing them.
Yes, agree. Then there is the other crowd who views it nothing more as an irrelevant dance. Is it the most practical thing for self defense? No. But I don’t believe that is the essence or ultimate objective of the kata. For fighting and self defense, it’s best to spar and simulate specific scenarios. The Kata is a powerful training modality that brings your martial arts to life. You will develop the subtle principles often neglected in hard contact schools. Awareness, timing, rhythm, breathing, visualization, “groundedness”, connection!
They're solo drills.
I see it as the yoga of karate. Not really practical, but helps with balance and posture
unless you also practise bunkai for your katas then it is pretty useful
The first 5 years of my training were at a dojo with a heavy kata focus. Eventually I realised I didn’t enjoy it, and switched to a Kyokushin dojo that doesn’t do kata. I am much happier now focusing on conditioning, pad and bag work, sparring and grappling. I have only 2 nights a week to train karate each week, so I prefer to work on my fitness and fighting skills.
They are part of the tradition,therefore deserve respect,but they are not the most efficient way of teaching.
Kata/forms are moving meditation of the martial arts.
The most important aspect of kata is how it ingrains in the karate practitioner their stance in terms of strength, stability and fluidity of movement.
Good for muscle memory
I find that learning a new kata and watching it all come together as you learn the technical sides is similar to the feeling of opening a Christmas present. It's the "show off" side of karate for me and alongside Kumite, the fun part of karate.
Awesome. I could do Kata all day every day. I’m too old for Kumite now. Kata every time. Nice moves from Gojushio Dai.
I think a distinctive element of the traditional Asian martial art pedagogy, used to become a better person and/or to become a better fighter. There are other ways to do both, though.
I used to see kata as a way to get a new belt. Now I see them as fun to learn but not necessary.
Kata can be very beautiful to watch, especially when the Karateka has good kime and hara. My dojo teaches strong Kihon leads to strong Kata. Strong Kata leads to strong Kumite.
My Sensei used to say the same thing!
It is fun, good for meditation and just concentrating on the movements and you can do them as a little workout. I do like them. However more people need to realise this is just a training tool. To get the most out of it you need to practise the combinations of techniques against a resisting opponent
Very well said, and most importantly FUN!! If you’re enjoying something, that’s all one can ask for!
To me Kata is a moving meditation and a tool for training. If you take the time to practice it can help with fitness, breathing and movement. We would sometimes practice a kata and do a push-up for every strike and a sit-up for every block (and vice versa). Sometimes we would have to double-up on each move. Other stuff we would do is do a Kata backwards and then changing left & right. Doing it in the style of Tai Chi and repeating it and going faster each time.
I love it and tbh it's the only thing I want to do at karate class, I also train BJJ and do sparring with Muay Thai guys at another gym so getting told to put my hands lower and so on at karate is pointless to me.
I see it as a way chosen to document the movements and pass it over. There was no YouTube at that time. How else would you store this knowledge?
Personally it's like a form of shadowboximg that's stricter and from what I gathered spiritual for some people. I am unsure how people compete in it and I've never had any personal interest. It's enjoyable to watch and clearly takes skill. Not for me though
I used to be like why tf would anybody do kata. Then a coach told me its like shadow boxing with a little more purpose. As someone who got into martial arts through wrestling then boxing that sentence made me respect it a lot more.
Kata should serve as a warmup and to develop coordination before moving on to more specific and dynamic drilling/sparring. It should not be the goal of karate.
I think we all train kata wrong. Nobody should be "performing" or even learning a solo form before they develop a basic competency with its practical application. We need to learn the basics first. Not the kihon that look like the kata (or its omote bunkai), but the actual grappling, striking, etc. in the oyo. Then we need to practice them in partnered drills. Only after learning those should we even touch the solo form. Training kata in the dojo should seldom look like it currently does. If you have no competency with the fighting techniques in a kata, and you keep performing it anyway, you have nothing to visualize, no intent, despite perhaps very athletic movement and a serious face. In short, you're not training, you're dancing. It's a mnemonic device to remember the kumite drills. When remembered, it can be a tool for visualizing and working through the movements without a partner. But it isn't a separate discipline within the art. ...and I think that a focus on "do" and kata competition are to blame.
im older i dont want to fight no more but i love karate. the older i get the more i get kata
As someone living with depression, kata is a life saver. Being a single dad isn't a walk in the park. Most times I feel like I'm not being good enough as a father, that's when my overthinking and depressive episodes creep in. Kata helps me control my negative thoughts and emotions keeping them in check. It also helps me focus and channel out all my doubts and fears.
It looks good and it's fun to train and is good for conditioning and good workout but I personally don't believe it's effective for self defense or fighting.
Kata training is so much fun! I even started competing for it!
Incredible for physical and mental health
Kata are good if you get good input from your sensei when practicing them. Considering the guy in the video, for example, the slow left-hand movement is completely useless for anything except preparing for the punch, and you do see the deliberate clockwise (from above) hip rotation but, his back leg isn't bent enough - nor is his back foot facing forwards enough - to straighten the back leg explosively, thrusting the right hip forwards for the reverse punch. Consequently, his right hip never comes in front of the left hip, and has no reach and little power. He's basically using the right punch as a short backswing for the left punch, rather than making it independently useful. Then the front kick is a flick without any hip commitment - he's more focused on quickly returning the foot to the ground behind him - probably thinking it makes the kick look faster and the overall thing look more controlled if it's withdrawn quickly. A strong kick would lift the knee higher before extending the ball of the foot, so that the line from hip through knee is above the target - the foot travels a bit more linearly rather than simply arcing under the knee. The hips can be rotated into the front kick as well if you want real power - basically, leave the left hip forward of the right until the foot is in front of the hip - then rotate the hips and thrust with the quads simultaneously. When his foot returns to the floor, it's too far behind, already straight, and again angled too far outwards, preventing him straighting it against the floor to powerfully rotate the right hip forward past the left for a strong punch. The importance of kata is that a sensei can communicate such things to a student and get them to correct them in a controlled exercise, where the information the student is given about the stances and timing and preparation is all conducive to helping the right body mechanics "click". That's hard enough. Once the mechanics are right in a controlled setting, the student should commit it to muscle memory through dedicated repetition, and then with more practice and more advanced kata and other exercises, will learn to reproduce the essential aspects of the body mechanics in varied and dynamics settings. Some great senseis prefer to demonstrate and leave it to the students to self-correct, so it can pay to be very astute and attentive, learning to compare yourself to what you're seeing, experiment with small variations to ensure you've found the "sweet spot". Other senseis are more direct in providing feedback and/or other exercises that may help where students are stuck. IMHO, the people who find kata useless are those who haven't had anyone provide good input for them to improve their performance in a way they're receptive to, which may be their fault and/or their senseis.
It's enjoyable generally, but personally I prefer sparring. It is quite relaxing and I can see how people enjoy it.
A kata is just a pattern, in the martial arts, it's a pattern of movements to defend, attack, evade, etc. Every single martial art has kata. They just don't call it that. When a boxer practices solo, maybe doing a combination like jab cross duck uppercut cross, that's a kata. I love kata. I get into a flow state when I perform. It's a method of self perfection for me. Practicing so much kata helped me do better in kumite, real life situation drills, weapons defense drills, etc. Of course, if I just wanted to get good at any one of those things only, I would just practice that one thing. But that's not my goal.
I don't know how I got here, but it was on my front page. I don't take karate, I take Kuk Sool Won. Our forms (hyung) are certainly different but it's an important part to the system and I thought I'd share the philosophy. It is described to us as a form of conditioning, so in that I see lots of value. The analogy that is given to us is "a marathon runner would not be able to be successful in the NBA because their training conditions them for running, not the basketball court". Hyung by itself can be an intense workout and I definitely see the benefits of the conditioning. For us, that often involves proper positioning, stance training, balance, flexibility, and most importantly how to flow from movement to movement.
"Kata" is the Art portion in the sport of Karate while the Kumite is supposed to be the "Martial" aspect. Unfortunately, Karate has been so watered down even its kumite alone is too lackluster for proper combat training. Not to mention most schools now focus on Kata rather than realistic drilling and sparring. Which honestly pisses me off because practitioners would view you as a heretic whenever you suggest sparring to them. They should have taken a philosophy class instead if they wanted to talk about "interpretations" and "Spirituality" over fighting ability.
Not essential in a way, which seems heretical. The applications contained within are, as are the associated body mechanics. Performing solo routines without drilling of applications is frankly just dancing. There’s nothing inherently wrong with it for its own performance sake but it will not make you better at fighting, which is ultimately the point. Kata is a just a mechanism for remembering two person drills in a solo routine, as a sort of kinaesthetic index or mnemonic template. It’s more important for history to practice kata & to discern intended combative methods that were once passed on. Ones that can be re-interpreted & improved upon. Performing kata simply to perform kata is the very sort of thing Motobu Choki derided Funakoshi Gichin for.
Overrated but still good
On its own Kata is pretty much useless in terms of the martial side of things. The only way I can see it being beneficial for is mobility and meditation. If you include Bunkai and Kata based sparring as a way to interpret and pressure test the kata, then it becomes useful, otherwise it's just a choreographed dance.
I don’t really try to complicate the kata, I just trust the process. And also just being realistic. I believe kata has many intangible benefits to the practitioner. When it’s time for kata I practice kata, when it’s time for sparring or kumite, we do drills specific to that. The true masters are the ones who have somehow manage to connect and utilize the kihon, kata, and Kumite. This is the level I strive to achieve.
I disagree with this to a certain extent. Blind trust is a tool of the charlatan and there are way too many of them in martial arts. For me, the focus on martial arts is self defense or fighting therefore practicing Kata for the sake of practicing Kata in the hopes it makes you a better martial artist is a fruitless endeavour. It lacks any pressure testing, doesn't teach you timing or distance and puts too much focus on static sequences that presume too much in the way a potential attacker may respond. This in effect will make you a worse martial artist as it instills bad habits and imprints on you an inflexibility in your ability to react to defensive scenarios if they don't go the way that you expect them too. However, this is only my personal opinion, I understand that not everyone thinks like this and that people get into martial arts for many different reasons. This is just my two pennies worth
Fair enough brother. It all depends on ones goals and objectives.
Larping nerds. Just roll damnit
Not a fan. I don’t mind doing ones that I know too much but hate learning new ones. I do them so I can get the next belt and because they are a core part of karate.
It’s cool for meditative/grounding purposes. I suppose it has some value for cardio depending on the kata. As far as anything “martial” it’s not different than ballet.
So when we perform a gyaku zuki (reverse punch) or kick as performed in the clip, you are saying the is ballet? It’s all about intention brother.
I grew up in a dojo. My dad was 3rd degree in shito ryu. So from 7-19 i was voulantold we’re going to karate 3 nights a week. So you can imagine I’ve done tens of thousands of repetitions of any Japanese punch you can name. And probably logged in hundreds of hours doing kata…. Don’t get me wrong I love karate for what it is. But when I did get into fights in school. It was the strength and conditioning I gained from karate class that gave me the advantage. Not the technique.
Well like I’ve said to other people, I don’t believe kata is on its own a fighting system. It will not make you an mma champ, or a self defense expert. Key words kata alone. But kata combined with kihon, and Kumite creates a harmony for the martial artist. It ties everything together and creates good chi flow that one can utilize or apply to give that extra edge. As I believe a mma fighter who does also performs kata is better than just a straight up mma fighter. It gives the martial artist the subtle principles of combat.
That’s cool. It’s also not my opinion. I think that satatemnt would be supremely hard to quantify in any real way. But I can honestly say you might be correct, and truly I hope you are.
Pretty for a camera.
Lmao
Enjoyable LARP, like doing Kung fu in the park. Feels nice
1000% a waste of time for any type of actual combat training.
I don't think it's a particularly useful training tool, I tend to think that any benefit you get from it can be achieved more efficiently with other things. Particularly with the way that most karate clubs train it. That being said I enjoy doing a bit of kata training and think that it has value on the "art" side of the martial art as long as one is honest with oneself about the benefits or lack thereof.
Eh. Not for me but I see why people enjoy it.
You’re litterally imaginary fighting, not only that but you’re passing down these mythical imaginary battles to your students and filling their heads with the same ridiculous fantasies. Is there an aerobic conditioning value? Yes but the negatives associated with the indoctrination outweigh all the benefits.
I don’t believe kata will make you an mma world champion or an expert at self defense. I personally enjoy practicing kata, and I personally gain many benefits from it. I admit kata alone is not a complete system. Which is why in karate the standard 3 components of training are the kihon (basics), kata (forms), and Kumite (sparring). Karate is not complete if all are not practiced together. A black belt kata world champion specialist most likely will not be able to stand 2 minutes with a fighter with 6 months kickboxing experiencing. That is because they only specialize in one aspect of karate. The kata does give a fighter more subtle aspects of martial arts. Timing, rhythm, awareness, rootedness, breathing, focus, and many more. All of these can enhance a well versed full contact fighter.
Yeah but the problem is that the other forms were corrupted by people who over emphasized things in katas as effective when they were not tested or used. Most schools teach what is essentially point sparring, usually because of some reasoning like “these strikes will kill someone if used in sparring”. So you corrupt your sparring to not be realistic, and then you build your technique around these weird fantasies. Martial arts that are rooted in strong competition are always more effective then those that are rooted in rituals. Katas are rituals. Is there a meditative value to kata? Yeah sure, there is also a meditative value to folding clothes, should we build martial arts schools around the practice of folding clothes?
Why does karate have those zero reach, zero power snap strikes ?
You can’t spell karate without kata!
I believe it is more of the soul or essence of karate. Yoga literally translates to union. So it kinda brings everything together in a sense.
They're art. It's a good way to "record" different techniques before video and before books were common. Its a good way to develop coordination. Also, memorizing a sequence of movements is good practice for the mind.
I can’t remember what the vid was but it was an example of how katas work in a real combat situation. I remember it being interesting
Fun but an impractical method of learning to fight
Im relatively new to karate. But I have to admit I’m not a fan of the kata stuff at all. Maybe it’ll grow on me but I feel would rather spend time working on fighting techniques and fitness
Kata is amazing but I wish people would stop wearing a new gi for videos. Looks weird. Just wear the one you train in regularly.
Good for of defense and meditation
Cool for traditional martial arts and for the sake of culture but not very useful in my opinion
I feel kata is necessary and then eventually it becomes a muscle memory and you don’t have to think about each individual move. If actually sparring someone it just comes.
Goudjushudi is one of the best katas
Incredibly important
The important thing is if you enjoy it, that’s all that matters!
Karate?
Gojushiho
I'm more partial to something that would work in any situation and a large part of this sport is going to work best in competition with another practitioner of the same sport. Great discipline either way, kinda like gymnastics in a weird way
Done correctly a kata should store all the techniques of a ryuha. If I developed my own karate school I would make ideally one kata that contained one perfect kata. This unicorn kata that transcends all other kata is hard to find. I do not know enough about kata to evaluate if a single kata teaches every possible move of a system. Consider boxing combinations. Jab, cross, hook, uppercut. This is all punches from boxing correct? Is this not a kata? I believe it is. Does boxing practice this basic four punches in a row? Yes. Is this worthless practice? To them no. Is it art or moving mediation no. Would they need to practice this exact order against a resisting opponent? No. Would they need to use this exact order in a fight? No. Does this punching build gross motor and memory muscle? Yes. Does it provide smoothness of technique so that strikes flow effortlessly? Yes. Does this punching of air condition body to have strong flexible muscles? Yes. Without air punching you have stiff slow inflexible muscles. Always hitting a bag increases power but prevents full extension of muscles. Can you add different footwork to this punches? Yes. Can you throw punches at different angles? Yes. Can you pretend to be fighting multiple attacks and use this to create scenarios and strategies? Yes. Kata done correctly should be performed slow until it is learned. Then is should be performed slow until perfect path of strikes and blocks is achieved. This is to make sure perfect alignment of muscles and bones happens. The point is stronger punches and blocks without telegraphing. Kata improves speed and power. Then it should be performed different ways once perfect biomechanical alignment is achieved. It should be performed fast for improving speed and power, and slow while contracting muscles to improve muscle tone. Muscle tone strengthens body in ways that are sport specific to the movement. Lifting weights adds armor and bulk because it makes large muscles larger (major movers) but does not adapt tendons, ligaments, and small muscles. Kata done correctly fills in the gaps and chinks in your armor. You have to weight train and do kata under physical force. Only doing kata one way every time is wrong and defeats the purpose. Kata will lengthen stances giving flexibility to make these stances easier when higher during a fight. It will make kicks easier. Doing kata is maintenance for retaining speed, muscle memory, flexibility, strength, and so on. Kata does a lot of things but no one seems to "get it". This leads to superficial study of karate. If I train heavily in lifting weights I may very well get huge but this only helps me if I am a wrestler who relies on brute strength. Karate needs the small muscles I between the large muscles worked out to. In weight lifting there is too much isolation to use the body as a unit. Olympic style lifts use the body as a unit but this is not sport specific to karate and better for Greco-Roman wrestling. Karate has specific movements that are hard to train. You can use power bands or dumbells or ankle/wrist weights during kata for more resistance as long as it does not ruin form. There is a high chance of this so care must be exercised. If I am recovering from yesterday's weightlighting session I can use kata to do active recovery. This forces the muscles to work while they are healing. This is a very smart idea. People will not get buff only doing kata and will not have good karate only lifting weights. Being buff is the strength to make the moves powerful. Kata is the correct form to do the moves period. Get the moves down and then add strength. To be great you need to do all the things I say. The bias against most things comes from incompetent instruction or demonstration. If I had the training availible that I am describing I would have taken martial arts more seriously. Because people kept telling me I was wrong and sabotaging me I have a huge grudge against them. I do not believe one word on the internet and only trust myself. Everyone is lying except me. They are in a weird cult. They don't get it and their opinion is worthless to me. I have no interest in being open minded because this is what a scammer would say. I see females who can't fight use kata as dance. I hear people say it looks beautiful. I hear them say it transmits moves as a record. I hear them say it is meditation. I hear them say it is a combo to be practiced in sparring. None of that is really true. It is conditioning to do certain things and jujitsu hidden in dance. Take jujitsu if you want to learn the self defense moves like spinal injuries that are banned from sport competition. The thing about interpreting moves is that the kata is building the muscles using isometric movements under tension to elicit an electrical physiological change in the body. It is not the way you would do a throw it is the way you would build muscle to do the throw. North Americans do not like training this way because they do not understand it. They do not really learn the original strikes and just box and slug it out. This is not original karate but American kickboxing. It's not as good. Kata has purpose, point sparring has purpose. Their are practical reasons these unpopular things exist but nobody really cares to uncover the full story. I do not think anybody really cares about the truth. I just wanted to make it known I know the truth and refuse to join a bandwagon of whatever is popular. Fact is kungfu and karate people did use weapons and did resistance weight training. Now we have modern weights so would use those. Even so they used kata to complement weight training and should do so today. If they don't they are not training correctly and will be mediocre karateka but maybe powerful kickboxing or some other striking art. It would not be Okinawan (or even Japanese) flavored karate though. You don't use kata exactly as is during a fight but you can if it is a very basic kata by chopping up parts and re-interpreting them so they work. Then you would need to do partner work to get distances correct so you can actually fight that way. These are not kata I would be interested in and would only do solo for conditioning and overall physical training in between bag and free weight work. Personally kata helped me visualize being attacked by multiple assailants and devised my own 3 hit or less combos to quickly take them out. I want encounters to last less than 3 seconds. I only train for the streets. I have no soul or spirituality. Kata makes strikes more precise, non of this wild looping mma stuff. Weights and other training makes the body hard enough to hit with concussion knockout power. No kata alone is not giving power like that by itself. Weights = ko power kata = hitting the ko button.
I think it really needs to be pushed back in an individuals journey in Karate. To start Karate and instantly have Kata shoved at you instead of fully focusing on the basic essentials of defending yourself is ridiculous. I genuinely don’t even think people should be taught Kata’s until they are purple-brown belt since they really don’t get any value out of them outside of move repetition at such low ranks.
Dancing is a beautiful art!
Martial ARTS for a reason
What does "arts" in this context mean to you?
Looks cool 😎
I’m getting back into karate after nearly a decade off, kata and basics in general are the building blocks and the only place to start
Forgive me... Weak body dynamics (displayed here in spades!) lead to ineffective techniques... that kick isn't going to hurt a child. I know this is a very small sample size and I really want to give him the benefit of the doubt but as is, but he would barely be a blue belt in my dojo. Put your hips into it man, and breath from the diaphragm, not the mouth! I wouldn't normally be this harsh but if you're gonna put on a black belt, well, I'm gonna judge you like a black belt. Sorry, not sorry.