Kata are these wonderful concepts that provide a vehicle that drive a good many things for kata, fundamentally, exist in a myriad of forms for a myriad of disciplines that far surpass that which most see as martial disciplines. The Greek used a kata concept to train; the Romans used a kata concept to train; and many other cultures throughout human history all used what would be called, “Drills” to train and those drills were forms or combinations that would teach certain principles to the inexperienced warriors before their first encounter of combat. It is the term, “Kata”that holds a unique symbolic position simply because it belongs to the martial disciplines and karate disciplines.
When you ask the question you get as many different responses as their are martial artists and karate-ka. Everyone has their own perception and distinct use of kata practice. It is important to understand certain concepts of kata training to achieve an understanding as to its purpose so this is my effort to bring a fundamental understanding, a principled base one if I can, that will be understood across all platforms.
There are the following major categories of kata practices:
1 Sport.
2 Self-Defense.
3 Combative.
4 Philosophical.
Every facet of martial studies usually fall under one of the four majors and on occasion you will perceive more than one but in truth except in small instances they don’t fit, the small instance is on philosophy for often your philosophy will drive the others. In my fourth category I speak of “The Way,”and that one is a complete discipline all its own not necessarily tied to martial arts.
SPORT:Even tho every category speaks to things like bunkai in truth for the sport category it is all about the details, the minutia and atomistic, and it is about the artistic rendition, the dance so to speak, that is perceived as perfection-like to achieve high scores and receive accolades and trophies for “Looking” a certain way also not completely understood and articulated, etc.
In SPORT bunkai doesn’t really work and is not necessary ergo why so many when taking seminars from those who have achieved great things in sport find the bunkai loosely understood if understood at all.
SELF-DEFENSE:Kata have their uses here too but in truth it has absolutely nothing to do with either the bunkai or the drills used, it is about learning fundamental principles. Looking from the eyes of a karate-ka, kata teach you many things but in essence are worthless as to self-defense applications/techniques.
For instance, especially for those with no or little experience in the physical realm, kata teaches and trains you for the principles of, “structure, alignment, posture, grounding, centerline, axis, energy, centripetal/centrifugal forces and so on.” They teach those more body like principles that span across all spectrum regardless of how you apply them and under what conditions, etc. They all apply in whatever methods used for self-defense.
In addition, principles are about how to apply the body principles toward other principles like, “Impacts, drives/pushes, pulls, twists, compressions, etc. that will also span all spectrums regardless to accomplish an objective of avoidance, de-escalation or stopping the damage, etc. in self-defense.”
The bunkai and drills often taught in kata are excellent in teaching, training and encoding proper, for you already knew how to do these things but socialization and laziness have subverted them into something else, so kata are actually reminders that not only put them in conditioned responses but to the conscious mind so intention can be applied in training, practice and application.
The bunkai are still beneficial but not as actual hands on type of methods but again prerequisites toward learning how to do physical things to stop damage if all else fails.
COMBATIVE:In my mind this is about combat training for the military, i.e., this speaks to “ROE”or “Rules of Engagement.”When we speak of methodologies used in sport, self-defense and combative we speak of the “Rules,”for said rules are different in each category and will not span the three categories. Why? Because the rules are vastly different in each.
My experience, long ago at about forty years, hand-to-hand was not all that comprehensive but in recent years the military have adopted a martial philosophy and incorporated things like MMA or Jujitsu, etc., and I can only surmise from watching the various video’s of military application that most have not as yet, to date, adjusted them to suit the reality of combat. Regardless of my opinion, hand to hand or military martial arts like the old stuff are last resort strategies/tactics because if you have a weapon, you use it.
PHILOSOPHICAL: Philosophy is important all on its own in regard to the study of “The Way,”but it is also that social/personal philosophy that usually drives you and how you see, feel and apply such skills. If you are a bad guy you use it one way; if you are a good guy you use it another way and so on.
I see kata of a philosophical form a moving meditative type of use regardless, once again, of perceived bunkai and applications as technique-based. Yes, you can use them all as a bases to teach especially the novices but once you enter the realm of say, self-defense (more appropriate is defense-protection because SD is more a legal term then a title for what we currently use it for).
As I alluded to earlier philosophy is something that spans the other three categories because your mind-set and mind-state is critical to the study and application of any form of protective-defensive model as well as how you apply it in sport too.
So, it is apparent that certain things must exist but in the overall belief of kata for any one or more of said categories indicates that principally and fundamentally kata serve a purpose except toward actual hands on tactics, strategies, methodologies, principled and applicability are not directly a product of kata as to bunkai and the three categories.
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