Kata is not Bullshido

[UrbanArmory]

I wonder what a one man BJJ kata would look like..

Duh... wrestling an invisible bear.

[I aint punchy!?]

Kata can be useful to teach people the concepts of an art, but otherwise they fall under a lot of standard martial art training in being not applied enough if you want to learn to fight. Drills are slightly better -- I spose uchikomi falls under this category. Randori is the way to go.

But I spose you can view it as a continuum - kata to teach the basic ideas, uchikomi to actually learn how to apply the idea with low resistance and high compliance, and randori for aliveness. Obviously time spent should be as much in randori as possible -- and probably kata could be forgotten altogether except for at a stage when you are responsible for learning the entire system e.g. sensei.

[Mr. Jones]

Bud Shi Dust people in this post have acknowledged there are two man kata. Even if there wasn't here's a web page with the word sotai renshu. Who's the dumbass now. Don't assume you know everything. Click on reference.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/phrase/ref=...Sotai%20Renshu
I don't think I'm very proficient in Aikido yet. But as soon as I feel more confident I might go to a throwdown. But that's getting off subject.

[Hannibal]

Kata can be useful to teach people the concepts of an art, but otherwise they fall under a lot of standard martial art training in being not applied enough if you want to learn to fight. Drills are slightly better -- I spose uchikomi falls under this category. Randori is the way to go.

But I spose you can view it as a continuum - kata to teach the basic ideas, uchikomi to actually learn how to apply the idea with low resistance and high compliance, and randori for aliveness. Obviously time spent should be as much in randori as possible -- and probably kata could be forgotten altogether except for at a stage when you are responsible for learning the entire system e.g. sensei.

I agree with that.

Keep a little bit of kata. It's a good workout, it re inforces good balance co- ordination but thats about it. Most of the time training should be fitness stuff, drilling technqniques,pad work and sparring (randori). Thats it. Thats the stuff that works.

[BSDaemon]

Bud Shi Dust people in this post have acknowledged there are two man kata. Even if there wasn't here's a web page with the word sotai renshu. Who's the dumbass now. Don't assume you know everything. Click on reference.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/phrase/ref=...Sotai%20Renshu

Nowhere on that link does it say kata has partners.

You're still the dumbass... Case and point: You do Aikido.

[Mr. Jones]

Do you click on the link When the link stoppped loading did you click on reference like I said? If you honestely can't see where on the webpage it says sotai renshu you are incompetent with computers and the internet and I will have nothing to say to you. You're a dumbass for not being able to follow simple directions.

[Virus]

I think we can go somewhere with this discussion if we can remain civil and on topic. Let's look at an alive art that's generally well recieved on bullshido: Judo. Kano believed that kata was an important part of training to compliment randori. IIRC, he said something like "Kata is the letters and words, randori is forming free flowing sentences." Is that attitude shared in modern Judo schools? There is a point worth considering , in his day kata (I'm including two man compliant grappling drills) was the primary method of training in jujitsu. Perhaps this sentiment was a product of the times as I understand very little kata is done in modern judo, or modern sportfighting for that matter.

As I said in those times jujitsu was trained with "kata", one guy attacks in a specified way and the other guy applied a lock, throw or whatever and puts in a kick or strike at the end. Very formal and scripted. The alive modern method would be to move about, throw a punch at an unspecified time in which the other guy counters and applies his technique, which the partner offers some resistance. This is more of a drill than kata. The reason many traditional schools are still doing the formal, scripted method is that this is the way it was trained, it's "tradition". We know now that tradition doesn't equal effective.

Comments or corrections?

[Shirak]

Actually the main purpose of katas is to drill into us the techniques like blocks,strikes etc. This is basic.

However i feel that japanese katas are really quite useless if you're not a beginner in MA. CMA katas on the other hand, has really useful katas. From the katas we can learn different techniques hidden within it and stuff like that. It's true, look at a chinese kata and you'll be seeing different uses for different techniques.

Just my 2 cents

[DCS]

Kata is solitary forms.

Kata is shoulder.

A bit more seriously, Kata is a predefined form or pattern.

It doesn't implies kata is solo performed. Depending on the art there are solo kata, paired kata or both.

In Tomiki style Aikido you have both solo and paired kata. (various clips available here )

In Judo, i haven't still seen any solo kata, but a japanese scholar like BSD sure can provide more accurate info.

In japanese weapons arts there are also solo and paired forms. To date i'm still waiting to see a kyudo paired kata.

The word "bunkai" as paired kata it's a karate thing exclusively afaik.

[Cullion]

That's Bunkai, dumbass.

No, the Koryu arts really do have two-person katas which are more like 1-step sparring or 'self defence applications' in karate.