O.G.K.K. United Kingdom

Forms or Kata are at the core of Okinawan Karate Do, and their study can be a lifetime’s work for those who are prepared to look deeply. We train the basic movements (kihon) of kata relentlessly, study and contrive the applications (bunkai) and try to make sense of the movements and principles when applied to partner work, combat and to our daily lives.

Refinement comes from cultivating by repeating one aspect or movement many times, every day, day after day.

Kata is a multi-faceted training environment, that evolves and grows with our understanding, not a sacred object, and the bunkai are where we express our understanding. They should refine and grow with us according to our own understanding and circumstances, allowing us to still be healthy and effective into old age. In the first few years of training we unavoidably compensate for the inadequacy of our technique by substituting more speed, power and aggression. This approach undeniably works up to a point, but in itself it is not martial art and it is not sustainable in the long term. A lack of stability in position or movement, inaccurate timing or inappropriate muscular contraction will severely compromise even the most spirited technique, leaving you at best inefficient and at worst highly vulnerable. In addition, what use is it to be able to fight only when you are young, physically fit, strong, awake, sober and standing up? Surely the occasions when you are likely to need your karate the most is when you are at your weakest or most vulnerable. Muscular strength and aerobic fitness disappear within a matter of weeks if we cannot continually train them, so there must be more to Karate than “harder and faster”. Fundamentally, self defence is about defending your health and the threat of physical violence is statistically a far lower risk than diseases or injuries sustained in our daily lives. The Jundokan Dojo kun advises “Take care of yourself”.

A pile of bricks is potentially a house, provided a sound foundation has been made and then the materials are assembled in a proper process, using a thorough understanding of the principles, and with time allowed for each stage to settle.

Kata is a ‘laboratory’ where we develop and refine our movement, coordination, balance, power and mind-set; all without the disturbance of an opponent’s force affecting us. In the beginning we learn the rough sequence of movements and then, as our body awareness improves over months and years, the emphasis shifts to accuracy, timing and how to optimise speed and power. When performing a kata there might be a consistent feeling or a theme that you are currently trying to develop. This could be maintaining uprightness in postures and movement, a level gaze, calmness in the mind, smoothness of the breathing, or any other single aspect that you need to cultivate. The important point here is to work with just one aspect at a time, so that it gets your undivided attention, and allow the body to automatically do the rest in the way you have already trained it.

This approach will improve the continuity and attentiveness in your performance, but to refine an individual movement thoroughly in detail requires isolating it from the rest, slowing it down and mindfully repeating it over and over whilst emphasising an aspect or principle. This “single movement practice” is very effective because you can focus on one movement continuously, without waiting for it to come around once in every performance. Whilst you could repeat an entire kata ten times in thirty minutes, your gains might be spread thinly over all the movements. On the other hand you could repeat just one movement one hundred times or more in the same period and rapidly assimilate a refinement or adjustment. This new refinement will then manifest in other movements/Kata, and in turn will inform the bunkai, so the concentrated effort produces a magnified result.

Gradually, after many years of sustained and diligent practice, the external movement happens automatically according to your will, and the mind/body can enter a deeper level, which could be called a meditative state.

Ask yourself if you are still moving in exactly the same way as you did ten years ago. If you have only added speed and power, then you have not progressed beyond brute force.

To learn the function, or application of kata we must train our technique with a partner, and maintain the qualities we developed in Kata whilst there is an opponent affecting us. Bunkai, the martial application, should be more than just blindly repeating choreographed movements from Kata with a partner. By repeating the same sequence of movements it becomes a controlled environment where you can also develop the method of how to do it. For example, when executing an arm-bar you realise that simply yanking the arm and trying to apply pressure at the elbow just doesn’t work against a resisting opponent.

The Jundokan Dojo Kun encourages us to “Study and contrive seriously”. So it is necessary to study the movement, referring to the principles of the art, and experiment with it until you uncover the subtle methods that turn disadvantage into advantage. You should be creative in your practice, working with the principles and experimenting with variations of movement, and thus varying degrees of success or failure will reinforce your understanding of why things are taught the way they are. Within Goju Ryu we have kakie (push hands) and most systems will have various levels of pre-arranged exercises, semi-free and free sparring, all of which create a rich environment in which to explore the movements of the kata and express the principles of Karate within them.

In practicing an application you may discover a problem or a weakness in your technique, such as momentarily losing your balance when turning, or perhaps over–reaching when you strike. To correct these errors it is best to pick an appropriate movement from the Kata, isolate the aspect that causes the problem and then repair or refine it repeatedly with the “single movement practice”. In good time you can return to the partner work and test it out.

Whilst a single basic bunkai may be taught for each movement, this is only a starting point for the student. A person’s bunkai will then evolve and vary according to their physical make-up, temperament, the current training partner and most importantly their level of understanding of the principles.

So, what is it that the teacher passes on to the student? If it were only the choreography of kata and bunkai, with no ‘understanding’ to support it, the student would only have an empty shell in which to practice. A sequence of martial-looking movements can only be called a kata, in the way that a pile of bricks can be called a house. If the Kata and bunkai tell us What to do, then the principles tell us How to do it and the reasons Why.

Within the Goju Ryu system there are a number of articles containing principles to which we can turn for guidance:

There are miscellaneous other quotations from Miyagi Chojun and Higaonna Kanryo, and within the Jundokan there are a number of articles and quotations from Ei’ichi Miyazato, and of course the Dojo Kun (the principles of the Dojo).

The teacher must teach from the principles of the art, not merely the choreography, speed and power, so the students can then be equipped to further refine
themselves. The teacher then, is a knowledgeable and experienced interpreter of the principles. The teacher and student refine their understanding of the meaning of the principles and how to apply them, and the teacher becomes a conduit through which the student can get a ‘leg-up’ in understanding. The student should first learn from the teacher’s understanding, but at some stage must then continue to develop and refine his/her own understanding.

For example, in the Dojo Kun we are advised to be “calm in mind and swift in action”, and yet how often have we seen (or been) someone training or sparring with a great deal of aggression and grinding of teeth, or at the other extreme cowering in fear. The cultivation of a calm mind is essential for us to see things “as they are”, and be able to respond swiftly and appropriately (have you noticed how slow your reactions are when you are angry or frightened), so it is clear to see why this important principle must inform all of our training.

For another example, as a Goju Ryu karate ka do you train kakie with a lot of power and resistance to your opponents push? Check your training against the principle of Go and Ju (Yang and Yin) and consider how it could be applied in kakie?

We should not make the mistake of looking for the principles in the movement of the kata, because if we do not know what they are how can they be present in our practice and how would we know if we had found one ? Instead we must put the aforementioned principles of the art into the movement. If we merely practice a movement verbatim for many years and hope to derive a hitherto ‘invisible’ principle from it we may never discover anything of worth. Kata are not a collection of principles, they are a controlled environment in which we can practice and develop our understanding of the principles. The difference is subtle but fundamentally important.

Without a set of clear principles as an anchor, our practice would be rudderless and will almost certainly drift off course. If you have spent many years trying to do the same thing in the same way, only harder, faster and more powerfully and yet you feel at best you are treading water, or even going backwards, then maybe it is time to look closer at what you are doing.

The meaning of Kata then, should we choose to look for one, can be both highly functional and at the same time deeply personal.

"'Antiquity is to be held with old days, and know the new' is an old proverb that should be driven into our self and continuously trained for a long time."
Eiichi Miyazato, 1978

Although we might like to believe our kata have been handed down unchanged for generations, it is clearly not true and it is an inescapable fact they have continually evolved over time. If we learn a kata from someone, then despite our very best efforts it will never be quite the same as that of the teacher because our bodies will be different and our understanding will be different. Kata taught in a ‘particular’ way is an essential vehicle for communicating the teacher’s understanding to the student, and for students of the same discipline to learn from each other in a common environment. The precise imitation of a teacher’s form is crucially important for beginners and intermediate practitioners, but seniors with many years of deep practice should go beyond this and start to develop their own understanding. Serious practitioners will refine their practice from the ‘inside’, understand the purpose and cultivate the method based on their evolving understanding of the ‘principles’ of the art. This ‘inner’ understanding will shape and drive the outer expression of the movement, and at this level if the inner technique is correct then the outer movement will also be ‘correct’.

It is the teacher’s responsibility to teach and the student’s responsibility to learn. The student must not learn blindly, but instead study what they have learned with reference to the principles. Remember that a teacher is merely another student who has travelled further along the way, and as such is a regular human being that may have small misunderstandings or errors which, if blindly learned by their students, will be perpetuated. If the teacher is continually refining and evolving his or her practice, then successive students will receive a slightly different transmission of the kata, and hopefully a fuller one as time passes. A teacher is simply another student who is offering guidance and the benefit of his or her experience to fellow students, and if the teacher’s understanding evolves, their teaching will evolve along with it.

We must not blithely change the kata to suit ourselves, to look more stylish(!) or merely to be different, but we should also decide whether our Karate Do is to be a living art form or a relic that is stuck in the past and weighed down by ‘traditional’ misconceptions. By refinement I am referring to the subtle and principled way a movement is performed, and the quality of mind awareness and intention that flows through it, not the implanting or removal of entire techniques which would merely be a gross change. There is a very fine line to tread here. We have a responsibility to maintain, foster and cultivate what has been taught to us, but eventually to stand on the shoulders of our teachers and refine the art further. Kata should only be altered after careful consideration and then only for refinement, or for the removal of our own errors and misunderstandings, and not merely to create something different. It is incumbent upon the student to learn all that can be learned from the teacher, and then continue to refine so that when the art is again passed to the next generation it has been improved upon. Clearly the difficulty here is to refine without losing the essence that is already present.

To the untrained eye one person’s kata may look very similar to everyone else’s, but there will be subtle differences that reflect their physique, their character and most significantly their personal understanding of the principles. For teaching there needs to be a reasonably ‘standard’ way of performing a kata, so the teacher has a consistent framework in which to pass on his/her knowledge. But then after many years of dedicated practice, the advanced practitioner should not be chained to it in the vain hope that one day some sort of ‘enlightenment’ will mysteriously enter their body. The form is there to provide a structured training environment, but if taken too literally for too long it can also become a prison and stifle development.

In the end, the teacher and the student are one and the same, and all must learn from the principles. The student learns from the teacher and the teacher learns
from the student, and then together, as friends, they travel on a lifelong journey in search of true knowledge and deeper understanding.

KATA – A PRINCIPLED APPROACH

By Sensei Paul Fretter
Jundokan United Kingdom

KATA – A PRINCIPLED APPROACH

By Sensei Paul Fretter Jundokan United Kingdom

By Sensei Paul Fretter
Jundokan United Kingdom