When your art becomes your own.

Back in 1978, Charlie Murray explained to me "The first 20 years your art is your instructors. After 20 years the art is yours." I've found that is very true. How you make it yours is never ending work, asking why over and over and then finding answer to the question.

In all of my studies understanding kata, kuen, hung or form is central.

Kata first presents us with a shape to move inside, and that movement becomes an expression to enter into an attacking situation. In time we learn to move more efficiently, we learn to relax allowing our center to drop and our power to increase, we learn while central, kata is still only a part of the answer, and we learn to return to our kata day by day as we change day by day ourselves.

Each technique in a kata is a tool on its own. An expression may be the step, the block, the strike or other movements, or combinations of them. The pieces are the tools we use. The kata combines pieces and in turn becomes much more than the parts.

Kata are not the way we fight, but the way we shape our energy release as we move. The shape of the kata provides a staging area for many advancing studies. Exploration of the role of breathing, exploration of technique execution timing, exploration how the units of the body combine to become a whole.

In time when the art becomes our own, we can do less, but we're learning more day by day. The paradox of life.

I'll be returning here as time passes.