Kata’s Relationship to Technique

From:  "daleknepp"
Date:  Wed Feb 20, 2002  4:13 pm
Subject:  Kata’s Relationship to Technique

 

As some of these topics being discussed on this list have been recent studies of my own. I would be pleased to have several short essays that I wrote reviewed and commented on by this peer group. Rebuttals and debates are open fielded. As any writing is a never ending process, all my essays are subject to reflection and rewrite. Your
help in clarifying my thoughts and written expression of them is greatly appreciated.

 

This particular essay is only an edited draft and I plan to compare several translations of Itosu's Ten Lessons for better edification of his intended meaning. My statements and opinions are my own and not necessarily an accurate reflection of Taika Oyata's teachings. All mistakes and faults are mine alone.

Kata's Relationship to Technique

Kata don't really contain techniques per se. That is to say kata aren't a collection of techniques put together in a certain way. This is bared out in several ways. Itosu in his Ten Lessons never suggests that technique is contained in the kata rather he expressly said to study karate movements and their applications. An application does necessarily mean technique. Taika Oyata distinguishes between real technique and examples of application.


Taika has repeatedly said that the techniques will come out of the kata if one practices and studies them thoroughly. He has said that there are many things hidden in the kata but left it open as to what he meant by that. A student should study kata so as to development one's own technique that is discovered for one's self and is not a
technique that someone else teaches. Taika said that this would then be your technique that no one can take from you and would be your secret. This is how he explained secret techniques. Secret techniques aren't really the ones taught from teacher to student but are revealed to the student by careful study of the kata as guided by the
teacher.


What happens in kata is that kata promotes body movement and coordination of the senses with the extremities of the body. In kata practice we investigate why a movement is done in a certain way. We ask ourselves this question why rather than what a movement represents as a particular technique and leave it at that. Memorizing
a particular technique for a particular kata movement sequence is like learning two plus two. This builds up a vast repertoire of techniques to be used in this or that situation. But it doesn't equate to spontaneous action effective to ward off an attacker in a real life situation.


Taika Oyata has depicted kata as a book many times. This type of book requires a great deal of study to comprehend. In the case of Okinawan kata, we must first learn to language in which the book is printed but this isn't enough. The Okinawan language is different than modern Japanese so one needs to be sure that misinterpretations don't creep into the translation. Languages change over time and one language written 100 years ago has different perspective and cultural attributes not found in modern languages. The English language of the Elizabethan Age is difficult to read and to comprehend at first glance. The English language has evolved from the Anglo-Saxon
language, which originated among the Germanic tribes of Europe. A modern English speaking person cannot read it at all without studying it as a second language.


The point being that you may be able to copy the kata as taught just as a scribe copies a book letter by letter but can't read or understand what is being copied. So we need to study the language of kata from someone who knows it in order to get the correct meaning of the book. Finding a person such as this is hard as many teachers died during and shortly after the Second World War taking the language of kata with them. Many teachers today learn from teachers who didn't understand the language and only thought that they could make sense of the kata from their own cultural and historical vantage point.


Many erroneous concepts and personal ideas have become accepted as status quo and it is now hard to dislodge from their preeminent positions as "the way it is." Taika has tried for many years to correct these misconceptions and to clarify his own understanding of the language of kata to his students.


Taika's teachers saw kata in a completely different light-of-day than when we look at them. How many times has Taika told us basic kata is for memorization only and that the study and practice of kata is something different? I cannot say but the message is clear that we must learn the language of kata if we want to get to the heart of the
book. Memorizing a collection of individual techniques is not the correct way to read and understand the kata. Taika has always emphasized the importance of training with reality of the situation in mind as if on a battlefield. He has used that analogy many times in his teachings. Taika's understanding seems to be essentially the
same as Itosu's as expressed in the 8th of his Ten Lessons.


He has made it clear that he visualizes his opponent during practice. However, he doesn't use an ideal picture of his opponent. That is he sees his opponent with the potential to come at him in every way possible and not in a picture perfect quality that freeze-frames his opponent. If he did he would just be thinking of one response for a
particular situation and learning piece by piece. He has said many times that he cannot teach us this way. Some people think that he will not teach this way because he does wish to do so but when he says he cannot that he means that it is impossible for us to learn it that way. Thus recently he began to develop a number of new exercises or drills to be done with a partner or visualized as being done with one.


Taika engages his opponents with the appropriate response to their actions. Offensive maneuvers should not be taken on their own rather they should happen as part of the process of covering one's own body. They spontaneously come out of the body's movements to protect itself. This is one way Taika explains "mushin." He has stated that a person's reaction is faster than another person's calculatd action. His natural reflexes come to his defense with he is attacked. By being completely aware of his surroundings, he is relaxed and at home in his environment. This gives him a large advantage when he's attacked, as he isn't easily shocked into freezing up when confronted with violence. Most of us get startled and our natural body movements
lock up. This delay in our response allows our assailants to take advantage of us. Taika doesn't let this happen in fact his opponents may be surprise that his response wasn't in their plan.

References

Morris, Vince:

Itosu's Ten Lessons

 

#6 "There are many movements in karate. When you train you must try to understand the aim of the karate movement and its application. You have to take into account all possible meanings and applications of the move. Each move can have many applications."


# 8 "When you train in karate you should train as though you were on the battlefield fighting the enemy. You should keep your shoulders down and fix yourself in the stance. When you block or thrust you should picture the enemy. In so doing you will gradually master how to fight a real battle."


Shoshin Nagamine remarked that Genwa Nakasone said

: "Itosu first taught at the Okinawa Prefecture School for Teachers but it was modern karate that he taught there, not the old style. Except for a few experts who realized he was teaching the modern form, most of the people thought he was teaching the old style, and this misunderstanding exists even today! This is a very serious misunderstanding."


Genwa Nakasone reasons that Itosu insisted that Mabuni practice the modern form was because he (Itosu) "had studied and improved upon (the original Chinese version) based on his own study and research."


Seikichi Iha passed on that Choshin Chibana said:

"He (Itosu) taught karate secretly at his home to a select group of about six or seven followers. They trained in Bu (or karate as practice as a martial art), not as sport, as they do now. During that period of time I, too, kept my training a secret, even from my
family. In 1903 or 1904 Itosu-sensei began to publicly teach karate in the school setting. It was at this time that I told my parents that instead of going to school I had been practicing the art of "te."