haha im similar but i break out in random kicks and punches, like practicing kicks and pucnhes randomly whenever i have time. Like the other day i was in the bathroom, it was one of those free study periods i had, had to take a dump (was a good one too). Finished, checked if there was anyone in the bathroom, or outside. Practiced a few kicks and punches. Felt good haha. And helps that the mirrors in the bathroom are so damn big! Or when i wake up, and im bored, ill just punch and kick a few times. Before school, if i have some time, ill practice the punches
As much as I think kata is great for teaching certain things I think having 10, 20, 30 kata is kind of ridiculous and inelegant when it comes to learning. Now having never trained in karate I may be wrong here but there must be plenty of redundancies in some of those katas where moves could be eliminated, combined, and overall streamlined. K.I.S.S. no?
There probably are some redundancies, but I think it depends on the way you look at it. It's just another combination/transition through moves for me.
Well certain principles can apear similar. We have 14 kata in our school, 3 of which are Kihon kata. So they are mainly for training basic techniques. They can maybe even be seen prepatory kata for some of the others. The other 11 are so to say proper kata. Training in those you'll get a feeling for those that you like. You have to now the others, since you'll be expected to teach every now and then when you become a yudansha. But those kata you particularly like (maybe 3 or 4) may become you main kata of focus, tokiu kata if you like. That leave 7 or 8 to practice every now and then to just memorize and be able to teach. Maybe you come to like and change in one of your previous tokiu-kata. I don't think that's all that much. But I agree, the number of kata you know doesn't count. It's about the depth of knowing them.
Ives... If you're just memorizing them to teach because you don't really find them useful doesn't that bring to light that they may not, in whole or in part, be very useful and should be dissected, have useful bits absorbed, and the rest discarded? And Fish I liked that... also the pic on the right where he's doing what's called po-pai in wing chun.
Sketco... I haven't come across kata in my school that I haven't found usefull. (So I'm only revering to the kata we practice in our school, which can be found a bit up in this thread.) What I have found out is, that certain kata I like more than others. That can be because they are easier to learn or just better suit me, but that can change over time. (I used to hate mustard, but I rather like it nowadays.) The kihon-kata for example aren't really suited to apply. (Of course some applications can be extracted, but they serve a different purpose.) But that doesn't mean they have no value and should be discarded.
Karate = Taikyoku 1-3, Pinans 1-5, Sanchin, Tensho, Naihanchi (a bit), Shikono (a Shidokan specific kata...very rusty). TKD = Saju 1-2, Chon-ji, Dan Gun, Do-San, Won-hyo, Yul Gok, Joong Gun, Toi-Gye, Hwa Rang, Choong Moo, Kwang Gae, Po Eun (a bit). So...25. Damn. And to be honest I get well confused because there's so much cross over. I do at least 1 02 of them pretty much every day but try to put aside one day per week per art to go through the lot (on top of normal training).
Any kind of khihon training I agree. It's like the alphabet of any system from which you learn to form words and eventually sentences. However I still can't help thinking you could simplify things a great deal. I think even something like 10 is excessive. 3-5 kata plus drills should do you and allow greater depth of practice. Ex. When I was doing yoshinkan aikido the forms were: tai no henko ichi tai no henko ni hiriki no yosei ichi hiriki no yosei ni khihon dosa ichi khihon dosa ni You can count that as 3 or 6 forms if you want. Most all have 2 movements except for the khihon dosa which have 4 and 3 respectively. Totalling up the different movements, and accounting for 1 repeated movement, that's 14 movements in total which gives rise to a rather large variation of techniques considering the number of motions practiced.
funnily enough mabuni's style tends to contain a minimum of ~45 kata. the line i train in has over 60, if memory serves.
Fish of Doom... Will you be introduced to all or how does that work? Do you get to pick what you want to learn or does your sensei offer you kata that he/she thinks might suit your abilities? (We have 14, which seems/is 'doable'; learning and training all regularly.)
i'm not currently in formal training. from prior experience, it seems rather random and depending on what each sensei knows and likes.
with certain specifics always taught in a certain order however (the three basic kata first, the pinan taugh in the order 2,3,1,4,5 or 2,1,3,4,5 depending on the sensei, and always bassai dai and seienchin for a shodan exam, for example)
Unambiguously correct - if you're training for self-defence at least. There's plenty of evidence to suggest that learning dozens of kata is a modern phenomena in karate circles. Prior to the early 1900s it seems that most practitioners trained in only a handful of kata. Of course, if your interests lie elsewhere that's fair enough. If say, you train kata for competition or purely for the personal enjoyment of it then its obviously a wholly personal choice. But if you train them for self-defence and you do 20 or 30, then I thinking you're not going about it the right way. Mike
The difference between battlefield training which was short and to the point and modern convolutions methinks!
I guess it is....well, i.....guess I just love going to class and being among people. Its not nearly as fun to do things alone. I don't find training alone as enjoyable as training in a dojo, among other people.
I too think it's fun to train among like-minded people. But I do train outside of class, because it helps progression. (I see it as doing homework.)
This kind of brings us to the point of the thread. There comes a point in my experience when you just don't have enough time in class to practice all the skills (katas) that you have gained. When I was a green belt and san kyu, I could just go to class three times a week and chances were I would practice pretty much all of the skills I was learning at least once that week. I have now moved up to a point where some of my higher katas and kubudo barely get practiced more than a few times per month in a class if that, so I pretty much need to train on my own. If not, I will just stagnate at best with my training. So I am at the point where I am thinking of completely dropping the green belt and lower stuff on my own, since it gets practiced a lot in class. This is why I was curious about what others do.
I train most days by myself outside of class, because it's in this training that the real progress is made. Class is a place for feedback and exposure, and self-directed training is a place for consolidation, familiarisation and exploration. Just relying on class time to get better in is doing it the slow, hard way.
