Hi All,

The 4 major modern styles are- Shotokan, Shitoryu, Goju Ryu and Wado Ryu. Three of these styles come from Okinawa and Wado was formed by a student of Shotokan. All of these styles utilise kicks, punches, strikes, blocks and stances. The delivery system and variations of techniques exist but basically the essence remains the same. If we examine their kata then we might change our mind on the termiology used.

Shotokan uses kata from Shuri te, Tomari Te, Naha te, and Shitoryu
Shitoryu uses kata from huri te, Tomari Te, Naha te, and Goju Ryu (plus others)
Goju Ryu uses kata from Higaonna and Miyagi
Wado uses kata from Shuri te, Tomari Te, Naha te, Shotokan and Shitoryu

It is the kata and the way they are performed that affects the basics of a 'style' , ie the delivery system, rather than the techniques themselves. In effect karate is a style of Martial Art and what we know as styles is really in effect simply different schools. What we are seeing more of today is new schools adopting kata from different modern schools and then calling their school some cool Japanese name as if it was associated with a particular 'style' in Japan.

Funakoshi never accepted 'style' names and it was his students that referred to Funakoshi's dojo, the Shotokan, as Shotokan-Ryu. Shoto was Funakoshi's pen name and kan can be used to mean a gym or building used for a particular purpose. Shotokan simply referred to the 'Hall of Shoto".

The point is it is not so difficult to change from one school to another but it would be better if there was a core set of fundamentals and standardised kata to meet modern karate requirements.. at least to Shodan. Thoughts?
Boz

Interesting Post Boz.
The underlying problem you have here - is that how would you decide which kata to adapt? And who would do the adapting? You would need people from each style to come forward and offer their views. One solution would be the creation of a set of maybe two or three kata, which would incorporate elements of the more basic kata drawn from the four major styles.
I think that Shodan grade is maybe a little high though.

Would it really be better if there were a core set of fundamentals?

If this was to be the case then somebody (as W16 points out, who would this be?) would have to standardise them. So we take a familiar kata and homogenise it, oops we just lost a little from this style, and that just doesn't fit any more from this other style...Hmmm, it's missing something, ah, that looks nice - let's have a bit of that one, no-one will notice....


...O'eck look what we've done...



...just cloned GKR!


Now everyone is going to have to go back and see what bits were chopped out for simplicity.

Standards are needed, but the diversity of the arts gives it flavour and the opportunity to learn more. Rather than standardise the kata we have, should we not be looking towards developing new, pertinent kata suited for today?

Atb

David

Hi Sam and David,

The real problem is that the sports bodies are considered the Governing Bodies and all styles would wish to be represented. It would be impossible today because karate has become a commercial enterprise

Cheers,
Boz

Does the commercial aspect matter that much (to the existance of indivdual styles)? Other sports have governing bodies and still exist, but then are they standardised...I guess tennis may be tennis wherever.

However, what about such as rugby? That has different 'styles' under the common title of rugby. Each have their own rules (kata/basics) which keep them distinct from each other.

If a common governing body is wanted by the martail arts community, why would it need to be at the cost of indvidual styles?


...I may be commenting on stuff which is waaaay beyond my current understanding, however it is my impression that this is exactly what the martial arts community and an overarching governing body - Sport England, are trying to do now in the UK.

<looks around nervously for someone who actually knows what they are talking about to comment..>

Atb

David

Some sort of agreed standard might be nice, but would it really be possible to introduce? There will always be groups who don't agree.

I will use the term 'governing body' to indicate representative body(s) for simplicity...
The short road may be to get the governing body charters amended to allow free translation of grades between clubs and 'styles', but first you would need agreement from the office bearers and then from the member body to implement such a change. And then there are all the groups who are not associated with the governing body who may or may not follow the same guidelines.

When money is the bottom line in club operations such an arrangement may lead to concerns that members might become disgruntled and leave over people 'swooping in' and jumping the queue in terms of seniority.


Mick

I might try again.. basically karate is karate, only the kata is performed and executed differently due to individual chief instructors following a preference or devising their own preferred versions. Karate is a style ofmartial art.. wouldn't we be better off if all karate was karate just as Judo is Judo and TKD is TKD?

Boz

Wow. What a concept. Whether its removing the idea of "substyles" or getting it all standardised to a uniform way I cant see it happening. The concept of differentiation has become so ingrained in the psyche of some students. Indeed its happening in TKD a lot more these days too. Theres now "WTF", "ITF" and anything else gets called "freestyle" (Due in no small part to the formation of governing bodies). Just human nature? What can be done about it?

But if ... then I wouldn't be doing karate... I think... why would we be better off if we all did the same kata the same way?

If you learn karate then the kata is not so important. Why does each school perform their kata differently when many of them don't teach sensible applications? It means that the students are captive to their system. Why so many kata? Why is it that very few karateka (both students and instructors) even know the meaning of one kata yet teach one or even two for each rank advancement? Kata were developed to teach responses to most the likely assaults one might suffer. How do you respond to- a straight right, a hook punch, a headbutt, a tackle, a football type kick, a shove, a hair grab, a shirtfront grab and punch. a shove followed by a punch? Can you give examples from your kata?
Cheers,
Boz

Hi Boz, fantastic points.



I wouldn't be at all surprised if that is the simple truth. I do have one suggestion leading from this point. Given the kata were simplified for schoolchildren's PE and taken from there by various styles, is it not possible that divergent faithfull attempts were made at re-creating a meaningful kata as opposed to just an exercise? - Much as in evolution were an event has caused a bottleneck in a species and from this point the species begins to evolve again. Individual evolutions are no more incorrect than another parallel evolution; they are alternative paths. In terms of evolution this produces new genera, could not the same be true of kata. Could our failing be in classification? Today we have groupings of kata, which look similar in pattern but differ in nature - thus they should be renamed to reflect their ancestry.



Superb point Maybe this type of examination question should be required of a student to grade in the martial arts.

...that's me back to 8th kyu
Atb

David

Hi David,

Thanks for the kind words.

You said- "Given the kata were simplified for schoolchildren's PE and taken from there by various styles, is it not possible that divergent faithfull attempts were made at re-creating a meaningful kata as opposed to just an exercise?"

No, if you knew the kata you would see that the attempts made had nothing other than to 'stylise' them. Many changes were made after the advent of kata competition. Change is not a bad thing when they can be eplained but try asking anyone why their kata is different to that of another style. Ask a couple of times to get a proper answer and you will find they usually have no decent explanation.

I'll give you an example. There was a Japanese Instructor who had left his Japanese Association and started his own. He took some of the clubs, both national and international, away from the parent club. I attended a seminar that his contact in my area hosted to help him out.

The Japanese instructor taught some basic things, some poor aikido and I was far from impressed. He asked if we would like to do any particular kata and someone suggested Sochin. So we performed that a few times then he told us that he was the best researched karate man of his generation and invited any questions.

When quizzed on the meaning of the kata and possible applications he demonstrated a few lame examples and we shook our heads and said surely there was a deper meaning and he admitted that he didn't know.. he said only the old masters know! This is not so.

The point being he was happy to start up his own association and accept students from his previous association but knew no more than the how, not the why or when!

Boz

From that point of view, if you said that karate is karate and basically the techniques are the same regardless of 'style' then it should present no problems with one club accepting a new member from another club and retain their grade, with the usual caveats of having to learn required kata, differences etc before progressing in rank. But again, people being people and karate instructors being a parochial bunch...

People tend to join factions so they can rattle some spears and claim to have the biggest bunch of bananas in their tree.


Mick

Boz, that being the case then there is only one real version of each kata? - And then there are several versions of these kata which are best described as competition or performance kata - I guess like ballroom dancing and figure skating?


So is the question, what do people want to study; a martial art or a performing art?

Atb

David

It's a bit difficult to say there's only one real version of each kata. The best example is perhaps Bassai Dai, of which there are over a dozen 'recognised' versions. Even after you take out Shotokan Bassai Dai and Bassai Sho, and the other versions also called Bassai Dai such as that found in Shito Ryu schools you are still left with versions like Matsumura Passai, Tawada Passai, Chibana Passai (which I am led to believe are all similar).

This is of minor consequence - you have kata in different schools where the only real difference is in placement of a hand in certain techniques such as in kata from Hayashi-ha and Tani-ha Shito Ryu schools.

Where do you draw the line to say "beyond this the differences are too great"?


Mick

Hi David,
You need to do the maths for yourself now. Try to track down as many versions of Bassai/Passai as you can. Compare them and see what you think. Some applications from older kata just jump out at you. Its not a matter of finding the one real version as no one would know how to confirm that one was unless created recently. What is possible is to decide on some core kata that have not been modified with kata competition as the target. Most Okinawan versions of Sanchin and Naifanchi are still essentially suitable as a teaching tool. I use a couple of older kata to teach karate and some modern kata for competition only.

Cheers,
Bob

Have found that with one particular version of saifa I have looked at. Just watched it and thought "so THAT'S how saifa should be done!". It wasn't all that different to other versions I have seen - altho noticeably different from GKR version - but different enough so you wouldn't have to constantly ask what a move was supposed to be for. In that sense... I would like to see kata standardised within a ... branch of karate...
But I don't think that there should be just one flavour of karate... there are probably too many new flavours developing, but ... maybe karate is just not for everyone? Maybe we got addicted but shouldn't be doing it if we couldn't handle a certain flavour *thinks Shotokan*...

Funakoshi said in [at least] one of his books that karate is suitable for anyone, young or old, male or female. So you could argue with anyone who says that karate is only suitable for certain people whether they think they know more about karate than the man widely regarded as the father of modern karate.


Mick

... the same modern karate that adapted kata to fit in with school PE programs?

Yes, but not the same modern karate that decided head high kicks ought to be part of training.


Mick

Sorry, Mick. Just re-read that. Wasn't having a dig.

And still not.

We have three main stages of karate? Older - with meaningful kata, newer - with .. stylised kata hiding the meaning form the average student, and much newer - with bastardised forms of kata?

Where would you put GKR in that list?

Hehe, I think you know the answer to that one Mark

Right where I would guess most other styles would go - in the much newer group. But is it right? There are three stages?