Thinking of practicing a kata for the next tournament but wondering if i should use my grading kata (saifa) or a completly different one, like seiunchin or maybe learn sanseru and do that...

Having never been to a tournament before, do ppl usually do their grading kata's or try and be sneaky sneaky and learn a high rank kata because their grade shouldnt know anythin about it yet so they will easily pick up a medal...?

But that also brings up do i just wanna win a medal or do i wanna earn one by actually competing against ppl who have pretty much the skill that i have in saifa?

But then again( ) i am competing against 6th, 5th and 4th kyu's so they already know (or have a general idea) the higher kata's! So its either use grading kata and fight my way through the pack or try and out preform these higher grades at their own kata's....

Wtf am i gunna do??

Malice, i would sugest that you look at the kata you know and work out which one you like the most then get that one the absolute best that you can and enter it.

Just because you perform a higher grade kata does NOT mean that you will be scored better. If you perform a flawless and strong Saifa it WILL beat a not so good Empi. It is not WHAT kata you perform its HOW you perform it.

Malice,
I agree with Omega, with one addition. Pick another kata as a backup. If you have a minor injury on the day you can change. For example, your best kata is seiunchin, and on the day you get a knee problem. You may not want to be in sumo stance for a long time, so you need a backup kata. I hope I make sense.

Good luck :thumbwink:

Arent all the kata's split up...?! or do they just chuck em all in the same age and grade groups...??

In any case ill ask my sensei what he thinks, i wouldnt mind doin bassa-dai in a tourny actually... and a group saifa... mmmm

Nope - you get called up and do the kata of your choice, and compared with everyone elses kata whatever they may choose, so yeah - your saifa will be against someone elses empi.
Again gotta echo these guys, failure to handle the difficult doesnt impress.

omg i thought they were all in different groups... i think ill b doin saifa then thx
has a first kata ever won in like the bb group?

and another question, just how spiffy does saifa have to be from 6th to 5th kyu? a massive improvment from 7th to 6th kyu?

i got lotsa saifa to do....still

Sorry mate I misunderstood. You are of course in belt and age divisions, but all katas are in together. It would be preferable to do the highest kata you can do well, as the lower the grade of kata you do for your grade level the more harshly it will be judged.

ahh ok that makes sense, i'd like to do bassa-dai or seiunchin but i dont think i know them well enough yet, where 5th and 4th kyu ppl would becoz its their grading kata... looks like i got alot of practice ahead

Also is there any difference in the way you should preform a tournament kata compared to a grading kata? like more agressive or slow or fluid or what?

With tournament kata, the kata you do has to basically be perfect especially when you're going up against higher grades that are also doing higher kata. I remember for my last tournament, I did Seiunchin. I remember doing it just as good, maybe even better than when I did it to grade to Ni Kyu. The scores I got weren't that great...

I once had a student win gold with the 2nd kata in the 6th-4th kyu division, beating out performances of saifa and bassai dai. So much of it is judged on the performance of the kata, not which kata you use.

Having said that though, I have also seen judges award higher scores to higher grade kata simply on the basis that it was a higher grade kata and not on how well it was done. The feeling of many people is that higher grade kata score better. But if you muck it up...

My suggestion is to pick a kata e.g. saifa and stick with it the whole year. Then maybe change it when you're 4th kyu and stick with this one.

To the second point - in theory kata are supposed to be performed at tournament the same as in class but it seems not uncommon for little "tweaks" to appear at competitions to jazz it up a little.


Mick

Malice
For what its worth, i disagree slightly with the other comments on this thread, in the UK, the higher kata do get scored better, having said that it needs to be performed to a standard.My kids have always done at least 2 kata above there grade at tournys.My opinion is if you do your grade kata and do it ok ,you will get ok marks,if you do your grade kata and do it well, you will get ok marks because you should be doing it well.Where as if you do a kata above your grade and do it ok you will get good marks and so on, this isnt always the case, but as a general rule of thumb here in the uk its what we have found.One other thing is decide on a tournament kata and stick to it, the more you do it,and understand the kata the better you will get at it.For example as blue belts, the kids chose kata seiunchin as there tournament kata, some 18 months later it is now there tournament and grade kata, only now after a lot of medals are they learning a new tournament kata, i dont think that its any coincidence that the past 8 months the medals have changed from bronze to golds,its not all about medals, its about performing to the best of your ability and enjoying the experience, choose a kata stick with it and grow together.
Nigel :thumbwink:

Ill ask my sensei's, see what they think, they'll probly say saifa coz thats the kata ive been doing the most.... i really need to get out to sum other dojo's, so i can see what other 6th,5th and 4th kyu's kata's look like