 In most traditional oriental martial arts Kata are the heart of the system. They contain all the techniques and fighting strategies used by the style, and are a record of the lessons, often learned at great cost, by its founder and leading practitioners. Karl Friday, an American teacher of the traditional Japanese style of Kashima Shinryu swordsmanship points out that ‘Fundamentally, kata represents a training method wherein students rehearse combinations of techniques and countertechniques. An article by Harry Cook Part 1In most traditional oriental martial arts kata are the heart of the system. They contain all the techniques and fighting strategies used by the style, and are a record of the lessons, often learned at great cost, by its founder and leading practitioners. Karl Friday, an American teacher of the traditional Japanese style of Kashima Shinryu swordsmanship points out that ‘Fundamentally, kata represents a training method wherein students rehearse combinations of techniques and countertechniques, or sequences of such combinations, arranged by their teachers.’ [i] The importance and role of kata in martial arts training is a sore point with many modern instructors and students. For many modern practitioners of karate and Judo, training in kata is a waste of valuable time and energy which could be better spent sparring or training with equipment designed to improve impact or strength.
Kata in antiquity
To the early Chinese, Okinawan and Japanese instructors kata were the essence of their training; they believed that only through constant repetition of kata could all the essential techniques of fighting be mastered, and only through the study of bunkai [kata application] could real combat skill be developed. This approach has a long history, and references to kata-like training methods can be found in the annals of many ancient cultures. For example military training ‘dances’ are found in ancient Egypt. It is known that during the time of the Middle Kingdom [21st-18th century BC] soldiers performed dances “to imitate mock combat, beating time with boomerangs while two of them staged a fight with bent throwing sticks.” [ii]
The ancient Greeks performed the Pyrrhic dance which featured men in armour performing movements of attack and defence, and it is said that the citizens of Athens made Phrynichos commander-in-chief of their army because of his skill in the Pyrrhic dance. The Spartans also performed dances which imitated wrestling movements and techniques from the Pankration. [iii]
According to the Chinese historian Ssu Ma Ch’ien, [iv] King Chou Hsin [1154-1122 BC] was able to kill wild animals with his fists and break rocks and timber. [v] It is reasonable to assume that these techniques were organised into some form of system similar to the external forms of Chinese Boxing and karate. King Wu of Chou [circa 1156-1116 BC] created a training method known as Hsiang Wu [military dance] which was usually taught to youths aged about fifteen. The Book of Odes records that ‘During the time of King Wen there were fighting methods which King Wu later put into dances accompanied by music. It was named Hsiang Wu’. '
Over a period of time these military dances became more complex and sophisticated. By the 7th century BC it is recorded that there was a specific dance performed by soldiers and known as the ‘shield dance’. The soldiers held a shield and banner as they performed the movements which were defensive rather than aggressive in intent. This dance was complemented by the ‘battle axe dance’, also performed by soldiers holding axes which was aggressive in its movements. In the account of the 28th year of the Duke of Lu [666 BC] in the Tso Chuan [Tso’s Commentary on the Spring and Autumn Annals] we are told that a prince of the royal house of Ch’u fell in love with the widowed queen of the late king Wen. In order to win her favour he built a pavilion next to her palace and had the ‘wan’ [vi] dance performed in it. Hearing of this the queen wept, saying ‘When my late lord had this dance performed it was to keep his warriors in training for battle. His excellency, instead of directing it against the enemy, aims it at one who is not yet dead. What a difference!’
“ There are many movements in karate. When you train you must try to understand the aim of the movement and its application. You have to take into account all possible meanings and applications of the move. Each move can have many applications. ”
Yasutsune Itosu Ten Teachings 1908
Obviously these ‘dances’ were not simply artistic endeavours; they were training methods intended to prepare warriors for war. [vii] The use of these ‘dances’ seems to have continued for a long time. During the Dutch embassy to the Chinese court in 1794-95 the diplomats were entertained by what they described as a ‘curious dance’ performed by the Shih Wei or bodyguards, Manchu bannermen selected for their military bearing and proficiency. It is possible that this was the first time that Western eyes saw what we would now call a kata. In the middle of the nineteenth century a Western traveller in China, Thomas Meadows, seems to have seen a Chinese soldier performing a weapons kata. In his book The Chinese and Their Rebellions [1856] he describes a Chinese soldier he saw ‘Another man, who was armed with a sword and rattan buckler, without being so manifestly angry, was much louder and more voluble in his abuse. He accompanied it with a selection of those curious pranks that the Chinese sword-and-buckler man executes in the course of his parade exercises, - such as springing with this equipment into the air and performing a sword cut and a loud yell when up there; then suddenly squatting down under the shelter of his buckler - in an attitude that a stiff-jointed and tight-breeched European would be in vain to imitate - and doing a severe cut from underneath at the legs of an imaginary foe: then again, placing the buckler, still attached to his arm, on the ground, putting his head on the centre and tumbling over with it in the direction of his [still] imaginary antagonist.’
In most traditional Oriental martial arts kata are the heart of the system. They contain all the techniques and fighting strategies used by the style, and are a record of the lessons, often learned at great cost, by its founder and leading practitioners. If we examine the ancient Indian art of Kalari, Japanese arts such as ken-jutsu and jo-jutsu, Okinawan karate and kobu-jutsu systems, and methods of Chinese Boxing, we see a similar method of teaching and training. A student is taught a kata or form which he initially practises as a solo exercise, along with supplementary training methods designed to improve his strength, stamina, breathing and co-ordination. Once a modicum of skill has been developed, he learns to apply the techniques of the kata against a partner, often his teacher or a senior student of the school, in order to bring the techniques alive and preserve a sense of reality. In this way the student finds out where his own strengths and weaknesses lie as well as the limitations of the various techniques. Karate master and historian Hiroshi Kinjo claims that in the oldest extant work on Chinese Boxing, General Ch’i Chi Kuang’s Chi Hsiao Hsin Shu [viii] “you will find a description of the two man waza, but you can find no description of any single man demonstration. This book was written more than a century after the Thirty-Six Families arrived on Okinawa and it therefore seems to me to indicate that in the 14th century there were no one man kata in existence.” [ix]
However General Chi Ch’i Kuang wrote “I have selected the thirty-two best boxing techniques from various styles, each movement following one after the other” which seems to suggest that the techniques were performed in a sequence. The text also points out the need to understand the application of the techniques, “After learning the art, practise with an opponent is required.” [x] According to Goju Ryu master Seikichi Toguchi ‘ In the beginning, ancient people created their own fighting techniques in the forms of two-man tandem sparring sequences. This type of kumite consisted of one or two techniques. Through the ages, many techniques were created and the kumite were collected in great number. However, martial artists began looking for another way to train because they had difficulty remembering all the kumite. They also found kumite practice somewhat inconvenient because it regularly required a practice partner. Thus they sought a better way.
After centuries of trial and error, the people created a new training method: a solo, dance-like form. They changed some of the original kumite techniques into modified movements to fit a solo performance and hide the techniques from the eyes of the other schools. In the primitive stage of kata development, techniques were randomly combined into a string of motions. In so doing, it became endlessly long and diffused from the choreographic point of view. The ancient masters were not satisfied with it. As kata evolved, the masters painstakingly developed a set of regulations or guiding parameters. They did not simply combine techniques haphazardly but followed the rules to create kata. Consequently, they succeeded in making kata concise and easy-to-remember. The koryu kata of goju-ryu belongs to this evolved form.’ [xi]
A modern teacher of Chinese Boxing, P’ng Chye Khim explains that “though the trainee may master the mechanics and spirit of the solo Lohan pattern (Lohan ch’uan) unless he can apply its actions as techniques in defence of his person, he cannot be said to be a fully trained Shaolin exponent.” [xii] Khim’s comments are echoed by Adam Hsu, a teacher of Northern styles of Chinese Boxing. He says “When practitioners can’t practise their systems as it was designed, this means they can’t use it, at least not in the way it was intended. Regrettably...many instructors have this problem. When these people practise forms it can be said, though all the movements are there and in the correct sequence, none of them are really correct. What is lacking is an understanding of the intended usage of the movements, and without this understanding the movements are vacant; the practitioner doesn’t know what he is doing...Without the correct usage, a kung fu form is an empty shell. And no matter how beautiful, an empty shell is meaningless.” [xiii] One T’ai Chi Ch’uan teacher Jou Tsung Hwa simply says “Knowing the solo form without knowing the application is like buying a new pair of shoes at a store and then going home with only the shoe box.” [xiv]
The same values are expressed by teachers of Okinawan Shorin Ryu. Toshihiro Oshiro, a senior student of Matsubayashi Shorin Ryu founder Shoshin Nagamine explains that “Traditional Okinawan karate is actually a series of circular techniques. The misconception that has led some Japanese styles to use rigid straight-line techniques comes from competition fighting and a lack of understanding by some instructors about how power is generated. On Okinawa, we learned that there are two forms of martial arts. One is real and teaches the true fighting applications of each move. The other form is false, called meikata (dance), and teaches only the shape of the techniques, hiding the real application within the form.
The level of many karate kata is really much higher than the average person realises. Those throwing, joint-locking, and elbow techniques often look like a punch, but they hide the real meaning. After all, there is much more to effective fighting than just straight punches and blocks, and the originators of karate realised that.” [xv] Okinawan Goju Ryu practitioners adopt the same position. Teruo Chinen explains that “While the patterns of kata do not change, their interpretations (bunkai) do. Bunkai follow the kata and show...the function and meaning of each technique. Bunkai change with the student’s growing understanding of and skill at the kata.” [xvi]
[i] Legacies of the Sword Karl F. Friday University of Hawai’i Press 1997 p 102
[ii] Sports and Games in the Ancient World V. Olivova Bloomsbury Books, London 1986 p 56
[iii] The Greeks Their Life and Customs E. Guhl and W. Koner Senate 1994 pp 273-274
[iv] Ssu Ma Ch’ien’s family were involved in the martial arts. According to Burton Watson in Ssu-ma Ch’ien Grand Historian of China Columbia University Press 1958 ‘The branch of the [Ssu-ma] family in Chao was famous as hereditary masters of the art of swordsmanship.’ p 42. In a note on p 203 we are told that the family may have been ‘masters of the arts of swordsmanship and boxing.’
[v] Memoires Historiques de Se-Ma-Ts’ien E. Chavannes Paris 1895 Vol. # 1 p 119
[vi] The Wan dance is referred to in the Book of Odes [see Odes 300, 301]. According to Mathews’ Chinese-English Dictionary Harvard University Press 1972, p 1042 the Wan dance refers to ‘certain ancient dances with shield and battle-axe.’
[vii] Many Chinese dances were taken to Japan in the seventh and eighth centuries where they were preserved by the Imperial Court. Known as ‘Bugaku’ these dances reflect both civil and military influences. In the dance known as ‘Bairo’, the dancers perform with swords, spears and shields. In China the dance was originally performed before a battle, with the quality of the music and movements indicating the chance of victory or defeat.
[viii] The Chi Hsiao Hsin Shu (Effective New Methods of Military Science) was written in 1561. See Harry Cook, “Ch’i-Chi Kuang and the Chi Hsiao Hsin Shu” Banzai International 3: 49-51 (1987). For a complete translation of the section on empty hand fighting methods see Douglas Wile T’ai Chi’s Ancestors: The Making of an Internal Martial Art (New York, Sweet Ch’i Press, 1999), 18-35.
[ix] Hiroshi Kinjo, “Chronicles of Karate-do” Gekkan Karate-do 9:30 (September, 1979
[x] My translation.
[xi] Seikichi Toguchi, Okinawan Goju Ryu 11 (California, Ohara Publications, 2001), 48
[xii] P’ng Chye Khim & Donn F. Draeger, Shaolin: An Introduction to Lohan Fighting Techniques (Rutland, Vermont, Charles E. Tuttle Co. Inc., 1979), 110.
[xiii] Richard Miller, “Usage: The Soul of Kung Fu” Black Belt 21 (9):92 (September, 1983).
[xiv] Tom Phillips & Linda Stehlik, “Beyond Solo Form” Inside Kung-Fu 11 (11):96 (November, 1984).
[xv] Wendy Ann Weinstein, Ph.D, “Okinawa’s Shorin-Ryu: How It Differs From Japanese Karate” Karate Kung-Fu Illustrated 17 (8):30 (August, 1986).
[xvi] Teruo Chinen, Fundamental Karate-Do (Spokane School of Karate-Do, 1974), 30-31.
This approach is typical of all traditional Okinawan karate and weapons systems. For example teachers of Meibukan Goju Ryu emphasise the practice of yakusoku kumite (prearranged sparring), believing that “In jiyu-kumite (free sparring) karate becomes a sport.” The kumite drills used by Meibukan practitioners are “Kumite techniques taken from the classical Kaishu Kata.”
M. Yagi, C. A. Wheeler, B.S. Vickerson, Okinawan Karate-Do Gojyu-Ryu Meibu-Kan (Prince Edward Island, Canada, Action Press, 1998), 117.
Okinawan Goju Ryu master Morio Higaonna says that it is by training in kata and bunkai that “all the gokui, the secrets of karate, may be preserved.”
Morio Higaonna, Traditional Karatedo Okinawa Goju Ryu 3 (Tokyo, Minato Research and Publishing Ltd., 1989), 10.
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