Learning Kata in Kempo Karate

Video Transcript

We went over a few techniques: punches, kicks, blocks and stances. Another aspect of karate is kata or the empty hand forms. Kata was the backbone of all karate training from Okinawa to Japan. It came from China. The Chinese way of teaching martial arts used forms or what the Japanese and Okinawans call kata. Now, in the old days, you did not have the training equipment that we have today. You did not have heavy bags and you could not put on the gloves to spar. The only way to effectively teach someone all of the different techniques of your style was to teach them through kata. As you can tell, with the different styles, there are different variations on kata. In fact, although each style probably has a maximum of 25 kata for their core kata, there are hundreds of variations. It depends on who your teacher is or what style you practice. I am going to illustrate one. My style, Okinawan Kempo, came from Shorin-ryu or a lot of the older Okinawan styles. We have a basic kata which we call Pinan Shodan. It starts with the both arms extended and then you look to the left. Each movement is broken down, similar to shadow boxing. It is like choreography where you are repeating the same moves over and over again. First you look to your left, you step back into a cat stance and chamber. Next do a double arm block, break and punch. Those are the first few movements. Gichi Funakoshi, who I mentioned earlier, brought karate from Okinawa to Japan, changed it. He called it Heian. He made it second in his series and called it Heian Nidan. From your initial stance, instead of stepping back, you step out into a back stance. Remember, the back stance is wider than the cat stance. Next is the same chamber and the same movement. Just by stepping down and into a different stance, you can see how this is a different kata, which also has a different name. If you think of all of these subtle differences in katas and really start watching them, you'll see. For example, if you ever go to a tournament, you'll see a lot o karate students doing different katas. You may notice that this one looks like that one or vice versa. Chances are that they all came from the same root and branched off in many different directions. Summing it up, another controversy with kata, is whether or not it is effective. I believe that it is because it teaches you form, style, balance, speed and control. I doesn't necessarily teach you how to fight; that's sparring. We will teach you that next.

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