What kata isn't by The Budo Bum

http://budobum.blogspot.co.uk/2013/12/what-kata-isnt.html

I like that. Hanon should read it - any comments?

The vitality of kata that Peter talks about in that article is largely eliminated in any judo kata I've ever seen.

NBK wrote:I like that.

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NBK wrote:I like that.  

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NBK wrote:I like that.  Hanon should read it - any comments?

Yes, I wrote comments at the time, but decided not to publish them. I did not want to sound dissonant.

I have some concerns with the article. My first concern is that it isn't referenced. I know, I know, sceptics are going to say that not everything people write is intended as a dissertation to be publicly defended. Fair enough, but when one starts writing something which a large part deals with "what it is NOT/ what it is" and then you do not provide references, or do not even attribute anything to anyone, the separation between an opinion piece and what is well-founded becomes clouded. How to deal with that ? Either one does not know enough about the topic and swallows everything, or one does, in which one likely will be regarded as negative and nitpicking.

The piece makes many strong statements. One of them is "Kata is not sparring, and with good reason. All sparring assumes a dueling scenario. 2 people faced off and fighting. Any equipment is equal. There are no surprises, no unexpected changes. There is an assumption of fairness. Kata is not handicapped by any of these of these assumptions. Kata allows a much broader investigation of conflict conditions." (...)

But is that statement actually true ? "Equipment equal" ? That sounds strange to me. In kime-no-kata and Kôdôkan goshinjutsu one partner is loaded with arms to the teeth while tori does not have any.

Is there no sparring in kata ? That may sound acceptable if one does not know any better. Historically, the separation between randori and kata did not exist to the same extent as today, at least not in the precursors to jûdô. Kata in Kitô-ryû used to be practised with the opponent heavily resisting being thrown. We get a peek into this as far as jûdô is concerned, when one looks at its oldest original kata, i.e. gô-no-kata. This kata too is still performed with both partners seriously and forcefully resisting each other. Sure, the overall actions are still scripted. Kata in those days included the objective of serious physical training.

Cichorei Kano wrote:
But is that statement actually true ?  "Equipment equal" ?  That sounds strange to me. In kime-no-kata and Kôdôkan goshinjutsu one partner is loaded with arms to the teeth while tori does not have any.

His statement was that in sparring, not kata, the situation is set up to be fair, with equal equipment.  He goes on to give specific instances of kata where it is deliberately unfair, with unequal equipment.

Is there no sparring in kata ?  That may sound acceptable if one does not know any better.

Peter's background is in various koryu, he is well-versed in the broad spectrum of what kata can be, in fact that's the point of the article.  Just because you add resistance does not make it sparring.

Neil G wrote:

Cichorei Kano wrote:
But is that statement actually true ?  "Equipment equal" ?  That sounds strange to me. In kime-no-kata and Kôdôkan goshinjutsu one partner is loaded with arms to the teeth while tori does not have any.

His statement was that in sparring, not kata, the situation is set up to be fair, with equal equipment.  He goes on to give specific instances of kata where it is deliberately unfair, with unequal equipment.

Thanks for pointing that out. Indeed I misread the statement, which is my mistake. However, that being said, it does not change the essence, as for either kata or sparring the situation covers the entire spectrum. In other words the situation in both kata or sparring may be fair or it may be unfair. In jûdô, when as a lightweight you are 'sparring' with a heavy weight that situation is hardly 'fair', hence one of the reasons why there are weightclasses in jûdô. As to kata, it depends on the specific kata.

Neil G wrote:

Cichorei Kano wrote:
Is there no sparring in kata ?  That may sound acceptable if one does not know any better.

Peter's background is in various koryu, he is well-versed in the broad spectrum of what kata can be, in fact that's the point of the article.  Just because you add resistance does not make it sparring.

I know very well who the gentleman is, and I know his background as we have been in contact in the past since a very long time ago (not currently). Per Jûdô Forum policies we avoid ad hominem hence why I try to separate a person from what he writes, and so I wrote about the contents of the blogpost not about the gentleman. When I wrote in my response "That may sound acceptable if one does not know any better." I did not make a reference to the author specifically. "If one does not know better" in many languages is a general statement simply to indicate that something may be a generalized idea but that in effect is not accurate. It is not meant to be understood as a suggestion that a specific other person would be a nincompoop. Perhaps if I had slightly altered the wording to "People who otherwise might not know any better might think that ..." in which case it might have been clearer that the statement was meant just like an "indefinite pronoun" is meant (cfr. "Anyone who ...", "Somebody who ...", "Nobody does ...").

However, this blogpost was referenced here in the Judo kata section not in koryû, and I am discussing what is relevant for jûdô including those koryû that are relevant for jûdô, not koryû not or little relevant for jûdô.

One can obviously argue about what 'sparring' precisely entails, but then I say, well 'sparring' is no jûdô term and jûdô uses 'randori' and 'kata'. It seems to me that this term 'sparring' then is closest to randori rather than kata, since it is contrasted in the blogpost with kata.

I wrote in my post "We get a peek into this as far as jûdô is concerned". You point out "Just because you add resistance does not make it sparring" ... if the resisting actions are of such extent that other person can't overcome it, then the difference with randori/sparring becomes very little if any (with kata), which is precisely the point I was making. In conclusion, it may very well be that in the arts the writer is most familiar with that the overall position taken might apply more than in relationship to jûdô and its immediate precursors.