Martial Arts Professional Magazine

Part 2 of a Six-Part Series on Using Kata (or Form) For Martial Arts Development

In the classical school, we should have processes in place to train normal people to be able to do unique and powerful things. These skills should be centered on martial abilities and not dance or gymnastic abilities…and these should not be confused. You can have a powerful leap or a graceful move in dance or an amazing flip with cart wheels and handstands and show great athletic ability. These movements, however, certainly have nothing to do with fighting.

Weight trainers, gymnasts, dancers and football or basketball players who have stepped into the professional ring have been quickly destroyed…athletic ability or not.

The goal for the future, dynamic martial artist is to learn how to develop a stable, mobile and fluid platform that can move in any direction, and EXPLODE arms, legs, hands and feet with tremendous force. With some modern schools, this is sometimes confused with explosive dance or gymnastic moves. I suggest that this type of form should be called martial dance, and not martial art.

There is nothing wrong with martial dance. Many cultures have this tradition. In Okinawa, the traditional dances that are performed have many martial movements, but their intent is not to teach combat, but to entertain. The same can be said about classical theater in China. There are many examples of martial style movements, even martial weapons involved in the story plot of the play, but the intent is to entertain…not to fight. Even the traveling Shaolin monks, who appear in many U.S. cities, are clearly all about entertaining and not about combat.

When we are more concerned with how a movement or set of movements looks than we are about how it is used for combat, then we have moved from the area of martial art training to the area of entertainment.

Using kata, or form, to aid the development of a fighter is lost on people in the fighting arena because of this confusion. The “effectiveness” of kata, or form, must first divest itself from using any theatrical props or music, which exists for entertainment value, instead of combat training. That means any prop that is a facsimile of a weapon, instead of the real thing. Clothing that is not functional. Lighting that is distracting.

A classical view of form or kata training should include these seven elements.

1. Move forward, backward or at any angle smoothly and with graceful execution.
2. The body should not “porpoise”, but should move level and smoothly on one plane, unless the additional planes of movement are planned movement, not sloppy execution.
3. All changes of direction are made with perfect balance.
4. All strikes, of whatever type, must be dynamic (of great power).
5. The eyes and mind must be totally focused.
6. All movement is totally efficient. This means that all of the body not needed for the motion is relaxed. No champion fighter was ever tight, tense or frigid, whether in body or countenance.
7. The mind must move from a civilian mode to a warrior mode, during the entire sequence of the form or kata…and then return to a calm civilian mode. This active meditation and mental preparation for combat has great value.

In other words, as I stated at the top of the column, the practicing martial artist endeavors to develop a stable, mobile and fluid platform that can move in any direction and EXPLODE arms, legs, hands and feet with tremendous force and with intention to control or destroy an attacker.

Gruesome, but true.

If you are practicing kata or form in this manner, then you are probably discovering that it is an effective tool to help you become the warrior within and without.

If not, then you will find the exercise very useless.

Until next month, keep teaching and training