Martial Art Subtleties: The Lessons Kata Teach
The kata were created in such a way that they required careful learning, training and much repetition to acquire the skill and learn the...
Katas: Closing the Skill Gap
Although they are often derided by the uninitiated for their perceived lack of practicality, the katas are the key to ensuring karate remains a...
Tegumi – Old Style Karate’s Two Person Exercise
Tegumi or Okinawan grappling and wrestling
Just as a great dish needs a recipe or an extensive trip needs a map, so too does the...
Kata Training: Practice Kata Correctly
This translation originally appeared in Vol. 29, No. 1 of the Hiroshima University of Economics Journal of Humanities, Social and Natural Sciences.
Translator's Introduction
Over the...
Mike Hancock on Kata Bunkai
For centuries the martial arts have been cloaked in mystery and folk lore. The deadly techniques used by master practitioners of karate were frequently...
The Basics of Bunkai – Part 6
In this series of articles we've been looking at the basics of "bunkai" (kata application). The purpose of these articles is to introduce the...
Chuck Merriman on Kata and the Meaning of Bunkai
"The kata are the essence of karate; without them karate would be the mere learning of various fighting and self-defense techniques, expressing nothing and...
Taisabaki No Kata – The Body Movements of Form
By Dr. William Durbin ~ It has been acknowledged by most authorities, at least those who actually train in traditional martial arts, that Kata is...
Formlessness And The Dao Of Movement
The Dao of movement may imply different things to different people, ease of movement, many different stances, continuity, the art of improvised movement, etc.
All...
The Other Way of Sanchin Kata
Many karate systems teach the Sanchin kata as an external training method to strength-condition practitioners with a series of breath-controlled tensions. This mainstream understanding...
KATA – An Important Part of Martial Arts
Kata is a form of unique obligatory exercises involving a series of hand and foot techniques, of punches and kicks, connected by certain movements,...
Quest For The Truth: The Origin of Tang Soo Do’s Forms
Hwang Kee, founder of Tang Soo Do, claimed to have brought the art's Pyong Ahn forms back from China in the 1930s. That was...
Naihanchi’s Mook Jong Drills – Karate’s Hidden Wooden Dummy Techniques
Naihanchi or Tekki kata is one of several traditional Chinese-Okinawan karate katas whose origins have been lost over the centuries. While the Naihanchi kata...
Discovering Bunkai in Kata
By Bill Burgar ~ Today kata are practiced for a variety of reasons. Some people use them as good exercise, some to practice technique,...
The Basics of Bunkai Part 7
This series of articles explores the basics of "bunkai" (kata application). Over the last six parts we've been discussing the fundamentals of this vitally...
The Martial Artist a Lethal Musician
One cannot learn how to make music without understanding how it functions much like one cannot practice martial arts without understanding martial arts forms...
