Thoughts on the Purpose of Kata

Let me start with a disclaimer: these are strictly my own personal thoughts on kata training. There are likely people with far more experience than I have who would completely disagree with me.

I’ve had beginning students ask me to explain the purpose of training long-form kata over the years, and I’ll admit that I wondered the same thing at one point in my training. Katas teach various strikes, blocks, stances, etc. Short forms such as ippons, wazas, and kihons teach those fundamentals as well, plus they are typically easier to learn because they’re shorter. Those short forms are also arguably more applicable in combat because they’re responses to one or two specific attacks, as opposed to a long series of different unique attacks from a variety of different opponents coming from different directions, as in long-form kata. So, what’s the purpose of learning the long pattern of a kata when there is basically no chance that you will ever face that number of opponents throwing those exact attacks in that specific order? There was a time when this was unclear to me and I never asked anyone to explain it. I simply studied and practiced kata without really understanding what the purpose was, beyond the obvious: tradition, learning fundamentals, and gaining the benefit of being able to exhibit proper form, power, and endurance. These are all worthwhile reasons, but as time went by and my training continued, I came to see kata in a whole new light.

From my very first class, I compared learning karate to learning a new language, albeit a physical language. Over the years this idea has only become a more apt analogy in my mind. For example, individual strikes, kicks, blocks, stances, etc. are like learning specific words in this language. Short forms are comparable to phrases that would prove useful in, and of, themselves, like saying, “Hello, how are you?”, or, “It's nice to meet you”. In this analogy, then, long-form kata would be the equivalent of learning how to say a series of phrases or sentences like, “Hello, my name is Nick. Can you please tell me how to get to the fish market? I’m supposed to meet my wife at three-o-clock, but my car broke down and now I’m lost.” The chances that I’ll ever find myself in a situation where I need to say this exact string of words in this particular order is extremely low. Learning a series of sentences like this teaches us how to put words and phrases together to speak fluently. Once you begin to understand how words and phrases work together in a language, you start to become comfortable expressing your own ideas and actually communicating with other people.

It works the same way in martial arts. Once you learn a kata well - meaning you've memorized the pattern and the bunkai, so you understand the purpose behind the movements - you can begin to embellish upon it and find new ways to react to the actions initiated by your opponent(s). For example, a specific kata might have you trapping your opponent’s punch, executing a reverse punch to the Solar Plexus, switching to a Kake Dachi stance, and then striking the groin with a hammer fist. When you become fluent in the language of karate, you learn that you could alternately follow the trap with a leg sweep, and then a groin stomp, or countless other possibilities. This is physical fluency and you couldn’t achieve it as easily or effectively with short forms alone. After learning and becoming proficient at several katas, you will have been exposed to a wide variety of offensive and defensive situations, as well as a wide variety of ways to deal with them. Kata helps prepare you for sparring (or actual self-defense, if necessary), which can be seen as a free-flowing improvisational form of physical communication that is never the same twice. The practice of kata will help you become more fluent and comfortable in the physical language of hand-to-hand combat, giving you the ability to react quickly and spontaneously to any combination of attacks from an opponent or opponents.

Next time you’re practicing a kata, appreciate the tradition, check your bone alignment for proper form, and push yourself to exert full, focused, and controlled power. But also consider the importance of fluency in the language of martial arts, and what a lack of fluency could mean in a life-and-death situation.

*Kihon means "basic" or "fundamental" in Japanese. In the style of Shuri Ryu, we also refer to “kihon” (short for Kihon Kumite Kata) as a specific series of thirty different short forms with typically three to five techniques. They should be performed with proper form, realistic speed, full power, and fluidity in response to a specific attack or series of attacks. Not all styles use this reference similarly.