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Kata Training: Part Two
By: Dave Nielsen, Soke
Mid-south Traditional Karate Nahashu Dojo

In the first part of this article we discussed how Kata must have some very specific meaning to them and how the techniques within each Kata are more than meets the eye to most practitioners. If you have practiced your Kata as suggested in the first part of this article, then you are ready to continue on to the next level of Kata training.

In our second stage of training any Kata we must begin to look at each technique with what I like to call “new eyes”. We must look beyond the simplicity of a movement that is an obvious block or strike and think in a way that it can be used alternatively. What I mean by this is a what if scenario.

Suppose you isolate one of the techniques from any of the Kata that you are currently practicing and practice just that technique alone for a few minutes. Then you think about what that technique is used for. Perhaps you see it as a block and then a counter attack. This is probably true on the surface. Now look at the technique with your new eyes. See in your “minds eye” someone grabbing you in a certain way. Can that technique that you just used to block an attack and counter with a strike be used to defend against the grab that you have imagined? How about another type of grab? How about another type of strike, or a push, or a kick, or a head lock, or a tackle, or a choke?

You must look at all of the techniques in your Kata and develop each one of them by visualizing their uses against different scenarios. In this way you begin to see the potential of each of your Kata techniques and why the Okinawan Karate Masters would train their students on just one Kata for years at a time. Each of your techniques from within a given Kata can be used to defend yourself against multiple forms of attacks. Additionally you can combine techniques from with your Kata to develop more advanced scenarios to deal with those multiple attacks.

If your instructor has trained in the traditional manner and knows what is stated in this part of my article then you are lucky indeed. For your instructor will supervise and make sure that you are on the right track in the development of the techniques from within your Kata. Not only will he show you some of them, but he will encourage you to develop your own.

The key to developing each technique from any Kata is to move slowly. Take each technique and work it over and over again in your practice so that it becomes natural to you. No moving on until you can do the following things with it.

1.Practice it alone visualizing in your mind your opponent and what he is trying to do to you and how your technique is working against him.
2.Practice with a partner the technique over and over again with his/her cooperation.
3.Practice with a partner so that they then resist and do not cooperate with you thus making you realize how good you have to be with the technique in order to make it work against someone who means business.
4.Go back to number one above and train the same technique using it against a different attack.

Not all techniques will work with every scenario that you imagine. However, you will find that all of them do have more than just one meaning.

Happy training!

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