What does kata mean to you?
Shotokan Times
3rd April 2021 by TD McKinnon, 5th Dan Torakan Karate-Do
Maintaining the Neural Pathways
In most Japanese martial arts, Kata is seen as an essential teaching and training method by which successful combat techniques can be preserved and passed on. Practicing it allows the Karateka to train, in a repetitive manner, the ability to execute tried, proven techniques and movements in a natural, reflexive manner. This does not mean that a given Kata is meant to rigidly represent a complete combat situation.
When you practice it you reinforce the neural pathways (something I used to refer to as cellular memory). I am not going to delve into neuroscience here. Basically, you practice something enough (as in a technique that you fully understand) in response to a certain trigger (as in a particular attack) and eventually the required response happens, seemingly, automatically. For this to happen you need …
When I read articles like this, I always despair of ever having a clear picture of the origin of Kata. Kata in karate seemt to evolve like languages, very organically, with borrowings from multiple places, local variations that generate 'dialects'.
This opens the possibility of looking at a single kata, like Gojushiho or Passai, like a family, instead of many competing formalized and precise series of steps. Studying the group, that is, the many different variations of one same kata, would perhaps allow a deeper understanding of its applications. This, I believe, is a bit the opposite of what Shotokan has done over the years, as it would favour an in-depth study of few Kata, instead of a superficial knowledge of many.
But I think would be truer to historical use and more profitable for actual application in self-defence. I find that the large syllabus of Shotokan (and even moreso Shito-ryu) is good for the survival of the Art, in creating an archive of Kata that is widely known, but not for the creation of a strong self-defence fighter, who becomes more a librarian (storing Kata knowledge in themselves) than a researcher (studying and applying that kata knowledge).