Drop Step Kata (滴 歩 形)

Sweat dripping into my eyes - ignored, stinging from the body salt. A glimmer of a thought trespasses in my mental moment of practice - it is never ignored for it means illumination, enlightenment and innovation.

Rory Miller posted on the drop-step not long ago and today my thoughts swung that way. My sixth sense spoke to me and tried to inject an impression as to drop-step and kata practice.

The three stages of kata training and practice begin with gross movement, etc. then transcend themselves into more economic practice, one of the many principles taught and encoded as we progress through the stages, levels or pillars of proficiency. This thought fills both the second and third stages of which I recently posted on.

Our first stage stance transitions sometimes involve movement that can sometimes be hidden by a vale of smoke and mirrors to their true intent - in the moment at hand.

Take a close scrutinizing look at one of your kata. Use imagery when your moving into a stance and say striking with a vertical punch to the solar plexus. Are you shifting your weight back and then forward to apply the technique so as to get body weight into the punch? Rory Miller mentioned in the article that martial artists tend to telegraph punches and kicks because they are taught, in level one, a shift in weight to move into the stance and apply the technique. Notice I used the term "telegraph." Don't do that.

In my rendition, still needs to be vetted in applications, I see adjustments to your kata practice by finding those forms and techniques that use a drop step type move - I said type, not drop-step. In stage two and three you work out of those grosser moves and into economic moves and this may or could help practitioners transition into a real drop-step as explained by Mr. Miller and in the book Marc MacYoung mentions of a boxer of long ago to which name I forget.

Try it out by replacing the shift and step with a direct drop-step. Don't forget this involves removal of the chamber action to the hip as well. Work it, try it and then take your technique that seems to work well and that you have some experience applying in practice and try the change. Make it work or discard it. Now, don't just try it once or twice and forget it because it feels weird or doesn't work right away - don't make that mistake. Give it time and experience to gain momentum. You didn't learn to hit powerfully the first time did you. You didn't break the makiwara the first time you started to hit it right? Give it time, try it and you might like it.

Try implementing the drop-step kata practice. It can be one of the many that provide you forward momentum in your system of practice. It just might be that one thing of many that sets your proficiency a notch higher than if you stayed with the same old tried and true set of combo's, etc.