When Kata go Wrong

When practicing kata sometimes you miss a technique, turn to the wrong direction or miss a whole set of combinations, when the kata goes wrong - what do you do? Is this wrong in and of itself?

If kata are combative ability brought together into one or more forms to transmit, transfer and teach us how to apply them for self-protection then they must be important. I would surmise that originally only a very small set of techniques were used successfully so very long ago. I can also make an educated guess that as "Te or Ti" practitioners got together and compared notes they discovered many additional techniques they could learn and use. This also occurred when various villages had contests to display courage, skill and provide "face" for the village that won the contest.

As these exchanges continued and the various village oriented training and practice and application continued those practitioners needed some way to compile all they were learning so it could be easily remembered, as history shows for the Greeks and Romans to name a couple, and passed down from generation to generation. This promulgated innovations by each practitioner garnering new systems and combinations and techniques.

Our kata are a culmination of all the past practitioners knowledge, understanding and ability. A template to teach and learn. A blueprint to build a better house. A house made of straw and branches that now has to consist of steel, brick and mortar - changes are necessary as the architects will make pen and ink changes to the blueprints as the building goes up, right?

What the heck does this have to do with when a kata is disrupted from its original form? Nothing and Everything. I at one time would say the same things when observing kata that go wrong. I would say, "That is not the correct way to do the kata." Is this actually true? Not really and the next part will explain my reasoning.

If I do a kata and mix up the techniques with some other kata I have done nothing wrong providing I applied all the correct principles of martial systems. Why? Because in this instance the individual components be they a single technique or a combination of techniques they are correct and assumed to be applied within the constraints dictated by violence, principles and efficient-proficient-working application. Ok, that is a bit convoluted, what I am saying is as long as those individual or combination of techniques are correct and work then it really does not matter.

Caveat Time: When it does matter is when your teaching new practitioners who need to adhere to the plan until they reach a certain level of proficiency.

Dogmatic adherence to form-function-application is necessary but at the passing of a certain level, unique to each of us, then one must progress into a more chaotic form of practice where the kata no longer needs to be exact and promotes the ability of the mind/brain to draw on, mix and match to the present moment situation.

Maybe this would allow karate-ka to actually utilize kata technique in fight/defense/protection training - at least a form of the technique since that too has to adjust to the present moment application which is fluid, chaotic and messy.