Does kata allow us to practice potentially lethal or destructive techniques without destroying training partners?
First, I am a kata person. I believe in kata. I believe that kata is the keystone to karate-jutsu-do. I believe ..... but ...... I don't believe that kata provides practice for "potentially lethal or destructive" techniques.
I believe kata are merely blueprints or story boards that provide karate-ka a means to pass down possible techniques that were perviously derived from those that were proved by individuals to "work." I believe they were and are the best method to pass down those working techniques. I believe they are and always will be the best method to pass down those working techniques for the future of martial systems - karate-jutsu-do.
The key issue here is kata were those techniques found by person or persons who then put the working, validated, techniques into kata for the future but were and are not written in stone but meant to be merely a stepping stone for the future generations to "find or discover" those techniques that work for them in this time and in this place and at any moment in time.
It bothers me a bit when someone preaches that kata are the "potential lethal or destructive" technique source or sources. As an individual I have no clue as to whether the inherent techniques of the classical kata will work - for me, at this point in time, the present moment of a threat. No one can know. You can't know that the bunkai, if the original classical bunkai originally intended by the master who created the kata, of your kata work or not until you vet then yourself.
There are way to many variables involved not the forget to mention that as time passes the translation and meaning will change naturally as is the inherent trait of the human and the human brain. A pet peeve, the kata are the blueprints of your perception and application of karate-jutsu-do, not the old masters. Your merely taking their fighting wisdom of that time and place and "making it work or adjusting them to work" in your time and place.
I would rather have the advice and teachings of an experience practitioner, combat experience or out there in the threat making it work, than one who never encountered a true threat and lived to teach about it. A person with at least one fight under their belt as a karate-ka then a gazillion Sensei who never once came face to face with a true threat either social or anti-social predator.
So, do kata allow us to practice potentially lethal or destructive techniques? No, not at all but they do provide us experienced and proven techniques, if still of the original classic bunkai, that "could possible" help us to "find those effective techniques." I would prefer defining them as effective vs. lethal or destructive.
As to lethal or destructive; I prefer to have a mind-set that says I will effectively stop the damage then assume that I have to have either lethal or destructive mind-set to stop damage with lethal force or destructive force. These tend to express aggressive intent which of course is fighting and of course we all know fighting is illegal.
I feel the mind-set of kata is important, can you tell?
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