Kata can be Practiced for Years …

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The quote that inspired this article states, “Kata could be practiced for years and years, and the student would still be just scratching the surface.” This is said often by modern karateka but what I want to know is, “Do they truly believe this or is this just another meme used to promote some commercial like agenda by the teacher?” 

In essence kata can be practiced for an entire lifetime but the distinction explaining why are often not explained adequately to convey why a person would “WANT” to practice kata for a lifetime.

The reasons why kata can, should and would be accepted as a life long practice make for a belief as to its benefits and in modern times removing the boredom that can and does set in when one learns a pattern type physical movement that does not stimulate the mind, etc. In other words, to practice something over and over and over again without end modern humans, especially in the west, need some form of reasoning that stimulates the mind, to keep from boredom and to create new and innovative way to express kata and so on - make sense?

For me, kata serve a purpose and that purpose can be expressed in a variety of ways. Kata practice, in my mind, must be done and expressed in a way also explained by the concept of “shu-ha-ri and shin-gi-tai.” I practice kata for the following reasons:

1. To lean how to move.
2. To lean how to move and apply physiokinetic principles.
3. To learn how to move and lean how to apply principles using multiple methodologies.
4. To learn how to move fluidly, rhythmically and with varying patterns while adhering to the first three reasons.
5. To learn the four while subjecting myself to the principles of self-defense.
6. To learn the first five while subjecting myself to the adrenal stress-conditions of conflict and violence in training and through experience if possible safely and securely (as anyone can in reality).
7. To learn through the principles of theory, technique and philosophy in understanding principles, methodologies, and realty based trained experience through the practice of basics or kihon, kata and applied sparring under the first six efforts.

When you understand the use of kihon and kata and sparring as a basic learning tool then you can find those distinctions and reasons to practice because as can be seen in the above list there are variations of every one of those levels, the levels expressed by shu-ha-ri and shin-gi-tai that take you through the three levels of experience, efficiency and proficiency toward a mastery-like progression that can keep your practice of kata alive, constantly moving and changing while remaining fundamentally the same on the outside, and mind-stimulating mind-setting and mind-state development that brings benefits to you as you enter the summer, fall then winter years of life.

Now, take the health, fitness and aging benefits of karate and martial arts practices. Even when you move away from the more active and physically demanding practice that exposes you to possible injuries, etc., the movement, patterns, rhythms, etc., of kata practice keep you loose, pliable, moving, mobile, etc. that will be affected by our aging process. It provides a type of exercise that promotes a health and fitness state that keeps the effects of aging in abeyance for as long as nature allows. 

Its practice even when both sparring in a adrenal stress-conditioned reality based practice still stimulates the mind and body and spirit through continued experimentation with all the lists items above making for a whole body holistic health, fitness and well-being benefit that transcends self-defense needs while helping to maintain that ability to a degree as we age and therefore become a possible target to predators.

These and the reasons you can divine from your own practice as you progress will give you your list that when practiced and experimented can make kata a fun and beneficial element that requires nothing more than your effort and some open-space to move. 

I have practiced kata and kihon in a variety of ways for just shy of forty years and I am not bored and have never been bored with that practice, not even close. I believe with all the new knowledge and a huge list of variations on principles applied to methodologies makes for a long time to come practice of these fine and creative tools for karate. 

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