More than one way to skin a kata (part IV - Developing Strategies)

In the last episode of this series of articles, I'm going to take this exercise of extending kata practice to a different direction. These last few ideas are related to a somewhat higher-level concept, which is the fighting strategy suggested or exemplified by each kata in your martial arts style.

First of all, a word of warning. I've been practicing karate for less than a year and a half so far, and I've been exposed to 8 different kata during this time. I'm not even supposed to remember all these kata at this stage, and much less I can pretend to understand their strategic meaning. In fact, I still only have a very vague understanding of that and only for 5 of them, so please take these as largely tentative:

• Gekisai dai Ichi: defending aggressively and striking hard
• Gekisai dai Ni: evasion from the striking line of the opponent
• Saifa: positioning around the opponent, and force-moving the opponent as well
• Seiyunchin: unbalancing the opponent
• Sanseru: manipulating the opponent's limbs and takedown

Whether my current interpretation of these is accurate or not, they could be reasonable examples of strategies suggested by kata, that could be used for the following practice ideas. These ideas are not straightforward as those in the previous articles, and require a somewhat different kind of concentration because the changes to how the kata is done are much more subtle and applied all the time in the background.

#1 - Emphasizing the strategy

Once the strategy of a kata is revealed to you, one practice idea is to purposefully try to keep it in mind all the time while repeating the kata and visualizing the imaginary opponents in your mind, and emphasize such strategy in each and every technique, or at least those which are more clearly related to it.

This means, for example in the Gekisai dai Ichi case, to emphasize the aggressiveness of both the attacks and the blocks, so that the latter are turned into strikes, and perhaps generally push the performance of the kata towards a higher degree of power. In Gekisai dai Ni, you can emphasize evasion by visualizing the striking line of the opponent and subtly dodge it during defensive techniques, or increase the distance covered by evasive steps. In Saifa, you can slow down and alter the power dynamics of some of the strikes (keage) to turn them more into pushes (kekomi) which would reinforce the idea of force-moving the opponent (in this case, away from you).

All these will be subtle changes that probably only a few people will notice while watching you perform the kata, but you will have to strive to keep them "active" all the time during the kata. This idea of "overdoing" techniques a little bit is meant to increase your own awareness on how each of them can be connected to the kata's overall strategy.

#2 - Spreading the strategy

This is a very general idea to really get into the spirit of one kata at a time. It might have been even a better idea to try this out when still a total beginner learning the first kata, but I suppose it can still be done any time, and perhaps it might be especially useful for those who want to really dig into the kata required for their next belt test.

The idea is to take the strategy of your chosen kata and really try to keep it in mind at all time, applying it to as many different exercises as possible. All Kihon, Renraku Waza, prearranged forms of Kumite, sparring and anything else you do in a class, done with that strategy in mind. Once again, other people may not even notice your changes from the outside, except probably in free sparring where your chosen strategy should definitely become more visible! You can try this idea for a single training day or for an extended period of time, for example if you've decided to focus your studies on a single kata for the time being.

#3 - Cross-referencing the strategy

As a last and more advanced idea, you can try to bring up elements of one kata strategy into another kata.

Perhaps you can turn Saifa into a more aggressive version by bringing in the Gekisai dai Ichi strategy, or the other way around bring you can take the Saifa focus on positioning into Gekisai as well as its "sticky hands" and pushing strikes.

This should create interesting combinations that slightly change the rhythm and dynamics of each kata compared to its standard version. Of course not all of these combinations are going to be easy however: the Gekisai strategies are so simple that can be ported to any other kata easily, but how to reference for example Sanseru strategies in another kata that doesn't already feature open hand techniques or takedowns could prove to be a much trickier task.

More than one way to skin a kata (part III - Rhythmic Variations)

After trying to warp space, why not trying to warp time too?

In kata a very important concept is rhythm. Since they are the representation of a battle, each kata has its own rhythm: the sequence of moves does not flow at constant speed like a metronome, but each technique is given a proper timing depending on what it actually represents in terms of application to such imaginary battle. Hence there are both fast and slow techniques, and the pause between any two of them can be sometimes as short as possible and sometimes longer. Furthermore, the kata can be typically broken down in smaller subsequences, each of which could be done as a "burst" followed by a pause of a few seconds, standing firm in the last position.

While there is usually an "official" way to do each kata, and that also includes an official rhythm to use as reference, I've see experienced people (especially of black belt rank) choose different rhythms, probably because each person may have a slightly different interpretation of the battle in his imagination. Being still very much a beginner, interpreting things in my personal way is not really my concern yet... but once again, the purpose of these ideas is only to vary the challenges of training, so that while on one hand I focus on learning each kata in the correct way and through repetition iron the kinks and get used to do it without thinking, on the other hand I can occasionally break away from the repetition routine to force my concentration to work in a different way, as if "resetting" the whole learning process. Here are my first few ideas for doing that by changing the rhythm.

#1 - Kiai repositioning

Almost every kata, with few exceptions, features one or more "kiai"-shout at some point. These mark the most decisive and potentially encounter-ending strikes of the sequence, usually the ones done with the greatest power and possibly also speed.

However some of our teachers have already hinted at the idea of making our own decisions on which strikes we mean to be decisive. This does not normally allow to place the "kiai" somewhere else, at least in front of the class... but of course it can be tried when no one's watching.

So here is my first and simplest rhythmic variation idea: to experiment repositioning a kata's "kiai" shouts to a different technique than normally. This actually has effects on the rhythm of the techniques both before and after, such as anticipating or delaying a pause, or creating one when normally there isn't any.

You can find a confirmation that this idea is not completely off from the two basic Gekisai kata in Goju-Ryu style, which are very similar to each other: these two kata have in common a sequence of five techniques on a fixed Zenkutsudachi stance, but while the first kata (Gekisai dai Ichi) has the "kiai" on the 5th technique, the second kata (Gekisai dai Ni) has it on the 3rd technique instead.

#2 - Forced rhythm

Once we have understood the correct rhythm for a kata, a possible challenge is to force the kata into a different rhythm, even if this might be potentially incorrect in the sense that it may fail to represent a reasonable application of its techniques.

It can be as simple as choosing the same forced rhythm for each subsequence, for example "one technique slow, pause, two techniques quick, pause", and stick to this pattern even when the correct way would imply the pauses in different places.

If something more challenging is wanted, the forced rhythm can be applied to the whole sequence rather than "resetting" it at each new subsequence, even if this means that those subsequences cease to be separate. Does this idea sound wrong? If it does, it's because it is... but this is kind of the whole point: doing it with a wrong rhythm is what challenges our ability to take a step back from the "automatic" performance of a kata, and exercise more control over each technique.

#3 - Zeroed rhythm

As a special case of the previous idea, we can try to perform the kata with a completely "flat" rhythm, meaning that every move in the sequence is done with equal speed and timing, with pauses of the same length.

Clearly, this removes a lot of meaning from the kata, and should definitely be done really only once in a while in our practice. But if you try to do this on a kata you know well and have been doing for such a long time that it has become automatic for you, you'll see for yourself how challenging it can actually be when you arrive at a pause point and instead you have to go straight into the next move without delay, even if you're doing all of this slowly!

#4 - Speed dialling

The last idea is about a more "soft forcing" approach: rather than changing the time relationship between techniques each of which is still done at correct speed, we now keep those relationships intact but we increase or decrease the speed of each technique individually.

Personally I've noticed that this actually requires me even a greater concentration effort than all the previous ideas. Perhaps the best approach to make this work, is first of all to recall clearly which techniques are normally slow and which ones are fast. Second, perform the kata start-to-end (at reduced speed overall, using longer pauses) and purposefully slow down all the fast techniques, as slow or even slower than the normally slow ones. Finally, try to speed up (as gradually as necessary) the normally slow techniques while keeping the rest slow. Ideally the final result would be an odd version of the kata where all that was normally slow is now fast and all that was normally fast is now slow. Enjoy!

More than one way to skin a kata (part II - Extracts)

This second part of the series on supplementary kata exercises is grounded in the idea of seeing each kata as if it was a book full of information. Why not taking small elements out of it and making them individual exercises?

I'm going to make some examples here taken directly from our style's kata, even tho I am aware that they won't make sense to anyone who doesn't know to what I am referring to exactly.

#1 - Stance transitions

In many ways, stances are the true foundations of good karate technique. While in sparring or fighting you are not moving around in formal stances, they are definitely going to be used as part of both attack and defense techniques. Perhaps without being fully aware of it, you often enter a stance as a reaction to the opponent's attack, and you also normally end your counterattack in a stance as well.

But it is already a very hard work to learn one single stance properly, and particularly frustrating when you notice that you have stopped thinking about proper stance for a while and you have now moved backwards instead of improving. With each stance being difficult to "nail", it clearly gets even harder to move from one to the other making sure that they are both correct, and that the transition between the two does not leave you dangerously without balance.

Every kata goes through many stance transitions, thus it provides a lot of excellent suggestions for practicing these: just choose one stance you feel particularly weak at, find it inside a kata you are familiar with, then take either the technique which leads to that chosen stance from a previous stance, or the technique that from that chosen stance leads to the next. You now have extracted a very short and simple exercise to repeat over an over with total focus on that stance transition.

A special case of this can be a "pivoting" exercise, where you take two or more stances that follow each other while one foot of yours remains in the same spot on the ground all the time. An example can be found in the three beginning moves of the Gekisai kata, where the left foot never lifts or shifts, only rotates in its spot, while the body goes through three different stances as it turns left, move forward and then backward.

Another interesting extract I've been practicing myself, is the fast consecutive forward-backward steps in shikodachi stance from the kata Seiyunchin. It is very difficult to walk on a straight line in this stance (in fact it is even pretty hard just standing still, it's the stance most demanding to your legs muscles!). This two-moves sequence from the kata seems to be truly useful if repeated on both sides while following a straight line painted on the floor to keep your direction of movement under check all the time.

#2 - Stance verification

A somewhat different idea compared to the previous, in this case I want to focus on a more specific challenge common to all stances, which is that of getting the right distance and angle between your feet.

There are some occurrences in kata where you have to turn a certain angle starting from a certain stance and ending into a mirror image of the same stance (i.e. same stance but done on the other side), without lifting or shifting your feet. An example with the sanchindachi stance is found in the kata Sepai which contains a swift turn 90 degrees in this stance, followed by a slow turn back. Another example is found in Shisochin kata, where there is a 135 degrees turn between two mirrored zenkutsudachi.

The point here is that when you are turning like that on the balls of your feet (i.e. without lifting nor shifting them) and both the starting and the ending stances should be correct, then if you didn't have just the right distance and angle between your feet in the starting stance, either the direction you're facing after the transition will be incorrect, or your ending stance will be very visibly wrong: the distance between the feet will still be right, but the ending stance will be too wide sideways and too short frontally, or otherwise too narrow sideways and too long frontally. By repeating the transition right and left, you can each time adjust your feet slightly until the ending stance looks and feels the same as the starting stance.

#3 - Kihon Ido and Kihon Kumite samples

As a continuation to the previous points, in a kata you can find slightly longer sequences of moving techniques that can be extracted and practiced individually as Kihon Ido or together with a training buddy as Kihon Kumite, with the latter taking inspiration from the bunkai or coming up with original ideas.

In particular, it might be useful to look for sequences containing unusual and rarely used techniques, that you normally never practice as such, and by extracting that sequence you can have a small exercise to dedicate some training time to that technique. This especially includes those which are so much based on subtle movements and footwork that cannot be practiced alone but only in the context of a sequence.

More than one way to skin a kata (part I - Geometry Unearthed)

Who would win on a fight, Chuck Norris or Euclid? Let's find out, but no worries, you don't need to undust your old calculus books for this.

As explained in the previous post, this article will be the first of a series on possible ways to study a kata beyond its basic, traditional form and its bunkai and other applications. The general purpose of these additional exercises is to shift our focus to different specific aspects or details of the kata we are currently studying, so that when we go back to performing the kata in the regular and correct way, we might have more confidence thanks to some extra insight gained.

The first group of ideas collected here is all about modifying the "geometry" of the chosen kata as a whole, start to finish. The techniques (stances, attacks, defenses) stay the same as in the normal form. Presumably you can practice all the following variations with your chosen degree of speed and power, but some of these variations might prove puzzling especially if you are actually already good at the regular performance of your current kata to the point of normally doing it almost automatically: hence you might want to always start as slow as possible.

#1 - Embusen

From my current understanding of the term, the "Embusen" of a kata is the imaginary shape that you trace on the ground as you move and turn around to perform the kata from start to finish. If you had a pocket full of flour sewn to your karate gi, with a hole in it so that the flour would slowly spill to the ground, at the end of the kata you might literally see the shape of the embusen written in flour on the floor.

The first idea is to completely ignore or "remove" all the upper-body techniques of the kata, and just perform the stances, the steps and the kicks. Basically your legs should be doing everything in the kata normally, while your arms should be doing nothing except relaxing in whatever comfortable position you prefer and perhaps help a bit with balance if needed.

The purpose of this variation is to allow you to check your stances more carefully and to improve your embusen in terms of correct distances and angles.

#2 - No embusen

The second idea is the opposite of the previous.

This time we stand in a relaxed practice position with parallel feet at shoulder width (heikodachi) and perform only upper-body techniques of the kata, always remaining in the same spot with feet neither turning nor lifting.

There are a couple of non-obvious things to keep in mind while doing so:

- While your feet stand still on the ground all the time, your torso also remains forward-facing but your head should instead turn around to follow the direction of each technique properly: for example, if there is a block or attack towards your left side but with your body facing forward (as in the first shikodachi technique of Gekisai dai Ichi kata) you should really look left and perform the technique towards the same side, but if the whole body would turn to the left before the technique (as in the first sanchindachi technique of the same kata) then you should still face forward. In other words, your body in this exercise always faces forward, and it is your head and arms which adapt to the direction required to maintain the same relative angle with the body.

- Even tho you are ignoring the leg techniques, you may still "hint" at them with hips movements. This way you can mentally follow the complete sequence of the kata almost as if you weren't skipping any move. (Alternatively, I suppose you can also perform the kicks if you want, but from the heikodachi stance it might not always be possible).

I am not sure what could be the purpose of this variation, but it does challenge you especially on the not so basic kata. The difficulty of this exercise lies exactly in the points above, particularly the first i.e. redirecting your upper-body techniques to keep their proper relative angle with the lower body which the latter is "blocked" facing forward and not allowed to change the stance.

#3 - Linearization / folding

This variation is based on a simple idea: folding the entire embusen of the kata into a straight line, so that you perform all the techniques of the sequence moving only either forward or backward, but without ever turning around (unless when a technique requires a 360 degrees turn).

Let me tell you this straight: it is not as easy as it sounds. You might need your teacher's help to figure out how to linearize certain moves. Generally speaking tho, the linearization should not require to change the stance or the attack/defense technique itself, but it will certainly require to change how to transition between different stances.

This idea can actually be seen as a preparatory or complementary exercise to learning the bunkai of the kata, at least the one-on-one version of it where you need to direct all the techniques towards an opponent in front of you.

#4 - Mirror image

I have to thank sensei Paul Walker (www.shotokansensei.com) for this idea, since I have learned about it from his instructional videos.

The idea is very simple: to perform an exact mirror image of the kata, where right becomes left and left becomes right.

Performing a mirrored kata is generally very disorienting, probably more if you are already pretty trained in doing it correctly at full speed. It forces you to think carefully about next move every time, hence you will very likely discover that you cannot do it at your best dynamics (power, rhythm, breathing) but that you have to go back to home base and do it very slowly, one step at a time, just like you did when you were completely new to the kata. You might also find that your embusen ends up a little "skewed" as a result, forcing you to be more careful on distancing and angles.

Quite clearly the main purpose of this exercise is in the concentration effort. Another possible benefit is that for an asymmetrical kata it allows to practice all techniques to the other side as well.

#5 - Reverse execution

Another idea from sensei Walker's instructional videos is to try and perform the entire sequence backward, from the last technique to the first.

This is possibly even more difficult than a mirror image, because in many cases the sequences of techniques don't even work or make sense anymore, but you should still strive to perform them in reverse order and remember that with all these complementary exercises the purpose is simply in the effort required, not in their usability or applicability to a real fight scenario.

Just to make it clear, when I say "backward" I mean the following:

- start the kata from the last technique, then the second-last and so on, and end the kata with what is normally the first technique
- do all footwork backward, so that a normally forward-moving attack becomes a backward-moving attack and a backward-moving defense becomes a forward-moving defense
- ideally at the end of the kata you should have traced the same embusen as usual on the ground, but from the end point back to the starting point
- on the other hand the techniques themselves are not backwards, you are not "rewinding" your movements like on a VCR! a strike is still a strike, not a punch or kick pulling back

Once again an obvious purpose of this variation is to practice your ability to concentrate, but this time there will be a lot of extra work needed to adapt all the techniques to a reversed footwork, so that they more or less look like a strike could still hit and a defense could still block or deflect. There will be a lot of thinking required, and this will certainly make for a different kind of exercise!

More than one way to skin a kata (Introduction)

I cannot deny that I just love kata. I've previously written my early feelings and understanding of the manyfold importance of kata in karate-do: each kata is like an entire book full of ideas and wisdom, to the point that I dare say that you can see the ensemble of all kata of your karate style as a whole encyclopaedia. After all, kata were the traditional method for passing karate knowledge down to the next generation of students, since a description of karate in written form is practically impossible, and even pictures don't help that much. Of course videos get much closer to achieving such purpose, but that was obviously not an option in the past. The point being, that it should come as no surprise that each kata contains a lot of information, and all of them taken together become the bearers of the essence of your style.

I admit that every time a teacher of ours has a lesson on a kata that I've never seen before, my immediate concern is to memorize the sequence of moves, so that I won't forget them next time we practice it again together (which for a non-basic kata might mean many months later). I don't think this is a wrong approach per se, but clearly "adding up" more kata to your list does not make you proficient at any of them. Certainly, you can't judge a karateka by the number of kata he "knows", especially since there is quite a wide range of meaning here for the verb "knowing"! There are in fact several accounts on the karate masters of the past teaching only one kata at a time to their students, and not introducing the next one until years have been spent on perfecting the previous.

Whether you still decide or not to keep practicing more kata than you should be concerned about (at least for the above purpose of not forgetting them completely), the best thing to do is probably to focus our practice on one at a time, and try to study it throughly, the best we can. This is generally very feasible and natural in Goju-Ryu since the style officially only has 12 kata, and typically only one new kata is required for the next belt test.

But what can we do to expand the practice of a specific kata, to turn it upside-down and inside-out? The following series of blog articles will deal with this question: in how many different ways we can vary the practice of a kata, in order to improve our understanding of its principles and execution of its techniques.

It stands still the fact, that all the ideas in the following posts are optional, complementary to what is otherwise the truly important thing: the regular practice of the kata in its standard form as presented by your teachers, its relative bunkai and other applications of its techniques. But I hope nevertheless that my additional ideas can prove useful or at least fun to try out for a change.

Senpai and Kōhai

The summer season has ended, and most of the people are back to training. My first post of the new karate year deals with a topic I've been thinking about for quite a long time indeed: how to be a good training partner, more specifically in one-on-one exercises. Note however that here I am not going to consider sparring, which is a very different type of practice and definitely worth many considerations of its own. Still there's quite a range of two-people exercises in karate that I have in mind in this discussion, such as:

- attack/defense techniques, where the two practitioners take turns in striking and responding
- escape techniques, with the attacker starting from a grabbing or grappling position
- kihon kumite, with both doing a longer sequence of techniques
- bunkai, an even longer sequence of techniques adapted from a kata, and their counterparts

In a class, you can't always choose who your partner in training will be. Every day it's someone else, and we also rotate a lot during each session, so at different times you will find yourself partnered up with someone either more experienced, less experienced or about as experienced as you are. What I think I've learned so far is that in each case you should really adopt a different mindset.

Training with someone more experienced

This is probably what everyone is looking for most of the time, because it simply provides you the best chance of improvement. For example, in our yesterday's training we were in odd numbers and I had to team up with the master for practicing bunkai, and he brought the exercise gradually up to a speed and power level that I didn't even imagine was possible for me to try at my stage of learning. But I was forced to push myself up to match the pace, out of my comfort zone, and it gave me a feeling of a real karate training like no other!

Anyone more experienced has been there and done that for you already, can provide suggestions and set the pace of the exercise to match your personal level and characteristics. When you are on the less experienced side, the most important thing is trust, and the bigger the experience gap, the more trust you should put in your partner's instructions and feedback.

Another good point to keep in mind is that you usually don't need to pull your punches. You finally have the opportunity to go full throttle (if the exercise itself allows so) and do it at your very best, because the more experienced partner can control the exercise with ease and nobody gets hurt.

Training with someone equally experienced

Apparently this should be the most obvious choice, in fact when training on your own with some friends it is quite normal to team up with others at the same level; this way everyone is going to benefit the same from the training. But there is a risk to watch for: that of both underestimating each others' capabilities, and settling for a pace, speed and power which are too much within the comfort zone.

Both persons getting out of their respective comfort zones at the same time may not be as easy as it sounds, because in such case both will probably be making mistakes that can decrease the effectiveness of the exercise. Furthermore, the two may be good at different things, one may be faster and the other stronger, meaning their comfort zones "shapes" are different.

My opinion is that the key for making it work is variation: make sure you stay long enough on each exercise and try to "dial" its different aspects so that both people are challenged enough, if not simultaneously at least at different times.

Training with someone less experienced

In this case I believe being earnest and responsible is paramount. In a way, when I practice an exercise with someone less experienced (not a very frequent case for me, since I'm only at the second-lowest rank!) I try to keep in mind that it is always the less experienced person at the center of the exercise: he is more important than me, and my responsibility is to provide him an appropriate level of challenge. It's essential to realize that both trivial and impossible challenges don't really make someone improve, because if too easy means no effort, on the other hand too hard means to easily get stuck doing it wrong all the times just to desperately try to keep up.

So rather than making an exercise too difficult for your partner just because you can, you should be willing to give up your own chance of benefit for this round: after all it's your duty to help the less experienced just like the more experienced do it for you when you're on the other end. But no regrets, because even if doing this exercise well within your comfort zone may not bring much direct improvement to you, teaching it will! Teaching something is always the best chance for better understanding: the need to observe your partner's difficulties and correct his mistakes raises your own awareness on how things should be done correctly and you'll have fresh ideas to try out to solve your own problems with the same exercise later on.

One more thing I have learned (from being on the less experienced side most of the times, that is) is that providing feedback is very important, but you should make sure to focus on clear, technical comments. Expressions of encouragement ("you're good!") or disappointments ("you need to do better...") are the kind of comments that cause only distracting feelings while practicing, so they should be left for after the training. But during the exercise itself, the less experienced person truly needs directions: if something is wrong, tell him what to change; if something is weak (power, speed, aim, flow of motion, spirit...), point it out so that he can focus more on that aspect; and if something is just right, let him know plain and simple, so that he is confident on being on the right track!

Goodbye white, hello yellow

It's been more than a month since my first belt test, and I've been thinking in retrospect about what it meant to me to wear the white belt.

In a word: humility. The white belt for me was a constant reminder that I knew nothing, and that I should approach each lesson with an open mind and complete trust. This is not always easy, because even beginners have their own opinions on fighting and martial arts, some legitimate from previous first-hand experiences, others less legitimate and generated more from imagination than experience.

Personally I was in a potentially dangerous position from the fact that a long time ago, in a galaxy far away, I've been already studying karate. Even tho it really was a long time ago (more than 20 years!), my old teacher must have been very good because I remembered quite a lot. This caused me sometimes to want to start doing things in a certain way which I assumed was "right", and be told to do them differently. The truth is that there certainly isn't one only "right" way of doing, all others being "wrong", but rather there are different "right" ways in different contexts and tactics emphasized by each style. Sometimes I really had to "reprogram" myself into some positions or movements, especially if they happen in the background, because then you don't have much time to think about how you're doing them (an example of this was "hikite" i.e. the way the fist is retracted backwards along the body before delivering a punch, which is done in significantly different ways across karate styles).

I was actually lucky that the style I practiced back then (Shotokan) was different than our current style (Goju-ryu). This made it easier for me to ignore my previous knowledge without ever be tempted to unfairly question my old teacher. Each karate style has its own very good reasons for different technical choices, but what if you had been practicing the same style and the new teacher's instructions conflicted with those of the old teacher? If you forsake your previous sensei's teachings easily, does it mean you would just so easily dismiss what you're committing to today?

As a sort of legacy with my past, and also to show respect to my old teacher, I've decided not to buy a brand new yellow belt and instead wear the same one I've worn as a child (I went only that far, back then), which fortunately had never left my parents' house. It's also a way to tell myself that I've never really quitted karate, but just took a break from practicing (admittedly, a pretty long break) and that karate has always been a part of my life, lurking round the corner to lure me back on the tatami floor one day.

So now it's time to move on to the next stage, and the biggest challenge will be to maintain the same state of humility and humbleness. From now on there will be someone of lower rank that will come over looking for answers and suggestions. Not to mention that having now new things to learn doesn't mean I'm done with learning those of the previous rank. In fact I like saying that the difference between white and yellow is that while I still know nothing, additionally I am now aware of it. All of a sudden, this only very slightly darker belt feels much heavier than the other.

2.0

The final lesson

End of the season means for us a week full of important events. The first event yesterday was a special double-training day with the european head instructor of our karate style (let's call him simply the grandmaster).

The trainings were full of useful and interesting techniques, self-defense drills, physical exercises, kata and bunkai development ideas, and so on. Practically everything the grandmaster made us do was new to me, quite different from what we've been doing during the year, even the warm-ups were quite unusual! But then I've been here for such a short time after all, that it's hard to tell how many of these alternate exercises felt like novelty to the others.

Nevertheless, amidst the abundant food for thought, both technical and non-technical, three things the grandmaster said stroke me the most. I feel I might as well forget the rest (I'm sure I've already had), but I want to treasure these few words and carry them with me, inside and outside the dojo. I realize that these may sound quite trivial and generic to some, but personally I believe there's a lot to ponder about them:

- be humble, for what you know will always be much less than what you still have to learn
- do not be afraid
- always keep the good spirit

Even though I only have a glimpse at the meaning of our grandmaster's lesson, it sounds just like what I want karate to be for me.

Early thoughts, the third "K": Kumite

The term "kumite" means sparring, but while most people may think of sparring as a free, relaxed but still somewhat competitive one-on-one match (as typical in western boxing), such practice in karate is only one way of doing it, called Jiyu Kumite, while Kumite is a more general term for a wide array of possible exercises. It could be said in fact that any type of exercise involving two or more practitioners using attack and defense techniques against each other is a kumite, even if everything is predetermined. The purpose of kumite is of course to bring one's skills closer to their original application i.e. a real fight, but by varying the nature and the rules of the kumite exercises we are allowed to focus on developing different skills such as timing, aiming, distancing, balancing, controlling speed and strength, and generically adapting to the situation, all of which are impossible to practice doing only Kihon and Kata without a sparring partner.

Consider for instance different levels of:

- predetermination vs improvisation (one or both the participants)
- contact (possibly using protective gear)
- speed
- starting distance
- target areas allowed
- attack techniques allowed (e.g. only specific strikes allowed, no takedowns)
- battle tactics and trickery (e.g. feinting not allowed, low aggressiveness)
- timeframe (e.g. point-and-stop, continuous sparring), rests and time limits
- scoring and winning conditions (e.g. no scoring, points, knockout)
- use of weapons
- any additional rule

Anyone can tell that changing any of the above significantly affects which skills are given the spotlight during the kumite!

An example of how focus is changed across kumite exercises can be taken from the few kumite exercises that are part of our first belt test (yellow). All these are called Kihon Kumite which sounds like "basic sparring" or "sparring with the basics", and they are completely prearranged.

- The first exercise belongs to a subtype called Ippon Kumite, "one-point" sparring, meaning one attack, or one step. The defender uses one predetermined defensive technique followed by a counterattack. This exercise is so short and simple, that inevitably prompts you to try it faster and faster, and so its purpose becomes that of developing reaction time, precision and speed of execution.
- The second is a Sanbon Kumite, or "three-point" sparring, and in this case the first person does a sequence of attack+defense+attack while the second responds with defense+attack+defense. These sequences require a different stance at each step, so the focus is on learning to use stances in an applied scenario and to shift between such stances seamlessly and naturally.
- The third is a Gohon Kumite, or "five-point" sparring, which in this case ends up being mostly static because only one step is taken with the feet and all the techniques are done in the same one stance. The focus now is on concatenating several attack/defense techniques in a longer series, to develop coordination, balance and rooting to the ground.

(Note that the above is just an example and does not imply that all ippon/sanbon/gohon kumite are always like these or have the same purposes.)

The most important point in my beginner's view is therefore to understand that while jiyu kumite or free sparring will be necessary at some point to develop some very practical abilities, such as reading the opponent's intentions and handling your own emotions (just to mention two problems that would be of primal importance in a real fight, but are non-existant in a prearranged exercise), there are many more fighting skills that can never be isolated from an improvised sparring and then conquered, and this is the reason that makes kihon kumite and its more advanced semi-arranged variants very much essential in karate training.

Early thoughts, the second "K": Kata

If you browse the web for discussions on the meaning and usefulness of kata (the term varies for non-Japanese martial arts), you'll get wildly different opinions. Most practitioners will tell you that kata are very important, but I suspect that not that many can fully explain you why, and it is more a reflex of saying so because your sensei tells you every week.

Personally I find myself deeply fascinated by kata, and quite enthusiastically committed into learning them, perhaps even a bit disappointed (but wrongly) by the fact that our karate style Goju-Ryu only has a dozen of them, while other styles have many, and some has more than 50.

Let me first try to describe what is a kata in my understanding. On the surface, it is a sequence of attack and defense techniques combined with movements in specific stances and performed start-to-finish on your own, representing an imaginary battle against multiple opponents. Learning the sequence is only step zero of the whole process, because there is a myriad of features and details to understand and practice for improvement: there is the visualization of the imaginary opponents implying directions and distances; there is "embusen", the pattern of steps and positioning that you invisibly trace on the floor during the sequence; there is proper modulation of strength at different moments to match the meaning of each technique, and the accompanying changes of speed; there is an overall rhythm to achieve, when putting together strength and speed variations with correct breathing and embedding pauses at proper times; there is "kime" or focus, and the additional emphasis to a decisive strike with the "kiai" shout; there is "zanshin" or lingering attention after the end of a combination. All considered, it doesn't at all feel that 12 kata are but a few!

So why practicing kata then? Many people approach martial arts for sports or self-defense, and it is understandable for them to have a down-to-earth practical attitude, so it comes as no surprise when I hear someone saying "if you want to learn to fight, then you need to fight someone, not practice kata". And yet I read that the masters of the past, including Gichin Funakoshi founder of Shotokan karate (the most popular karate style in the world), based their teaching on kata and included almost no sparring in their practice, and I'm pretty sure their students could fight!

To continue with my musical metaphors, a kata is like a written song or etude, while free sparring is like improvisation. There are blues and jazz musicians who practically only improvise all their lives and probably never sit down doing technical exercises or studying and writing songs. It's all good for their chosen music genres, but I think everyone can see that this means to ignore a large potential of music as a whole.

But from my still very short experience, I can tell already that there are at least 3 levels of reading into a kata that can be convincing of its importance.

At first level, you see kata simply as an extension to kihon: you are now increasing the length of the combinations, effectively removing the idea of repetition, just like when you move from piano exercises to learning a full song. This brings your practice to a form that is intermediate between repetitive patterns and total freedom, and can be essential to strengthen the connection between pure technique and its applications.

At the second level, you will be explicitly introduced to the many possible applications of each technique or section of a kata. Usually the kata is taught first in its entirety, and students are supposed to at least somewhat get used to it, then gradually they are exposed to the kata's bunkai: this is when one or more training companions join the fray to perform what could have been the attacks of the imaginary opponents that prompt your kata techniques as a response. While there may be an official version of the bunkai, the truth is that the potential applications are many, and thus many should be the variations explored.

There is however a third level to read into a kata. In a way, each kata as a whole also represents a fighting style, or perhaps more appropriately I should say a fighting strategy, since "style" sounds more like a matter of personal preference for matching one's best skills. The strategy implied by a kata is something that is situational by nature, and an expert karateka should probably be able to switch from one to another during the same encounter if needed. As a white belt, am I currently focused on learning our style's first kata. It's called "Gekisai dai Ichi", where the word "gekisai" means something like "attack and destroy", and that's exactly the strategy that this kata reveals: to fight aggressively and decisively, because attack is your best defense (this does not mean to be aggressive in general, karate is always defensive and in fact every kata starts with a defensive move, but it rather means to be responsively aggressive once you've been attacked first), and make your every attack a winning blow. If you really get into this, you can actually think of yourself in "gekisai mode" even when you're training in kihon or kumite, or anything else! Clearly, this is only the simplest and most obvious strategy to have in a fight. Later but soon in your karate experience, you will encounter new kata with different hidden strategies: there's a "Gekisai dai ni" kata which introduces evasion, and then a "Saifa" kata which brings forth positioning tactics (pushing and pulling the opponent, or moving yourself around him), and then others about hands/limbs manipulation or throws and take-downs. The unhurried and foresighted student takes the study of one kata at a time, and gradually adds their implied strategies to his own capabilities, and this is what will ultimately make of him a complete fighter.

Early thoughts, the first "K": Kihon

Six months of training, and I still can't pull a simple punch.

That's the phrase that kept buzzing in my head during my last karate training this week. Truth is, I will probably feel that way for the next six years as well and beyond, and in many ways I will not be wrong. This isn't about bashing yourself or pretending to be humble, but it is really about the nature of "Kihon", the fundamentals of karate technique. No matter how long you practice them, you're never done, because there is always room for improvement. No one ever stops practicing the fundamentals.

To explain why they're so important, I'll make an analogy with another hobby I had for almost 20 years: guitar. If you're trying to study a musical instrument seriously, you're not just interested in learning a few campfire songs, but you're looking at it from the perspective of "becoming one" with it, to be able to play anything that comes to your mind anytime, pretty much like the fact that you can speak in your native language without the need to think about the syntax (although thinking about semantics is generally advised). Obviously, at different stages you have a certain overall level of skills and confidence allowing you feats of varying difficulty, but the best way to achieve some sort of "organic growth" of applicable skills is to always exercise your techniques at different levels of complexity, from the lowest to the highest. This does not mean levels of difficulties, such as for instance from the slowest to the fastest. Low complexity means to focus as much as possible on the barest elements of technique: with the guitar, it could be playing scales and patterns and arpeggios, or even the same one note over the metronome paying attention that the timing is perfect and the volume is constant. Low complexity implies repetitiveness which raises your attention over precision and reliability. The musician clearly cannot practice this way only, as it would mean to be far away from musical applications and purposes, but these fundamentals are similar to the building bricks of a house: with loose and brittle bricks you can maybe build a hut, but get yourself more solid bricks and you can build a tower or even a castle. It might feel boring and frustrating to go over the basics again and again (and potentially cause severe humiliation when you spouse/flatmate/mom goes "twenty years of guitar lessons and you're still at solfeggio?"), but the benefits of practicing fundamentals spread around to pretty much everything you play, and slowly move you toward that "becoming one" with your instrument by making the movements of your hands become more and more natural to you, so that when you want to improvise a killer solo you won't have to think about how your fingers should move to do it.

These are the reasons why you never leave "Kihon" practice behind you in karate. The more you review the basic stances, footwork, strikes or defenses, the more you notice additional details to improve or problems to fix that you could otherwise not be aware of (and much less correct) when you are doing "the real thing". Then of course, just like the musician then also practices higher complexity things such as solos, rhythms and whole songs, the karate student distributes his practice time over more elaborate exercises as well, from Kihon Ido (still basic techniques, but this time combined with moving around in a formal stance) to kata to sparring, but the Kihon exercises always remain, as the most effective strategy to "divide and conquer" your flaws. So that when you'll have to really pull that punch in action, you'll only have to choose the what and the when, and the how will come out naturally.

Time for gathering some thoughts...

At this point, I have had a few months of training in karate, interrupted by a few weeks of winter festivities and obligatory illnesses during which I could not train but I got to think a lot about it, and hopefully I'm starting to learn something about the martial art's general concepts. I feel like I should try and bring some order into my sparse thoughts, and then write them down into a few blog entries. Keep in mind that these are very early understanding from a beginner! As such they may be very much wrong and incomplete at this stage, but it will be interesting for me to look back at these early thoughts in 1, 5 or 10 years...

Karate (and presumably every other martial art) is many things indeed, and this is reflected in the fact that no two of our training sessions are alike. There is so much material to learn, and so many ways of practicing it, that every training is different. In fact, the general feeling I'm getting from our lessons is that they are often like small collections of sample exercises for everyone to cherry-pick depending on our interests and purposes, and then continue practicing at home or in one of our "free-training slots" at the club. Other lessons instead are focused on a single theme or topic at the exclusion of almost everything else, and this type of trainings in my opinion serves a complementary purpose: to teach us the *how* rather than the *what* we should be training on our own.

Almost always some of our training time is dedicated to straightforward fitness exercises or to something related, but much wider in scope, which in our karate style (Goju-Ryu) is traditionally referred to as "body conditioning". This is very much an integral part of Goju-Ryu, but at the same time a casual observer may not see it as strict karate content because it is not directly related to fighting, in a way similar to how athletics or bodybuilding are used as a non-technical background to support other sports. Truth is that body conditioning is at least indirectly related to fighting, and can be quite essential: after all strong, conditioned body and mind make up your first line of defense! But for the sake of the discussion, let's keep body conditioning out of this for now, and say that karate is studied and practiced in the form of what could be informally called the "3 Ks": kihon, kata and kumite. What are these really about? Here I just try to give some general definition, and I'll try to dedicate one article each in the coming weeks, to summarize what I've understood (or think I have) so far.

Kihon are the fundamental techniques, the bulk of stances, strikes, blocks and other moves that make karate different from other martial arts. Well, at least quite different from western boxing and wrestling. A kihon technique can be practiced just from standing up in a relaxed stance, or combined with a more formal stance and stepping (in which case is called Kihon Ido). The focus is on the precision of the movements, therefore a kihon technique is isolated as much as possible and practiced out of context. When several kihon techniques are combined in a sequence (e.g. a block followed by a kick followed by a punch) and performed in an informal combat stance, they are called Renraku Waza. Kihon is practiced individually, except when the focus of training shifts from precision to power, in which case a partner is useful for holding striking pads.

Kata are longer sequences of moves performed timely. They are both a traditional way of practicing the kihon in a more complex context, and of transferring the knowledge of both the techniques and their applications to the next generation of karateka. Truth is, there is much more than meets the eye, to the point that one single kata can be conceived as the alpha and the omega of an entire fighting style. Kata are often used in demonstrations and advertising since they can be more easily made spectacular than a fight (which can itself be just as spectacular as it can be pathetic and boring to watch) without the same high risk of injuries.

Kumite generally means sparring rather than fighting, in the sense that it never really approaches a real combat neither when it's part of training, nor when it's in a competitive tournament. Kumite in training includes a variety of settings, starting from Kihon Kumite which is a fully pre-arranged short sequence of moves for two sparring partners, one of which traditionally plays the role of the attacker and the other that of the defender, which is truly the "main character" of the exercise, given the fact that karate is always defensive. There are then various forms of semi-arranged kumite, where for example the attacker may declare in advance which strike or strikes he is about to use next, while the defender is free to decide how to defend and counter. At the other end of the sparring spectrum, we finally arrive at Jiyu Kumite which is free sparring, the closest thing to a real fight, although it is still generally agreed at least the level of striking power and often also which techniques are allowed to be used, depending on the level of the practictioners.

In the next article, I will try to write down my thoughts in details about the first K: Kihon.