Medieval Sword "Kata"

[Shane Smith]

Um, there are sword katas consisting of one cut or thrust!! Kata equals drill, drill equals kata. So if you have 10 separate cuts with each practiced repetitively, that is considered 10 kata.

Kata seems like a pretty broad concept then. All martial arts have moves (with or without weapons) that require you to practice them repeatitively. If you are saying a kata is the equivalent of a cut or strike than every weapon's training has kata.

Exactly. "Kata" literally translates as "pattern". Katas are used in chado (tea ceremony) as well as martial arts, it's really a generic term.

As a generic term to be applied to Eastern Arts, it's fine I suppose although I think one technique performed alone hardly equals a "pattern". As we are a martial arts organization devoted to the study and development of western skills, I see no need to use AMA terms when the historically-accurate terms for RMA suffice.

All the above said, "kata" was taught to me as a series of pre-arranged techniques and I'd guess most folks have the same perception of the word. I will have to look into this broader definition a bit more for general informational purposes...you can never know too much

[Benjamin Smith]

I think the point is that if you teach short sets of motions you'll teach completely different principles than if you teach long sets of 10-20 motions. It also makes non-compliance difficult in serious training because strategies that are overly long break down when you make contact with your opponent. Which is why such drills are always kept secondary to free play and sparring.

Pietro Monte for instance advocated training sequences of 2-3 motions. Joachim Meyer's twitching drill is 4 motions long, and can be executed 4 different ways, and there are even variations on that that one should learn how to make.

Teaching long routines doesn't emphasize the principles that we think the ancient European masters emphasized. That's the basic point. If the definition of "kata" can be any pattern one or more motion long then it has no value for us as a teaching term. We need terms that express more specific concepts. Hence: techniques, drills, and long drills (which are almost always abstract). What we have learned has led us to emphasize the first two in training, and even then to subordinate these to sparring, and pair them with flourishing.

[Alan Forbes]

"Teaching long routines doesn't emphasize the principles that we think the ancient European masters emphasized. That's the basic point. "

I agree with your statement especially in battle. Death came quickly to the ancient Europeans. No time for peacock displays. One technique was all you needed. Speed and accuracy coupled with correctly sizing up your opponent was the final exam. It was like a three dimensional chess match using your mind, body & spirit. To the victor went his life and honor. To the defeated it mean't the end of his blood line in many cases. You can imagine how hard European sword scholars must have drilled and studied the art with those kind of stakes. Not for the fient of heart I would venture to say.

[Margaret Lo]

Exactly. "Kata" literally translates as "pattern". Katas are used in chado (tea ceremony) as well as martial arts, it's really a generic term.

As a generic term to be applied to Eastern Arts, it's fine I suppose although I think one technique performed alone hardly equals a "pattern". As we are a martial arts organization devoted to the study and development of western skills, I see no need to use AMA terms when the historically-accurate terms for RMA suffice.
...
All the above said, "kata" was taught to me as a series of pre-arranged techniques and I'd guess most folks have the same perception of the word. I will have to look into this broader definition a bit more for general informational purposes...you can never know too much

Call it whatever you will but it would be good to develop a convention. Most of the toyama ryu kata have 2 - 3 techniques not including drawing, shakeoff and resheath. Even the one cut kata have the draw etc... so that's enough for a pattern. if the underlying principal fits...

[Aaron Pynenberg]

Hello Margret, thanks for your opinions, we appreciate your view-point. I must say though that in ARMA the great majority of us do not beleive that Kata's develop any real fighting skills.

The problem with kata's etc in terms of them translating into any fighting ability is context. I will grant you that in learning a set routine you do learn the motions required in combat, but herein lies the overall issue.

The motions learned in a set routine could never prepare a person for the psychological stressors of combat. Stress-innoculation only occurrs under some similar stressors are added, and then techniques for countering them taught. Techniques like tunnel vision, auditory exclusion, time-delay, loss of fine motor skills etc...all of these change the ways in which we are able to respond in a real combat situation. Katas could never compare to this kind of training.

This is why in Military and Law Enforcement training these stressors are identified and specfic training objectives devised to overcome these kinds of effects. The other problem with Kata is that combat as discussed earlier is not routine, or set but random. To "pre-program a set routine is not only poor preperation, but actually quite detrimental to preperation for actual combat.

As a Police trainer I can assure you that in the past, training was conducted in a more kata type setting where set routines were practiced against training bags etc....I shudder to think how many Officers got thier butts kicked or worse...due to this ineffective and wasteful training.

Currently, modern Police training closely mimics ARMA's core curriculum, and is part of what brought me into this Organization. So unless your profession or other life expirence changes these much discussed factors Margret you will not change many people's minds- they have all-ready seen the benefits to non-kata combat training-! -AP

[Ken Dietiker]

Besides what Aaron just pointed out, the argument here is really a matter of semantics and language. It would be nice to some if we could find a generic word that both encompasses an overall concept and simplifies terminology. As you say, "kata" is a generic term, but it is also a Japanese term, and has specific connotations related to it use in the Japanese language. In this sense, like in many of the Asian languages, one word can mean many different things, with slight variations, depending on context. In English, we have many different words that essentially can mean the same thing, with slight variations depending on the specificity of the context. This is why I can't go to a JMA instructor and suggest he change the word "kata" that he is using to "drill" or "technique" or form" or "pattern" or "flourish" or "routine", because they meant the same thing, but this way I will understand him better. It wouldn't make sense to him to do that. Why so many words when "kata" will suffice for all of them?

But that's the point; in the English language, these all have their specific meaning, even if they all tend to over lap a little when used under the same subject heading. For the word "kata", function follows form, but in English form follows function. So, though you might prefer that we somehow change to one Japanese word to mean all of these other English words, to simplify things, or rather to develop a convention, the fact of the matter is that we use so many different words in English to selectively and specifically express slightly different concepts in English. You may feel the one word "kata" would set or develop a convention of language, the fact is there already is one, or rather many words to specifically describe one. We already have the conventions, of both the words we use and the "kata" we use because the form of the word we use depends on the function of the context.

To use only one generic word to describe a set pattern or routine of movements, even of one or more, would be to lose all of the nuance and variation of uses that each word in English described above gives in context and function. Then every thing that Aaron just described would all become the same thing as a slow moving and controlled pattern stressing "chi". In English, we separate and conquer concepts by forming words that narrow down the function of the word. English as a language is seen as needing simplification (by some), but it only gets more complex because that IS its function. That is its convention. In the end, the words and their concepts in any language, as related to martial arts, are not that dissimilar. But their use needs to remain in the realm of their language if they are to have meaning.

We already have a convention. It's not one word, but many. So "kata" as you've defined it, yes we do that, but using the word would just confuse things and it would be irresponsible to use the term to replace the many terms we currently use . It's a matter of semantics and language.

[JeremyDavis]

Wow, I really did not mean this to digress into a debate regarding semantics and the usefulness of "Kata".

What I am looking for is one-man drills (patterns, forms, whatever you want to call them) that were practiced during the middle ages. Specifically I am looking for drills designed for either two-handed longsword or one-handed sword (arming sword) with shield. They can be cutting drills, blocking drills, anything that has several techniques in sequence.

If anyone knows where I might be able to find documents describing these "drills," or examples of people doing them proficiently so that I may study them, please let me know.

Thanks

[Ken Dietiker]

If anyone knows where I might be able to find documents describing these "drills," or examples of people doing them proficiently so that I may study them, please let me know.

Thanks

Sure, you can find some flourishes in the video section at this site. A few are bit outdated, but basic enough for a beginning start at it. You can either do a flourish exactly as you see it performed, or create your own variation using whatever guards, cuts and thrusts you prefer, it's not a fixed thing. That's the idea behind the 8 and 16 exercises we do. AS for drills, we have some, but they are not, as far as I know, described on this site. Something like that would be better learned in person.

[Michael Olsen]

Joachim Meyer's 1570 treatise provides at least a couple of cutting drills. I know his Dussack section has two variants of cuts on the eight lines - one that proceeds all the way through the line and another that stops in the middle (think longpoint) before making the next cut.

I haven't looked at them in a while - perhaps Mike Cartier or another Meyer scholar could point out the details.

[Margaret Lo]

Hello Margret, thanks for your opinions, we appreciate your view-point. I must say though that in ARMA the great majority of us do not beleive that Kata's develop any real fighting skills.

The problem with kata's etc in terms of them translating into any fighting ability is context. I will grant you that in learning a set routine you do learn the motions required in combat, but herein lies the overall issue.

The motions learned in a set routine could never prepare a person for the psychological stressors of combat. Stress-innoculation only occurrs under some similar stressors are added, and then techniques for countering them taught. Techniques like tunnel vision, auditory exclusion, time-delay, loss of fine motor skills etc...all of these change the ways in which we are able to respond in a real combat situation. Katas could never compare to this kind of training.

This is why in Military and Law Enforcement training these stressors are identified and specfic training objectives devised to overcome these kinds of effects. The other problem with Kata is that combat as discussed earlier is not routine, or set but random. To "pre-program a set routine is not only poor preperation, but actually quite detrimental to preperation for actual combat.

As a Police trainer I can assure you that in the past, training was conducted in a more kata type setting where set routines were practiced against training bags etc....I shudder to think how many Officers got thier butts kicked or worse...due to this ineffective and wasteful training.

Currently, modern Police training closely mimics ARMA's core curriculum, and is part of what brought me into this Organization. So unless your profession or other life expirence changes these much discussed factors Margret you will not change many people's minds- they have all-ready seen the benefits to non-kata combat training-! -AP

Aaron
In your training, do 2 guys face each other, one strikes towards the head and the other counters with a specific action? Do you do it time after time to practice? if so, that's kata.

Kata is not suppose to induce stress innoculation or replace free play. Kata is:

1) a dictionary of techniques of a given school, some lethal.
2) training in complex movement
3) training in working with another body (in paired kata)
4) training in timing, rhythm, breathing

Notice I did NOT say that it is a replacement for free play though a good teacher can vary a paired kata to keep a student alert.

Kata contains the techniques that you simply cannot use in free play, (unless your group allows attacks aimed at groin, eyes, joints in free play?) To practice deadly strikes, do you work carefully and predictably with a partner, and repeat? If you do that VOILA !! you have the equivalent of kata.

Kata can similate the movements of sparring but does not and was never intended to replace free play but to supplement it. I'm sorry that cops were spanked due to inadequate understanding on the part of their teachers.

Most EMA in this country are sport and all the dangerous apps were taken out of kata to prevent harm to children. But that's another story.

M

[Aaron Pynenberg]

Margret, I was a little disappointed with your response...we have many forms of drills and exercises, non of which we call katas.

You are maybe not realizing that you are trying to mold what we do into small boxes identifying what you "perhaps" do. Please don't label our craft in such a way.

It's highly problematic when looking at how we are trying to reconstruct our lost heritage, and also incorrect.

Arma's study approach incorporates many diffrent tools, and techniques to replicate on a complete level the craft. It is not as simple as what you describe, and indeed what you describe is exactly the problem with that type of training.

That training by itself is not condusive to complete martial training and will give you numerous problems when you try and apply it to actual combat.

Now, no one here is saying we will actually have to use the sword to defend ourselves in a real life and death encounter..but that is not the point..the skills we discern from learning the sword are the point though..and those lessons are not just the simple mechanics of striking and countering with the tool, but the overall underlying principles that type of personal combat teaches us as serious students of the art.

This is why we have such a rich martial heritage to discover, these Masters are all reaching out from the past giving us this information they are saying very concise things about personal combat that are very universal no matter what form that combat takes.

I ask you Margret to let go of your assumptions and take the time to listen to what several of us have tried to say to you: personal combat training in ARMA goes well-beyond "katas" as you have defined them..we do not use "katas" but train based off of what the Combat Masters of old have used, and we are now, more than ever before becoming well-aware that these techniques were practical, pragmatic, and very deadly indeed.

If you want to learn more please get to one of our 1.0's join and contribute..but stop "labeling" what it is you think we do..that's very insulting and not something ARMA Members do to other groups-correct?

[Margaret Lo]

Margret, I was a little disappointed with your response...we have many forms of drills and exercises, non of which we call katas.

?

Aaron,
I believe you misunderstand my motivation and interpret my point too widely. This thread introduced the word "kata" and called it a "sequence". The only point I am trying to clarify is that the ideas behind kata is not unique to EMA. I merely made a narrow point that WMA has the same tool only the tool is not called kata but may be called a drill or what have you.

I am not trying to make a distinction or to impose the useage of the word "kata" but to say that kata and drills serve the same purpose. What word is used is completely irrelevant. What matters is the underlying idea.

Nor am I saying that kata or drill repetition is the be all and end all of martial arts training, it's just the dictionary as I already stated. Lastly, I am not trying to characterize ALL of your training - only that part where it intersects with the concept of patterned repetition to enhance training. That part is pretty universal - music, dance, painting all practice patterned repetitions.

I hope this clarifies.

M

[Mike Cartier]

No Kata or its like in Meyer that i have ever seen.

There is two things in Meyer that can be seen as related.
Drills and devices. but they are done wuite differently from kata.

Meyer drills are symetircal and they are intended to show and use all the cut lines and cut type possible and you cycle through them sequentially.

Devices are more complex combat techniques stung together, mostly to show how the variuous elements of combat can be used in multiple ways and in combination. They are not essentially intended as memorized combat attack peices as much as reference points to allow us to understand the deeper concepts that cannot be explined in a simple technique description. i myself have learned alot by laying with the devices.

In both drills and devices it clearly understood that its simply a tool to learn attributes not show the secret deadly techniques or provided superpowered combat techniques.

The drills and devices of Meyer can and should be manipulated by the practitioner to make what they need of them. the drills themselves are so laden with posibilities and options that you can rarely fun through all the elements in one sitting.

kata tends to codify moves into a library of techniques for combat which is generally a useless method of preparing for something as chaotic as life or death combat. practicality is the heart of western martial arts, thats why most western arts have combat sports attached and have rather fluid training drills which is a better method of combat skill development IMHO.

[Jeremiah Backhaus]

In your training, do 2 guys face each other, one strikes towards the head and the other counters with a specific action? Do you do it time after time to practice? if so, that's kata.

There seems to be a discrepancy here.

I am not trying to make a distinction or to impose the useage of the word "kata" but to say that kata and drills serve the same purpose. What word is used is completely irrelevant. What matters is the underlying idea.

Nor am I saying that kata or drill repetition is the be all and end all of martial arts training, it's just the dictionary as I already stated. Lastly, I am not trying to characterize ALL of your training - only that part where it intersects with the concept of patterned repetition to enhance training. That part is pretty universal - music, dance, painting all practice patterned repetitions.

I hope this clarifies.

M

Does this mean that music, dance and painting have "kata?" According to what you have been saying this is the impression that is left upon a reader. I think musicians might not agree with that.

I am going to take issue with the saying that "What word is used is completely irrelevant." That is extremely relevant. By saying that we do kata, that is coloring WMA with the AMA brush. That is absorbing our heritage into someone else's.

Now, we say we have drills. These I will always maintain as different than kata. I do this knowingly because my friend who is a red belt in Tae Kwan Do has shown me katas. I have seen the grand master to katas, these are quite different than my drills. I want to do a Krumphau from an Ochs position, so I go and DRILL it. Then in a fighting situation I INTEGRATE the drilling. That is the purpose of drilling, integration. The purpose of Kata, from what I saw, was the memorization of a combinations (a pattern, if you will) for the sake of doing the kata, not for combat situations. Thus they are separate concepts. Can there be some similarity, sure. Parts of a kata can be used in combat, but that is not the sole purpose of the kata. It is so with the drill.

If calling what we do kata makes you understand it better, fine, but please don't tell us that we do it, because that is forcing your terminology on our completely different system. And please don't say they are the same, it has been shown that they are not.

This is a semantical discussion, but that does not mean that it should be poo-pooed. Language IS semantics. To call something by a close synonym means to call it something else (even though it might be really close). To say we are doing kata robs us of our unique identity and makes us subordinate to the ideals of AMA.

I hope this makes sense, I have WAYYYY too many things to be doing tonight to be writing on here. But please understand this is written respectfully and with no malice.

-Jeremiah (GFS)

[Matt Bryant]

Margret, I was a little disappointed with your response...we have many forms of drills and exercises, non of which we call katas.

?

Aaron,
I believe you misunderstand my motivation and interpret my point too widely. This thread introduced the word "kata" and called it a "sequence". The only point I am trying to clarify is that the ideas behind kata is not unique to EMA. I merely made a narrow point that WMA has the same tool only the tool is not called kata but may be called a drill or what have you.

I am not trying to make a distinction or to impose the useage of the word "kata" but to say that kata and drills serve the same purpose. What word is used is completely irrelevant. What matters is the underlying idea.

Nor am I saying that kata or drill repetition is the be all and end all of martial arts training, it's just the dictionary as I already stated. Lastly, I am not trying to characterize ALL of your training - only that part where it intersects with the concept of patterned repetition to enhance training. That part is pretty universal - music, dance, painting all practice patterned repetitions.

I hope this clarifies.

M

Margaret,

Yes, that clarifies quite nicely.

I see where you are coming from here. Repetition in core movements is an important part of training. We do this with the Cutting Exercises and counter drills.

There is a distinction in how far we take this repetition. We refrain from tying many techniques together into a protracted routine. The movements that we repeat are short and not strung together.

I'm sure others have stated the reasons we "flourysh" instead of "kata" so I won't repeat them.

I think many of us are leery of having the Asian term applied to this martial art. We don't borrow anything from Asian martial arts nor will we. I don't think that you are saying that we do. You are just pointing out coincidental overlap (which there seems to be a lot of). I hope this clarifies some people's adverse reaction.