Has the availability of MA made kata redundant?

This thread is great. Not.

 

The actual premise is solid and speaks to a larger issue/difference that has arisen in martial arts over the years, namely it being viewed as a service or commodity

Time was you were lucky to be accepted as a student let alone start picking and choosing what you did and didn't want to do

 

I'll chip in with a point of view from my experience In fencing or boxing there isn't any kata, while in Taijiquan form practice is usually the primary way of transmission. Its also easy to see how far a student has come along .I've come to the conclusion that perhaps traditional kata and even belts may have some advantages....for the instructor. This was driven home to me when older experienced fencer came back to the club after taking couple of years out. In the past they were quite good and while they were a bit rusty in the assault, it was clear that all they needed was a routine lesson with a focus on point control. After the assault he asked me what he could do to stop my compound attacks. I rattled verbally through some options including as an after thought something called a 'ceding parry'. Its not something complicated just not very high percentage use.
"A what?"
"You know...a ceding parry"
{Blank Stare}
"You have fenced for like longer than I have...you must know what it is"
"Nope"
It became obvious that through his entire career on the circuit he had never been taught it. He'd seen it done, and probably accidentally done it himself but had never actually learnt it, or its place in a tactical framework. Its the same with the juniors. Because some of them miss lessons, its hard to track sometimes exactly what they do and don't know. I have to run periodically individual routine lessons as a sort of diagnostic check, to find out what they actually know out of the toolset. This isn't a bad thing, just time consuming. I sometimes wish fencing had belts so I could quickly glance across a class and get a feel for where the aggregate class knowledge level was.

I might be wrong I always saw kata a bit like taijiuan forms. A way to visually find out where the knowledge bar, if not in practice than at least in theory. If you only have a handful of students, Giving them individual lessons follow
ed by controlled sparring is obviously a the way forward. But if you have a larger number of students and are teaching class lessons then perhaps kata is a good visual appraisal of where everybody's skill level is at and you can plan accordingly.

Incidentally some HEMA groups are now doing Longsword Fiore dances. A sort of routine where they shift through various Longsword guards. I don't think that this is in any of the Historical treatises and they perhaps allow the same advantages as Kata.

 

So my view on this is basically two-fold:
Applications aside, forms, at least as done in Karate, TKD, and CMA styles, are pre-made collections of basic moves. Basic moves MUST feed back into freeform movement, and vice versa, else they are useless, but when the two-way feedback IS there, they are IMO an excellent way to refine movement in a very controlled manner (which MUST be combined with both paired basic drilling and freeform drilling and sparring, gradually tending towards a predominance of the latter, with the former as a control tool for assessment and precise corrections). In this vein, kata therefore are an extension of the basics that provides the same benefits at a higher level of complexity with the added ease of the combinations being pre-established.
That said, forms are typically meant as solo training (barring two-person sets such as those done in many CMA styles and the series of formal short drills that pop up in Koryu JMA and some Karate styles). Double emphasis here: solo, and training. Regarding the latter, many people "perform" forms, literally only going through the motions, or trying to stick to a specific rhythm or timing, or to maximize the expression of certain attributes (individual technique speed, for example). Forms should be trained, just as basic techniques are trained, with full mindfulness of what one is trying to do in each movement (which may or may not align with the "official" explanation or application, and which also MUST be part of a three-way feedback loop with both formal and freeform paired drilling); in fact form training doesn't even necessitate doing the entire form from start to finish. However, back to the former of the two emphases, solo forms are solo training. Of course to train them solo you need to learn them and learn how to go about effectively making use of them when training, and that will take up some class time, but I am firmly of the opinion that class time is better used drilling things, be it formal basics, paired drills, padwork, scenarios, sparring, etc. If something is for solo training, then IMO it's kinda missing the point to get together in a group to do it (even more so if it's merely "performed" rather than trained).
Regarding the grading angle, I'd say that is 100% the instructor's prerogative, barring when organizational rules intercede. I don't see anything wrong with people who choose not to grade, because I don't see why anyone has any obligation to advance in rank (of course not counting things like an organization demanding a grading quota from an affiliated instructor as a sort of proof of training quality or somesuch). As you can infer from my above answers, I consider that if forms are treated merely as grading material rather than as an integral part of training, then they are in fact superfluous (this then opens up other avenues of conversation such as what actually constitutes "the style" and how much one can deviate from it and still be doing or teaching "the style"), but they SHOULD be an integral part of training, if utilized in a proper way (train, not perform; feedback loop with paired drilling), at the proper times (when by oneself, not when one could be doing paired drilling).

 

This is mostly what I meant earlier, so I mostly agree.

The point I disagree a bit: Even if all the students were not to like Kata (or whatever other example one can pick here), it's just still part of the game.
If you chose to do a certain MA/ sport/ hobby, you chose and agree to learn the whole pack, once you join a school/ club who teaches the thing as a whole.

In my opinion there is no place for "I don't want to do that, so I don't do it" and the such.
As I mentioned before: The moment everyone gets a special treatment (especially for no real reason; and no, for me, "I don't like it" isn't a good reason. Health on the other hand is one, for example: I have a hurt shoulder and don't have to do push-ups until it's healed again, so I do something else in these moments), discipline is history.
And without discipline during class, people won't properly learn.

So, you pay them to teach you.
Good.
But in the bigger picture, you pay them to teach a style.
And when this style includes Kata, it includes Kata.
You don't like them?
Okay.
But then be consequent and train at another place, that doesn't have these, instead of bringing disturbance to the class.
No one forces people to become a member of certain schools or styles.

 

I think that's certainly the emphasis of some schools and that's their priority to run it that way, but there's all kinds of reasons people go to a martial arts school - for example, you might be going not to learn the whole syllabus of a martial art, but going to acquire certain skills, whether that's for competition or self defense.

 

But you can't apply that to any traditional system. In the classical Japanese arts, kata is how the art is transmitted. If you don't do the kata, you cannot learn the art.

The real answer to your question lies in what the instructor is teaching, and what the student wants to learn. That is going to be different for each instructor, and each student.

My feeling on it is "vote with your feet!" If a person is not getting what they want from a particular school, then either change schools or add another to their training schedule.

Not in a lot of cases. Most of the instructors I know do not teach martial arts as a job. Most of them are like me and teach to give back to the art, and to have people to train with. While everyone pays a fee they are not paying for training, they are paying their share of keeping the dojo open. The training is a side benefit.

 

True.
Lots of people want it for SD, competition, to get fit or whatever reason. Probably even most.

Bur -for me- my main point still stands: If I go to a Karate class (for example), I have to live with Kihon, Kata, Kumite; no matter if don't like one of them.

If I wanted solely SD and nothing else, I should take a look at a club/ school that has solely this purpose.
And if I don't do that, because I'm so fond of the people/ it's close or easy accessible/ whatever, than I still have the duty to not disturb class.

Admittedly I was using it more as a general term as in "you pay something"; maybe that doesn't work like it in English, in that case I'm sorry.

I wanted to point out, that -again: for me! Others can see it differently of course!- even I pay money for tuition it's still not a bowl of cherries, where you pick only what you yourself like (I hope I used the idiom correct here ).

Here most non-private clubs ("e.V." as they're called) train in school gyms and the money that gets paid helps run the club; for example buying mats, pads, ... Most instructor get a little obolus for their time; I get to train for free (and drinks )
But it's still the same idea: Only because you pay something, that doesn't mean they have the duty to only show, what some people like.
They can do in the end what they want, as there is no governing body checking it out, but if they want to teach a style they also do that and they couldn't get in trouble for it.
The key here is probably reputation.
I wouldn't attend classes at a club, when I were to know that they only teach some parts, because one or two people might not like other parts.

I'd say "Thank you", leave the club and would never return.
An instructor should be able to assert certain behavior, and that includes that people attend class properly and don't complain about certain parts or disturb class, because they couldn't care less for certain exercises or forms.

Don't get me wrong: I don't need a drill sergeant in front and my teachers are all great guys, but if I would tell them that I don't like something and therefore won't do it - that was the moment, where I wouldn't get to anything anymore for the rest of the day.

I can't even imagine, that we would do no shadow boxing at all, only because I dislike it.
Or free combinations against the heavy bag (here again: My brain doesn't seem to be wired for it), because I'm not able to do it properly.
Who am I, that for me the others have to neglect some of their training or don't get to do it at all?
And let's be honest: As soon as there would be special treatment for some, it would be needed for everyone; and as soon as some get bored, because they can't do nothing now, it gets loud.


Again: That goes for me.
Others are obviously free to have a different opinion.