A different question about forms, kata and patterns

I think icefield and I kind of see eye to eye.

Let me be fair though, I don't think there's anything wrong with kata itself. I love doing kata. I would just never want to spend a lot of money learning an long list of them. I don't see the $ value in it from a practical skill-based standpoint. but someone else could have a completely rational reason. They might want to instruct, and so they need to learn the forms of whatever it is. They might want to find some personal salvation. Or maybe just a hobby.

But still in all those cases, how much is it worth in dollars. And that's my response to the original post's question of "I’m curious to know why many arts place so much emphasis on forms, kata or patterns".

I think the answer is $

 

If you're looking at martial arts training as an ongoing hobby or ongoing part of your life, instead of something you stop after two months (and "hobby" is not a pejorative, it's a simple fact that martial arts are primarily a hobby for most everyone who trains besides law enforcement/military/security officers), I'm not sure why you keep saying that you save money by choosing a style that doesn't include any forms.

Boxing has a reputation for being cheap. But why is that? Not because boxing is inherently cheaper than karate, but because boxing gyms historically have been common in inner cities and karate schools have been more common historically in suburbia, and rent prices are passed onto the students through student fees. But compare apples to apples, similar locations, and boxing and MMA isn't going to be cheaper than karate and taekwondo. The instructors aren't cheaper. The venue isn't cheaper. The equipment isn't cheaper. The liability insurance sure as heck isn't cheaper, especially as knowledge and concern about CTE grows. Where I live, it would cost more, not less, to train at the local MMA/boxing/muay thai gym than to train at my karate school. Not that I chose it on price, but just for the record. Similarly, the two cheapest schools I ever trained at were a taijiquan school (a mere $40/month) and Shotokan karate (similarly cheap, practicing in a spare room at a local community college, because you don't need gyms and bags when your training is all kihon, kata, and bunkai).

"But what about the costs of belt testing," you say? You're making the mistake of thinking that if a school dropped one source of revenue, it wouldn't adjust other sources of revenue. But in practice, if a school dropped belt-testing, the school will just adjust monthly dues to get the same total income over time that they need to pay the rent and pay their instructors. Paying $90/month and testing every three months for $30 isn't any different to the student than paying $100/month, right? Maybe the latter feels more "transparent," but if you actually sit down and run the numbers, it's exactly the same either way. Just look at how much your school costs per year, including all expenses, and ask if it's worth it to you, and don't worry about whether it's all lumped together in monthly dues, or broken apart into lesson fees, rank testing fees, etc.

You're very worried about whether you're getting the maximum street fighting ability for the minimum dollar. As someone who spent years paying upwards of $200/month (adjusted to modern dollars) plus equipment costs to learn Olympic fencing of all things, that's never been my mentality. To me, martial arts is a hobby and it's athletics that make a significant difference in my long-term physical health. There's nothing wrong with hobbies and athletics! Nowadays, I enjoy where I train, I enjoy training in the same school that my kids do (and I'd never let my eight-year-old box), and I don't worry about whether I'm going to have CTE's psychological or mental effects from my training that cause me to retire early from practicing law, which would be devastating for my family. So what I'm doing works for me, and not because I'm seeking "salvation," whatever you mean by that.

I like forms training, but I don't like it to be the primary focus, and I like sparring, but I'm worried about the long-term health impacts of full-contact, and so all in all, Tang Soo Do works out fantastically for me personally. My two hour practice tonight consisted of 15 minutes conditioning, 15 minutes basic techniques, 15 minutes one-steps (not my favorite, but meh), 15 minutes pad-work, and 60 minutes of light-contact free-sparring. I loved it. Everyone has different variables to weigh, and different solutions are good for different people. This is good for me.

I just can't agree that instructors of non-boxing-esque martial arts are greedy con artists ripping off their students because "it's all about $" to them...and you seem to keep on making that implication.

 

This for me boils down to whether training should be a filter or a forge.
I prefer my martial arts and training to be a "forge" with a low bar for entry and a very progressive learning curve that "forges" people into better fighters. Something that can take a nervous person lacking in confidence and make them better. Not world class perhaps but a better version of themselves.
Boxing (and quite a few combat sports) I think is much more of a filter process (but not totally). Training is fairly hard right off the bat (sometimes deliberately so) and the people that can't hack it are filtered out until only the hardest people are left. So naturally they are better fighters.
IMHO when looking at whether an art produces "better" fighters you also have to look at the talent pool those people are being drawn from (boxing, kyokushin, etc can attract people that are predisposed to be hard nuts because of their reputation and put off the more nervous people) and also the training culture of that art to forge or filter students out.

 

The problem is the low bar arts rarely raise that bar and actually produce good fighters.

Good combat arts do it better, judo, good Thai,good mma, bjj (boxing is the exception) start slowly and build, not everyone lasts of course not but that's because unfortunately to be able to fight you have to well fight and get hit and not everyone likes that.

If you are training for fun and fitness then that shouldn't worry you at all though.

 

Absolutely.
As someone that got into martial arts because of lack of confidence and fear of violence this kind of forge/filter balance is one that is dear to me. It's something I had to self manage and create for myself in some cases. But I'll always be grateful for the "low bar" and gradual progression of a semi-contact traditional art with patterns as something that kept me in the arts until such time as I was ready to go harder contact and more intense training. Harder training right away would have put me off early on and I wouldn't be where I am now.

 

Forms should be a training tool to increase your skill. They're abused sometimes for monetary gain, but when have there not been people trying to line their pockets?
Also traditional CMAs really just have student and instructor. The "ranking" if you can call it that is just a family structure based on who started training first. You're not paying or testing based on forms, just standard tuition. Even with modern wushu which is ALL forms, same thing. And IIRC most Sanda competitors start in Wushu.

 

I can’t agree more with this.

Where I trained judo, which was a competitive school, your belt level was directly tied to your competition level. You really didn’t want to be a black belt if you weren’t good enough to compete against other black belts.

Right now I’m training BJJ (at a school where I teach judo) and karate. In BJJ people who get promoted kind of wish they hadn’t as often as not. Because you have to live up to it on a daily basis. And some people will just flat out never get their black belts. Not everybody is capable and that’s okay.

The karate school I’m training at does have a heavy sparring and competition focus, but they also compete forms, and ranking tests are- from what I can tell- pretty standard for shotokan. Know the appropriate kihon, know the appropriate kata, maybe at the higher belts do some light kumite. Everyone can get their black belt. Once you’re in the train all you have to do is not get off.

For judo and BJJ I feel like a black belt means something. For karate- as it’s mostly trained today- I feel like it doesn’t.

I think, or at least I keep hearing, that at one time it did, but not anymore.

I think it would be good for the art if earning higher ranks actually meant clearing a higher bar.

 

Definitely felt that when I got my blue belt in BJJ. Far preferred being a white belt with no expectations or standard to live up to. Just the training.
Part of the reason I gave BJJ up (it was mostly the travel, timing work and family stuff) was that feeling and getting tapped out by whitebelts.

 

Who cares what other arts require for a black belt?

They can do the Macarena for black belt grading for all I care. It makes zero difference to my life, and more power to them if they enjoy it and get something out of it.

 

That’s a legitimate question. I’ll do my best to answer succinctly... which probably means this will end up being long winded.

First, there’s levels of caring. From enough to genuinely effect your life to idly bantering on the Internet. I’d say this falls much more into the latter.

Second, since I’m studying shotokan right now, I tend to think about it as an art in general, and what the value of it is (both to me and in general) in terms of training methodology.

And the crux of my argument is training methodology. I think within various martial arts, and even from school to school within styles there is a varying relationship between training methodology and ranking. With some being more closely tied than others.

But in no cases- I would argue- are they mutually exclusive. So if kata or macerena are the sole criteria of ranking in an art they tend to be trained to the exclusion of other more martial aspects of the art. And if the people ranking up that way are the ones who end up passing on the art, over time it’s efficacy is diminished.

So yes, since I’m training karate, it’s general value is something that crosses my mind, especially in relation to other arts I train.

And to loop it back to the thread topic, I’m not against learning the kata. It’s not my favorite practice but it comes with learning the art.

But if a black belt means you have some proficiency with the art, I would argue just knowing the kata and kihon does not really demonstrate a viable proficiency.

You can master all of the movements for both, but if you never practice under pressure I’d argue you are not qualified to wear a black belt, which also implies the ability to teach others.

 

Surely that means you find a school that doesn't equate rank solely with kata?

Training methodology and grading criteria vary so much between arts, and specific schools within those arts, not to mention any previous experience someone of a lower grade might have, that the only way to know if someone can scrap is to cross hands with them. If a black belt says "no thanks, I don't like sparring, I'm more into the kata", then I say good for them that they don't feel the need to pretend to be something they're not, and are happy doing what they're doing.

If someone feels they are not getting the training they want from a school, the onus is on them to find another one, IMHO.

 

I see your point, I’m not entirely sure I agree with you though. It kind of goes back to a pretty standard argument around here about people not always knowing what they are paying for.

If you have no martial art background at all, and go to a local karate (TKD, Kung fu, etc) school. It’s not unreasonable to assume that by training there you will acquire fighting skills. If it turns out your teacher has never pressure tested his or her own skills you’re not really going to acquire anything useful. And if a student has no background going into it, it may take them awhile to catch on.

So yes, in terms of real world expectations I’d say a black belt still means something. However there are a lot of cases where it doesn’t mean what people think it means.

So if you have a fair amount of training under your belt, the idea of “crossing hands” with your instructor makes sense... I roll with my BJJ coach every class, I know exactly how much better he is than me... but if you don’t know anything and have never trained that might not even occur to you.

Also, my head judo coach is an old man now. Was pretty old when I started. On the mat, there is really no contest between him and I at this point. His technical knowledge is still vastly superior to mine. As is his understanding of strategy, even if his body can no longer do the things it once could. So “crossing hands” is not a good indicator of his ability to teach.

So ultimately you’re right in that for the most part, ranking doesn’t matter. My point is just that it’s too bad, there would be a lot less nonsense and chicanery in the world if it did.

 

I do see your point, but we aren't going to change the world, and this is a problem in many fields, not just MA. It takes some amount of skill and experience in a field before you can discern the pretenders from the real deal.

 

Ranks can be based off of competitive performance, or ranks can be based off of academic understanding. I don't know that either is right or wrong, but

At the "competitive performance" end of things, there are Olympic fencings "ratings" of A through E. If you walk into a major tournament with no prior fencing experience and take podium, you're taking the same high rank as someone who has been diligently training in fencing for ten years. And ratings only last three years, so you need to keep re-earning them through continued competition. On one hand, it's "the proof is in the pudding" in the purest sense. On the other hand, this style of ranking/rating treats someone with incredible technical knowledge of the sport, but no competitive wins of their own (say, the fencing equivalent of Eddie Futch or Freddie Roach) as the same as a total novice.

On the other hand, there's ranking as academic and technical understanding of the art. Can you demonstrate and explain orthodox technique and theory. It's like a bachelor's degree in mathematics from MIT. It doesn't mean you can do multiplication and division faster than everyone else on the street. It means you have a deeper understanding of math theory than people who have not gone through that training. Gichin Funakoshi, who was a schoolteacher before he was a karate instructor and the founder of Shotokan, had this sort of approach to what a rank meant.

Fencing, as I said, is one extreme of this spectrum of "what a rank can represent." Shotokan is the other extreme, and has been from the beginning because of Gichin Funakoshi's view of what purpose a martial art serves. BJJ and Judo are somewhere in between those two extremes. The former extreme approach burns the Freddie Roaches of the world; the latter extreme burns the Brock Lesnars of the world (effective when the rubber meets the road, but not technically sophisticated or deep). I don't think either sort of rating is actually meaningless, so long as (1) you understand what the rating is measuring, and (2) you understand what the rating isn't measuring.

 

I’m not sure I agree with the idea that the fencing end of the ranking system punished the Freddie Roaches of the world. For one, most fencing coaches are older and don’t maintain any sort of ranking yet they are sought out for their coaching ability.

And in the actual Freddie Roach- boxing is even farther to the extreme when a guy like Connor McGregor can talk his way into a Mayweather fight. And outside of that one off, your ranking is literally all about who you beat. And even so, Freddie is renown for his coaching ability.

And again, I think my original lament of the lack of value in a typical karate black belt is tied up in its perceived value.

You’re right in that people need to understand what the rating is measuring and not measuring, but most people, especially those with no prior experience, don’t understand, and I’m not sure they should be expected to.

 

I'm not saying it punishes them in the sense that it actively hurts the coaches' careers. I'm simply saying it doesn't recognize them in the way that Shotokan ranking specifically recognizes esteemed teachers (the higher degree black belts are really all about teaching ability).

The Shotokan organization I was in was very transparent that the ranks are about technical understanding and mastery, not about who's the biggest toughest baddie on the block. Maybe people on the street might not get that, but people in the organization sure did.

 

Nobody really lines their pockets teaching boxing, unless they luck out and train a champion and it happens to increase their notability.

On the other side of the equation, you have the whole potential for "abused sometimes for monetary gain" that is the modern Kata-industrial complex. I think "sometimes" is a huge understatement though. Maybe a better way to describe it is there are people willing to teach kata naturally, like teaching any other subject (art, history, math), and those who create a business model off of it, and the former best describes many noble teachers, and the latter describes some of those noble teachers along with a pretty large number of greedy $ hunters.

Mitlov made some great points but I'm not explaining myself well enough. I'm coming across as too general, which isn't fair. A lot of people teaching forms are doing just fine, even if paid. I was trying to answer that question of "why so many". The so many part is about economy of selling forms and kata.

The economy of boxing is separate from the economy of MMA, and both are separate from the economy of kata schools.

Why so many? $? Or something else? IF it's not $, else is...tradition? You tell me.

 

As with all things karate, I follow Sensei Miyagi's teachings.

 

Grond,

I apologize for being dense, but I'm still not tracking your argument at all.

You keep saying "why so many." Why so many...what? Why so many forms in Shotokan karate? Why so many people who enjoy training in Shotokan karate and arts like it? Why so many something else?

You refer to the "modern kata-industrial complex," referring to the military-industrial complex, the idea that people are manipulated into supporting defense spending through fear and dishonest rhetoric, to the incredible enrichment of defense corporations. I have no idea what any of that has to do with Shotokan karate, Yang taijiquan, contemporary wushu, or other popular forms-heavy martial arts. One of my Shotokan karate instructors was a truck driver by day, who taught out of a rented room in the back of a dance studio. My other Shotokan karate instructor was a nurse by day, who taught out of a spare classroom at the local community college. They weren't getting rich off karate instruction any more than the stereotypical Mr. Miyagi of the Karate Kid series (who, as you may recall, was a maintenance man at an apartment building by trade, and taught karate basically as a voluntary/free side hobby).

You talk about the "economy of selling forms and kata" or "greedy $ hunters" who "create a business model off of it," but karate instructors sell training time, just like any other martial arts instructor, or gymnastic instructors, or dance instructors, all of whom sell training time. They don't sell kata by the kata (nobody says "I'll sell you Tekki Shodan for $750," that'd be silly). It's like how boxing instructors sell training time; they don't "sell speed bag." If you took speed bag training out of your overall boxing training, the training wouldn't magically become cheaper; you'd just take those ten minutes you used to spend on speed bag and spend them on other boxing-training-stuff.

You seem to be operating from the idea that because you don't see any value in forms training, that people who do enjoy training in kata-heavy arts must be being manipulated into it by greedy instructors. But the fact of the matter is, different people enjoy different things. In the dance scene, some people like hip-hop, some people like ballroom, and some people like ballet. Different people seek out different things for different reasons, but that's not because they're being unfairly manipulated. Similarly, a lot of people watch something like this, say "I want to be able to do that," and then seek out a karate or kung fu school:





Some people like it because of the tradition. Some people like it because of the health benefits and body mechanics of it. Some people are are no physical shape to jump right into full-contact sparring and this allows them to get up to speed gradually, or they'll never be in shape for full contact sparring (say, 60 years old with an artificial joint) and this allows them to still train. Some people like the performance art aspect of it, not unlike gymnastics or dance training. That's not deceit or manipulation. That's just them wanting something different out of their hobby than you want out of your hobby.