Doing kata with weapons

Discussion in 'Karate' started by EmptyHandGuy, Jul 17, 2018.

  1. EmptyHandGuy

    EmptyHandGuy Valued Member

    Had the opportunity to glance through the syllabus for the KDS and was interested to see that they do kata with weapons. Not weapons kata but empty hand kata using for example a bo. Now I understood that they did weapons but assumed they would be weapon specific so never thought that they would do the empty had ones with a weapon! For example here is Taikyoku Shodan with a bo.



    The club that I train with is an offshoot from the KDS so no doubt they will do the same thing or something similar, maybe this is something peculiar to Shotokai? Have you heard of any other styles of karate doing something similar or do they stick to weapon specific kata only?
     
  2. bassai

    bassai onwards and upwards ! Moderator Supporter

    I’ve been told in the past that all 5 heian kata can be performed with most “traditional” weapons , though most people seem to focus on jo & sai.
    I have seen heian shodan performed with sai in the past.
     
  3. robertmap

    robertmap Valued Member

    Yup done 'empty hand' kata with weapons - it's a useful change / training tool. Also in a self defence situation one of the problems that a lot of martial artists seem to face is a reluctance to look for weapons of opportunity because they know that their hands and feet are lethal weapons :) :) :)
     
  4. Mitlov

    Mitlov Shiny

    Shotokan's jitte, done normally and with a Bo:



    I've never done this sort of kata training, but yup, it is out there, and it provides useful insights for the origins of certain kata.
     
  5. melbgoju

    melbgoju Valued Member

    Although possibly not in this particular kata. This is more what jitte used to look like before shotokan got hold of it (although probably minus the higa-lineage emphasis on power generation):


    which would give a very different use of the bo! (Quite apart from, based on my exposure to okinawan kobudo, the lack of functional applicability of most of the moves in that video). Bo is probably one of the least directly translatable okinawan weapons to empty-hand kata, due to the use of both hands, the manner in which power is generated, the use of different sections of the staff and the need to integrate the lower body with the movements and intentions of the bo.

    However, for many of the "minor" okinawan weapons (tekko - the knuckledusters - for instance) in some traditions they don't have separate kata (unlike the bo, which has more than you can *ahem* shake a stick at) and their kata are just unarmed ones adapted to the weapon - which is also sometimes done with tonfa or sai as well.
     
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  6. EmptyHandGuy

    EmptyHandGuy Valued Member

    Thanks for the replies, some interesting reading! I had never realised or been told that this could be done with any of the empty hand kata! Do you think the kata were developed with this in mind or is it more of a case of lets just do it with weapons and see how it goes? Since my post I've decided to focus on shotokan so its not a training issue with me any longer but it is an interesting bit of karate history that I had never encountered before.
     

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