Many years ago, the legendary Sensei Oshima demonstrated several years running at the IKA tournaments, hosted by my primary instructor, Soke Takayuki Kubota. Each time, he would perform Heian Yondan kata. One year, he took the microphone and said, “I know what you are thinking, ‘On no, Mr. Oshima is going to do Heian Yondan again.’ But I am will continue working on it until I can get it right.” He had been a direct student of Sensei Funakoshi and surely been working on this kata for 40 or more years at the time.
There’s an old saying “Practice makes perfect”. When it comes to kata, however, I tell my students “Practice makes better” as I think it’s impossible to perform a perfect kata. I certainly can’t, even after 55 years. When a student tells me he “knows” a certain kata, I ask him to ask me how many I know. When he does, I tell him “None. I’m working on a bunch of them but don’t know any of them yet.” To me, “Know” infers having perfect knowledge of something. And I am far from that point on any of them.
There are 21 moves in Heian Shodan kata. Each of these moves can easily have one hundred possible errors – improper foot placement (feet not flat on the floor or correctly angled vertically; improper horizontal foot angles; improper width of stance; depth of stance, toes not in proper position, etc.); improper knee position (legs bent too much or little; front knee not pressed vertical, etc.); incorrect back angle; improper position of hips, neck, head, shoulders, arms, hands, etc. In addition, there are mental qualities involved in each move. Mistakes can include improper concentration, eye direction, breath control, etc. And lastly there should be spiritual control (not spiritual in the religious sense but in the sense of a person’s strength of drive and determination – as in “He rode a very spirited horse”) evidenced by means of the intensity of each move, their total focus, the fire in their eyes, etc. I think it’s likely impossible to perfectly execute all of these within a single kata performance.
A downside to all this and my years of training, coaching, and judging competitive quality kata is I’m no longer able to really enjoy a kata performance as I had before. Ignorance is bliss, they say. Every performance I now watch contains a slew of “errors”. Someone recently posted a clip on Facebook of what they described as a perfect performance by a former world champion. I spotted three or four major errors, including a bad slip. (Bad, of course, is relative to the venue. For a world champion, such a slippage would surely cost him the championship.)
I expect to begin my discussion of what I’ve learned about bunkai and kyusho next time. I have to thank you all for bearing with me though this discourse, which went on far longer than I anticipated when I set out to write it. I had expected to complete it in one or two posts but this is my tenth. Sorry about that. I think I might have lost people along the way. Thank you all for your continued support.
Hanshi, is there anything out there (book, etc.) that points out a perfect kata? Also, is there anyone who's done a perfect kata? If not, could there be such a thing, and are we all striving to hit an imaginary goal?
ReplyDeleteI know that I have a LOT to work on with my kata, and kata has been my main focus these last couple of weeks. I'm just hoping that there is an achievable goal here.
Theoretically, a perfect kata is possible. But, I’ve never seen one since learning what to look for and having my eye sharpened by watching and judging literally thousands (perhaps tens of thousands) of kata performances. But you will get far closer to it (which is always my goal) by striving for perfection than you will by thinking it not possible. Plus, the level of precision I spoke of is only necessary in high level competition. In the dojo, what’s most important is the applicability of ones techniques. On the street, an opponent couldn’t care less than how you look. The only thing that matters is whether or not you can deliver the goods. I’d rather an opponent said “He sure looked sloppy, but he could fight like a son of a gun”, than “He sure looked pretty. Too bad he couldn't fight his way out of a paper bag.”
ReplyDeletePerfect Kata. We can say the purpose of a perfect block a is to block an attack and the purpose of a perfect attack is not to be blocked. So, if you are doing kata against an imaginary opponent, (we are told to imagine the attacks) if we imagine we are blocking against the perfect attack, we cannot do a successful block so our block is not successful. On the other hand, if we have a perfect block, the attack must be flawed so how can we be sure our block is perfect as we are blocking an imperfect attack. So, if the purpose of a block is not to be attacked and the purpose of an attack is not to be blocked, then what have you. This is a koan of the kwanmukan martial arts.
ReplyDeleteHanshi,
ReplyDeleteYou once had a conversation with my about "kyo" or filling the opening with the perfect technique. I have been thinking about that for the last 20 some years and am now at a point where the perfect kata would be the symbolic display of making the opponnet miss and there for providing the perfect opening for your next movement which will allow you to finish the fight in one movement.
Give me another 1o years to think about and practice this in my kata, and although I won't know the kata yet, I may be able to hold a half way intelligent conversation on why I'm not there yet.
As always, very clear and percise writting to stimulate the mind, thanks Hanshi.
Terry Bryan
A Koan indeed. I can picture Hanshi Anderson proposing that. He loved those kinds of things. I told him once that I looked at symmetry when judging kata at open tournaments, where the performer made up his own kata, or a performer did a kata from a martial art system I didn't know. He told me I couldn't use that as the body isn't symmetrical. On once side, we have the spleen at the left edge of our ribs and the liver on the other. Strikes to each did different levels of damage. So a block for the left side had to be lower than one to the right. Don't know if he was just teasing me or not but it made sense. Thanks for your input. I appreciate your visit.
ReplyDeleteKyo. Yes, there is much to understand and so few years to figure it all out. Hopefully, we will both be around long enough to get a handle on more of it. Take care, my friend.
ReplyDelete