Picture this...

Fitzgerald Lake

I was off crunching through the ice and snow the other day. The trees were sleeping, I think, waiting out the winter. The lake was frozen. A mist drifted over the surface. The cat tails, thick along the bank, were waiting for the wind to come and catch the seeds up and drop them some place further down the shore. I took a picture of it because it was so atmospheric, so filled with a sense of expectation. Or was it mystery? Sometimes pictures seem to be less a record of fact, recording an objective reality, and more like an invitation for speculation and interpretation.

I was thinking about that--recollection in tranquility, as  Wordsworth says, over lunch a little later in the day--when I came across an Internet post on Kururunfa. The writer was adamant--I'm sure as convinced of his own rectitude as I must seem to

The "hands up" posture
from Kururunfa kata.

some people--about his interpretation of what he called the "hands up" move in Kururunfa. It's the technique that after the position that always reminds me of da Vinci's Vitruvian Man--feet out, legs straight, arms held out to the side at shoulder's height. It doesn't really matter what his bunkai or interpretation was (I'm not a fan of the traditional view that it's an escape from a full nelson, which is all he was suggesting), what I find interesting is how he arrived at it.

He based his interpretation on three points, and I'm quoting:

1. "Obviously the technique begins with the hands up movement."

2. "Obviously the opponent is in front of us...we do not volunteer to be kicked in the [groin]."

3. "The hand movement is symmetrical...which means...the opponent is not coming from one side [and] the attack is two handed, symmetrical as well."

The more likely
beginning of the sequence.

The problem, of course, is that if the first point is not correct--"obviously" or not, it's an assumption--then none of the other points really matter. And, of course, I would adamantly argue that the first point is not correct. I would argue that the technique begins somewhat earlier, after the last finish technique, and the finishing technique of the previous sequence is the mawashi in cat stance or neko ashi dachi. Why? The short answer is because the mawashi in cat stance is always a finishing neck break in the lower classical subjects.

The real problem is how we so often approach the interpretation of kata movement; that is, as if it's a still photograph in some instructional manual, as if the movements are disconnected, having nothing to do with what comes
before or after any particular move, as if it's frozen in time, like a lake in winter, conjuring up all sorts of fantastic ideas. Karate is a movement art; it's dynamic. The classical kata of Goju-ryu (Saifa, Seiunchin, Shisochin, Seipai, Sanseiru, Seisan, and Kururunfa) are all composed of bunkai sequences. The sequences may be interrupted, depending on the structure of an individual kata, but they are all composed of initial entry techniques (uke), bridging or controlling techniques, and finishing techniques that generally end the confrontation either with a lethal attack to the head or neck of the opponent or put them on the ground.

The end of the sequence.

The first step should always be to identify the entry and finishing techniques. The next step is to make sure it is realistic and that ultimately the techniques would end the confrontation. And lastly, any interpretation (bunkai) should be faithful to and preserve the movements of the kata. In this "hands up" technique from Kururunfa then, with all of that in mind, it shouldn't be too difficult to come up with a bunkai that replicates the movements of kata, keeps it realistic (that is, doesn't allow the attacker a second attack), and puts the attacker on the ground.

After all, still pictures don't tell the whole story.

The problem with kata

So...what's the problem? Certainly it's not with kata itself. After all, even in the midst of change--I'm thinking of the 1936 "Meeting of Karate Masters," sponsored by the Ryukyu Shinpo newspaper--Miyagi Chojun sensei was adamant that "the old kata should be preserved without any modification" (translation by Sanzinsoo) No, it's the over-stylization of kata that's the problem. Let me give you an example. You want your kid to draw, so you give him a coloring book instead of a blank piece of paper. What's wrong with that? It provides a little bit of guidance. You can even purchase books that might appeal to different kids--a Spiderman coloring book for one and a Little Mermaid coloring book for another. You can already see where this is going, but the not-so-hidden stereotyping is only part of the problem. I think, at least philosophically, we realize that coloring books restrict creativity. Pablo Picasso once said that it took him "four years to paint like Raphael, but a lifetime to paint like a child," and I don't think he meant anything like using coloring books.

Stepping up into the first position
in Saifa kata (mirror image).

Kata is terribly restricting--in the way that we introduce it to beginners (and we were all beginners once)--and when you add the study of bunkai, it's sort of like putting the cart before the horse. deriving bunkai from this kind of overly-stylized, restrictive movement is an exercise in frustration, at the very least. Let me borrow a definition from the art world. To say that something is stylized, as kata is, is to say that it is bound by convention and presented in a non-naturalistic form. I should say here that what I'm referring to is not the moves themselves so much as the performance of the moves in kata.

For example: We teach a student the first step in Saifa kata is to advance along an imagined northeast diagonal line with a right step into a long zenkutsu-dachi (front stance). Then the left foot is brought up to the right into a stance that the Japanese call musubi-dachi (heels touching with the feet splayed at 90 degrees), as the hands pull back across the chest. Yet this is a sort of stilted, overly-stylized movement--completely unnatural--that would never be done in such a punctuated manner if one were actually "using" the technique against an opponent. And the problem is that this kind of stylized movement, learned at an early stage in our training, generally informs most people's bunkai as well.

Kicking posture in Saifa.

Another example is the next sequence (after the three opening moves) in Saifa kata. We generally teach students to step out along a northwest angle into neko-ashi-dachi (cat-foot stance), with the left arm up and the right arm down. This position is often held, especially when teaching large groups in the dojo and counting out each movement so that (for whatever logic there is in this) everyone moves together. (Again, uniformity rears its ugly head!) But the unnaturalness and over-stylization should be apparent here. If you were actually employing this technique, you would not pause in cat stance. You would move from the previous position, whatever it happened to be (in this case, shiko dachi or horse stance) and simply kick. In other words, we have overly-stylized the weight transition and turned it into a cat stance. The whole "point," if you will, is to shift the weight onto the left leg so that you can kick with the right. How fast would you do this in reality? Do it fast enough and the cat stance disappears.

Final position in Saifa
before the right hand
is brought over and
down, palm forward.

What about the last technique in Saifa kata, the mawashi uke? When most people perform this move in kata, it looks as though they are pulling back a vine, plucking a grape, and offering it to a friend, all while standing on one leg. How aesthetically charming...and utterly impractical!

Examples just like these can be found throughout the system of classical Goju katas. What are the benefits? Obviously, it is easier to teach the seemingly arcane movements of classical kata when they are broken down--almost like still photographs--and presented in punctuated and highly stylized form, with as little individual variation as possible. But once the movements are learned, all of this stiff, robotic, and metronomic movement should be abandoned. Yet watch any demonstration or YouTube performance of kata! Imagine what kata performances would look like if we taught bunkai before we taught kata. How radical! Let a student practice the technique against a partner for a year before they were taught the solo form. I wonder what it would look like? I wonder if the movements would look more natural? I wonder if the gaps and pauses would disappear? Kata performance might allow for more variation and individuality. The only criteria for judging someone's kata would be whether they understood what they were doing and whether they could apply the techniques effectively. It may take a lifetime to learn to move as naturally as a child, but this should really be the goal.  Bunkai should follow kata, but kata should be done like bunkai. And when's the last time you saw that?

Technique in kata and bunkai

"First one specializes in technique till he comes to the end of technique and bases everything on the heart itself--this is the best way of practice." (p. 175)

"When he has completed the training and has accumulated a great fund of practice experience, he moves hands and feet and body without the mind being involved; this is leaving the training methods without going against them, and now there is freedom in using any technique (waza) at all." (p. 161)


I love these quotes--and a whole host of others from this little book--taken from Zen and the Ways by Trevor Leggett. The book is an old paperback from the Charles E. Tuttle Company out of Rutland, Vermont. It's a kind of compilation on zen and different martial arts. It's one of my favorite books on martial arts, though I suppose some might find it a bit cryptic or esoteric.

But I was thinking of this the other day when practicing kata and bunkai with a few other students. I was thinking: we were all doing the same kata, but we didn't look the same. Now when I was younger, I trained in a variety of different schools--Tae Kwon Do, Shotokan, Yang T'ai Chi, etc. And whether it was the fact that I was a beginner or a particular predilection of the teachers, they would all go around, during kata practice, making minute adjustments to students' arms and legs. You might do a technique, and the teacher would come around and move your arm a fraction of an inch, as if you almost had it right but you were off by the smallest amount. As if that would make all the difference in doing bunkai! (Heavy amount of skepticism here.)

Of course, in most of these schools we never did bunkai. Kata was merely an exercise. You practiced stuff I suppose--though it was never explained in so many words--but I'm guessing that aside from the unspoken tradition that one must practice esoteric solo routines when doing Asia martial arts, I suspect that they would tell us we were also practicing the individual techniques that we would employ in the next phase of class--namely, sparring. In fact, in one school I was even told that kata had nothing to do with sparring, and you shouldn't confuse the two!

This is all to say--and this is why I mention these two quotes--that there has always seemed to me to be an acceptable window (for lack of a better word) of difference in how one performs kata techniques. I'm not suggesting that one should change kata. Far from it. But as long as one knows the bunkai, and it is apparent that the way the technique is performed would accomplish the bunkai, then I see no problem with some of the little differences that I see on occasion. Others might say that these differences are changes to the way the kata is supposed to be done. But I don't believe kata was ever meant to be an exercise in aesthetics. Kata is not done for kata's sake. Kata, for me, is not an end in itself.

For example: If someone's rear leg is bent instead of being locked out in zenkutsu dachi, I don't have the slightest problem with it. If someone's front heel is down in cat stance--as long as the weight is on the rear leg--I don't have a problem with it. If someone's arm is straighter or not so straight as someone else's arm in the hammer fist technique of Saifa kata, I don't have a problem with it. All of these "kata problems" usually get cleared up when one explains bunkai. And as long as one's bunkai is performed the same as the kata, what's the problem?! Now there's a potential conundrum.