Patterns or structure of kata

Snow showers. I'm not even sure what that means, but they left a light, powdery coating of snow on everything. A dusting, they call it. The trail cuts a white, meandering path through the woods, and even the rocks along the path catch the snow in places, like white shadows clinging to small indentations, protected for the moment from the winter sun or gusts of wind. It almost looks as though no one has passed this way, no footprints to mark the trail and scuff up bits of leaves and gravel. I might be the only one who has passed this way, at least today, because, of course, it's a trail. Someone made it, carved it out of the forest, cut saplings and cleared brush.

I'm thinking metaphorically again, walking along the trail, mentally practicing kata, thinking about bunkai and imagining the other side, the side that's so hard to picture; the attacking side. This sort of metaphorical thinking reminds me of that book by Murakami, What I Talk About When I Talk About Running. Or that line from Il Postino where Mario asks Neruda, "You mean then that...the whole world is the metaphor for something else?" And with a abashed look, Mario says, "I'm talking crap." And Neruda says, "No, not at all."

Someone made kata, these patterns of movement that we use to remember techniques of self defense, that we use to learn the martial principles of movement. But the patterns are confusing and seemingly as haphazardly composed as a meandering trail heading off into the woods. No two trails exactly the same. No two kata alike in structure, conforming to the same rules one might use to decipher their patterns. And yet someone passed this way before, left marks, however faint, that would point the way, like trail markers, and explain how we might go about figuring out these seemingly arcane and esoteric movements.

Are they arcane and esoteric? Certainly they are, to us, a bit anachronistic, in a way, a part of a cultural milieu and time period when one might have needed to defend one's life, fighting to the death with lethal techniques, as anachronistic as many of the techniques that seem to depend on one grabbing the topknot or queue of one's attacker. But esoteric? The effectiveness of most techniques, arguably, is based largely on their simplicity, not their complexity or the difficulty one might have in learning them. The difficulty lies mainly in trying to explain movements and techniques that we can only half see. With kata, we only see the defender's response to an attack. We can only imagine the other side, and this often influences how we interpret the techniques of kata.

And whoever created these kata, certainly did not make it easy. If a single person put the techniques of these kata together--I'm thinking of the classical subjects of Goju-ryu from Saifa to Suparinpei--then I would expect the patterns to be as uniform and predictable as the set of Pinan kata or the Gekisai kata of the 20th century. But they're not. Seipai kata, for example, is largely asymmetrical--with at least the first three sequences not showing any repetition--using the left hand to "block" and the right hand for the initial attack (which is also true of the fourth sequence, though that sequence is repeated on the other side). Each of the first four sequences--there are seemingly five total sequences, though the fifth sequence shows a variation, in part, on the other side--is shown in its entirety; that is, with an initial receiving, a controlling or bridging technique, and a finishing technique. This is not the same pattern we see in Seiunchin, for example, which, aside from its set of three opening techniques in shiko dachi, repeats most of its techniques on both the right and left sides--that is, in response to a right or left attack--whereas Seipai only repeats the fourth sequence. But even in Seiunchin we have a pattern that is "interrupted," where some of the sequences, unlike most of the sequences of Seipai, only show the final techniques tacked onto the second or final repetition. This is true of the opening sequence of moves, the high-low techniques in shiko dachi, and the "elbow" techniques--that is, the first sequence, the third sequence, and the final sequence.

Core receiving technique
from Sanseiru when used
with the stepping turn.

Sanseiru kata, on the other hand, shows significant repetition in its middle section, repeating this "core" movement--chest "block," kick, "elbow," "punch," kick series--three times, and using an opening sequence that is merely a variation of similar techniques. And Seisan is entirely different again, showing three variations of what is essentially the same bunkai in the three sequences that follow the opening series of repetitive basic techniques--the three punches, three circular blocks, and three palm-up/palm-down techniques with knee kicks followed by a grab and kick.

There are so many structural variations, in fact, in just these four kata that it certainly seems to suggest different origins or sources, and it certainly adds to the difficulty one has in trying to understand the original bunkai of the different kata. And yet, different kata structures do not change

The bridging technique
of the final sequence
in Sanseiru.

the basic martial principles involved, and these principles are retained regardless of which kata one is looking at or which structure has been used to string together the techniques of the kata. In fact, one of the more interesting aspects of this structural awareness, "seeing the pattern" if you will, is perhaps a sort of radical realization that at least some aspects of the structure of any given kata are completely arbitrary.

This may seem heretical or at the very least blasphemous, but it's merely another way of seeing the sequences of a kata, another way of practicing kata bunkai. For example: If we take the first sequence of Seiunchin kata described above, we see that the first two opening shiko dachi techniques are incomplete, with the finishing technique only attached to the third repetition--this is the push forward with the "supported punch" and elbow attack. If we attach the finishing technique to the first of these steps into shiko dachi (same as the third) and/or the second of these (on the opposite side), we are not really altering the intent of the kata. We're merely illustrating it in another way, completing the sequences that are only shown in part. We could do the same thing with the core double arm receiving techniques of Sanseiru, attaching them to the open hand bridging techniques we find towards the end of the kata.

Certainly what we find is that the flow of kata that we have become accustomed to is interrupted, but the real intent of kata is to act as a repository for self-defense techniques, not to be practiced as a performance piece. In fact, the less we see kata as a performance piece for winning trophies at tournaments, the more we may begin to understand its patterns, its structure, and thereby its bunkai.

[For a more detailed discussion of these techniques see my book, The Kata and Bunkai of Goju-Ryu, here.]

Just because it's a convention doesn't mean it's right!

[I wrote this last month, but I somewhat arbitrarily forgot to post it. But then again, what difference does a day make, or a week, or a month for that matter?]


Welcome to a new year--January 1st--and yet off in the woods the new year looks pretty much like the old one did a few days ago. The blue jays are scolding me as I trudge by on the trail and the squirrels pause to look up and jump behind a tree, waiting to see whether I'm a threat. I've read that squirrels are very territorial, so I suppose these are the same squirrels that were scurrying around last

First technique of Saifa kata.

week, digging up acorns that they had buried last fall. I wonder whether squirrels are really as busy as they seem to be or whether they might be a bit like office workers rearranging the papers on their desks into neater piles, just looking busy in case the boss comes by or the wives ask where they've been all day.

But the days are already getting longer, past the winter solstice. We've turned another page on the calendar. And yet all of this business of time and calendars is a human construct, isn't it? A mass delusion, or if not a delusion at least something that we all culturally have come to agree on; that is, there's little rhyme or reason to any of it, it's just accepted. I mean, we've had lunar calendars and solar calendars and some combination of the two. Not even the seven-day week is

First technique of Seiunchin kata.

anything but arbitrary, something we have just come to agree on. In fact, for a good deal of human history we haven't even agreed upon a 24-hour day. Daniel Boorstin's book, The Discoverers, has an interesting section on all of this. Way back in 1582, they took 10 days out to correct the old Julian calendar that was off by 11 minutes and 14 seconds each year, so really I'm not even sure of the date. And in America, we didn't even accept this restructuring until Colonial times.

Anyway, all of this got me thinking about what we accept as a society, what we take for granted as we carry on with our daily lives. Actually I was thinking about all of this because I had been reading Kazuo Ishiguro's book, The Buried Giant. He describes a medieval England where strangers are  feared and the forests are filled with ogres, and mists shroud the land and bring an eerie forgetfulness. And it's all accepted as perfectly natural.

Initial technique of the first
sequence of Sanseiru kata.

It made me wonder about all of the things we accept in karate without question, all supported and bolstered by the bulwark of convention or lineage or rank. Of course,  we practice all sorts of harmless conventions in the martial arts, from the karate gi to the formalities of seiza and bowing to the shrine and pictures of those teachers who have preceded us to the use of Japanese terminology and the practice of kata. But we also practice what I can only call conventional interpretations of kata technique. And these conventional interpretations (bunkai) get passed on with very little questioning of their practicality, as if we are hesitant to question anything that most everyone else seems to be doing.

First technique of Seipai kata.

And these problematic inter-pretations are everywhere in Goju-ryu. For example: The opening technique of Saifa does
not use both of the defender's hands to pull away from an attacker's wrist grab. Why disconnect from the attacker? The opening technique of Seiunchin kata does not use both hands to release the opponent's choke hold. Why would you step towards someone who was choking you? The opening technique of Sanseiru (after the three slow punches, that is) is not used in order to block an opponent's kick and then grab the kicking foot and muscle the attacker to the ground. Why would you lean forward with your head undefended as an attacker was coming at you and then even attempt to grab a kick? The opening technique of Seipai is not a nukite to the opponent's chest--it's not a nukite at all--nor an elaborate wrist release. Why would you even think of attacking a hard target with the finger tips? And why would you take the time to weave your hands in and out of the arms of an opponent grabbing you with both hands using the techniques that follow it, as the conventional interpretation shows? There is no response to a full-nelson in Kururunfa. Try it sometime against an uncooperative opponent who's bigger and stronger.

Convention suggests that this
technique from Kururunfa is
a release from a full-nelson.

And yet these are all conventional interpretations of kata techniques. The problem is they don't make a whole lot of sense for a variety of reasons: they are too slow or they leave the defender open to attack or they don't really follow kata or they are easily thwarted by the opponent, etc. Their only reason for being is that they are the conventional interpretations, and conventions are rarely questioned.
This is not to suggest that all conventions are useless or without merit. Clocks and calendars are very useful even if they are a somewhat arbitrary means of marking time. But conventional wisdom once suggested that the earth was flat, that there was witchcraft at work in Salem, that you'd catch your death if you walked around with wet feet.

Most of the conventional interpretations of kata, I think, are, at the very least, useful in pointing out some of the pitfalls one may encounter with interpretations of kata, as ironic as that may be. And by example, they can steer us off into better directions, bushwhacking through the woods in search of a better trail.

[For a more detailed discussion of these techniques see my book, The Kata and Bunkai of Goju-Ryu, here.]