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Old 08-09-2005, 03:19 PM   #26
Keith R Lee
Join Date: Dec 2001
Posts: 219
United_States
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Re: Kata Training and Aikido

And just to cross-pollinate things further, here's part of my post from the BJJ vs Aikido thread because it applies here as well. (slightly modified to fit this thread)

I think the big problem is that when one never engages in competition, and trains only in cooperative practice or kata, one begins to make assumptions of what will happen in a real physical encounter. And as it's said: "Assumption is the mother of all &%#@-ups."

As an extreme example take France after WWI. They were still so frightened by Germany even though they won they built the Maginot Line. The Maginot LIne was a series of outposts, canons, tank obstecles, etc. along the French-German border. The idea was that the Line would provide France a strong defense against any invading German army and allow them time in which to deal with the invading army. The only problem is that France built the Line across the entire border except along the Ardennes Forest which the French assumed to be impenatrable.

Guess what happened?

The Germans blasted right though the Ardennes and went right around the entire Line, rendering it useless. The French were still under the assumption that the static (dead, not live) and entirely defensive combat that had worked so well in WWI would continue to work well. However, the Germans had learned from their mistakes, adapted, and had moved on. Hence, the new German military doctrine of "blitzkreig" or "lightning war" (Man, the Prussians were really good at war. Sorry, I'm a bit of a military history dork) in which they used speed and shock to prevent opponents from providing a stable defense.

And guess what? Any martial art without resistant, "live" training or one that relies solely on kata, like many Aikido dojos, are the Maginot Line of martial arts. If something comes at a student, who has never engaged in "live" training, in the way they assume things are going to happen then they will probably have a reasonable answer/defense. However, as soon as something else happens; some different variable is entered into the equation that they have never dealt with, their assumptions are going to be shattered and the student is going to be blitzkreig'ed.

Now some new stuff.

The way I have encountered Aikido being practiced is many dojos really amounts to little more than paired kata. Both uke and shite have a defined role in the technique. That's fine for basics and learning basic form. Even after years of practice it's good to go back to basics and practice basic forms. However, never moving beyond kata to "live" training results in never having any real knowledge of what will happen when movements from a kata are applied in a fully resistant and opposing environment.

Focusing on kata alone is dead training.

Keith Lee
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