By Derek McCann

Like anything you are going to build in life, you need a great foundation to work from in order to make your construction strong and durable. With Karate - Kata is the foundation!

Originally back on Okinawa island off the coast of Japan where modern day Karate was born they used to teach Karate only by Kata, this was to avoid detection from the authorities who had banned it but also as a way of embedding the basics to build a great foundation, without Kata Karate as we know it would not be around today.

Kata teaches you the basic movements of Karate in manner that makes it easy and interesting for people to remember them. It is also a great way of creating muscle memory. Muscle memory is created when you do the same movement over and over again until it becomes natural when it feels natural and you know longer have to think about it is in your muscle memory, like holding a pen.

So by practicing Kata you create muscle memory for your stances and your attacks. As you move up through the belts you continue to practice the lower grade katas which keeps engraving those movements into the memory.

There are 2 very important parts to any Kata that must be given equal attention in order to both master the Kata and to make your karate better.

First is the stances. As I mentioned, by practicing Kata you are creating muscle memory. If taught correctly there should be a lot of emphasis based on the stances. If someone tries to make an attack and their footwork/stance is not correct they will have very little power in their attack, they will be off balance and as a consequence of these they will not execute an affective attack.

Think about it, if their stance is only slightly off centre and they are delivering a punch then they will have to twist their body further one way or the other in order to land that punch exactly where they want it. Therefore as a training tip it is a good idea to make sure your stances are ending up in the direction you actually want to attack. Mark a line on the matt or floor and check if your stances are lining up centre with the line. By taking your time and practicing this early on in your Karate career it will feel completely natural as move to the higher grades and the katas become more complex.

The second focus should be on the actual attack/block/hand movements. (Make note how stances should be the first focus when most often it isn't.) The focus on the attacks should not just be on creating a block or kick in a certain direction and hoping it looks good which again is generally the focus in many Dojo. More emphasis should be put on the actual effectiveness of the move. There is no point early on learning to throw your arm out in front of you and calling it a punch without knowing what it takes or what changes you need to make to actually make it affective. Early on a great technique to use in training for this is to get one or two partners to hold punch pads for you and they should position themselves in the line of your attack and have you execute it with accuracy, speed and power. They should also give you feedback on how effective it was, if you were on target, if there was enough power etc. As you become more advanced a fun and great way of ensuring your technique works is to get some partners to hold training break boards for you and see can you actually break the boards with your technique, if you can and you don't injure yourself then you know you are executing them correctly.

For blocking you should get a partner to attack with full speed, power and determination and you should practice your blocking - you won't need feedback from them as if it doesn't work you will most likely get hit.

If you learned and practiced your Kata in this manner how good would your Kata be? if your Kata was this good you can only imagine how good the rest of your karate would be.

Imagine if you knew that with every punch in a Kata that you were able to execute it with enough speed,power and accuracy to break a board while also knowing that every block was fast enough and strong enough to block any attack while all being executed from a rock solid unmovable stance. Doesn't that excite you? It should because when you learn Kata like this you are on your way to mastering your Karate Kata and only when you master your Kata can you master your Karate.

I am not going to go into Kata bunkai today as that is a whole other topic but is one that needs to be covered and learned if you are going to master your Kata.

Some Thoughts to help you become the best Karateka you can be:

• Every time you train and do a Kata, think about each movement and what it could mean. Is it a block? If so then what is it blocking? Maybe it looks like a block but could actually be used as an attack.

• Could your attack actually break a board? If not then why not, what needs to change?
• Are your stances solid, grounded yet light enough to move with speed?

• For all those who prefer kumite to Kata - Imagine if you could execute an attack or defense with speed, accuracy and power from a Kata move and then tried to apply it to Kumite - how good would your Kumite become?

Karate Del

Derek started karate training in his early teens and has trained with many different instructors and in many different Dojo around the world. Now his aim and goal is to discover, breakdown and unlock the secrets of Karate Kata and to share these with you in the hope that you will get a greater appreciation and understanding of Kata which will in turn improve your overall Karate training.

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