What is Kata?

Kata is a Japanese term meaning mold, model, style, shape, form, or data-type. A karate kata is a set number of basic techniques arranged in order. The closest relatives of the karate kata in other sports are shadow boxing, dancing, and gymnastics floor routines. The karate player begins by standing at attention, bowing, and then by stepping in some particular direction throwing karate techniques. The kata are pretend fights, and yet each is not representative of a single fight. Rather, they are more of a biological data storage method that uses compression and encryption to put as many examples as possible into the smallest amount of human memory possible.

Each kata has its own character. Some kata have a very heavy, solid, and robust feeling to them. While performing them you can imagine that you are plowing through the enemy like a bulldozer that cannot be stopped. Other kata have a quick, light feeling to them and require acrobatics. When performing these kata you can imagine yourself darting about from enemy to enemy so quickly that you never even get a good look at who you are fighting. Some are more graceful and flowing in nature, and others are performed very slowly with great muscle tension. These differences in character do not mean that the performer moves more lightly in some kata or more heavily in others. Each and every technique is executed as if it were the only technique to be performed - maximized to its fullest. Rather, it is the shape of the techniques, the speed at which they are performed, and the rhythm of the kata itself that lends it character.

Each kata has a name, as if it were a person. Names such as Bassai, Enpi, Jion, and Sochin have been given to each of them over time. Some of the names are recent Japanese inventions, but most of them are Okinawan names for which we have no explanation today. We can only read the kanji characters that the names are written with and guess at what the person who gave the name was thinking. In some cases, the source of the name is obvious. In other cases, the name of the kata can only be guessed at. In fact, in many cases the kanji characters the name is written with are not known for sure, and different Asian instructors will write the kata name using different characters. Guessing at the meaning of the kata names is good fun, but hardly scientific.

The names of the kata are lost under the blowing sands of the desert of time. Lost forever, the tragedy of lost knowledge adds a mystique of ancient wisdom to the kata.

The kata have a feeling of antiquity about them, and that is one of the attractors that draws people to learn the art of karate. The idea that you are performing a routine that has been handed down from teacher to student for 50 years, and in some cases as long as 400 years, is fascinating and humbling. These exercises bring more to the performer than simple sweat and exhaustion. The kata endow the performer with a sense of forever.

For various reasons, the creators of the kata did not write down very much about their passion for the martial arts and the concepts that they were trying to pass along by creating the kata. As a result, we have little or no knowledge of who the creators of many of the kata were, and we have no idea as to what the idea behind each was. Perhaps this is for the best. For in not being handed the meaning of the kata on an ancient silver platter, we are driven to search for meaning ourselves and ponder them deeply. Doing so reveals to us much more than was probably ever really there to find, and enriches our experience of performing these artworks from the past.

The kata may be studied in a very narrow and deep fashion where the performer's only concern is technical perfection and the expression of elegantly blending beauty and technical precision. The kata may also be studied more broadly such that the hidden powers of the kata are revealed to the performer and are bestowed upon him for his utility. The kata may also simply be, and the performer may do them with no intention of improving or learning anything. Rather, he may simply will the kata to himself, and exercise his body while uncluttering his tortured soul.

The core of the kata experience: at first the you attempt to become the kata. Later in life, you turn the tables and make the kata become you.