Was Bruce Lee wrong in discarding katas?

Question

What are the purposes of katas?

Answer 1

kempo's answer is awesome

Answer 2

The first answer (kempo ...) said it all.  Well stated - I'd pick his answer as best - it's exactly what i would have said.

Answer 3

Katas are great.  I spent countless hours practicing them when I first started out in martial arts.  My favorite techniques they taught me were the cat stance - yeah, I use that all the time in sparring.  Very practical.  Oh, and the move where I pretend to throw a spear at my opponent, that will come in handy if I am ever attacked at a track and field meet.  The only thing more useful than katas is time spent cultivating your chi.  Man, I can't wait until some punk takes a swing at me, then BAM!  Chi blast!  He'll be toast!

Answer 4

No fortune cookie answer here,  Bruce Lee was a natural, he would have been great no matter if he did kata or not, he was a natural fighter, just by being in the supreme shape that he was made easier for him to excel. I'd say the average Joe better do kata and do it till he's blue in the face till they have encoded all the movement and know what the movements mean.

Answer 5

yes and no

i would give a more detailed answer but im going to lunch lol...

Answer 6

you're just asking for a flame war with that question lol

kata has a purpose...and it fills that purpose. most people who say otherwise simply do not understand them...bruce included.

is kata a necessity? no! does it have a purpose? yes!! does it serve that purpose despite what mma/jkd people say? yes!!!

will kata teach you how to fight? NO!!...will it teach you techniques? yes!...will it give you an avenue of self study? yes! ...will it give you a varitable toolbox? yes!

in other words...kata works for what it was intended for, which most people haven't a clue about.

but you dont NEED kata in order to learn how to fight.

if you want more info about why kata was invented email me.

suffice to say techniques were not written down a long time ago because it was illegal to practice. so they developed kata to preserve those techniques. the techniques came first, not the kata.

but some people seem to have the notion that karate will teach you to fight exactly like the kata is laid out....nothing is further from the truth.

was bruce wrong? no, not for himself and many others.

are those who do kata wrong? no they're not.

if you like kata..and it makes sense to you...then do it. if not...then dont.

i look at kata as an unnecessary but helpful step.

"there are many paths to the top of the mountain, but we can all see the moon when we get there"

Answer 7

kata never worked for me... they're to kind of sort of get techniques into muscle memory... to me they seem useless. I've never seen anyone who really learned anything through kata. when you bunkai a kata you learn the moves a little bit but really I prefer focusing on individual techniques and chain techniques on people rather than a fight scenario with yourself.

the sweeping motion of the foot in kata was drilled into me... I still can't sweep like that, no one taught me the use.

Answer 8

Hi there

Bruce never discarded kata's. He only thought the way they were practised was wrong. All kata's contain certain principles for techniques not just in their learning but also in their application. What Bruce did was to strip all this out for himself focusing on only the fighting principles behind them. Jeet Kune do is not a style but a philosophy. It can be applied to any martial art.

Performing the perfect kata doesn't mean you understand it nor does collecting 28 to 60 forms. Bunkai is another pet hate of mine as this is another replication but done with five conforming actors. You learn the forms to extract the principles from the individual techniques that make up the kata. You then have to incorporate these principles into your own movement which is unique to everyone. You should learn them to forget them. It’s very sad to train in an art for 20 plus years duplicating the forms never to be able to use them correctly and become what looks like a cardboard man in motion.

Muscle memory does not create instinctive natural reaction. If the movement isn’t natural in the first place then it never will be so.

Today kata are often used to define the style but this was never the original intention. Its is true that history has shaped kata into what they are today. More often than not kata were put together long after the warring states period.

Kata are a workman's tool box and inside them are all the tools you need to be able to get the job done! It’s up to the individual to decide how he chooses to use them and this comes with experience. The more you have the deeper you can see into the forms. There’s no such thing as the perfect form and fighting is messy by nature but in order to learn you need to understand them otherwise you will rely on muscle, speed and power. These three are qualities we all loose with age. You should be getting better as you get older not worse otherwise what are you actually learning?

Some people will agree and some will disagree that is why the martial arts are like religion. Be an individual and keep learning.

Best wishes

idai

Answer 9

the purpose of katas? to keep your techniques fresh and to practice them im learning another one for my black belt in which almost evrey movement is a new technique it helps alot for practicing by yourself as well

Answer 10

Maybe Bruce thought 'rehearsed routines lack the ability to adapt'.

I don't think he's wrong, look at how successful he was.

When kata is performed, it's good to always bear in mind the practical use in a fighting situation.

Answer 11

I really can't put it much better then Kempo did, just a couple of things to add.

Bruce Lee was wrong in saying kata is not useful. Maybe it wasn't useful to him, but I am not him. Realize that Bruce Lee only studied a style that had forms for maybe 5 years. That is barely enough time to learn all of the basics ina a kata, let alone be qualified to say they are worthless. All you Bruce-it's look it up, it's fact.

Many people who have never trained it right or had a good instructor assume that kata is supposed to be done in a fight exactly the way it is taught, and nothing could be further from the truth. As you train it more and get deeper into it, you relize that kata is about the techniques within, rather then the kata itself.

Kata needs to be examined. The techniques within need to be pulled out and trained individually, with a resitent partner. Many people assume that for self defense a kata cannot change, which is false. Techniques are done by everyone the same in kata, but in application can vary widely. An application that works for me might not work for somebody smaller, so in actual use they will modify it. I may start a self defense motion with a move in one kata, and my oponent does not react the way they do in the bunkai for the kata, so I can't use the next move in the kata. That's ok though because the way they reacted sets them up for a move in a different kata, and my body will automaticly go into that move.

Kata are only static and rigid when youa re learning them and trying to get the basics down. I think it's funny that Jeet Kun Do people do individual drills, yet put down kata. Take all of those individual drills, and string them together, and what do you have? Possibly a kata? Some MMA people slam kata, yet think shadow boxing is great. Guess what? No difference once you star training the kata for the seperate techniques.

Answer 12

Please watch this youtube vid and make your own judgement.  Put yourself in Bruce Lee's shoes; that was the only style, from a true, reliably lineaged master, that he had available to him, and therefore his first exposure to martial arts.  Watch the video, and see things from his perspective; what your own ability to think comes up with regarding your first question, that will be your answer as to whether he was right or wrong.

To answer the second question;

Fitness is the foundation of stances, because you need strong legs, to stand strong, and strong arms, to hold the pose perfectly.

Stances, are the foundation of basics, because you need to stand strong, to do the basics well.

The basics are the foundation of Kata, because you need to know the moves within the Kata, to do the Kata well.

The Kata is the foundation of the two person drills and the various applications because without Kata, you will not have enough coordination, focus, and control, to apply those moves with the necessary precision.

The two person drill is the foundation for getting your body to get a "feel" for flesh and bone, a flesh and blood human being actively attacking you for real.  Its a controlled drill mind, but the attack is real, and if you do not block you get hurt.  That drill, is the foundation to survive an actual encounter, where it is not controlled.

That is why therefore Kata is necessary because one thing builds upon another and Kata has been proven time and again as the best method for developing the necessary coordination to apply techniques.  Regarding muscle memory, muscle memory and reflexes, are intimately tied together.  You react according to how your muscles are programmed, whether they are programmed from you practicing by yourself, or with a partner even though you need both.  You can't train in Kata to death and hope that will replace a training partner; doesn't work that way.  That I found out from bitter experience....  After doing a Kata for the 100th time you realize how futile it is without a partner, you wake up and think "d**n; I need a partner!"

Well, whatever the case, muscle memory and reflexes are one and the same because the whole concept of muscle memory involves a nervous response, and a nervous response is what?  A REFLEX.  Kata is also a practical way to both keep in aerobic and cardiac shape, while drilling and perfecting techniques.  At the highest levels I hear, they can even become meditation, even the vigorous "jumping around" ones.

Basically, simply put, the purpose of Kata is to make you coordinated enough to do all those slick throws and joint locks at precisely the right moment.  Not everyone is born with a gift for hand-eye coordination, so that is where Kata comes in to help develop it in people that do not have it, so that they can execute applied techniques on an actual person, both cooperative and, for training purposes, actively resisting.

Also, let me tell you a story regarding the two disciples of Goju Ryu's founder Kanryo Higashiona.  One disciple thought that Kata was a load of c**p, and only practiced because his teacher said so, and, lacking training partners in his style, he emphasized sparring drills and free sparring with other stylists.  Kanryo's other disciple, emphasized Kata more than he did sparring.  Eventually, 10 years passed, and naturally to demonstrate their skill the two had to do both Kata, and fight in a barefisted match.  The disciple who emphasized Kata, beat the one who emphasized sparring.

I hear in schools across this country there are similar stories; even the famous in the 80's and 90's Bill "super foot" Wallace, once went up against someone who never competed in any sports competition.  Never won trophies, never went to any tourneys, nevertheless, the person he challenged to a friendly test of skill handed him his @ss on a silver platter.  There are other stories of martial arts champs beaten by every day instructors who respect tradition, and emphasize Kata.

The point I am trying to make here is that if you do sparring and fighting, you've got what you've got, and that's all you've got, you don't get better.

If you do Kata, taking careful pains to polish each and every technique, it leads to movement efficiency and in time, with the focus necessary for Kata, much faster reflexes.  Human reaction time is determined by the following;

1)  Focus

2)  How your nervous system is conditioned (e.g. do you do sports or, well, Kata?)

3)  Muscle memory; little good do well developed nerves do you if muscle are not very sensitive to their electrical impulses.  The more you practice a move, the more and more sensitive to your nerve's electrical impulses your muscles become, and the more sensitive your muscles become, assuming you have a focused mind, the faster you react so please do not believe that "muscle memory does not help reflexes" stuff.  No disrespect to the answerer, but that is not correct.  Muscle memory and reflexes are intimately tied; again, the more you repeat a given set of techniques, that more and more sensitive your muscles become to that particular nerve impulse, pretty soon becoming so efficient, the nerve impulse becomes lightning fast.

4)  Your own survival instinct, which in a dangerous situation will give anybody ultra fast reflexes, that is why they say it is not wise to corner even a mouse.

Kata conditions the muscles to respond more and more quickly to nerve electrical impulses.  When you are just starting, the nerves spend a lot of energy to get those muscles to work.  However after 10 years of training, you don't even think about it; nerves spend barely any electrical signaling at all.  Its just its nature; the more the brain does something, the less electricity it wastes, and this principle is applied to how its wired to the muscles.  That means that if you drill in Katas a lot, any moves your teacher teaches you will work in conjunction with your need to survive if cornered.

Look man, I'm just a fan of martial arts; I am not an expert.  I never trained in any temple, have not had formal training since I was 12, I do not hold a belt rank and my frist two, ah, "masters," one was an overweight retired gardener (caucasian) 63 years of age who started Karate when he was 43, and the other was a nerdy Jewish woman, as nerdy and annoying as they come.  My third, ah, teacher, was a sociopathic teenager who gave me a martial arts lesson by attempting to bash my head against the wall.  I was 12, and he was 17; bit of a mismatch, as he also held a brown belt and all I had was a yellow at the time.

So you see I'm no expert, but I will tell you from bitter experience, Kata can save your life.

good luck.

Answer 13

Kempo answer is pretty good.

Was Bruce wrong? Yes, like Kenpo said kata has purpose. No one that teaches katas or that really understands katas expects anyone to fight exactly like the katas. The katas help reinforce techniques that have been taught. It can be used to introduce you to new techniques. Yes it help produce muscle memory. It is especially helpful when bunkai is added to it. Know fight is as rigid as a kata. Most people don't have a problem with a boxer shadow boxing, but many have problems with a martial artist doing katas. What is the difference? Actually not much.

Unfortunately many people believe that they know a kata because they can do it. But they don't understand that it really takes at least a year or more to learn a kata. What they are doing in many cases is just going through the motions. If they never progress past going through the motions then the kata did that individual no good.

By the way I am a Bruce Lee fan. He inspired me to learn martial arts. Yet I don't agree with him in removing katas. Yes. I have done and still do katas that I can't rationalize a particular move. Like ending a kata with a block. I'll never get that. But I still gain knowledge from that kata.