The Way of Least Resistance

The other day I received an email query about the nature and purpose of kata. As it raises some very pertinent issues I thought I would share it with you and also my response. "I was reading your blog and the information on the page for the traditional school of martial arts. I was just wondering your thoughts on the internal art of Tai Chi and the application of solo forms of that as well as katas of karate. The application part is what is all kind of new to me and where I am having trouble understanding. With the repetitive nature of these forms and styles, in real world setting,(not at competitions to gain points)is the aim for it to be second nature and to "re-act" rather than square up and have a formal fight?" This query made me made me realise that I have never really addressed the issue of what I consider to be its main purpose. [Readers of my blog will be aware that I have previously discussed purposes of kata in the articles such as: “ Kata - art or sci...

I have often been confronted with the argument from modern or eclectic martial artists that karate or other traditional martial arts are deficient because they use what I call "blocks" [ie. parries or deflections] as their primary means of defence rather than purely evasion (as in boxing). [In relation to the effectiveness of blocks, note my article " Why blocks DO work ".] As I said recently on the fightingarts.com forum, it seems that the above article has at least shifted the debate from "blocks don't work" to the merits of pure evasion over blocking with evasion. The modern martial artists argue that they find pure evasion, more often than not, puts them "exactly where they want to be" in order to attack the opponent, at "exactly the right moment to be there". As one correspondent wrote: "As far as I'm concerned, that's about as good as it gets." I disagree. I think it can get a whole lot better. For some ...

"Taisabaki" means body movement. Most schools however use this term to refer to a type of body shifting the goal of which is to move in relation to the attacker both to avoid a blow and gain a position of advantage. Certainly that is how we used the term “taisabaki” when I was first taught in my "home" dojo. However, translated literally the term “taisabaki” or “sabaki” might mean any kind of body movement – including stepping up and down the floor in zenkutsu (forward stance) for that matter. It is my view that the Okinawan word "tenshin" is more accurate to cover evasive body movement. It encompasses any kind of evasion - whether the feet move away from their position or not. “Embusen” is a term generally used to refer to the directions of movement in a kata although some use that term to describe the angles of evasion. There are 8 principal angles of evasion — 10 if you count up and down and more if you factor in compound movements such as "weavin...