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Paul_L
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A Few Thoughts On A Mabuni Quote

This post doesn't have any specific aim, rather it is just a few thoughts I had after reading something that Mabuni wrote regarding Kata and Bunkai. Really I just wanted to see if anyone else wanted to share and maybe add some clarity to what is a disporadic collection thoughts. 

I imagine that this is not the first time that anyone has seen this quote, so I am not putting out as a great find or anything like that.

For a very short lived publication called Karate Research Mabuni wrote a few articles, one of which contained the following:

In karate, the most important thing is kata. Into the kata of karate are woven every  manner of attack and defense technique. Therefore, kata must be practiced properly, with a  good understanding of their bunkai meaning. There may be those who neglect the practice of  kata, thinking that it is sufficient to just practice [pre-arranged] kumite that has been  created based on their understanding of the kata, but that will never lead to true advancement.  The reason why is that the ways of thrusting and blocking - that is to say, the techniques of  attack and defense - have innumerable variations. To create kumite containing all of the  techniques in each and every one of their variations is impossible. If one sufficiently and  regularly practices kata correctly, it will serve as a foundation for performing - when a crucial  time comes - any of the innumerable variations.   However, even if you practice the kata of karate, if that is all that you do, if your [other]  training is lacking, then you will not develop sufficient ability.

 My thoughts are:

That my understanding of this is that what is meant by understanding bunkai is that you understand the concepts and priciples behind each movement in the kata with that aim of applying them adaptively to a real situation, rather than seeing kata as a fixed set of responses to a fixed set of stimuli.

The publication Karate Research was a journal / forum style platform with the intent of sharing information and ideas in order to enable Karate to evolve and develop. So back then in the 30s Karate was progressive and never something that was intended to be set in stone.

The intended readership of the publication were other senior figures in Karate who had the appropriate standing to actively participate in Karate's ongoing develpment. This may suggest that Mabuni felt that other senior Karateka did not understand the purpose of Kata and what bunkai was.

Today cameras that can take several exposures per second are readily available and we have video too. Camera film speeds were slow back then in the 30s and film and processing was expensive too. which meat that rather than recording a dynamic flow of movements the Karateka would have to remain in contrived static poses and there would be a relatively low limit to how many photographs could be published in a book.

The intention of showing photographs of applications of kata movements was to say "this is how this move could be used" rather than "This is what this move is for". The technical issues of photography mentioned above may have caused or added to already existing misconceptions.

I am not really sure where I am going with this, but who better to share it with, rather than keeping it in my head.

Iain Abernethy
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Paul_L wrote:
That my understanding of this is that what is meant by understanding bunkai is that you understand the concepts and priciples behind each movement in the kata with that aim of applying them adaptively to a real situation, rather than seeing kata as a fixed set of responses to a fixed set of stimuli.

That’s exactly how I see it. Pretty much all the old masters wrote that kata is primarily about combative principles. You can’t record every single technique within a given system in one kata (it would be way to long) or two-person drills (there would be way too many of them), but in kata you can show a few techniques that illustrate the principle that ruins through all techniques of that nature.

By way of analogy, I can’t list out every single possible multiplication (there is an infinite number of them), but I can show 1 X 5 =5 and 3 X 7 = 21. From those two examples, you get the idea (the principle) and can then freely multiply any two numbers because you get what multiplication is and how it works.

This essentially is what Mabuni is saying here.

Because there are “innumerable variations” you can’t include them all in two person sets or a single kata … BUT through the kata example you can internalise examples of the core principles. We internalise those principles to the point of habit, such that we will freely fight in accordance with those habits.

The third element of my four stages of kata:

https://iainabernethy.co.uk/article/four-stages-kata-practise

Here is a quick video overview for those short on time:

This podcast on how a single kata records a full style may also be of use:

https://iainabernethy.co.uk/content/how-kata-records-style

This article is also relevant (particularly the second point):

https://iainabernethy.co.uk/article/understanding-kata-textbooks-and-tactics

All the best,

Iain

Paul_L
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Thanks Iain,  Really helpful information and as ever interesting too.

I think what I am driving to is the question what caused the change in the way kata was taught? I imagine it is not a single event that caused this.

We can see there is very clear statements regarding how kata should be practiced (and one would assume this also means how it should be taught), yet it was abandoned (for the most part) in favour of a way that reduced practicality and utility.

Marc
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Paul_L wrote:

I think what I am driving to is the question what caused the change in the way kata was taught? I imagine it is not a single event that caused this.

We can see there is very clear statements regarding how kata should be practiced (and one would assume this also means how it should be taught), yet it was abandoned (for the most part) in favour of a way that reduced practicality and utility.

When the karate adepts like Mabuni and especially Funakoshi started teaching karate in mainland Japan they first taught small groups of people. Those people were dedicated enough to learn from their teachers over many years. In the case of Funakoshi they were loyal enough to build a dojo and name it after his pen name ("Shoto-Kan").

But Funakoshi and his fellow masters not only taught at their own dojo but were invited to teach at universities and other places as well. There the audience was a little different. First of all, the university students did not dedicate years to their study of karate. Many left after a few years when they left the university. Second, they trained in large groups, which did not allow for individual advice from the head teacher. Third, they were mainly young males who were interested in a sports-like competitive kind of karate (which wasn't endorsed by the masters at all, but that was the fashion of the time).

Funakoshi wrote in The Essence of Karate:

[...] a characteristic that distinguishes [karate] as karate is that it cannot be commercialized or adapted for competition. Herein lies the essence of karate-do, as it cannot be realized with protective equipment or through competitive matches.

So there went the essence of karate-do, lost by turning it into a competitive sport.

And in Karate-Do Kyohan he wrote:

Whereas people in earlier times made deep studies of a narrow field, people today study widely and not deeply. It is not a good idea to follow one way or the other; it is better to take the middle way. For this reason, I have employed the method of advancing students as soon as they have a good grasp of a form to the next one, up through the fifth Heian form or the third Tekki form, and of then returning to the first for renewed practice. Once a form has been learned, it must be practiced repeatedly until it can be applied in an emergency, for knowledge of just the sequence of a form in karate is useless.

You can imagine that this method of cycling through several katas takes time. Time that the university students weren't able or willing to invest.

Take all that and imagine a graduate who leaves the university club and opens his own karate school to teach what he had learned. He just would not know all the applications and oral traditions. He would be able to convey the technical framework and mass teaching methods and kata sequences, and he would put all that into a sport-like context.

Historians may correct me if I got this wrong, but this is the explanation that I have figured out so far.

All the best,

Marc