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AllyWhytock
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The Kata Chicken & The Bunkai Egg (What Came First)?

Hi All,

I noticed that on the Wikipedia page for "Karate" there's a line that states: "Bunkai is a useful tool to understand a kata". A rather seemingly inocuous line yet it leads me to a deeper question which has probably been discussed here before: (1) What came first - Kata or Bunkai?

I get the impression that many Karate Ka believe that the Kata sprang forth from nothingness(or from the mind of a Master) and the purpose of Bunkai is used to understand the Kata, whereas, as I believe, the physical combative scenario (tactic) was derived from two person practice (or reality experience) and the Kata sequence was established to record the practice.

This leads me onto other questions.

(2) If the situation (application, bunkai) came first the what is wrong with creating contemporary Kata (instead of videoing the two person drill)?

(3) Has the creation of modern Kata been superceded by digital technology?

(4) Is it worthwhile creating contemporary Kata when the "elder" kata suffice?

As an example here are Jamie Grey & Colin Steel who have created a Kata from a Two Person Drill.

I welcome any thoughts.

Kindest Regards,

Ally

Anf
Anf's picture

The obvious answer is that application came first, and form is just a way of recording that for mass teaching. That's the obvious answer. And for some people it seems, that's perfectly good.

But wait. Before we accept that answer, perhaps we should delve a bit deeper. Right back to way before reliable written record.

Karate is just an umbrella term that encompasses lots of styles that each had their own influences. We have to ignore politics here for a moment, because it is purely political reasoning that leads to the widely accepted conclusion that karate is uniquely Japanese or okinawan. Consider how likely it is that with centuries of trading and conflict there was absolutely no crossover of skills between factions. Indeed an older name for karate is tang te, or Chinese hand. So clearly we see Chinese influence. China too can not claim the monopoly on martial arts. They took influence from the middle east, India and elsewhere.

So why is all this history relevant to the question? Well, because way before 'kata', there were forms or hyung, which is exactly the same thing, but Chinese. Legend has it (in believe there are written records but of poor quality) that an Indian monk came to China on a pilgrimage. He found 'sickly monks', weak through inactivity in their prolonged meditation practices. So he allegedly encouraged the monks to exercise, giving them a regime loosely based on Indian meditative practices. The monks were encouraged to achieve 'stillness in motion' by meditating on every action rather than inaction. This was absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with fighting. It was exercise of the mind and body.

Later of course 'kung fu', which used to mean something like 'great skill', and again nothing to do with fighting, later came to broadly be accepted as meaning fighting skill. But the hyung existed before this. Of course Chinese people could fight before then, but hyung was not fighting practice.

So with hyung as a means of developing mind and body, and fighting sometimes being a necessity, sooner or later the two became intertwined. All of this is before the term 'karate'.

Of course all of this is a super simplified version of questionable history based on sparse record at best. But maybe it highlights the difficulty in really answering the question.

To further throw a spanner into the works, with kata origin being lost to the mists of time, some scholars conclude that many techniques were originally based on armed combat and later adapted to unarmed. This kind of makes sense if we take the term martial art to mean war skill (martial as in pertaining to war, art by its older definition just means skill or skill set), being a soldiers art. What military leader would send forth an unarmed army? But then there's also record of martial art being an aristocrat's game, so again, there's conflicting ideas.

So I guess the answer really depends on the context. Are we talking literally since the birth of 'karate', which is actually fairly recent? Or are we on about the broader context of kata/hyung and the Chinese influence? Or something in between?

Marc
Marc's picture

AllyWhytock wrote:
(1) What came first - Kata or Bunkai?

This may sound like nitpicking, but I think the clue is in the meaning of the words.

Kata (形 or 型) means "form" - in the sense of shape, style, method OR in the sense of template, model, pattern, mould, type.

Bunkai (分解) means "taking apart, analysis".

And then there's "Oyo":

Oyo (応用) means "application".

This gives us the process of analysis/bunkai of a form/kata to learn about its applications/oyo.

My understanding is that some guy or lady had really mastered to protect themselves from ruffians. The master was asked by some people to teach them how to do that. So they became that master's students. The master taught them the techniques and principles that they used and they started to practice those techniques and principles and they developed some sort of partner drills. To be able to remember the methods they learned, the master or the students put them in a sequence of moves that could be practiced solo. They created a kata.

The kata was then handed down through the generations together with instructions on how to convert it back into partner drills that showed the encoded methods. This is the process of bunkai to get back to the oyo (applications).

Over time people who learned the kata changed some of the methods or the representations of such methods to fit their needs, and thus created variants of the kata.

Obviously there was more than one master and therefore many katas.

During the 20th century a lot of the knowledge of bunkai and applications was lost when karate was taught in Japan and was transformed into a sport.

Today we have the katas of karate, and they are still more or less intact. But nobody (I know of) has any definitive knowledge of what the original master actually had in mind when the kata came into being. But we still have some written information on how to read kata - some clues on how to do bunkai to find useful applications to the moves we like to practice.

(By the way, the legend of the weak Shaolin monks being the source of karate has been debunked. Search the forum.)  

AllyWhytock wrote:
(2) If the situation (application, bunkai) came first the what is wrong with creating contemporary Kata (instead of videoing the two person drill)?

Nothing at all. If you have found your personal way of defending yourself - your methods - and you want a neat way of preserving your ideas for solo practice or to teach them to others, then putting them into your personal kata is a great way of doing that. Of course recording your "style" (i.e. kata and applications) in other formats like video, drawings or written word, can only help.

Just don't expect your kata to be picked up by the WKF for tournaments.

AllyWhytock wrote:
(3) Has the creation of modern Kata been superceded by digital technology?

I don't think so. Learning techniques in motion with your whole body is building muscle memory. Digital media cannot do that. That's not to say that digital media are useless. They can help a lot. See above.

AllyWhytock wrote:
(4) Is it worthwhile creating contemporary Kata when the "elder" kata suffice?

If all that you need is in the katas that are there already, then I would see no need to create new ones. If on the other hand there's important stuff that you don't find in the katas you know, it seems perfectly worthwhile to record them in a new one. And of course, it can be very informative and also a lot of fun to build a new kata.

Kenei Mabuni suggested in one of his books that one should create new katas especially for sports tournaments. Those sports katas could include all the athletically challenging and spectacular techniques that are appealing to both athletes and audience, and they could be standardised to allow fair judging. The katas of old could then be left as they are and would not need to be adapted for competition.

Kind regards,

Marc

Anf
Anf's picture

Marc, you say 'the legend of the weak shaolin monks being the source of karate has been debunked'. As this is something that interests me possibly more than technique or style does, could you point to references please?

AllyWhytock
AllyWhytock's picture

Thank you . Very interesting.

Last year's Q&A from Iain touched on my initial quesiton at 1hr 25min 33secs.

https://www.iainabernethy.co.uk/content/q-and-podcast-part-1-self-defence-and-bunkai-questions

I think we are fortunate to have the Kata and we can teach the Kata side by side with the Bunkai (using the collective term here). From a teaching point of view it is ideal in a class or 1-2-1 setting. The Kata are instantly at hand. A ready reference. I am very in the application came first "Bunkai Egg" and then the Kata. I say we are fortunate because someone has previously done the heavy lifting with creating the Kata from their own study and we can study explore the Kata for answers.  

Creating Two Person drills from the HAPV is another mechanism and I do this aswell. In the end I start seeing a Kata that I know and hence validates and vindicates the Kata. It is also fun.

We as practical Karate Ka are not inhibited to study, break down, live practice, discover blanks and ask the kata the questions. Unfortunately, some Karate Ka are restricted by dogma and avoid the blaringly obvious (refuse to employ Occam's Razor). With that said the beauty of what we do lies in our current kata. With study, from a practical view point, the kata will have the answer at level of principle you require. If not then there are other Kata - as in Naihanchi. Shodan has the fundamentals yet Nidan & Sandan have the variations. [As per Iain's seminar with us on 12th Nov'17]. For 1-2-1 at my home dojo [garage] I plan having a display with wifi connection so that we can look at drills we have previously recorded or Youtube with Iain's Drills/Bunkai or I could cast my Android Phone with Iain's App. So a comprehensive teaching aid to supplement the principles of the Kata or the study.

With respect to creating my own Kata then I think by combining several drills of similar theme then I think that continues a "tradition". However, I've yet to fnd anything better than what is already in the Kata. You just need to lose any inhibitions and explore.

Kindest Regards, Ally

Paul_L
Paul_L's picture

Just my tupence worth thrown in. I think it is the case that nessesity if the mother of invention. There was a need to be better at combat that the enemy, there was a need to teach others, there was a need for a way to pratice alone. There was a need to record the principles and fundamental aspects of a system at a time where writing materials were scarce and most were illiterate.

Over time it became the norm for how to do something being taught without the expalination as to why you do it, so people become focused on completing the task and not achieving the result to the point where the task become the result and the actual result was forgotten. 

That’s just what I think anyway.

Anf
Anf's picture

Paul_L wrote:
Just my tupence worth thrown in. I think it is the case that nessesity if the mother of invention. There was a need to be better at combat that the enemy, there was a need to teach others, there was a need for a way to pratice alone. There was a need to record the principles and fundamental aspects of a system at a time where writing materials were scarce and most were illiterate.

But was the concept of the form created for this purpose, or was the concept of a form already there, and martial artists took it as a tool? Looking in the wider context of weapons forms. I know a particular staff form. I believe it has no combat value whatsoever in the sense that it has highly impractical techniques in it. But it is brilliant cardio, it develops balance, and because you're effectively swinging a great big stick around, it really helps develop observation. I suspect, but have no way to confirm, that the form was developed for this purpose. Ie nobody envisaged that I'd have a fight with a 6ft stick in my hand. That is, unless the 6ft stick is not a purpose made weapon, but rather a rake or pitch fork or similar tool. And the techniques have no direct combat value, other than in teaching how to control and improvised weapon without smashing yourself in the head, ribs, knees or shins. Something that happens a lot when you first start practicing it.

Marc
Marc's picture

Anf wrote:
Marc, you say 'the legend of the weak shaolin monks being the source of karate has been debunked'. As this is something that interests me possibly more than technique or style does, could you point to references please?

There was a discussion on this forum that included many good points and pointers to sources:

https://www.iainabernethy.co.uk/content/zen-and-martial-arts-why-it-bs

All the best,

Marc

Anf
Anf's picture

Marc wrote:
There was a discussion on this forum that included many good points and pointers to sources:

https://www.iainabernethy.co.uk/content/zen-and-martial-arts-why-it-bs

Thanks. I'll have a good look through that later. But an initial scan through leads me to think its a slightly different discussion. The question was not about the origins of 'kung fu' (an umbrella terms that means nothing really but us widely accepted to mean Chinese martial arts). It was the whether kata came before bunkai. I asked really if we were limiting it to just karate context or the wider context of influences from elsewhere. Bodidharma theory could be wrong. I'd accept that. Even proponents admit the evidence is scarce and dubious. But I'm not convinced that this automatically discredits the notion that the form was originally 'meditation in motion', and latrine adopted as a teaching tool for combat techniques. In fact, for that purpose, are we not meditating on possible application when performing a hyung? If not, then I suggest we are merely learning a dance routine. My intention by the way is not to argue or disagree. I genuinely like the history of all this, including where appropriate, being shown to be wrong (I will try mention ninjitsu).

Iain Abernethy
Iain Abernethy's picture

Anf wrote:
Bodhidharma theory could be wrong. I'd accept that. Even proponents admit the evidence is scarce and dubious.

There is no evidence for it, and there is concrete evidence against it. The story originates from a forged 17th century document (Yi Jin Jing) – well over 1000 years after Bodhidharma is said to have come to China – and was then spread by a fictional novel in the early 1900s. Martial artists in the 1930s and 40s presented it as a truth (or at least as a plausible possibility) because it is a myth that makes the martial arts look good in the eyes of those they are trying to promote the art to. It is 100% not true though.

Anf wrote:
But I'm not convinced that this automatically discredits the notion that the form was originally 'meditation in motion', and later adopted as a teaching tool for combat techniques.

I think it does. There are hundreds of kata; created by different people, at different points in history, in different locations. While the history of the kata is not always clear, the ones we do know the history for shows them to be 100% combative.

The Bodhidharma myth is totally false, but even if it was true it would only suggest that one single “kata” was made for that purpose around one and a half thousand years ago. It would have no bearing on the plethora of kata we have today. All the evidence we have tells us kata were created for combative purposes.

If the kata were created to be meditative (and later adapted to be combative), we would need evidance for that … and there isn’t any. We would also need evidence that would overturn the established histories of the kata. We don’t have that either. The evidence only points one way.

I know people have put forth the view that kata were originally meditative in books and videos (and I am assuming from your original post that you have read that person’s work), but it’s solely based on the alleged Zen / Bodhidharma myth and it ignores the mountains of evidence against the position. It’s not a position that anyone who has studied karate’s history can take seriously.

As an imperfect analogy, I could say: “Swords were predominantly created to be embeded in stones to determine the future king of England. The proof for this is the legend of Kind Arthur and the Sword in the Stone.” I’m basing that claim on a popular but debunked myth, and I am ignoring all the historical evidence that swords were made and used to fight with. It’s therefore got around the same amount of credibility as the “kata were meditative” position. The difference is that people accept the King Arthur story as myth, whereas many still think there is truth to the Zen / Bodhidharma myth.

All the best,

Iain

Iain Abernethy
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AllyWhytock wrote:
(3) Has the creation of modern Kata been superceded by digital technology?

This was discussed a few years ago:

https://iainabernethy.co.uk/comment/1220#comment-1220

To repost here (edited for standalone clarity):

I see kata as primarily being a record of combative principles via technical examples, and I don’t think any modern media can replace kata. The best way to record physical techniques is surely via physical medium i.e. we do the techniques with our body so we should record them with our body.

The other issue is the rapid change in technology. I have lots of good martial information recorded on VHS, and I have one player on which I can view them and when that player breaks it will be quickly inaccessible (who makes and sells VHS players these days?). DVD will surely go the same way as VHS in time.

Books go yellow and rot unless cared for in a controlled environment. A book will be lucky to last more than a generation or two in normal circumstances.

The internet would seem to be here to stay, but it is moving at a wild pace and things become outdated fast (there is lot of work required to keep this modest site up-to-date and functioning as it should).

The human body however has been unchanged for tens of thousands of years and, to me at least, would seem to be the medium of choice through which to record combative information if are not going to lose it.

Having a method by which to train when we have no training partner would seem to be advantageous and a very useful part of the overall process.

I see kata as a superb way to ensure that transition of strategies, tactics, techniques, principles etc of a system. Using solo templates to record and drill combative methods (and things like tribal history, communal traditions, etc) has a very good track record. I can’t see a better method coming along soon for the reasons outlined above.

I guess you can see this as hardware / software split. The hardware is what we record the information on. The software is the actual information itself.

If we stick to the human body as the hardware (via kata), we have a proven method, on a medium which is not subject to becoming quickly obsolete due to the rapid march of technology, and we have the massive advantage that the thing we record the information on is the exact same thing that will be using that information.

If we were to switch to recording all the information on video, for example, at some point we have to start “uploading” that to the body as it will be the body that will be doing the fighting. We would have a good head start for drilling with a partner if the information is already in the body (as it is with kata).

Drilling with partners is obviously the best way to work combative methods, but kata means we can not only drill with a partner, but we can also drill some more without a partner. The more practise we can get, the better we can get.

All the best,

Iain

AllyWhytock
AllyWhytock's picture

Thanks Iain! Makes sense. Imagine extending the solo practice with the use of augmented reality to practice against an avatar partner :) Kindest Regards, Ally

Marc
Marc's picture

Does anybody else feel reminded of this iconic scene from The Matrix?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6vMO3XmNXe4

...but until then: Kata rules. :)

A while ago I listet over twenty reasons why I think kata is great.  

Iain Abernethy
Iain Abernethy's picture

AllyWhytock wrote:
Imagine extending the solo practice with the use of augmented reality to practice against an avatar partner :)

Would be great! A training partner that would never break :-)

Marc wrote:
Does anybody else feel reminded of this iconic scene from The Matrix?

That could be of the positives of the enslavement of our machine overlords :-)

Marc wrote:
A while ago I listed over twenty reasons why I think kata is great.

That’s a great list and I’d encourage people to check it out!

All the best,

Iain

Wastelander
Wastelander's picture

Well, I think your questions have been quite well addressed. I will throw this out there, though, since developing your own kata came up.

I HIGHLY recommend that everyone play with creating a kata. I also recommend, if you teach, taking a class session to have your students (with help) develop a kata on the fly. What I've done with that is give everyone a starting point--the attacker does this, so we respond this way--then we do it in the air a bit, then with a partner for a bit. Then, I asked my uke what he would do, as the bad guy, if that didn't work, and then had the lowest rank in class give their idea of how to respond to that, then we did in the air for a bit, and practiced with a partner for a bit. We do that going through pretty much everyone in class up through the ranks. By the end, we have a short kata that deals with a variety of different attacks and responses from the attacker, and it is very easy for people to remember, because they learned it along with the applications. It also gives you a very good platform for teaching students how to find applications to their kata by doing it in reverse order, since they get to see how a technique on a person translates into solo movements in the air.