The Three Cycles of Kata

by D. E. Tarver

reprinted with permission

For several years now there has been a contention between students of traditional styles and the more eclectic styles of martial arts as to whether kata has a relevant place as a training tool for the martial artist. The break from traditional style martial arts really got its biggest boost from Bruce Lee who wanted a more “free flowing” style of fighting and did not see any value in traditional training methods. 

Before I go any further let me state that I am a firm supporter of innovation and individualized martial arts interpretation. I am more from the combat way of thinking and as such I tend to be more concerned about who is standing at the end of a conflict than whether or not the technique looked performance perfect. Of course anyone who has ever had to fight knows where I am coming from. That said, there are many overlooked or misunderstood aspects of traditional martial arts that tend to receive most of its criticism from people who have little or no understanding about the things that they criticize. 

I have read a number of articles over the years on why classical karate will not work. I have read quotes like, “Classical styles are robotic and lack the realistic approach that is crucial for street effectiveness,” by this they usually mean the katas. At the very beginning stages the katas do indeed look robotic, and stiff, as does anything at the beginning. Remember how stiff your penmanship was when you first learned to write. I love to use this Zen lesson on writing as an example here because the kata should become as individually personal as your very own writing style even though it must conform to certain standards that everyone can recognize and understand by reading. It does not matter whether you are learning sword, karate or other weapons you must intake, digest and absorb the material before you can truly know it. 

The real problem lies not in the katas of the katas of the classic styles, but in the lack of understanding of those who say such things. Many fail to realize that the katas are an ever evolving system which can take many years to master, and by evolving I mean evolving. This is a process that takes place over time where the practitioner becomes one with the form and steps to the level of master - which is why real masters are masters. It is important to remember that the katas are not the style, but tools to help us learn the style. Some are superior to others, in my opinion, but all have value. The learning of a kata is a mental exercise in the Zen philosophy that is the heart and soul of all martial arts, Mushin. The idea of the free mind ready to react without thought to any situation.  

Taika Oyata said: “There are three types of people who practice karate: those who talk loud and do very little kata; those that can do kata but do not understand it; and those who can do kata, understand what they are doing and know how to use it.” 

It is the understanding of what you are doing that brings enlightenment. This lifelong process naturally breaks down into three evolutionary cycles. I would like to give credit here to one of my teachers, Master Bill Pogue for starting me on the path to this understanding. In this article I will attempt to explain these three cycles and how they occur in the life of a martial artist. Let's start by looking at what kata is, and what it is not. 

What is Kata 

Let's take a moment to look at what kata truly is. Most agree that you cannot fight in the street the way you practice kata, at least at first. It's too blocky, choppy, telegraphic, and slow. No one even spars with the same blocks, stances, or strikes that they practice in kata. So what's the point? Did the Masters put these katas together and say, “This is the way to fight, but you can't fight this way.”

Bruce Lee said, “When you get down to it, real combat is not fixed and is very much alive. The fancy mess (a form of paralysis) solidifies and conditions what was once fluid, and when you look at it realistically, it is nothing but a blind devotion to the systematic uselessness of practicing routines or stunts that lead nowhere.” 

On one level he was completely right but if that is ultimately true why have a kata? What purpose does it serve? To answer that question we must first understand that kata is a lifelong study that breaks down into basically three cycles or levels. No one can truly understand this unless they are enlightened to it because one must experience the change to comprehend it. These cycles lead to martial enlightenment, and include an understanding of process and content, theories and strategies, and the evolving process of the kata and the warrior. 

Once a person reaches Martial enlightenment all things are within his reach, and martial enlightenment is found in the exhaustive study of the kata. This is the mystery of the martial arts, and a principle that few understand. The masters did not throw the katas together with the thought that “This form or combination is by far superior to all others.” On the contrary, it has less to do with the individual physical techniques than with the over all strategy and process of the kata. 

Some say that kata is simply used as a formal exercise that can be practiced by many or by one. Some say that the techniques in kata are really hidden nerve strikes that render an opponent unconscious. Some, that kata is used to develop focus and precision of technique. These things are all true in part, but not the totality. The stages of martial enlightenment come in cycles, and the student will find each of these points in one or all of these three levels of study. 

The First Cycle 

The first stage or cycle is the learning stage. Here the new student puts all of his efforts into getting through the kata with as few mistakes as possible.  The student is tense, nervous and robotic. He does the form with as much precision and power as possible. He wants to look exactly like his teachers, and feels that if he gets close to mimicking them he will surely know the kata. Now, before I continue let us recall our Zen lesson on writing. 

Zen master Takuan Soho wrote a letter to Yagyu Munenori, a sword master in the sixteenth century.

^*“As the beginner knows nothing about either his body posture or the positioning of his sword, neither does his mind stop anywhere within him. If a man strikes at him with the sword, he simply meets the attack without anything in mind. 

“As he studies various things and is taught the diverse ways of how to take a stance, the manner of grasping his sword and where to put his mind, his mind stops in many places. Now if he wants to strike at an opponent, he is extraordinarily discomforted. Later, as days pass and time piles up, in accordance with his practice, neither the postures of his body nor the ways of grasping the sword are weighted in his mind.” 

We can see then that the first cycle will take the student through a basic knowledge of the kata. He now knows how to hold the sword, when to punch, when to kick and block and all the various stances and posters. He can do all the kata without much conscious thought. This is usually where a student is promoted to their first Black Belt, and where most stop learning. I have had my own students ask at this point, “I know the kata and I have earned a black belt, so now what?” So now you study the kata. The belt or rank is only an outward symbol of the knowledge you are supposed to have and has nothing to do with your real expertise or the free mind exercise of the fighting method you have studied. 

There is an old proverb which says: “We shall not cease from exploration and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started, and know the place for the first time.” This should be taken quite literally. 

Takahara Shinun Sho, Monk and Karate Sensei on Okinawa in 1750 said, “The martial arts are a lifetime study. It is not a matter of months or years. It is for life.” Why did he say study instead of practice? Because the art is contained in its katas, and the katas mold themselves to the warrior over time and teach him all the mysteries and secrets of the style, and it takes a life time to learn them if indeed one can ever learn them all. Most will never make it. Most will never look beyond the first level of understanding thinking they have obtained all that there is to obtain. Many are distracted by life and never once realize that what they had all along sought is only now within the grasp of their comprehension. Chosen indeed are the few who enter the second cycle.

The Second Cycle 

Peter Urban wrote in The Karate Dojo. “Katas are the distilled, concentrated, wisdom, understanding and experience of hundreds of great Karate Masters, translated into a language of rhythmical movement, breathing and peak awareness. When one begins to understand them, one glimpses a new world of internal riches.” 

I have wondered how many who have read this statement ever took to time to consider if they understand what it is saying. “Distilled, concentration, wisdom, understanding and experience. . . .” How can all of this be hidden in a few cuts or punching and kicking movements? To find the answer one must first understand the “Content and Process” of a kata. 

Takuan Soho said in his letter to Munenori, “There is such a thing as training in principle, and such a thing as training in technique. 

“Principle is as I have already explained above: when you arrive, nothing is noticed. It is simply as though you had discarded all concentration. I have written at length about this above.

“If you do not train in technique, but only fill your breast with principle, your body and your hands will not function. Training in technique, if put into terms of your own martial art, is in the training that if practiced over and over again makes the five body postures one. 

“Even though you know principle, you must make yourself perfectly free in the use of technique. And even though you may wield the sword that you carry well, if you are unclear on the deepest aspects of principle, you will likely fall short of proficiency. Technique and principle are just like the two wheels of a cart.”* 

Technique being what I have taught as content and principle what I have taught as process, is the very heart of kata.  Technique/Content is the actual kata movements taught to you by your Sensei when you first learned the form. Principle/Process is the lesson being taught by the techniques. When you learn a technique for dealing with an attacker who grabs you by the throat, the technique itself will soon teach you that the process must modify the technique in order for it to work on an opponent with longer arms, shorter arms, stronger arms etc. Herein lies distilled concentrated, wisdom, understanding, and experience of hundreds of great karate masters. The masters who invented the katas were not trying to teach only simple cutting, blocking or kicking. They were not trying to teach that this cut or combination is superior to all others. They were most definitely not saying, this is the way we fight, but you cannot fight this way. No. They were teaching strategies, and theories, and angles. They were teaching ways to handle multiple attackers. They were teaching techniques that would themselves teach the style to the diligent students. Thus we are all students of the styles we study and the Katas are there to guide us along our own individual paths.  

I remember one of my teachers, Master Advincula, telling me a story about one of his teachers, Master Shimabuku. Advincula was a student of escrima long before he met Master Shimabuku. One day in the dojo he was doing an escrima drill with a pair of sais. When this caught Master Shimabuku’s attention he stopped to watch. Someone ask the master, is this good? Shimabuku said, “Maybe can do.” After thinking about this it became apparent to me that Master Shimabuku was not so concerned about the exact way things “should” be done as he was with what would work and he passed that along to his students by using katas to teach Isshin Ryu. He did not get upset because Advincula was using the sai in a way no one else there had ever seen, he was more concerned about if what he was seeing would work. 

This is understanding and experience. Long ago great masters would have a student prove his diligence by doing work for months or even years before agreeing to teach him. Today a student's diligence is proven by how deeply he digs into his learning. In most schools the curriculum revolves around kata, sparring, and self-defense. The kata and the sparring have nothing in common, and the self-defense is completely different from either. This is not true for second cycle students. In their understanding they are able to overlap their curriculum. Their sparring, self-defense, and kata are interchangeable; and all grow from the same theories and strategies whether they look the same or not. They are at one with all aspects of their martial knowledge; and learn from everything that they encounter, like Master Shimabuku. They are unbound at this point and start to experience true martial freedom. The forms, which some believe trap them, become freedom from entrapment and the beginning of enlightenment. 

Bruce Lee said, “To obtain enlightenment in martial arts means the extinction of everything which obscures the “true knowledge,” the “real life.” At the same time, it implies boundless expansion and, indeed, emphasis should fall not on the cultivation of the particular department which merges into the totality, but rather on the totality that enters and unites that particular department.” This could not have been truer even though I wonder if Bruce himself realized the depths to which he was speaking having dismissed kata as a value. In another statement he said, “The height of cultivation runs to simplicity. Half-way cultivation runs to ornamentation.” Half way cultivating an art or a kata indeed runs to ornamentation, but full cultivation leads to simplicity and freedom. Half way cultivating the kata is like stopping on the top of the Zen Mountain or at obtaining a black belt or rank certificate.

Kata should not bind; it should enlighten. It should not be rigidly traditional, but should be pliable, and useful to the student. If it is useless why have it? The second cycle student is not bound by the forms, but is truly their pupil. They are tools that he uses to gain knowledge. Where then does this freedom lead? 

The Third Cycle 

Over the years I have watched my teachers do katas.  From time to time I have noticed that they may do little things differently. At first I was puzzled by this, but then I realized that they are not bound by the katas. They are their students and use them for learning. At this level it does not matter if the fist is a quarter of an inch to the left. They are working on a level that most will never understand. While doing the kata they are not simply practicing, they are becoming the kata, or better, making the kata become them. When teaching self-defense they can take any move from any kata, modify it to the situation, and make it work in an instant. So we have moved from, “This is the way we fight, but you cannot fight this way,” to “This is the way we fight!” The sword, weapon or empty hand technique comes alive with their execution of it and seems to have a mind of its own, moving in perfect timing and position to the opponent. 

One more quote from Takuan Soho who said, *“The ignorance and afflictions of the beginning, abiding place and the immovable wisdom that comes later become one. The function of intellect disappears, and one ends in a state of No-Mind-No-Thought. If one reaches the deepest point, arms, legs and body remember what to do, but the mind does not enter into this at all.” 

To this end we should all be striving. This is the essence of martial arts, that the beginning is also the end. To develop this takes deep concentration on each and every move, and thousands of repetitions. The rewards are self-evident. These third cycle students/masters are the future of the martial arts. These are the innovators and the inspiration to us all. 

·The Unfettered Mind, Takuan Soho, William Scott Wilson (you should read this book)

This article is taken from the up coming book The Warrior Manifesto by D. E. Tarver

Click here to visit D. E. Tarver's website.

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