Kata and Strategy

 

When I learned my Isshinryu, things like kata strategy were not often discussed. Much more emphasis was placed on acquiring good technique, And as I have discovered that alone takes quite a few years.

 

Of course I have read many times strategy contained within the kata were the most important thing.

 

To me that did not resonate so much. And the more I read such things, the less useful those ideas were to me.

 

Them as time passed I trained with a great many others, some more deeply that the rest. Of course I was not their student, but never In any of those school classes did I ever hear anyone discuss kata, of other forms, by way of their strategy.

 

The further I went what I found was that any technique could be inserted appropriately into any attack and end that attack.

 

Which I suppose could be seen as a strategy itself.

 

Which made the technique of more value.

 

Not to replace the form, kata in the least.

 

Rather they go hand in hand, the kata more as a mechanism to refine the energies a technique could use.

And kata could be used in a state of movement, with different timings, breath patterns etc. to continue to advance capability to higher levels of execution. A thing alive.

 

Perhaps best expressed,

 

in the end there need only be one.