Thank You for the many elaborate posts in this thread
@panamaican! I've bolded out the sentence which I want to elaborate on:
"
The kata sequences that go down that road become the kihon that the student practices."
One of the problems with modern Karate practice is that it's built on the "3 Ks":
Kihon, Kata, Kumite. Taking my native Shotokan as an example:
First, you practice a given move (say, Gedan Barai) 100x times in
Kihon, focusing on "perfection", without much though of application(s).
Then you practice a given
Kata with that move 100x times, again focusing on "perfection", without much though of application(s). Bunkai is maybe sprinkled on top once a month - and still, it's usually a very shallow "block-counter" explanation.
Finally you move on to
Kumite, which is light-contact fist-fencing at a distance and the first one to land wins, so all that "perfect" Kihon and Kata basically go out the window in a glorified game of tag.
(sorry if too harsh)
So in those "3 Ks" each "K" is separate and they barely mix. Instead, what we should be doing is "3 Bs" -
Bunkai, Bunkai, Bunkai!!! Of course, I'm being slightly facetious but going back to that bolded sentence:
"
The kata sequences that go down that road become the kihon that the student practices."
The (short) Kata sequences are what we *
should* be drilling! With properly analyzed application and principles! With a partner! With (adjusted) resistance! This way, instead of dead Kihon + dead Kata + unrelated Kumite you get
practical application, variations and principles trained over and over again until it "
becomes the kihon that the student practices."
And this is not some kind of novelty or modern idea. This is the way Karate
used to be practiced. A teacher would have a small group of dedicated students (some as live-in Uchi-deshi) and they would drill short Kata fragments with a partner, paying attention to details, variations and principles (
Bunkai!). After a student gained proficiency in all Kata sequences (meaning that he could apply them on a resisting opponent) he would demonstrate his skill by performing the full Kata with perfect form, speed and intent.
That is what
Gichin Funakoshi meant when he said that they would spend
3 years on one Kata before moving on to the next one! Not mindlessly performing the full Kata over and over until it looks sharp for tournaments like they do nowadays!
Two related quotes from
Funakoshi himself:
"To practice kata is not to memorize an order. Find the katas that work for you, understand them, digest them & stick with them for life."
“You may train for a long time, but if you merely move your hands and feet and jump up and down like a puppet, learning karate is not very different from learning a dance. You will never have reached the heart of the matter; you will have failed to grasp the quintessence of karate-do.”
All this begs the question - how did we go from Bunkai-based practice to the absurd "3 Ks"? There must have been a number of reasons but I personally put most of the blame on:
1)
Anko Itosu who simplified the Karate curriculum and introduced it into Okinawa's
schools
AND
2)
the Japanese, who introduced Karate into their
military and later, universities.
The practice got turned on its head - instead of a small dedicated few and close teacher-student relations you got a large group of young people with variable skill and interest in the art. Coordinating Bunkai-based drills in this situation is virtually impossible, yet commanding everyone to just repeat a single move (
Kihon) or sequence (
Kata) is easy and straightforward. And remember,
Kumite was only introduced by Gigo and his followers much later - without direct connection to Kata and Bunkai!
In the West, where teaching Karate became a
business first and foremost, the "3 Ks" fit perfectly as a simple method of "teaching" a large group of *
paying customers* without much effort. The
"3 years spent on one Kata" idea was brushed off since "Western consumers" generally don't have that kind of patience and want quick progress, new belts/ranks and new Kata.
Finally, we ended up in a situation where the "secret" Bunkai is only presented (with variable quality) during Kenshusei and Gasshuku programs for black belts (also paid, of course). But since many practitioners essentially stop learning as soon as they receive their Shodan (since it's a mark of "mastery") we get an army of Karate black belts who have no practical Bunkai knowledge or skill whatsoever and whose Karate "
is not very different from learning a dance".