Post by Bob Davis on Jul 27, 2011 10:26:20 GMT
Every few years I try to get this off the ground and as I've never been one to let go of a half baked idea I thought I'd give it another go.
For the sake of laziness I've just cut & paste from another forum the last time I posted it, they did at least pick up on the idea (although later, with some small changes, pitched it as their own ) and try and get it off the ground but made the classic mistake of trying to do it by committee so it's gone nowhere. Just thought I'd see if anyone here was interested.
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A slight diversification but as the thread has opened the opportunity
It has long been a project that I've been interested in pursuing. Although people tend to look down on self devised non traditional katas I am sure that there are a number of people out there who have developed their own solo practice kata with specific intent and know, in their own mind, exactly what the application or principal they visualising during their practice of it, (I'm not talking about threading together a set of standard Kihon in a new order of block/counter/turn but a practice drill with some very specific and realistic scenarios in mind) . I believe it would be an interesting exercise if someone were to teach such a kata to a 3rd party but without the explanation who would then practice that kata until fluent and then teach it on to another and so on, with each new generation devising their own application set for that kata and recording it.
I think it would be interesting to see how long it would take for the kata to become stylised to be more performance friendly and ceased to look like the original as people changed it slightly to make it more comfortable/viable for the applications they have in mind and how many (or few) generations of teaching it would take before virtually all similarity to the original were lost.
We can't "know" the original intent of our traditional kata with any certainty given the multiple variations, changes and stylisations that have (and still are) taking place all the time but at least by pursuing this exercise we can get some idea of the possibility of even coming close. I'm not saying this project has any particular practical value but I just personally think it would be an interesting exercise and may provide some interesting insights in to karate development in an age where we have the ability to record every stage and still have access to the source.
Is there anybody else out there with sufficient interest, suitable practice material and access to the technology to disseminate it?Bob Davis
"the Racing Anaconda"
For the sake of laziness I've just cut & paste from another forum the last time I posted it, they did at least pick up on the idea (although later, with some small changes, pitched it as their own ) and try and get it off the ground but made the classic mistake of trying to do it by committee so it's gone nowhere. Just thought I'd see if anyone here was interested.
****************************************************
A slight diversification but as the thread has opened the opportunity
It has long been a project that I've been interested in pursuing. Although people tend to look down on self devised non traditional katas I am sure that there are a number of people out there who have developed their own solo practice kata with specific intent and know, in their own mind, exactly what the application or principal they visualising during their practice of it, (I'm not talking about threading together a set of standard Kihon in a new order of block/counter/turn but a practice drill with some very specific and realistic scenarios in mind) . I believe it would be an interesting exercise if someone were to teach such a kata to a 3rd party but without the explanation who would then practice that kata until fluent and then teach it on to another and so on, with each new generation devising their own application set for that kata and recording it.
I think it would be interesting to see how long it would take for the kata to become stylised to be more performance friendly and ceased to look like the original as people changed it slightly to make it more comfortable/viable for the applications they have in mind and how many (or few) generations of teaching it would take before virtually all similarity to the original were lost.
We can't "know" the original intent of our traditional kata with any certainty given the multiple variations, changes and stylisations that have (and still are) taking place all the time but at least by pursuing this exercise we can get some idea of the possibility of even coming close. I'm not saying this project has any particular practical value but I just personally think it would be an interesting exercise and may provide some interesting insights in to karate development in an age where we have the ability to record every stage and still have access to the source.
Is there anybody else out there with sufficient interest, suitable practice material and access to the technology to disseminate it?Bob Davis
"the Racing Anaconda"