Karate Kata Bunkai
Question -
- Why does a soccer player learn to dribble the ball around cones in practice?
Answer –
- Not so he can enter a dribbling around a cone competition. But to dribble around an opponent and hopeuflly score a goal.
Question -
- Why do we learn Kata?
Answer -
- Not so we can look good at competition or get a new belt but to learn how to fight. Yes Kata is teaching us how to fight!
In Shotokan Karate and any other style of Karate there are mainly two streams of thought floating around regarding Kata Bunkai – I would like to share my thoughts on it with you here and I look forward to hearing your thoughts.
Firstly for those who are new to Karate lets start with an explanation of what Bunkai means. Bunkai literally translates to “analysis” or “disassembly”. So when it is used in relation to Kata it means basically breaking the Kata down into smaller chunks. When it is broken down into smaller chunks, say 2 moves at a time, the idea then is to work out how you could apply those 2 moves to create either a defense/attack or attack/defense technique.
The 2 main trains of thought regarding Bunkai are that they are an essential part of Karate training or that they are a waste of time and effort as Katas were not meant to be applied to real fighting scenarios and were only meant for practice.
My belief is that they are an essential part of training but are rarely taught in Dojos as they don’t tend to be a part of the grading curriculum nor are they popular in competition Karate.
When Karate was an underground Art centuries ago on Okinawa island Katas were used as a way of teaching the basics however as they could not practice free flowing kumite techniques they used Bunkai as a way of applying what they had learnt to real fighting scenarios. Bunkai was the “Secret” weapon of Karateka. The Karateka of the day knew that if they mastered Bunkai they would then be able to defend themselves in the street if they were attacked.
Fast forward to the present day and what do most Dojo and Karateka focus on now, I would say the biggest emphasis is on Competition Karate and on grading. The “Secret” weapon of karate has been forgotten and therefore one of the crucial pillars in the foundations of Karate is being left out.
Imagine a building if you forgot to install a pillar under one corner, it wouldn’t be very strong
I believe it is essential to practice, understand, discover and apply Bunkai in your training. In so doing you open your mind up to the literally hundreds of possibilities that the seemingly basic techniques can be used for. You build confidence in your ability to apply them and to defend yourself.
You build massive strength in your stances and in your techniques by actually applying the techniques with speed, power and precision in a manner that ensures they actually work. What is the point in doing a Kata that just looks good – well there is no point other than looking good.
Every Kata has so much more meaning to it than just doing the movements. As I mentioned in my blog on Taikyoku Shodan (Kihon Kata), there are “Secrets” within each Kata, secrets that aren’t really secrets, you just have to open your mind up to what the Kata is teaching you. In the case of the Bunkai, each Kata is teaching you a number of very powerful fighting techniques, you just have to practice them.
For those who say they prefer Kumite to Kata, I say practice Kata with Bunkai in mind. When you can take down or score on an opponent from a Kata stance just think about how fast and affective you will be when you come to use a similar move in your Kumite. The unfortunate thing is that most people solely focus on Kumite as that is the exciting stuff, I mean they come along to a Dojo to learn to fight instead of this boring Kata stuff, uhm if only more emphasis was put on Bunkai the Kumite fighters would be so much better.
So don’t just go along to class next week and run through the movements because your Sensei said to. Don’t just look in the mirror and think you Kata looks good. While you are doing your Kata have the mindset of actually applying the moves. Ask yourself how affective they would actually be. If you aren’t learning and practicing Kata with this kind of mindset then you are only cheating yourself.
Put in some extra effort, if you aren’t practicing Bunkai in class then grab a partner after class and just take 10 or 15 minutes to start breaking down a Kata and seeing how you can apply the moves. If you do this after every class or even just once a week you will see a vast difference to your Kata and your over all Karate. Who knows if you get really good at it you may even be able to defend yourself some day if someone does actually attack you in the street.
Karate Del
P.S. As always I invite you feel free to contact me with your thoughts or feedback regarding this or any of my Karate Kata Blogs. I am neither a master nor an expert I am merely a student of Karate and I always will be but I enjoy sharing my ideas, learning from others and hearing your views.