It’s been years since I’ve done a MA where Kata was involved. I feel like for fighting or sparring, they’re pretty much useless as a teaching tool. In the modern McDojo world, I see them as markers of rank -i.e. at belt x you are to know form y, do it well, then as part of your test for the next belt, you perform your kata.
I feel like the essential aspect of kata doesn’t even require a martial art. Someone made reference to a ‘tango kata’ as a joke early on in the thread, but I think that’s apt: it’s choreography that’s ultimately judged by it’s aesthetic, not martial (or athletic) value.
[quote]666Rich wrote:
First and foremost I think proper stance and posture must be done at all times, whether its pad drills, sparring, kata etc. Kata allows one to focus intently on that so that it is more of a second nature when doing other activities.
[/quote]
I agree, but proper posture and “stance” (don’t like that word because it implies a static position) are constantly adjusting, changing things and can’t really be learned by performing actions into air. At least when hitting pads/bags you get some feedback as to whether you were in a proper position when the strike(s) landed.
You are also developing accuracy (must “dissect” the target through it’s center), a sense of distance (too close and you’ll get jammed up, too far away and you’ll either miss or not be able to follow through correctly), and possibly timing (depending on the drill or bag being used). You don’t get any of those things while performing kata.
Adding visualization will definitely make kata/shadowboxing more realistic, but ask yourself if the attacks that you are defending against in kata are realistic. Most kata that I have ever practiced (which admittedly isn’t as many as some of the other posters here) have you fighting multiple attackers and usually finishing each of them with a single counter attack (or maybe as many as 3-4).
They never involve your counters not working, or what happens if you don’t finish the attacker in those movements and they keep coming after you. Or if you get hit, and wind up on the ground in some crazy position smashed between the opponent and a parked car while the opponent continues to rain down strikes at you.
Most of the defenses are also based on you having sufficient distance/time to be able to pull off precision (movements requiring exact timing and line recognition) defenses, which if you’re ever been in or witnessed real fights you’ll know is generally not the case.
[quote]
As we all know, it doesnt matter what you can do, it matters what you can make reaction in an instant, ie not thinking. Visualization during these two types of excercises allows their full potential to be realized. Not to say that it shouldnt be combined with other aspects however. To me, a properly performed kata involves envisioning my opponnent , what is really occuring behind each move.
Granted, I am still not the biggest fan of it and wont be until im older, and feel that many people over emphasize and over analyze it, but my points are what i feel it is worth. I do not think it is something that should be dismissed lightly.[/quote]
I think that the original concept behind it (which was most likely similar to shadowboxing/shadowfighting) is a useful one. But at this point it’s become far too standardized and many of the katas out there have failed to evolve to address the types of attacks that one would likely face in real combat.
[quote]666Rich wrote:
First and foremost I think proper stance and posture must be done at all times, whether its pad drills, sparring, kata etc. Kata allows one to focus intently on that so that it is more of a second nature when doing other activities.
[/quote]
I agree, but proper posture and “stance” (don’t like that word because it implies a static position) are constantly adjusting, changing things and can’t really be learned by performing actions into air. At least when hitting pads/bags you get some feedback as to whether you were in a proper position when the strike(s) landed.
You are also developing accuracy (must “dissect” the target through it’s center), a sense of distance (too close and you’ll get jammed up, too far away and you’ll either miss or not be able to follow through correctly), and possibly timing (depending on the drill or bag being used). You don’t get any of those things while performing kata. [/quote]
I don’t mean to be a dick but you really don’t seem to know much at all about kata. In kata you have movement into a stance, the stance with all that occurs the moment you are in that stance and then the movement out of that stance into the next one. While you are doing that there is also the what the upper body is doing. To coordinate those movements properly requires timing.
So what you are learning is not static. You aren’t going to be bouncing around on your toes like Mohammad Ali but that is okay because a real fight isn’t going to be like boxing. In a real fight you aren’t going to have a referee to allow you to cleanly break apart anytime there is a clinch. In a real fight you can get clinched just like they do in mma.
Kata is not just external it is also an internal form of training. So an important thing that you do in kata is focus on your Dan Tien or center. For those of you who don’t know what Dan Tien is, it is a point about three inches below you belly button. In the oriental schools they say this is where your chi comes from. A more western way of explaining Dan Tien is it is your center of gravity. In order to take someone down you have to take control of their center away from them.
Some people naturally have a good sense of their center and the ability to control it so other people can find it. ie BJ Penn, opponents can have one of his legs firmly gripped up but he’ll hop around forever on the other one and not get took down. Internal training where you learn to find your center and then control it is how people who don’t naturally have that ability develop it and people who are naturals get phenomenal at it.
Focus pads are a great training aid. If you have a partner available to hold them that is. Kata is another way of training and developing oneself that doesn’t require anyone else to help you. It is also a great place to look for ideas to spark your imagination, so you don’t have to have a coach to show you every damn thing you know because you are completely reliant upon him.
Practicing kata you do develop a sense of distance and body positioning. I see some of the others thread don’t know this either but the size of your opponent in a kata is the same size as you. Just like you are looking in a mirror. So if you throw a kick that is supposed to go to the groin it will end directly in front of your groin. If it is a punch to the nose your fist will go where your nose is. You develop self awareness from this.
Adding visualization will definitely make kata/shadowboxing more realistic, but ask yourself if the attacks that you are defending against in kata are realistic. Most kata that I have ever practiced (which admittedly isn’t as many as some of the other posters here) have you fighting multiple attackers and usually finishing each of them with a single counter attack (or maybe as many as 3-4).
They never involve your counters not working, or what happens if you don’t finish the attacker in those movements and they keep coming after you. Or if you get hit, and wind up on the ground in some crazy position smashed between the opponent and a parked car while the opponent continues to rain down strikes at you.
Most of the defenses are also based on you having sufficient distance/time to be able to pull off precision (movements requiring exact timing and line recognition) defenses, which if you’re ever been in or witnessed real fights you’ll know is generally not the case. [/quote]
Earlier you said that you studied Shorin Ryu. If you didn’t make it to black belt then it isn’t just the number of kata that you know that is less but also the complexity. Pinans were meant to teach kids in school, they are really simplified, I feel sorry for you if that is all you learned. The first kata white belts learn in Isshinryu is Seisan or Sanchin. Seisan is a Shorin Ryu kata that is taught to black belts. All the Isshinryu kata are black belt level kata. Just what I know about seisan disproves what you wrote here.
In our kata we have multiple strikes, we will strike, get trapped and have to counter, we will joint lock and strike. A lot of moves in seisan are responses to getting grappled by an opponent who didn’t go down after you threw multiple strikes. There even is a move that is done twice but changes the third time because the opponent is on top of you.
Once you have the kata down you can cut and paste things together to make something else. You can even combine moves from other kata. Sometimes the explanation that you will get for a move in a kata won’t be realistic or make much sense, but the does not necessarily mean the move is bad or useless you may just have a bad explanation. If you go to a different teacher or even another system you may get another explanation for that same move that makes perfect sense. I know because this has happened for me.
You are wrong to belittle developing precision with your technique there is nothing wrong with that. It is the difference between being a wild out of control brawler who just swings until someone goes out like Forrest griffin and someone who is skillful and can take you out at will like Anderson Silva.
The most perfectly timed and executed kick I ever delivered in my life, I executed in the worst fight of my life. After it was all settled it didn’t seem any worse than a promotion night at the dojo. If you spend a lot of time sparring hard enough that you could get hurt it can prepare you to handle the real thing without losing your head.
[quote]
As we all know, it doesnt matter what you can do, it matters what you can make reaction in an instant, ie not thinking. Visualization during these two types of excercises allows their full potential to be realized. Not to say that it shouldnt be combined with other aspects however. To me, a properly performed kata involves envisioning my opponnent , what is really occuring behind each move.
Granted, I am still not the biggest fan of it and wont be until im older, and feel that many people over emphasize and over analyze it, but my points are what i feel it is worth. I do not think it is something that should be dismissed lightly.[/quote]
I think that the original concept behind it (which was most likely similar to shadowboxing/shadowfighting) is a useful one. But at this point it’s become far too standardized and many of the katas out there have failed to evolve to address the types of attacks that one would likely face in real combat. [/quote]
The way the old traditional katas developed is they were based upon the fighting style of someone who was good, so they incorporated some of his favorite or signature moves into a form. Some forms were an entire fighting style before they got incorporated into a formal system.
They were also a way to teach an art that was illegal and had to be taught secretly. If you taught someone a form one night they could go off work on it for a while then you could get together with them and teach them a bit more.
Another thing that you need to realize is that new arts like mixed martial arts aren’t s new and novel as many would have us believe. A lot of Asian cultures had traditional wrestling systems that were as common to peoples of that culture as baseball or basketball are to us. In Okinawa they had Tegumi, which is also known as Okinawan Sumo. The Okinawan masters are practiced Tegumi but they didn’t teach it as part of their karate because it was something everyone already knew like Americans all know baseball.
Up until the middle of the 19th century Jiu Jitsu had striking as part of the art. But then the striking aspect fell out of favor because of a shift in tastes. Some of Gichin Funakoshi first Japanese Karate students were Jiu Jitsu practitioners.
There is not as much evolving that needs to happen to these arts as you think there is.
[quote]Sifu wrote:
I don’t mean to be a dick but you really don’t seem to know much at all about kata. In kata you have movement into a stance, the stance with all that occurs the moment you are in that stance and then the movement out of that stance into the next one. While you are doing that there is also the what the upper body is doing. To coordinate those movements properly requires timing.
So what you are learning is not static. You aren’t going to be bouncing around on your toes like Mohammad Ali but that is okay because a real fight isn’t going to be like boxing. In a real fight you aren’t going to have a referee to allow you to cleanly break apart anytime there is a clinch. In a real fight you can get clinched just like they do in mma.
[/quote]
Perhaps I wasn’t clear in what I meant by “static”. What I meant was that you can’t really learn proper positioning (whether it be for delivering a strike, absorbing a tackle, etc…) by just practicing in the air because the force that you are encountering is constantly changing and thus the proper position also changes constantly. That’s why I said in an earlier post that actually hitting a target/bag/opponent 100 times will teach you more about proper positioning, proper timing and force generation than practicing 1,000 punches into thin air. Just like swimming a couple laps in a pool will teach you more about swimming than practicing swimming strokes on land until you’re blue in the face.
I realize that there are movements between techniques/positions/stances within kata. That’s not what I was talking about though.
Spiritual benefits are unprovable and debatable, but, if someone honestly feels like they gain positive spiritual benefits from performing kata, I’d say that it could be a beneficial practice for that person in that regard.
As far as the center of gravity stuff, sure it can help with that to an extent. But getting in touch with your center of gravity while performing movements into thin air is very different from understanding and manipulating it while someone else is trying to manipulate it or while you are encountering substantial external force. You can’t really learn the second application by just practicing the first.
Bags (heavy, double end, “BOB”, etc…) can be a good option if you don’t have someone to hold focus mitts for you. They at least give you an actual physical target to strike (or throw/takedown if you’re using a tackling dummy for example), which can still give you an understanding of distance and timing.
I’m well aware of where strikes are supposed to land depending on where they are thrown. I actually kind of reject the notion that your opponent should always be the same size as you though. That only serves to limit you and fails to prepare you in the case that you encounter someone who isn’t your mirror image. That’s not at all the same thing as developing actual distance recognition/manipulation, proper kinetic linkage, or proper body positioning for generating/absorbing force though.
I actually did learn some of the black belt katas from a friend who was a black belt in Shorin Ryu, but you’re probably right that I didn’t learn as many or as complex of kata as yourself. Looking back now, after having practiced other (IMO more realistic) martial arts, I’d have to say that very little of what I learned in any of the katas from Shorin Ryu would be practical or have much chance of working against an athletic, motivated, tough opponent. Let alone someone with those attributes who was also trained (say a boxer or wrestler) or even worse yet armed.
Well that’s good. How often do you actually have skilled grapplers (wrestlers, judoka, Thai Boxers) seriously try to grapple you and test out those movements though? Lots of techniques seem like they would work well in theory, but when you actually pressure test them, they don’t hold up. The only way you actually know is to test them. Many TMA’s fail to take this step.
And maybe some of them do work, I’m not saying that there aren’t any techniques from traditional Karate systems that can’t work given the right context and enough realistic practice.
Well again, if we’re talking about just freestyle “shadowfighting”, then I think that would have more benefit than practicing choreographed “dead” sequences of movements. Still not the most beneficial method of training IMO, but definitely not useless.
??? When did I ever say that someone shouldn’t develop precision in their techniques? I am all for developing precision in one’s techniques. I just don’t think that kata is the best method of doing so.
Absolutely, but that isn’t something that can be developed by just practicing kata, nor does it really have anything whatsoever to do with practicing kata.
Which is fine. The only problem that I see is that in many cases the types of attacks/scenarios that were being encountered were very different from what someone would likely face today. Lots of TKD techniques were developed for fighting people on horseback, not all that common these days (at least not in the states). Many Gong Fu systems were specifically developed to defeat other opposing Gong Fu systems. According to some of the more accomplished guys who I’ve trained with, many of the blocks in traditional systems were originally designed with traditional weapons in mind. Aikido for example is basically a sword art and would take an exceptional practitioner to be effective against a skilled contemporary fighter (say boxer, wrestler, MMA fighter, etc…).
My point is that the world as a whole (and attackers in general) has changed and with it the types of attacks/situations that one is likely to encounter as well. Why would you want to continue practicing outdated movements? Other people (and whole arts) probably also have good movements that are effective and more applicable to today’s world.
That’s what I see as the difference between “traditional” and “progressive” martial arts systems.
“Traditional” systems for whatever reason believe that their art’s founder was the only one who had any good ideas or fighting moves and that they must adhere to said individual’s example.
“Progressive” systems recognize that fighters of the past had some good ideas, but also realize that others also had/have some good ideas and so they seek to learn and incorporate everything that they can from as many sources as they can. If a training methodology doesn’t hold up to testing, or doesn’t show a marked benefit, they’ll discard it. If it does hold up and is shown to be beneficial, they’ll adopt it. They seek to find the most effective methods available, regardless of the source, and anything that is less effective either gets discarded, or modified to become more effective.
This is basically the original idea behind Bruce Lee’s JKD, many contemporary arts (judo, wrestling, boxing, etc…) and probably even many TMA’s. In many cases though, someone applies a “traditional” mindset to an art and decides that it cannot change (i.e. many boxing coaches being resistant to their fighters training with modern strength and conditioning methods) and must be done as it was by the founder/in the past.
More than likely, just about every system in existence today was at one time a “progressive” system actually. Like you said, they took things from other available systems and kept what they felt worked, added in things from other sources which they felt was missing, and got rid of things that they didn’t feel worked. It’s only later on down the road when people start clinging to “traditional” mindsets and become resistant to change/progress.
Valid point. But that certainly isn’t the case nowadays.
Actually “MMA” goes back even further than that to ancient Greece, and possibly even Sumeria. But like I said above, most Asian arts probably started out being a lot more “progressive” and have only later become more “traditional” in nature.
Absolutely.
[quote]
There is not as much evolving that needs to happen to these arts as you think there is. [/quote]
This is where we disagree. There is much evolving that has not happened to many TMA’s due to the “traditional” mindset which permeates many practitioners’ training and views on MA’s. Many of them resist changing/evolving their arts or training methods to reflect the changing world around them or the improvements which other arts have made in various aspects of interpersonal combat purely for tradition’s sake.
Sento I would like to quote and reply to your last post. But it is getting late and I would not really be able to do it justice. I’ll just make these quick points.
First thing is I would never suggest that most people should just do kata and nothing else. But there are some those who are old or have some health issues that limit how much of a beating they can take. Also some otherwise great students I have known just don’t the head for doing kata. So it’s not for everybody. What I do say is it is A way to train, not the ONLY way.
Next is human beings are what is known as an aerobic life form. We live in air. The “hitting air” dogma that Bruce Lee started that is mindlessly repeated by kids who are parroting his dogma trying to sound like they know what they are talking about but they never thought about they are saying. It is actually the antithesis of what Lee wanted. Lee wanted JKD practitioners to be thinking and questioning. Of course you can’t have an effective swimming practice standing outside the pool. But you also couldn’t have an effective sparring session standing in the deep end of the pool breathing through snorkels. It made a point when Lee said it but now it has just become a lifeless, blind, dogma, that people who haven’t done the mental work just throw out there. .
As Lee said “the only one hard and fast rule in martial arts is there are no hard and fast rules”. “For every rule there is an exception and for that exception there is a rule”. Here is the exception to the “hitting air” dogma. Every punch or kick whether it is thrown in a kata, at a mitt, heavy bag, sparring partner or perpetrator in a life or death fight begins by “hitting air”. When I throw a punch that I want to hurt someone with it begins down at my feet and I bring the energy up through my body. That whole bio-mechanical neuromuscular process of sending a limb zinging on it’s way through the air towards a target doesn’t change. Now there are some wonderful things that happen when it hits, that I have written about before, so you do also need that component in your training to maximize your potential. But there are still a lot of things that you can practice without hitting something.
[quote]Sifu wrote:
Sento I would like to quote and reply to your last post. But it is getting late and I would not really be able to do it justice. I’ll just make these quick points.
First thing is I would never suggest that most people should just do kata and nothing else. But there are some those who are old or have some health issues that limit how much of a beating they can take. Also some otherwise great students I have known just don’t the head for doing kata. So it’s not for everybody. What I do say is it is A way to train, not the ONLY way.
[/quote]
Fair enough. I’ll agree to that.
That might be one of the most cockamamie arguments for performing kata that I have ever heard.
So, you’re arguing that since we breath air, that we should practice punching and kicking air? And who the heck said anything about practicing fighting techniques in the deep end of a pool breathing through a snorkel? Do you even understand why that was a valid point against kata? I do and I’m not just parroting it because Bruce said it.
I’m sorry but that’s a pretty bad argument. Doing a “dive roll” and “diving into a pool” both also begin by “diving through air”, but require specific training for each to develop each skill. You cannot learn how to correctly hit solid objects (which is what you will be hitting, at least attempting to hit, in a fight) by hitting air. You cannot learn to manipulate joints, effectively close/manipulate distance, unbalance, defend/avoid incoming attacks, or any of the other combative skill sets by practicing them into thin air. You MUST actually learn them with a partner/opponent.
But the kinetic chain does change depending on whether you are actually hitting a solid object or hitting nothing. You cannot throw a full force punch or kick and hit nothing without damaging your joints (at least not straight line strikes). You cannot learn how to control your level of “penetration” through the target by hitting only air. There IS a difference and that’s why if you want to learn to hit solid objects you NEED to learn by actually hitting solid objects. That’s why boxers/Thai boxers/MMA fighters/military personnel/etc… hit mitts and bags and don’t just practice hitting air. If all you needed to do was to hit air, then they wouldn’t do this.
Once the skill is already down I think that some solo practice where you are just “shadowfighting” can be beneficial, but it cannot be where you seek to actually learn the skill of striking.
Regarding sifu’s post saying that black belt forms in his art are much more complex and more applicable to self defense. I have noticed that in my art as well. The color belt forms seem to be a mere excercise whereas the black belt forms have really caused me to see the nuances of what is going on.
Just to clarify, taekwondo was not for kicking people off horses. It is a modern martial art that began after ww2. It integrated the old kwans (tang soo do, soo bak, influences of shotokan) and taekyon. Taekyon is a very acrobatic martial art that perhaps causes people to believe in the kicking people off horses mantra. Princepals of modern physics were incorporated into the movements (and are stil revised today) to make for efficient utilization of energy with the maximum applied force. I dont want to get into a physics debate however. Tang soo do, korean krotty, and many “taekwondo” schools are NOT TAEKWONDO. If it is not ITF or WTF (and perhaps AIMMA under grandmaster Cho) it is NOT taekwondo. Sorry to sound like a dick, but i dislike the rampant uninformed generalizations on the internet about my martial art/sport.
[quote]666Rich wrote:
Regarding sifu’s post saying that black belt forms in his art are much more complex and more applicable to self defense. I have noticed that in my art as well. The color belt forms seem to be a mere excercise whereas the black belt forms have really caused me to see the nuances of what is going on.
[/quote]
Interesting.
Conversely, one of my instructors told us that when he was doing Wing Chun he learned and quickly mastered the earlier forms of the art and their fighting applications and quickly surpassed his fellow students. He sought out one of the leading WC teachers in the world in hopes that he would teach him the final form of WC (Biu Jee). Even after decimating the instructor’s top students in sticky hands, the instructor refused to teach him the form (on account of him not being Chinese). Frustrated he returned to his hotel room.
To his surprise he soon had a knock on his door and opened it to find the instructor’s students standing there. He may not have convinced the instructor to teach him the form, but he had earned the respect of his students, who agreed to teach him Biu Jee. They spent all night teaching him the form and then left to go to sleep.
Enamored with his new found knowledge he began to practice the form on his own, attempting to master it (as he had quickly done with the earlier forms). However, he quickly started to see problems within the form. “Wait, there is no way that this would work in a real fight” he thought on several occasions while performing the form.
It was at that point that he had the revelation that he had already learned all of the really effective techniques in the system in the earlier forms. The last form on the other hand seemed to have been made purposely overcomplicated in an attempt to keep the student forever occupied hoping to one day master it and “master” the system.
Complex doesn’t necessarily mean more effective. But, all I was really trying to illustrate with this story is that I guess not all systems save their more effective techniques for their higher ranks. Some apparently are the other way around.
[quote]
Just to clarify, taekwondo was not for kicking people off horses. It is a modern martial art that began after ww2. It integrated the old kwans (tang soo do, soo bak, influences of shotokan) and taekyon. Taekyon is a very acrobatic martial art that perhaps causes people to believe in the kicking people off horses mantra. Princepals of modern physics were incorporated into the movements (and are stil revised today) to make for efficient utilization of energy with the maximum applied force. I dont want to get into a physics debate however. Tang soo do, korean krotty, and many “taekwondo” schools are NOT TAEKWONDO. If it is not ITF or WTF (and perhaps AIMMA under grandmaster Cho) it is NOT taekwondo. Sorry to sound like a dick, but i dislike the rampant uninformed generalizations on the internet about my martial art/sport.[/quote]
I stand corrected then. Not sure where I first heard the whole “kicking people off horses” thing (maybe Vunak?), but either way throwing kicks above waist level is a pretty high risk maneuver in a real fight (unless it was a very rare situation, like you were trying to jump flying side kick someone off a horse).
One of the guys who I train with every once in a while is a 4th degree black belt in TKD and even at an older age has fantastic flexibility and can kick me in the head (or over it if he feels like it) with no problem whatsoever. Yet, he has long since realized the impracticality of kicking above waist level in real fights. Heck, Bill Wallace (probably the most effective high kicker of the 20th century) has noted that headkicks accounted for only a small number of his KO victories.
Wing chun, and most chinese arts as far as forms/kata go, i think are vastly different from taekwondo/ karate in nature. I did some sticky hands drills and loved them.
I will agree on the impracality of head kicks in a street fight. I do feel that having great highkicks can make your low kicks all the more devastating.
Many of modern tkd body kicks are quite low committal and fast. Speed is the name of the game. If you get a chance to work out with a good olympic style practitioner, check out how fast and devestating the dwi chagi, back kick, is.
Quickly rechambering, then returning to a proper fighting stance after kicking is critical to success in olympic taekwondo.
[quote]666Rich wrote:
Wing chun, and most chinese arts as far as forms/kata go, i think are vastly different from taekwondo/ karate in nature. I did some sticky hands drills and loved them.
[/quote]
Very possibly true.
Also true.
[quote]
Many of modern tkd body kicks are quite low committal and fast. Speed is the name of the game. If you get a chance to work out with a good olympic style practitioner, check out how fast and devestating the dwi chagi, back kick, is.
Quickly rechambering, then returning to a proper fighting stance after kicking is critical to success in olympic taekwondo. [/quote]
Do you mean the jumping back kick, or standing back kick (I’m not familiar with the Korean terms for each)?
The Olympic TKD fighters are indeed very fast, especially with their kicks, but things change very much so when you are starting from a “conversational” range, add in rushes, tackles and grappling. I’m not saying that some of the olympic guys couldn’t still handle themselves in a real situation. But like I said, that has more to do with their attributes (they’re obviously exceptional athletes if they’re competing for medals in the olympics) and decades of practicing and mastering their skills then it does with the fact that they’re doing TKD rather than say Muay Thai.
[quote]admbaum wrote:
Kata’s, I think, are like shadow boxing. Its all about developing muscle memory. Most people think they can throw a jab, but when the actually do it they are completely off and will probably never actually land one. Shadow boxing helps develop your muscle memory similar to kata’s. I trained a little karate at a McDojo many years ago and didnt gain much from it. [/quote]
If you are comparing kata in karate to shadow boxing in boxing you are making a big mistake in shadow boxing you are the one who gets to decide in which situation you are so can act accordingly but in a kata the situation is already set up.A situation which you might never find yourself in and hence doing kata doesn’t really help you in street fight or in the ring.