Karate Kids !

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My apologies if some of this has been said, I didn't read all 739 replies, but I did see some good replies. First, good topic, I've been struggling with this a bit lately. I have kids at my school and have been considering setting an age limit for grappling (mma school). The younger kids especially just don't seem to get it. They love doing "mat work" but don't really comprehend the grappling. I've been doing breakfalls, shoulder rolls, regular rollls (forward, backward) shrimping, wrist escapes and maybe some basic takedowns (outside reaps, etc.), sprawls and that type stuff with them and they seem to enjoy it and get some confidence out of it. Alot of them can't do a backward roll when they join class. I also think there is a huge difference between learning martial arts and self-defense. Self-defense employs more lethal (for lack of a better word) techniques. In my opinion, the best thing to do for the younger kids is develop self confidence. The kata issue: I believe katas are good to a point. For self defense: no. I teach katas up to green belt (about a year) for this reason; I equate it to this, (Bruce Lee or someone may have said something similar to this) katas are like the alphabet, you learn the alphabet to be able to form words and sentences, once you can form sentences, you don't directly use the alphabet. I teach katas to instill discipline, technique, and to imprint the basic or foundation techniques into the student early on and then phase the katas out. At any rate, entering kids into the mix is challenging, I hope someone on the board can come up with the answer. I don't have it, but continue to try to find something close.

[wardancer]

Hi Fullcircle,
My point is that Kata is only part of Karate.
The Kyokushin Karate team have defeated K1 (mostly Thai Box stylist) fair and square at the K1 Challenge.
They obviously do not only rely on Katas.
Personally, I do not understand why people are so 'hanged-up'/upset about Kata.
Afterall, they are only a form of shadow boxing forms praticed by Karatekas.
No boxers would be sucessfull in the ring by practicing only shadow boxing, same would apply to Karate and katas.
By experience, I learned the Katas that seems useful for my height, body weight and quickly move on to focus on karate Full Contact a la Kyokushin/Ashihara.
I left all the Kata stuff to the MA nerds and sofa experts to do the own research.
I mean I had no difficulty learning and practicing Katas: it only took the instructor to demonstrate once or twice and that was it.
Some people simply do have a good body and hand coordination and that make kata learning difficult but if they have difficulties leraning basics movements, they would struggle learning the rest or any MA!

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I'm not arguing by any means, I have Kyokushin background as well, but I'm not a fan of kata, I do think they help to teach the basics, coordination, etc., which is why I teach them for a short period of time.

[Toudiyama[NL]]

I'm not arguing by any means, I have Kyokushin background as well, but I'm not a fan of kata, I do think they help to teach the basics, coordination, etc., which is why I teach them for a short period of time.

which was my point at the beginning of the thread,use it at the beginning and work from there

BTW form it self aren't that wrong as long as they follow the application like in Ashihara ( and probably Seido too) their Kata are like shadowboxing using fixed combos

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then you are an extremely intelligent person