Kata vs. Shadow Boxing

[Thai Bri]

Yes. Another tool in the tool box, albeit a crap one.

[DRG]

Yeah but most people with crap katas could kick your ass Britany!

[Thai Bri]

I bet you couldn't, ya girlie.

[DRG]

Oh I know I could Britany!

[sherwinc]

Kata FAQ for you....

Kata is very dangerous when applied in sparring cause kata is your blueprint in fighting. In KUNGFU kata is full of hidden secrets fighting moves which is unexplainable if you see and unbreakable code in other martial arts style to see the kata (setpatterns of kungfu).

Note: the kata of karate is not like same of kata of kungfu

[William Eriepa]

Sometimes you have to use the tools available at the time, a good kata/form is just another tool in the toolbox.

Why bang rocks to make the spark, while a lighter is much more efficient?

You do Kata in any fight, either in the ring or the street, you lose, plainly put.

Shadowboxing is pretty much sparring an imaginary opponent. It is spontaneous, whereby I mean your movements and your opponents movements are only limited to your own spontaneity.

Kata is fixed movements in fixed directions, against an opponent(s) that moves in fixed movements and directions.

Combinations are similar to Kata whereas they are techniques linked together. In boxing for example a popular combination is jab, hook, uppercut. In Karate a kata might go punch, kick, turn, chop, block, punch, jump, turn, throw, etc. The difference is that combinations can be offloaded in a single effort (front kick, hook, uppercut), and are less restrictive by which I mean your linked techniques arent limited to the fixed step by step situations that are presented in Kata. In combinations you are learning the moves you can put into play, once the singular situation calls for it, unlike Kata which is the opposite, where you are learning moves that require the specific set of situations, in a step by step manner.

Shadowboxing is pretty much stringing together combinations, in spontaneous stiuations (just like a real fight), which is pretty much what real sparring is anyway, except you have to interpret the spontaneity instead of creating it.

Kata is not an efficient way to train to fight. Shawdowboxing aligns the neuromuscular system much better than Kata does as well.

Keep the best tool, throw away the toolbox.

[MuayThaiFighter]

Why bang rocks to make the spark, while a lighter is much more efficient?

You do Kata in any fight, either in the ring or the street, you lose, plainly put.

Shadowboxing is pretty much sparring an imaginary opponent. It is spontaneous, whereby I mean your movements and your opponents movements are only limited to your own spontaneity.

Kata is fixed movements in fixed directions, against an opponent(s) that moves in fixed movements and directions.

Combinations are similar to Kata whereas they are techniques linked together. In boxing for example a popular combination is jab, hook, uppercut. In Karate a kata might go punch, kick, turn, chop, block, punch, jump, turn, throw, etc. The difference is that combinations can be offloaded in a single effort (front kick, hook, uppercut), and are less restrictive by which I mean your linked techniques arent limited to the fixed step by step situations that are presented in Kata. In combinations you are learning the moves you can put into play, once the singular situation calls for it, unlike Kata which is the opposite, where you are learning moves that require the specific set of situations, in a step by step manner.

Shadowboxing is pretty much stringing together combinations, in spontaneous stiuations (just like a real fight), which is pretty much what real sparring is anyway, except you have to interpret the spontaneity instead of creating it.

Kata is not an efficient way to train to fight. Shawdowboxing aligns the neuromuscular system much better than Kata does as well.

Keep the best tool, throw away the toolbox.

Exactly. I agree.

[Aka Kaze]

Wrong!

The Truth is, Kata and shadow boxing are two totally different exercises. Kata teaches certain SPECIFIC techniques, while shadow boxing lets you incorporate those techniques into your muscle memory. By practicing these combinations learned in kata in shadow boxing, you learn to apply these techniques spontaneously. This doesn't mean that you execute these combinations exactly as in the kata. It means that you learn to execute techniques similar to what you have learned from the kata. Also, the idea in kata is that you are not 'fighting' in a sense. When you turn in a kata, it doesn't mean that you do a technique to one person, then turn and to a technique to someone else. It just means that the guys who created the katas got tired of moving in the same dirrection while practicing these techniques. Some times in kata, you will see a technique done twice (e.g., to the left and then to the right.), but this is only to get practice doing the technique on both sides, since it's not as good to just use one side in a real fight, you should be able to execute techniques on both sides.

[huey]

katas not for fighting? is that how "karate" katas are? well then i am real thankful i am taking kung fu because all of ours are about fights. we do a technique on one person and then turn to do another tech. on another person, and so on until we are through.
the things used in katas can be broken down and used in real situations. we have nothing but applicable material in our katas.

[Aka Kaze]

MuayThaiFighter, just because kata is prearranged movements, doesn't mean that it wont teach you anything. I'll give you an example. The Tae Kwon Do form, Chil Jang. There is a part to this form where you are in a forward stance. You execute a lead hand knife hand strike. You turn your hand over and crescent kick the palm of your hand with your rear leg. It is an outside to inside crescent kick. The idea here is that you have blocked someone's arm and you have grabed their sleeve or wrist. Then you execute a crescent kick to some part of their body. Because you grabbed their wrist, they can't block it effectively. I've practiced this technique in my shadow boxing sessions a lot and now I frequently use this technique, or techniques that are similar in sparring. All the time, I land kicks on people this way. So are you going to tell me that this won't work on the street? Also, this doesn't mean that I would do the technique EXACTLY the same way every time. It's a basic application that can teach a student how to land a kick. If I wanted to, I could change the implication of the technique and throw a roundhouse kick, or a front kick, side kick, whatever. When you do shadowboxing, you have basic kind of combinations that you do right? Like maybe, jab, hook, uppercut, stuff like that, right? Well its the same for the kata applications that I do.

[Aka Kaze]

Huey, I sent you an email about this. It'll be from nick_dorsey.

[SLK.fidget]

i dunno if anybody has already said this, i didnt read through all the posts but, i think the problem with this arguement is that people are not fully understanding where everybody is coming from, which often happens when discussions happen online. having taken both tma like karate and kung fu which have a lot of forms and mma like boxing, and jkd, and kickboxing i can say that both have their purposes in fighting but the dont help u with the same thing and here we go with the basic break down

kata- it helps indirectly with fighting, and hits different areas needed for fighting, like muscle stamina and balance and co-ordination, but all the stamina and balance and co-ordination is nothing is u dont know how to throw combos, flow, visualize, react, cuz sure u may last an forever but u cant fight.

shadow boxing-it helps directly with fighting, teaches the body how to throw combos, flow, visualize, react, but once again this does not mean much if u have no balance, no muscle stamina, no co-ordination, cuz u may be able to fight well, but u will last like a whole whopping 30 seconds in the ring.

that is my personal beleif, i think both are needed, it is just how they are used, if someone says hey kata teaches u directly and most effectivley how to fight, then they are blowin smoke up ur ass and if someone says shadow boxing is the best thin for stamina and balance once again they are full of shit

[indestructible]

Forms should teach you either principle developement like power generation or correct motion or should be fighting aplication forms.
I see where many of you are coming from with your dislike of forms and katas. To many times I've seen the ultra hard karate katas or dancing wushu forms and just scratched my head. Maybe a few snippets of these forms/katas looked like fighting but not much.
Somebody made the comment about secrets hidden in the forms. The old masters hid their secrets so well they forgot where they put them.
Forms should be pre-aranged, coherent knowledge, not nonsence.

[Karate_is_cool]

My vote goes to Shadowboxing, however.....

Yeah no shit! Why didn't they just cut the crap? Why hide secrets if you're supposed to promote learning. If you wanted to hide it then just dont teach it!

I do both shadowboxing and kata in my training. The following is my 2 cents on both:

Kata:
-teaches the basics
-is good for cardio
-is good for muscle endurence
-helps memory
-helps perfect certain techniques

Shadowboxing/fighting:
-teaches the basics
-is good for cardio
-is good for muscle endurence
-helps muscle memory for techniques
-helps perfect techniques

The difference is that kata is teaching you a different style (karate)! It is also teaching you IN a different style. They are two very different yet very similar tools.

Now, IMHO I believe that if I had to choose between the two, I would definetly choose shadow boxing because it is very much more "alive." You develop a flow and instinct. It is, as others have stated, not pre-arranged. Shadow boxing isn't the only thing you need of course, but it is one of many tools you must use to become a good fighter. Of course we have to decide on our own what tool works for us and what doesnt.

You'd be surprised to know that I know of a kickboxing instructor that teaches kata too. Not just any instructor either, former world champion. I don't know if you've heard of him, but his name is Stan Peterec. I'm friends with many of his students and they told me (to their disapproval) that he started to teach kata. They said that he found that the students that he had taught kata to had more finesse in their technique. So he decided to push his students into learning them. Hey, I'm not saying that kata teaches you to fight necessarily, but it does teach you SOMETHING. Personally I hate doing katas lol. But I do them because I (well more like my sensei) believe that it's good for me.

Oh and if you're wondering what kind of f***ing KARATE school does shadowboxing, kyokushin and yoshukai schools do. Especially yoshukai since they don't do kata (or any traditional basics for that matter )
Anyways, believe what you believe. Shadowbox or do kata. Just work hard at whatever you do!

[Toudiyama[NL]]

pre-arranged or not

Why is it taken for granted that shadowboxing isn't pre-arranged?
When you are practicing fixed combos, isn't is pre-arranged too?

Free shadowboxing is based on your prior knowledge, you won't learn anything new.
Pre-arranged forms and fixed combo shadowboxing are based on the knowledge of others and CAN teach you new stuff

Prior knowledge on how someone reacts to certain techniques is one of the things you need to come up with you own WORKING combos

Training combos that don't work or that put you in danger are even worse than Bri claims Kata is

Kata, fighting forms? Nah, not the old forms, not because they haven't worked or couldn't work, just because they have been changed over and over again and trained without Kyusho and bunkai.
that's why Ashihara and Enshin ryu have more practical forms which look the same with or without opponent

Is pre-arranged bad? no it isn't, but it is used for different reason, to teach new stuff.
And we all want to learn new stuff, don't we, it's the reason we go to seminars(apart from the occasional moron who comes to challenge the instructor)