Hello everyone. Thank you for reading this article. I’m Shogo from Let’s ask Shogo, the interpreter of the online lessons and owner of this website.
In katana training like Kobudo/Iaido, we practice our skills through “Kata,” which are fixed exercises/drills. However, whenever we make videos introducing or explaining the Kata we train in our Ryuha styles, there are always people in our comments saying, “That’ll never happen in real life!” “The opponent wouldn’t move like that!” That’s just a dance!” It seems many people are misunderstanding the purpose of training Kata.
Kata are not meant to be directly used in a real battle, but it’s more for like the pages of a textbook for you to learn the basic methods of controlling your body and weapons. So each Kata has a theme of what you need to learn from it, and the later ones could be an advanced version of the first ones. It’s just the same as any martial art or sport that would have set drills to learn the basics. And those who disregard the basics will never acquire a high level of skill. By the way, in our Ryuha we do free sparring too to train our courage/grit.
Another purpose of Kata is for carrying on the unique techniques of each Ryuha style. Thanks to each Kata having a name and a set of fixed movements, the traditional schools were able to carry on the skills for hundreds of years. Otherwise, many of the techniques would have been lost through time. In our online lessons, you can learn the dozens of Kata that the samurai trained in to carry on the stunning techniques of the katana. Today, it is our duty to carry on the heritage to the next generation.
Another great write up and article. The thing that most don’t seem to understand is, when you are learning *anything*, you have to start with basics and fundamentals. Take language or grammar for instance. You need to learn to spell to form words. You need to learn words and proper grammar to form sentences. Sentences make paragraphs, paragraphs make pages and so on and so forth. Although you can learn to write or speak from simply immersing yourself into writing or speaking, one may not fully comprehend *why* you write or speak the way you do, and for the most part at best you’re simply imitating what “works.” However, if you start by learning the fundamentals and kata, you can actually build on them, and rather than simply mimicking or imitating, you can actually begin to understand the “why” and your techniques and skill will flow from there.