Originally Posted by supergroup7
I believe that kata helps form the mind, body, spirit connection when performed in the proper spirit. As a young one in the Arts, it will be hard for me to explain in words what I have learned through experience, but here goes:
When I face someone in sparring, and my mind goes into what I call "kata" mode, things will just flow smoothly. If I attempt to think too much, the sparring becomes more bumpy.
What is "kata" mode? It's when one's mind is quiet, and one becomes the moment. They live for the now, and react to each breath/ technique as if it was their last. The kata "sings" it's lessons into you. It becomes your blood. It pulses, changes, and exists for that moment only.
Kata done properly is like "moving Mokuso" which centralizes your mind, and creates the ideal fighting spirit.
The bunkai of kata is not meant for sparring. It is directed to life-threatening self defense moments where one needs to break, damage, and kill their opponent. Tearing out their eyes, crashing through their skull, crushing their testicles.. moments of war.. where it is your life, or theirs. This is why kata exists. We would not keep too many students, and training partners in a dojo where we would practice these devastating techniques on them. Within a few weeks, we'd have dozens of blind, maimed, and dead students. So we train with these techniques in kata with the same intensity as if fighting for our lives. The better you become at applying your whole body, mind, and spirit in your kata the more conditioning you will achieve from it's performance.
At the end of one kata, done in this manner, you will feel their heart beating so strongly that it feels like it will leap out of your chest. It will feel like you just ran up a steep mountain carrying 20 pounds on your back. Then, you ask your body to do MORE kata like that. Within a dozen kata, a karate ka should start to feel the burning of exhausted muscles, the intense need to breath deeply to continue fueling the effort... and yet, the inner call is to continue with the kata, to face yet another moment of "fighting for your life".
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