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css1971
css1971's picture
katapedia.org

Hi,

It's been a while since I posted last. New family commitments have laid waste to oh, so many things. As a side project I decided to set up a kata wiki: katapedia.org to help raise awareness of the kata aspects of karate. So far it has some pages on Kenwa Mabuni's comments on the meaning of angles, Chojun Miyagi's rules for analysis and the implications for kata structure. There's also basic (descriptive) bunkai for the Pinans based on those guidelines. I don't expect any of it to be new to most readers here. Videos /photos will fill out as round tuits are acquired. It's been an interesting project and doing it I've reversed several opinions I previously held over katas.

Hopefully it will do something to help those within/without karate who think kata is just a dance or performance or just don't "get it".

Iain Abernethy
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What a great idea! Do you have “press release” or generic introduction I can share with people?

All the best,

Iain

css1971
css1971's picture

I haven't really thought about it.

"Katapedia is a wiki site where information, theories and suppositions about kata generally and especially the fighting aspects of kata can be referenced and written collaboratively. The software it uses is the same as Wikipedia, so any page or article can be edited, or created directly by anyone. All the changes are recorded in the page history so all edits can be reversed, fixed or improved later. The aim is a gradually improving resource available to anyone with an interest in kata."

Iain Abernethy
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css1971 wrote:
I haven't really thought about it

If you could email me something I’ll put it in the next newsletter if you want? It’s a pretty big list and I’m sure subscribers will be interested to know more and lend their support!

All the best,

Iain

Marc
Marc's picture

css1971 wrote:

"Katapedia is a wiki site where information, theories and suppositions about kata generally and especially the fighting aspects of kata can be referenced and written collaboratively. The software it uses is the same as Wikipedia, so any page or article can be edited, or created directly by anyone. All the changes are recorded in the page history so all edits can be reversed, fixed or improved later. The aim is a gradually improving resource available to anyone with an interest in kata."

Nice idea. Thanks for inviting everyone to participate.

What I think might help the project to become a useful resource would be to set some standards for referencing sources of claims made in the articles. For example, if an article claims that master X said A, then it would help if the article would also note the original material that contained A; like the book (with year, publisher, and ISBN where possible) or website where the reader can check the source.

Would you like Katapedia.org to be particularly about the actual applications of any kata sequence or rather a comprehensive resource of all things kata?

Did you have a look at the overview of katas and forms from karate and other martial arts at blackbeltwiki.com?

All the best

Marc

css1971
css1971's picture

Marc wrote:

Nice idea. Thanks for inviting everyone to participate.

What I think might help the project to become a useful resource would be to set some standards for referencing sources of claims made in the articles. For example, if an article claims that master X said A, then it would help if the article would also note the original material that contained A; like the book (with year, publisher, and ISBN where possible) or website where the reader can check the source.

It's something that the editorial team (me so far) do try to do and there are several references on the pages there already in the same way wikipedia does. The kaisai, mabuni and bunkai pages have some references in that way. These can always be improved mind you.

What I don't like though is for example wikipedia's policy of requiring citations for every sentence. It doesn't make sense to me and I don't think it's necessary. The other thing is even though it has a "pedia" name, I don't think it should exclude unreferenced material. Take for example oyo bunkai which may or may not be referenceable. If there's a book, page or video, great link it or add a reference.

Marc wrote:

Would you like Katapedia.org to be particularly about the actual applications of any kata sequence or rather a comprehensive resource of all things kata?

I think there's a need for a reference for applications. Even the concept that kata is more than a dance still seems to be foreign to many. But if you have something that you can drop a link to that demonstrates an application for moves X, Y, Z with description, a video if there is one and a link to the site of the video maker it'll help drive awareness that yes kata is something that can be used. There are people doing this (many here) like Iain, John Titchen, Noah Legel, Ryan Parker  but they can be difficult to find.

Having said that, it's a wiki. the key featuire of which is that anything posted there can be edited and changed mercilessly.

Marc wrote:

Did you have a look at the overview of katas and forms from karate and other martial arts at blackbeltwiki.com?

Yes I did. They have lots of videos of katas but bunkai comes under the category "Other etc" and it's disorganised. It's actually fairly representative of the way kata applications are dealt with at many clubs, kind of an afterthought.

Is there an application covering the 1st three movements of Pinan Nidan? Why yes there is.

http://katapedia.org/wiki/Pinan_Nidan_moves_1-3_application_one

regards,

Colin.

Nimrod Nir
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Hi everybody,

I am guessing that since the last post (from 2015), much has changed in the wiki, and the project developed quite a bit. So I'm popping this subject up.

I encourage you to check it out, and especially the available kata bunkai material, which present an interesting take (mainly dealing with joint locks) which I find very consistent and organized (although a written explanation is always hard to understand, and supplementary videos would definitively improve the material).

Main page - http://www.katapedia.org/wiki/Main_Page

Pinan Kata Overview - http://www.katapedia.org/wiki/Pinan_/_Heian_Katas

Pinan Shodan Bunkai - http://www.katapedia.org/wiki/Pinan_Shodan_/_Heian_Nidan

Pinan Nidan Bunkai - http://www.katapedia.org/wiki/Pinan_Nidan_/_Heian_Shodan

Pinan Sandan Bunkai - http://www.katapedia.org/wiki/Pinan_Sandan_/_Heian_Sandan

Pinan Yondan Bunkai - http://www.katapedia.org/wiki/Pinan_Yondan_/_Heian_Yondan

Pinan Godan Bunkai - http://www.katapedia.org/wiki/Pinan_Godan_/_Heian_Godan

Naihanchi Kata Overview - http://www.katapedia.org/wiki/Naihanchi_Katas

Naihanchi Shodan Bunkai - http://www.katapedia.org/wiki/Naihanchi_Shodan

I think that contributions to this project would be great, and I invite anyone who can contribute ideas and materials to do so.

Thank you Collin for the brilliant initiative. 

Iain Abernethy
Iain Abernethy's picture

Nimrod Nir wrote:
I find very consistent and organized (although a written explanation is always hard to understand, and supplementary videos would definitively improve the material).

It is a good idea and I agree that videos and photos are needed. It would help make the resource more useful and easier to follow.

Marc wrote:
What I think might help the project to become a useful resource would be to set some standards for referencing sources of claims made in the articles.

When I followed the Naihanchi link, that was my first thought too. Is says:

It is theorized that:

The three katas were originally a single form and this seems reasonable.

While we can’t know for certain, I feel the case for there originally being one Naihanchi (“shodan”), with the Nidan and Sandan versions being created by Itosu, is the strongest. This is omitted from the page with no citations given for either theory.

It’s an admirable and worthwhile project, but it probably needs more contributors to be fully realised. That way citations and differing viewpoints would be included.

Nimrod Nir wrote:
I think that contributions to this project would be great, and I invite anyone who can contribute ideas and materials to do so.

If there was a way for people to easily link existing material, I think that would help. There’s loads of stuff already out there and it would save people having to start from scratch.

It is a great idea and it would be nice to see it take off.

All the nest,

Iain

Neil Babbage
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katapedia is running on the MediaWiki software, the same as all the Wikimedia Foundation projects including Wikipedia. This means that content can be exported from Wikipedia (anyone can do this) and imported into katapedia. The Creative Commons license used by Wikipedia allows this as long as attribution by way of a hyperlink to the original content is provided. While this can be done by the tools, you can also just copy / paste if you prefer. This is a brilliant way to seed the content of new projects - import the Wikipedia articles in part of whole, including in many cases the photos which are often (but not always) similarly licensed and then modify and adapt it. 

Iain Abernethy
Iain Abernethy's picture

Neil Babbage wrote:
katapedia is running on the MediaWiki software ...

That’s really useful info Neil. It’s sure to help those who want to contribute. Is there a simple guide to the software / making contributions anywhere?

All the best,

Iain

Neil Babbage
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Simple? That depends if you consider documentation written by nerds to be simple! Actually, it's really simple to do the Export from Wikipedia but Importing is limited to a small number of users by the katapedia operator. Copying and pasting is so easy that this is probably the best thing to do. I can write a simple guide in the next week or so and put it here.