9 posts / 0 new
Last post
Tk995
Tk995's picture
Judo, Daito-ryu Solo Kata

Hello together; I'm reading passively in this forum for a couple of years now very interesting thoughts from this community and great work from Iain. I would consider the members of this forums as experts in the area of Kata practice. Therefore I think it's the right place for my question. As a Judoka who did Karate as a Teenager I really miss solo kata. So I want to ask those of you who might have experience in Judo or Jujutsu if it's possible to assemble a solo kata with techniques uniquely from those arts. I know that Karate kata has influences from Jujutsu and I don't want to upset anybody here. I'm just fascinated by this idea and want to ask myself if thats possible? Thanks for your thoughts

Marc
Marc's picture

I would say, yes, it is absolutely possible to create a judo throws kata as a mnemonic tool to remember the large array of possible throws in judo.

There are, I think, three levels of going about it:

1st level: Take your list of throws, exercise them with a partner, then do the same moves without a partner in the most ideal form or maybe even a little exaggerated. Do them left and right. Then string them together into one large sequence. There's your judo nage kata.

2nd level: Much like 1st level. But you would try to come up with ways of encoding the specific details of each throw. Angles and positioning, where and how to grab or touch your opponent, timing, balancing and mutual center of gravity, follow through etc.

3rd level: Like 2nd level. But you would try figure out the principles within all similar throws and a way to encode these principles in solo movements. Place the easy or more common principles at the beginning of your kata sequence and the more advanced stuff towards the end. That way you don't just collect one mnemonic per each individual throw in the book, instead you create mnemonics for classes of throws by distilling their common themes. So you would not sequence "here's O-Goshi, Uki-Goshi, Koshi-Guruma and so on", but "here's all hip throws and this is how you vary them".

In fact, you can find examples of throws encoded in some karate like Pinan/Heian Sandan (hip throws) or Pinan/Heian Godan (shoulder throws and other takedowns).

Take care and good luck,

Marc  

Tk995
Tk995's picture

Hello Marc.

thanks for your ideas. Very interesting especially the third level you've mentioned really draws my attention to the fact that it's important to find common principles behind the techniques to create value with this "kata". Furthermore I want to add a couple of Joint locks and strangles at suitable moments. I'm thinking about techniques which movements can be done solo Nami juji jime (front cross lock) or Kataha jime (single wing lock) for example. My idea is to assemble the techniques in an order that makes sense in a paired application. Do you think that's possible what else do I have to take care of?

Iain Abernethy
Iain Abernethy's picture

Tk995 wrote:
So I want to ask those of you who might have experience in Judo or Jujutsu if it's possible to assemble a solo kata with techniques uniquely from those arts.

Sure is! The karate forms contain throws, chokes and locks, and I can see no reason why it would not be possible to create a solo form based solely on those methods. When I was training in judo we’d often warm up with footwork drills (with throwing arm motion) that were essentially short solo kata.  

Tk995 wrote:
I know that Karate kata has influences from Jujutsu and I don't want to upset anybody here.

As a minor aside, we need to be careful about assigning ownership of a given method to a single art, and then assuming all other arts got the methods from the one claiming ownership. There’s locking and throwing in karate, but it does not follow that karate was influenced by any given school of jujutsu solely because of common methods. Systems can develop methods independently as well as adopting them. We would not claim that karate influenced boxing, Thai boxing and all other striking arts simply because all striking arts contain a variation of the gakuzuki (cross / reverse punch).

Tk995 wrote:
Very interesting especially the third level you've mentioned really draws my attention to the fact that it's important to find common principles behind the techniques to create value with this "kata".

That would be the classical way, and Marc’s post makes some brilliant suggestions.

Tk995 wrote:
My idea is to assemble the techniques in an order that makes sense in a paired application. Do you think that's possible what else do I have to take care of?

Makes sense to me. Maybe consider paring techniques that follow on from one another in a way that consider the opponent’s reaction? For example:

The kata goes A,B,A,C

A = Primary method

B = Method that follows up to successful A

C = Method that follows up to unsuccessful A

We see quite a bit of that in traditional kata.

Should be a very interesting project!

All the best,

Iain

Marc
Marc's picture

Iain Abernethy wrote:

Tk995 wrote:
My idea is to assemble the techniques in an order that makes sense in a paired application. Do you think that's possible what else do I have to take care of?

Makes sense to me. Maybe consider paring techniques that follow on from one another in a way that consider the opponent’s reaction? For example:

The kata goes A,B,A,C

A = Primary method

B = Method that follows up to successful A

C = Method that follows up to unsuccessful A

We see quite a bit of that in traditional kata.

That's true. You could even make that ABXAC, where

X = a counter method used by the opponent to overcome A (unsuccessful A)

C = a counter method to X to regain dominance.

Have fun playing with the these concepts, and please let us know of any progress.

Take care,

Marc

Tau
Tau's picture

Tk995 wrote:
As a Judoka who did Karate as a Teenager I really miss solo kata. So I want to ask those of you who might have experience in Judo or Jujutsu if it's possible to assemble a solo kata with techniques uniquely from those arts. I know that Karate kata has influences from Jujutsu

Interesting question. Your experience largely mirrors mine. I actually started learning the Pinan kata plus matukaze and Jiroku back in the mid 90s rom my Jujitsu instructor (long story,) However, what little Bunkai I learned was the classic mindset of everything being a distanced-strike on the compass point. For years after that my arts were Jujitsu, Aikido and dabbling in other bits. I continued practicing the kata because my main arts had no kata and it was an effective way to practice martial movement. This was in the early to mid 2000s and I had long since become VERY cynical of the bunkai.

Keeping very long story short, through Taekwondo (!) I discovered Iain's work and it opened my mind. Interestingly, Iain is the biggest influence on my Jujitsu. When I practice solo Karate kata, the applications I am visualising could be considered "Jujitsu" although this is a misnomer.

To give one example, when I started my own style I put together an Aiki-Jujitsu syllabus based around a set of core techniques. I asked Iain to cover the enigmatic kata Matsukaze at one of the weekend residentials. There's no way that he could know my syllabus or the core techniques within it, yet the first bunkai sequence that he taught was technique one, flowing into technique two if technique one fails.

This is a verbose way of saying:

1. I understand exactly where you're coming from

2. Your "Jujitsu" kata exists. They're called "Karate kata!"

Tk995
Tk995's picture

Thanks for your answers so far. Unfortunately I contracted a pretty bad knee injure during training this week. So I need to stay off the mat for a couple of weeks (at least not being active myself).

I have no idea how to quote someone without losing the text I've written so far, so please excuse that I don't address to your posts with quotes.

First of all @Iain Abernethy I didn't want to claim that Jujutsu is the only art with throws and locks or that those of Karate came only from Jujutsu I'm not a historian and I couldn't care less about the politics between different martial arts like some people do. I respect every martial art and it's practioners out there and especially Karate will always be important for me personally. I expressed myself bad in my first post I'm sorry for that. Furthermore I want to ask if I did unterstandyour post right that you meantit's possible to incoporate a couple of Judo Joint locks and strangles when creating a Judo "solo kata"? My english isn't the best so I'm just asking if I "got the message" of your post, thanks.

@Marc It's a great idea to use a structure with counter and recounter. That's something I have also thought about already. I will definitely consider that.

Best regards,

Tom

Iain Abernethy
Iain Abernethy's picture

Hi Tom,

Tk995 wrote:
I have no idea how to quote someone

How to do it can be found below. Simple when you know how, but the forum does not make it obvious.

https://iainabernethy.co.uk/content/how-quote

Tk995 wrote:
I want to ask if I did understand your post right that you meant it's possible to incorporate a couple of Judo Joint locks and strangles when creating a Judo "solo kata"?

It is definitely possible to create a judo solo kata. The karate kata contain throws, locks, chokes, etc so there is no reason why one could not make a sole kata specifically out of similar methods as practised in Judo.

One other option is that you could start with the existing two-person judo kata and simply perform the role of Tori? You could then use that as a base for your own personal kata? Lots of ways to do it :-)

All the best,

Iain

Tk995
Tk995's picture

Ok, thank you all for your help=)

Best regards,

Tom