Doing proper Kata footwork… Something I had personally paid extreme attention to throughout the years practicing Karate, but I still see many Karatekas (Karate practitioners) changing some Kata footwork, when they think it’s not important. In this article I will focus on a specific move of a famous Kata, in order to show you how changing something that seems insignificant, and doing it over and over, can be damaging for your self defense muscle memory / spontaneous intuition.
I picked a common mistake from the Kata “Matsumura Bassai”, that widely sneaked into kata competitions through time. If you are practicing this kata, you will know exactly where this comes. if you don’t have it in your style, please simply refer to the pictures to understand the motion, as this mistake could apply to many other katas of various styles/ schools, including the very last turn of the Kata Nipaipo.
In “Matsumura Bassai” kata: Clockwise half turn, ending in “Right Neko ashi dachi” (right Cat stance), with “Yaku Jodan age uke hidari” (Left arm reverse high block).
Pictures from Kata
"Matsumura Bassai"
There are two ways of making a half turn in Neko ashi dachi (Cat stance):
1- Moving your initial front foot across, then turning (pivot is done with weight on the foot that moved across)
2- Putting the weight on the front foot as is, without moving it across, then turning (pivot is also done with weight on the initial front foot).
*1 is what I call the “Naha-Te” turn logic.
*2 is what I call the “Non-Naha-Te” turn logic (Most other non Naha-Te derived Karate)
Please remember that it is Not the Karateka’s choice to use one or the other turning method according to his/her preference while practicing a Kata. Each Kata has been built with one, or the other logic in mind (embedded in each kata at conception)! The initial choice of half turn is related to which way you turn, as well as which arm is used to deflect the attack.
As a general rule, don't change the kata, if something does not make sense, you have not studied enough to understand it, or you are most likely looking at it from the wrong angle.
Among many other things, Katas provide a general guide on how to move around/towards/away from opponents, including how to move / not move your feet to always be in a position of advantage. After doing a specific move many many times, its gets engrained in our brain, sometimes without us realizing it, and comes out intuitively when in a self defense situation. For this reason, it is very important to practice Kata with the proper footwork!
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