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The Ancient Kata
A kata is a prearranged sequence of movements that can be practiced alone. Kata have been handed down to us by the masters and teachers of the past as messages in movement. While karate has proliferated into an uncountable number of styles, the ancient kata remain. Unfortunately, changes to the ancient kata have appeared, particularly since the transmission of karate to Japan and the rest of the world. No matter how subtle a change may be, over the years it will make a great deal of difference, just as a one degree error in a compass or map reading will take you farther away from your intended destination the more you travel.
Because the earliest recorded teachers of karate in the eighteenth century are so remote and shrouded in legend, and because they have left nothing in writing, the only directions we can follow are the ancient kata themselves. It is easy to see the need for a precise knowledge of the intentions of a kata's creator (i.e., what it is for). If the function has been understood and the skill assimilated, there is no need to change the kata. If we accept that the ancient forms were created by those who knew what they were doing, then they are indeed the bedrock upon which the empty-hand arts rest. If modern interpretations do not match them or make any sense, we should look again to the kata, rather than willfully alter them to suit our purposes! One of the major reasons for the changes to some kata that appear in modern karate systems is the lack of understanding of the original meaning and function of the individual movements and general patterns contained in each form.