[Cichorei Kano]

Greetings,

Today's kata competition here in Sao Paulo was characterized by inconsistency. End results were somewhat manipulated. This year, competitors were allowed to compete only in three kata. Otherwise, all kata medals would have been dispute by the same people. There is an incredible differences in skills between competitors. I think the largest category had only 12 couples in it, some only one.

Medals were mostly divided between Italy (probably the strongest judo kata country), Brazil (strong country, but have distorted the end results because of its number of participants which far outweighed those of other countries in number) and Japan. Results have not yet been actually published so I base myself on notes. I believe one bronze medal for France, a couple for Spain, and Hungary a couple in the women's for Australia (usually, only one or even no other contestants), and three bronze for the US. None for strong judo countries like Germany, England, Belgium, Cuba, Canada, or Korea.

The US really suffered from the absence of Heiko and Jeff in the males, and Frances in the females. In fact the US had its numerically poorest number of representatives in years. All three bronzes were won by Brian Marks and Sam Mita from California, and this in goshinjutsu, itsutsu, and koshiki, yet performances were not that great. Goshinjutsu was very jerky, abrupt and tense. Juror's scores were all over the place suggesting the large subjectivity of this type of contest. In Brian Marks and Sam Mita's goshinjutsu performance, I believe one of the three jurors gave 152 another one 212 points, almost making the judging a ridiculous joke. Eiter it is a very good or very bad, but not both at the same time.

Winners who have established themselves over the years, were mostly uncontested. Riochi Uchida and partner from Brazil, who may be one of the very best judo kata performing teams in the entire world won two of the three series in which he competed, and so did Etsuko Yokoyama and Omori, all multiple winners in the past. The reason that Uchida did not win the Koshiki-no-kata is because Japan particpated with some heavy guns this year, and won Itsutsu and Koshiki with an arm length before the rest. Overall, I found the performances of debatable quality. Koshiki-no-kata was poor, with mostly theater, no control, no action/reaction. Strong performances were observed in katame-no-kata, nage-no-kata.

There were some other surprising, even shocking observations I made, which are too personal for a number of people to throw them out here before the lions. Let's say that judging is a major issue. Not that end results were heavily biased. Let's say that I know that some judges were simply clueless about some of the kata they were judging. Ik know this as a fact, not an impression ...

Tomorrow, the ordinary shiai will start. Today's matches were concluded by one one remarkable performance though. Etsuko Yokoyama and partner gave a special performance of Koshiki-no-kata in armor. It is rare to see this, and very rare to see it performed by two females in amor. The performance was better than their actual competition performance, though they had won their series. It was taped on video so it may appear on YouTube one day. The videographer was obviously not a judoist and found it more important to start taking shots of the Event's Publicity Poster, before the two had even started their final reihô, so don't expect a 'complete' performance. Although, the performance was announced as a real performance of how the kata was performed in Kitô-ryû, such was untrue. It was still an ordinary Kôdôkan performance, with the modern diagonal performances of techniques 5 through 8, with the mimics of Kôdôkan (uke performs a manierized self-initated ukemi in Tai, instead of actually being thrown), and the performers told me they had never ever seen a Kitô-ryû performance. I do hope that it gets on YouTube, so that we can get rid of that horror performance in Wallmart armor that was recently put up on YouTube.

Congrats to Brian and Sam for saving the country's honor. Heiko ... you know what that means ... you hear ...

This post has been edited by Cichorei Kano: 19 June 2007 - 09:57 PM

[heikojr]

I was very disappointed that Jeff and i were not able to compete there this year. Funds were not with us for this tournament.

I am happy to hear that Riochi Uchida and Luis Dos Santos did so well! They excellent at kata! I am suprised to hear that they did not win Koshiki-no-kata, Japan's team must have been great! I assume that Uchida and Dos Santos won Nage-no-kata, but what was the other kata they performed and won?

Please give them my regards! I'm usually in touch with Luis, but i don't think that he recieved my last e-mail!

Congrats to Brian Marks and Sam Mitani!

heikojr

This post has been edited by heikojr: 20 June 2007 - 07:49 AM

[_steve_]

Cichorei Kano, on Jun 19 2007, 02:56 PM, said:

All three bronzes were won by Brian Marks and Sam Mita from California, and this in goshinjutsu, itsutsu, and koshiki, yet performances were not that great. Goshinjutsu was very jerky, abrupt and tense. Juror's scores were all over the place suggesting the large subjectivity of this type of contest. In Brian Marks and Sam Mita's goshinjutsu performance, I believe one of the three jurors gave 152 another one 212 points, almost making the judging a ridiculous joke. Eiter it is a very good or very bad, but not both at the same time.

<snip>

Overall, I found the performances of debatable quality. Koshiki-no-kata was poor, with mostly theater, no control, no action/reaction. Strong performances were observed in katame-no-kata, nage-no-kata.

There were some other surprising, even shocking observations I made, which are too personal for a number of people to throw them out here before the lions. Let's say that judging is a major issue. Not that end results were heavily biased. Let's say that I know that some judges were simply clueless about some of the kata they were judging. Ik know this as a fact, not an impression ...

<snip>

Hi CK,

I must say reading your assessment of this competition was rather depressing. Is the quality of today’s Kata really so poor that even at this level it’s hard to find an example of excellence or mastery? I understand why kata is in poor shape in the United States but I find it hard to accept that it’s that way everywhere?!? Yet, all of the kata threads seam to point to the same dismal conclusion. That today kata is a mere shadow of its original self and Kano’s intent. Is this how you see things? Maybe I’ve read too much into the discussions here, but it’s very rare that I notice people applauding Kata performances such as you did with Brian, Sam, Etsuko, Omori, and Uchida. In fact, it’s even rarer for someone to be able to point to a performance and say that was a “10”. Is the mastery of kata supposed to be this hard to achieve that it is borderline impossible? It sounds as if it would be easier and take less time to achieve enlightenment than perform a perfect Kata. What are your thoughts am I interpreting your posts accurately?

BTW: Were you a judge, spectator, or competitor today?

Steve

[Cichorei Kano]

_steve_, on Jun 20 2007, 03:19 PM, said:

Hi CK,

I must say reading your assessment of this competition was rather depressing. Is the quality of today’s Kata really so poor that even at this level it’s hard to find an example of excellence or mastery? I understand why kata is in poor shape in the United States but I find it hard to accept that it’s that way everywhere?!? Yet, all of the kata threads seam to point to the same dismal conclusion. That today kata is a mere shadow of its original self and Kano’s intent. Is this how you see things? Maybe I’ve read too much into the discussions here, but it’s very rare that I notice people applauding Kata performances such as you did with Brian, Sam, Etsuko, Omori, and Uchida. In fact, it’s even rarer for someone to be able to point to a performance and say that was a “10”. Is the mastery of kata supposed to be this hard to achieve that it is borderline impossible? It sounds as if it would be easier and take less time to achieve enlightenment than perform a perfect Kata. What are your thoughts am I interpreting your posts accurately?

BTW: Were you a judge, spectator, or competitor today?

Steve

Those are very good points you raise, Steve. I think that we are dealing with a two-edged sword. While the creation of kata competitions enormously contributes to sensitizing kata in youngsters, and has created a new 'sense' or objective for many past-career enthusiastic judoists and sensei, I fear that it is doing the same to judo itself as ordinary IJF shiai is doing. Of course, Kanô never commented on kata competitions or kata as sports, likely because the idea was so inconeivable for him at the time, but I sincerely doubt that he would have approved of it.

It is very difficult to convey one's appreciation, after all our judo elite, are great athletes, who train very hard, but that is what they mostly are: superbe athletes and sports men, but not necessarily great judoists. Of course in the past this also existed somewhat, when Kimura was doing 1000 push-ups per day this wasn't judo. And perhaps it is simply because knowledge of physical fitness was much more limited in those days that it simply could not dominate judo as much as it does today. The kata we see in contest is more and more beginning to look like an athlete's kata. It reminds me of tango. Laymen think that the notorious abrupt movements they sometimes see on TV is what makes tango so special, but it isn't. In fact that has little to do with tango, and is in fact a derivative merely developed for contests; it is competitive tango. The essence of tango lies in the Argentinian tango, and intimate way of communication without the very abrupt head turning movements.

I guess what bothers me in the end, is that I would like to believe that 'world champions' truly are "champions of the world" the best they are at a given moment, and they were not. For the US for example, there are far better performers in the country. This may sound harsh and disrespectful, and unsportive, but it is the naked truth. Heiko's performances are simply better. I know of many other countries where there are better performers; they simply did not compete, making today's performers only the best performances of that location on this day. That gives me a discrepant feeling.

In koshiki-no-kata the best performers excelled by the fact that they at least showed kuzushi, but they were all manifestly lacking in control and internalization, or even knowing what they did and why. I think, and this has been said before, that kata instruction is simply poor. We are still very much in an obsolete environment. It's like it very much is with judo shiai. I have said many times that one of the major reasons (there are others) in many countries including the US, is that coaches are selected on the wrong basis, but it happens over and over again, from Neil Adams to whoever. Federation still make the mistake of appointing people because they won an international medal, or continental, or world title. That is about as irrelevant to proper judo coaching and further elite judoists performance than Bush's actions towards achieving the Nobel prize in Chemistry. They understand that in other sports. Baseball coaches or basketball or football coaches are not selected on basis of being better pitchers or shooters or whatever. Yet, in judo there is the absurd feeling that if you yourself cannot at least beat 4/5 of your dojo, then you cannot be the Olympic Coach. How absurd is that. This is just an analogy. Kata instruction is traditionally done by higher belts; the logic for this is likely that they supposedly had to master these kata for their high ranks. But the opposite is mostly true. Often they got their last promotion many years ago, and those high belts themselves had held office and knew about everyone, so rarely really had to prove their knowledge or risked being failed. How many good kata teachers do countries have ? Virtually none. It is usually one or a handful of people under control, people who almost invariably have not been tested themselves, people with virtually no teaching credentials. After all, even a kata certification is nothing but a performance, answering a couple of questions, and handing in a sheet of paper with an essay you plagiarized from the Internet or a textbook. In other words, the lack of kata insight basically has a reason similar to failure to perform international. Only now and then you will find someone who is placed in a unique way so that they are less subject to those instructions.

For this reason, i believe that Ronda will make it. Her mom and others provide a vehicle that provides an alternative track to the failure of USA Judo. Similarly, I think that Heiko (sorry for being personal and mentioning people by name, I have a tendency of doing that) is at a level and in unique situation that he is simply less subject to the restrictions in knowledge, skills and abilities of kata teachers. Now, if Heiko still wants to improve, he may feel those restrictions, but right now the gap between himself and most nationally and PanAm active people is very large; however, the US will feel that wall if they participate next October in the general world championships kata.

There is my response, sorry to be the doomsday messenger.

No ... I did not compete. NFC

[Miss Kitty Fantastico]

Did anyone do Itsutsu-no-kata?

Can you provide comments thereon? Or would that be indelicate?

[Hanon]

Kata today, whether in the dojo or championships, is such a difficult subject to discuss I just don't know where to begin?

Before learning the kata we need to understand there purpose and objective also relevance to our judo.

Here lies the dicotomy, kata is being taught today by sensei who don't have a clue about them so their pupils follow suit and the cycle of ignorant kata continues. Generalization, sorry?
Second point, with the introduction of kata championships and the inherent competetive attitude of todays judo the kata are being taught and learned as 'pure technical exercises' (if ones lucky!?). Now that is also a great mistake.

Each kata has a specific purpose and teaches specific lessons. Lets look at the first kata we learn, the Nage no kata. This is a kata of randori and as such has to be of solid benefit to us when we make randori.
Today I see acts of theatre and acts of technical kata but they miss the whole point of the exercise.

How may I explain this? Again I must revert to music. Sorry I can think of no better analogy. Take a score of music and a pianist. the pianist will sit at the piano and read the music then play each note on the piano. Fine its perhaps technically correct even to perfection BUT the sound just does not make music, the musician misses the point.

The NNK is about so much more than 15 waza performed each side wrapped around a system of etiquette.
The NNK must display, eventually, the knowledge in motion of the physics and pysiology also psychology of randori. The performance must be alive and 'from the hip', each attack must be an attack and as such a kata should be impossible to perform the same each time we perform it as each attack and response will differ in attitude of uke and how tori reacts to the attack.

It is fine to keep 'lines' in kata and uke MUST land at a 180'. This makes me ponder if the sensei who teach this understand the nature of kata at all. The exact degree uke will land will depend on his attack ie, force, speed, his size then how tori uses the attack to the most effective conclusion. I see false attacks, lets take kata seoi, where tori has to throw uke, this misses the point of the waza? Uke should attack with gusto and try and remove toris head only then, and I stress, ONLY THEN may tori display the true nature of judo in the sense of JU, yielding and not apposing force. There is NO throw in kata seoi etc.

I don't often see technically correct kata so I suppose I should be satisfied with that if offered. I often see false kata that are not displaying the core elements or principles of what each kata teaches. To this end the pupils hate the sight of kata and even the word becomes one of horror and I AGREE with the pupils.

Technical perfection is only a small percentage of the lessons of kata. One could teach practically anyone To throw, but to do so within the principles of Ju and Do is so much more difficult. To this end I question the use of championships unless the participants are allowed and encoraged to make real alive kata.

I am rather furious withself as I just cannot explain, at my stage in judo, what I feel and know in my heart and head and it drives me around the bend. Why is it I cannot give an explanation of kata..........Agaaaaa

Mike

bob_stra, on Jun 20 2007, 12:35 PM, said:

Did anyone do Itsutsu-no-kata?

Can you provide comments thereon? Or would that be indelicate?

I pray not, I sincerely do. In this country it is a habit for kids and there fathers to display this kata as they can 'learn it' so easily??? After all only 5 moves and they are so simple..........I give up. Enough already.

This post has been edited by Hanon: 20 June 2007 - 02:13 PM

[Cichorei Kano]

bob_stra, on Jun 20 2007, 08:35 PM, said:

Did anyone do Itsutsu-no-kata?

Can you provide comments thereon? Or would that be indelicate?

Comments about Itsutsu are similar to those of Koshiki. The series was won by a Japanese couple with Shimizu-sensei, if I remember well. After the winners there was a steep curve downwards in terms of performance. Don't forget that when Kanô visited London in 1932 he performed Itsutsu during a private encounter at which Trevor Leggett was present. At that the conclusion, Kanô pointed out: "I think I can now almost perform the first three techniques as they should" ...

[heikojr]

Cichorei Kano, on Jun 20 2007, 03:01 AM, said:

if they participate next October in the general world championships kata.

Dear Cichorei Kano-san,

Do you have information on this? Can anyone compete?

heikojr

[Cichorei Kano]

heikojr, on Jun 22 2007, 12:20 PM, said:

Dear Cichorei Kano-san,

Do you have information on this? Can anyone compete?

heikojr

I have information, but none of it is official. I was told that apparently for Japan two couples may compete, but I am not sure if this is an exception for the guest country, or not. What is certain, is that this is NOT an open championship, so, no, not everyone can compete. Likely that will be that you and Jeff will be offered the selection, and I am sure that you will get funds this time. If not, let me know, and I will be happy to replace you ! I do not know further details in terms of regulations. This time in the world masters, the limit that everybody could only compete in three kata, had severe consequences. Couples such as Uchida are so good, that they likely would have won medals in every kata. This restriction turned out to be restriction on the overall quality of the performances. Discussions on the precise logistics of the Worlds in later this year are still going on.

[Taigyo]

So are any of our Kata authorities (Hanon, C.Kano, PT Nippon, etc.) going to attend the USJF National Kata seminar in Boise in August?

[Cichorei Kano]

Judodog, on Jun 23 2007, 12:46 AM, said:

Sensei -

I am looking for a kata teacher here in the SF Bay Area that is actively teaching kata. I performed Kata as a youngster in the 70's, however, my interests led me to competition and then coaching. Unfortunately my kata knowledge has vanished. My focus has been changing and I very much want to begin my study of kata again.

I have been sending my senior students to Fukuda Sensei monthly and they have been very well received and treated, although Sensei tends to take long naps during sessions.

Would you have a recommendation for me? Feel free to PM me if you like. I appreciate and enjoy reading your thoughts on kata.

Best Regards,

Mike

Names that come up would be Kenji Osugi, but that is of course as far south as LA, and Haruo Imamura, but that is in the Central Valley. I would also think that Mac Takeda in Sacramento would be a suitable person. I have never seen Fukuda-sensei anything but alert during kata training. I have to think of others or anyone who is located really more local in the Bay Area.

[Judoheidi]

Here's a link to the results for both kata and shiai...

http://www.masterath...Results_new.htm