5 Must Have’s for your Kata and Life!

The Kata is merely a combination of techniques put together in a sequence to help the practitioner perfect his or her craft. In Karate, kata and techniques are the foundation of skills development and have been known to offer several benefits including improved fitness, concentration, stress relief, co-ordination, balance and much more.

At First Choice Martial Arts we see our students train diligently to perfect the movements of their kata as it is a requirement for the testing not to mention some of the benefits listed above. When looking deeper into the kata there is a parallel that one can tie directly to the essential skills for success in life and personal development. Therefore, we’ve compiled a list of 5 essentials if you plan to master your kata, fitness, form and ultimately your destiny in life.

1. Think about it if you struggle to maintain balance in your form you will never execute to the best of your ability. Whether it be proper footing or lowering a stance balance affects everything. If you take the balance in your personal life and take it out of balance for a moment you will see the destruction it can cause. Whether it be overindulgence in bad habit, poor fitness, lack of sleep and too much stress; you can quickly see how this imbalance will inhibit your potential and ability to perform.
2. Do you give your all when you perform your kata? Is there a way to add more weight behind that technique and deliver with stronger force? Being strong is not a bad thing and it can allow you to feel more confident in your abilities. This inner confidence can not only assist you during a belt exam, but it is one of the most important qualities to your success in life. Believing in yourself takes practise and through repetition you can achieve a higher level of confidence with your skills on the mat and in life.
3. Does tempo affect your performance? Well during a kata performance you need to bring in the element of intensity to show the passion of your form. Passion and drive can go a long way in the dojo not to mention the workplace, school and your potential!
4. Quickly someone grabs you and its time to defend. Do you take time to react? Or, do you use the power of NOW and deal with it in real time. Certainly, in some situations you should use good strategic and analytical thinking but sometimes in life you must react. During a kata, controlled speed with intention can help add power to an already strong form. That speed is a great thing to transfer into your personal life as you become better equipped to deal with tasks quicker allowing yourself to focus on the bigger and more important things!
5. Want more technique in your form? Do you love the way a Sensei performs that kata? What you probably don’t know, as per Malcolm Gladwell's Outliers, is it takes about 10,000 hours to master anything in life and karate training is no different. Sure, it looks easy when they do it, but you didn’t get to watch all their repetitions. It isn’t about them, it’s about you and your technique and if you want it to be clean be prepared to do the work at the dojo and at home. Success in life is no different, did you know to this day Sensei Chris still cleans the dojo almost everyday, paying attention to the smaller details. The details matter and are what make the substance of your form; a long time a go someone wise once said “A Man can sit on Mountain, but he cannot sit on a Tack”.

Good Luck and Train Hard!