How I make practicing kata enjoyable

Reviews, Videos, and Everything Else Trollshido
1

This is my 8 step kata workout which I do every Saturday morning.

  1. Okay, first step you get one of these: http://www.storz-bickel.com/vaporizer/vaporizer.html

  2. Fill up a bag. It should be nice and cloudy for maximum awesomeness in your kata. Put it aside, displayed up on a pedestal preferably to keep you motivated during katas. When going down the middle, remember, kime focused right on the bag o’ thc vapors.

  3. Don’t touch that bag, you are unpure and unworthy…until you’ve done a full heian shodan with all the breathing done correctly. Now do it a second time because you probably haven’t done kata in so long you needed a warmup run-through just to get your footwork smoothed out so you don’t have to think about it and can focus on the breathing.

  4. Congratulations, you’ve earned it, take a sip from the bag. Hold in the vapors, using your stomach breaths, flex your hara to absorb that thc directly into your chi stream.

  5. Now, breath out, exhale clouds of vapors, turn to the side, yoi, lookout: it’s tekki shodan time.

This is a short one, so you’ve got to do this one twice to earn another sip from the bag. I find that while high, bunkai makes a lot more sense. I like to do the kata at least once to smooth out some of the wrinkles, and then again to explore the movements themselves. The movements really do make a lot of sense stoned at 9 am on a Saturday morning.

  1. Assuming you did a good job and didn’t half-ass it take another reward sip from the bag o’ vapors and move on to Bassai dai. Maybe it’s your kime, maybe it’s the weed, but now you can almost see the outlines of generic bad guy attackers for you to groin rip, block in multiple directions at once, drag around via fingers up their nostrils, etc. etc. Yame, take 2 sips, you’ve earned it. Breath the vapors out of your nostrils like dragon, who is the master?

  2. Hangetsu. We don’t get Sanchin like the goju people, so I just do this one and flex my anus as hard as they do, like I’m trying to prevent forced butt-sex in prison, and pretend I’m a gnarled old Japanese guy while my wife smacks the shit out of me with a yardstick. By this point, if you can still remember the moves to the kata without at least one moment of losing your bearings, despite the weed and getting smacked, consider the possibility that you practice kata entirely too much.

  3. Drink a huge glass of water. Down a handful of fish oil geltabs for all the joints you’ve destroyed from doing kata over the years in stances that were too low.

Mind you I’m coming at this from a Japanified karate’s pov. You can pretty much do this with any form of karate, using your own katas, but if you’re CMA you should use opium instead to be traditional.

2

Boooooooo. Understandable, but booooooo. I really did do this kata workout (minus the yardsticking and anal flexing) the last 2 weekends.

3

I did it just to piss you off.

4

Oh come on Errant, please move this thread back to the JMA forum.

5

You are costing people valuable TMA training knowledge here; be it on your head.

6

I’d also like to mention the ritual should finish with Kanku Dai (or Meikyo or Gankaku) but for some reason my memory isn’t what it used to be. (Also more reason to guzzle omega 3s.)

7

Kanku Dai sucks. Kusanku ftw.

8

Kanku Dai is okay; I like it more now that I recognize & appreciate the the throw in it. I feel like it should be included if you cut Shotokan down to 5ish kata (which is what I’ve basically done for myself) since it’s supposedly the flagship kata the Heians are derived from, even if it was never one of my favorites. It was the typical high level kata to perfect for bbs among my dojo-mates though.

Meikyo was supposedy to be my kata for high level, since I always liked oddball competition unfriendly kata that had more hard/soft contrasts, but I’ve forgotten most of it. It has a triangle jump in it that is (imo) annoying to get the hang of and also not impressive-looking at all at the same time which is an unsual combination.

9

Fail.

10

It only looks like fail to you because it’s win on a level you’re not cool enough to recognize and comprehend.

11

If you think you’ve pwned, you’re not prepared for the massive counterpwn.

12

I make katas more enjoyable by doing them at a crowded park wearing only a g-string.

Technically, it’s legal.

13

I have Zanshin and can follow. I am prepared to sidestep your counterpwn into a perfect
fudo dachi, with my hand in my pocket.

It doesn’t really bother me, but I think it’s weird you want to spite me with your o’ so mighty mod powers.

P.S. I’m going to run out of weed after 1-2 more days and will be dry for a month or so, and thus will not want to do kata anymore for awhile.

14

I shoot up before hand to numb the pain, but no amount of showering afterwards can take away the dirty feelings…

oh wait, how to make doing kata enjoyable? Impossible.