Does the training include kata or forms, as in karate?
Not quite like those. In the old arts such as ours, kata are generally performed by two (or more) partners and are quite brief, reflecting the reality of combat encounters. They teach an art’s basic concepts: typical attacks and common ways of dealing with them. Kata may also refer to a class or set of waza (techniques), especially groupings which embody a particular principle or group of related principles. Kata are the starting point for learning the arts. Q: How is it that the kata are the “starting point”? It seems that in most arts, the formal techniques and kata either are considered to “be the art” or, alternatively, are considered to be a way of putting various techniques together without much relevance to actual combat. Do you mean “starting point” in this latter sense? A: In the first case above, the approach is not so much that of traditional arts at the time they were being developed and used, as it is of the end of feudalism when kata became highly formalized and rigid as
