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 a way of preserving some semblance of an art in the face of pressures pushing it into disuse. . .not unlike (if you will pardon the imagery!) a virus going dormant and awaiting an opportunity to become active again. The second case seems to derive from the first, where the fighting methods used bear little or no relationship to the forms. Both indicate that the understanding of the kata has died. The approach to kata training in taijutsu as taught by Hatsumi sensei is very different and reflects the Protean fluid
