But this changes as one ages. Baseball pitchers immediately go on the disabled list if they have even the slightest strain in any part of their lower extremities because the lower half supports the upper half, mainly their pitching shoulder. This is the beauty of really understanding stances in kata with regards to body alignment. As we age, our bodies obviously change. Constant kata practice helps us to adapt to these changes. Our bodies innately know what to do. This information is imbedded within the kata. Stances can also be used to attack legs. As in the previous examples, proper body alignment will give us that strong foundation. The stances can be used to directly attack the pressure points of your opponent’s legs (See Fig. C, D, E, F & G). Points on the front of the leg that we will attack include Sp 9,10. The stances will aid in the takedown of your opponent. If one does a wrist lock and your opponent falls—great, game over, for the most part. If you need a little more pop in your technique add the stance (see Fig D) and you’ll will have the opponent’s upper and lower halves nuetralized by attacking GB 33, 34. You can break someone’s balance just with your hands and greatly increase the success of your technique when you unbalance the opponent from top to bottom. Another important part of kata is “Indication of Hands.” This portion of the kata code has been extremely misunderstood and maligned. This was not done on purpose. These elements of the kata code, as mentioned earlier, were really only kept for the heir apparent to a style. When I say, “Indication of Hands,” I am referring to places in kata where the hands cross, touch, or meet. Let’s start with the crossing of hands. The X block found in many kata, is actually a reinforced grappling technique. One way to perform this reinforced lock is to do what we call a palm turn. Each hand has a specific job 18
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