When most people think of kata, they think of boring exercises. Without the keys presented here, they ARE boring exercises. Kata was not meant to be a tournament activity. Each one could be a self-defense system unto itself. One that could stand alone or, in conjunction with a specified group of kata, designed to teach principles of where to attack the weak points on the body. All of this is predicated upon understanding this code. In our last discussion about the the Kata Code, we demonstrated how the hand postures in kata are actually grappling techniques using Kyusho-Jitsu (Pressure Points) to affect the body from the inside out. The same points that an acupuncturist uses to heal are what have been encoded within Kata for self defense / self protection purposes. The kata were actually family systems where the oldest son or a designated heir would be given the family “secrets,� which was basically the keys to unlock the code. Within that code are also the methods revealing how one should train the body and the mind in order to take full advantage of these secrets.
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OFFICIAL KARATE 2014 ANNUAL