Funakoshi defined Karate-do as a lifestyle, not a fighting method. You may take his niju kun as “evidence” of this position. It is an important distinction.

The advanced study of martial arts reveals “systems of correspondence” that guide both interpersonal and intrapersonal behaviors. As summarized by Mark Hyman, MD:

The key distinction between modern and ancient medical systems is their way of seeing. Conventional medicine understands the world by inductive reasoning and a phenomenological description of the body and illness. It is primarily an anatomical approach, or what the ancient Chinese call “dissection science.” Dissecting the body, the organs, the cell, and analyzing the cell’s parts, machinery, genome, and the body’s infirmities is the purview of Western medicine. Ancient systems of healing…follow a dramatically different path of inquiry into health and disease.

At the center of Chinese medicine is the notion of functional relationships within the body. Organs are of interest, not for their anatomical relationships, but for their functional patterns and distant effects with other “organs.” Organs in Chinese medicine are concepts organized around function, not discrete anatomical entities.

["Failures"] are perceived not as discrete entities arising from diseased organs, but imbalances in the functional relationships within the system.

The relationship between kata and “character development” is IMO to be found primarily within functional models. If the average karateka (or sensei) does not understand this, it is perhaps because they have trained only to the level of butchers, and not doctors. Translating that understanding into Cartesian English is a still greater challenge.

If you want to explore this topic further, you may enjoy the works of Ordosclan.

I like some of your points, especially the interpretation comment and can agree with that. Perhaps you did hit on my fundamental problem- that of interpretation of the kata and practice of the applications. Someone can can wave hands around in the air all day but until they have manipulated a real wrist many times, they will never know how to apply a wristlock buried in a kata movement. This is not a problem of the kata but of how it is being taught. And I did read the follow up article, thank you for the link.

I have to argue though that any specific training results in specifically conditioned reflexes. You perform how you practice. This is true in almost every skill, mental or physical. It is why people practice complex tasks and then (hopefully) get better at them.

It does not matter who makes a claim, it needs to be backed up. How does “austere training” help us fight our failings? I would still have questions about that no matter whose lips say those words. And a value judgment can still have reasons beyond “because I say so.” Granted, everyone can have an opinion, but some opinions can be grounded in more solid reasoning or facts than others.

The fight-recipe analogy is spot on. Any cook can follow a recipe, but the difference between a cook and a chef is that the chef knows what to do when things go wrong.

“Quite often, a technique that is performed while moving forward in kata practice is actually performed moving backward in a real combat situation.”

Isn’t this counterproductive to real training, since you are ingraining the wrong reflexive responses?

Good martial arts training results in deprogramming, not reprogramming. I am no fan of “reflexive response” or “muscle memory”.

“to karate traditionalists, learning to fight your failings is the true essence of the art, and this can be achieved through austere kata training.”
-How? Could you provide a concrete example? This is a major claim in the article, it should be backed up with an example or data.

Value judgments such as this are not subject to proof or disproof. A similar statement was made by Gichin Funakoshi, the “father of modern karate”. If Funakoshi didn’t know Japanese karate, then who does?

…heian shodan has a series of high blocks in it, interpreted as blocks, elbow attacks, or other joint locks, depending on who is asked. However, none of those application work without changes to them.

Some people would say this is a flaw of the karate kata. I say it is a flaw in their interpretation. Those “blocks” can be made to work as elbow attacks, without modification, but so what? One should not expect to win a fight by following a recipe.

“to karate traditionalists, learning to fight your failings is the true essence of the art, and this can be achieved through austere kata training.”
-How? Could you provide a concrete example? This is a major claim in the article, it should be backed up with an example or data.

“It is this element, where the kata can be broken down and the techniques put into practice, that allows the student to really “know” the kata, and to polish and “buff it up” constantly until the moves become refined.”
-Doesn’t this refining produce nothing more than a technique that looks pleasing but cannot actually work without changing its details? Example: heian shodan has a series of high blocks in it, interpreted as blocks, elbow attacks, or other joint locks, depending on who is asked. However, none of those application work without changes to them.

Chris Thompson’s book is focused on modern, “international” Karate, but provides a brief historical introduction concerning Chinese and Okinawan influences.

And I quote him not because I agree completely, but as background for another post I intend to publish soon.

However, I wonder if it does not improve your kata, if you also practice sparring with an opponent. This way, you will learn how to apply some of the techniques and how to get appropriate timing of single moves and sequences. Which in turn will help your kata practice a lot.

Most Karate dojos I have been to do exactly this – they devote about 1/3 of their practice time to individual techniques, 1/3 to sparring and 1/3 to kata.

I should point out, though, that the practice of the first two items focussed only on a subset of all kata techniques. Although some teachers would pick out specific moves from the katas and work on them for the entire practice.