[Plokiikmol]

Hi all,

At what stage do people begin learning kendo kata, or does it matter? How many people actually study the kata forms with bokken and how often do you do this?

Cheers
Tim.

[frequensearules]

kata starts becoming an issue when you want to present promotion exams.

ideally your kendo development should include regular kata training, allthough a more realistic scenario is that most kendokas only study it seriously , while preparing for exams.

that is my case, im sorry to say, I wish our dojo placed more emphasis on it.

it helps with many other details, easily overlooked in kendo, shiai-keiko.

[zzbust]

It depends on the dojo to a certain degree. We start teaching kata almost from the beginning when a person joins. Kata give a chance for learning correct form, zanshin, and many of the finer details of movement and strikes at a somewhat slower pace than shinai keiko. You can get people to work on posture and timing and it also (IMHO) gives people a chance to get their mind more into kendo.. how to look for openings and what to expect all the while using correct form. When shinai are used it is a bit more dynamic (once again IMHO) and it is harder to keep peoples minds on all the small points. So I think kata is good even for the very inexperienced (please note I am not saying that it replaces shinai keiko, but adds to it).

[nretdjuend]

After nidan exam I told to integrate kata into my keiko for sandan.

[SodeSceriobia]

I started learning kata within the first couple months of starting and I'm constantly told to use the concepts learned in kata as often as I can. The only problem for me is that I'm still a tad too slow at this point to actually make it effective.

[STYWOMBORGOSY]

from the beginning, also, though it's not kata, bokuto yori keiko hou especially.

[Phoneemer]

When I started kendo in August, my sempai had us run kata practice 3 hours a week, he believes (and so do I) that kendo kata will help your shiai kendo in the long run. Now that he isn't around as much we don't practice kata as much, but when he does show up, we practice kata for a couple of hours.

[GlictStiply]

We do kata every week, and I've been doing Kata since I first started training. I enjoy kata - it feels like an important aspect of Kendo, regardless of any grading requirements.