Katás

Katás, as I already said in my blog, are sequences or series of moves that are perfromed individualy . A katá always starts and ends in the same position, this positon is called yoi. Until now I already learned many different katás, such as the katá fundamental, pianidã, pianshodã, piangodã, pianyodã, among others. All the katás that start with the pian (bigginer) are the katás for the belts bellow brown belt. After that they change names and do not have a specific word to define them, examples are the baasai, cuchanco, and the tinto. These are much harder and will take a karate student in average one year of very hard training to do it well, and many more to do it perfectly. For me to go to my next belt which is brown I have to know the baasai which is the first of the superior katás, the piangodã which is for the green belts and the piangodã which is for the blue belts. Not only do I have to actually know their order and specific moves but also to perfrom them perfectly and with streangh. Even though a kata might not seem very helpfull in practical terms since it is usually slow and has moves that you would never ever even think of using in a fight they are very essential for the karate studante. In a fight, you dont have time to think one your attack and defence, it is all spontaneaus, the role of the katá is to provide you with an arsenal of moves that might not seem usefull but that can come in handy at any sudden point.