Outline of Karate practice system

Karate practice is consisted by some different exercise. I introduce major practice.

1, Kata
This is most old and important practice of Karate. Karate doesn't have certain text book. Therefore old masters made "sequence of movements" as text book.
Students can repeat this sequence motion many times, and get skills what masters want to pass down. 1 Kata is almost for 1 min to 5min.

2, Basic
This Basic is created from "Kata". When some masters needed to teach large number of students, it was very difficult to teach them Kata at once. So masters divided Kata into pieces and taught.
It is almost impossible to teach 2 min motion to 20 students. But if he teaches only one motion to 20 students, it is possible. After some basic lessons, students almost know full part of Kata.
Actually, this "Basic basis" practice became popular from 100 years ago. (And it gave some good and bad influence to Karate).

3,Kumite
Kumite is practice for plural number of people. They do try their skills each other and improve techniques. Kata practice doesn't teach some important things, like timing and distance, so this Kumite practice helps Kata practice. But many masters said Kata should be 1st, Kumite "helps" Kata.
You might get idea like "sparing", but not only that, there are many way to do Kumite. Popular and safe Kumite practice is "Yakusoku-Kumite". Attacker and defender know what partner will do in next moment, in this Kumite. This practice is safe and both can improve particular techniques without injury. (Some dangerous techniques can be practiced by this Yakusoku-Kumite, like knife defense, too dangerous for sparing.)

4,Body conditioning.
Along with 3 practices above, some Karate practitioners do body conditioning from old time.
Training for muscle and flexibility.
Sometimes, they use stone to hit and tighten their fist, extra weight, and weapon to sharpen their skills.



Purpose of Karate training is not only one.
A, train body and mind. Practice 1 and 4 are good for this purpose.
B, Get self-defense or fighting techniques. Practice 1 and 3 are for this purpose.

We tend to get misunderstanding sometimes. "All Karate movements are for fighting", it is not.
Some movements are focusing on making strong body and mind, even in Kata.
This is why sometimes you see "strange" motion in Kata, when you think "how to use".

It is also true, without mind and body practice, we can't get self-defense techniques properly. So, we have enough reason to do Kata more and more.