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trated,December, 48.Form/Xing/Kata/Pattern Practice
Editorial note: Bracketed number code in this entry refers to the ideogram
that follows.
This pedagogical device, best known by its Japanese name, kata([1]; pro-
nounced hyungin Korean, xing in Mandarin), represents the central
methodology for teaching and learning the body of knowledge that consti-
tutes a traditional school or system of martial art throughout much of East
Asia. The standard English translation for kata is “form” or “forms,” but
while this may be linguistically accurate, it is uninformative at best and
misleading at worst. The nature and function of kata training are better
conveyed by the phrase “pattern practice.”
Students engaged in pattern practice rehearse combinations of tech-
niques and countertechniques, or sequences of such combinations, ar-
ranged by their teachers. In Chinese, Korean, and Okinawan boxing
schools, such training often takes the form of solo exercises, while in both
traditional and modern Japanese fighting arts students nearly always work
in pairs, with one partner designated as the attacker or opponent, and the
other employing the techniques the exercise is designed to teach.
In many modern martial art schools and systems, pattern practice is only
one of several more or less coequal training methods, but in the older schools
it was and continues to be the pivotal method of instruction. Many schools
teach only through pattern practice. Others employ adjunct learning devices,
such as sparring, but only to augment kata training, never to supplant it.
The preeminence of pattern practice in traditional martial art training
often confuses or bemuses modern observers, who characterize it as a kind
of ritualized combat, a form of shadowboxing, a type of moving medita-
tion, or a brand of calisthenic drill. But while pattern practice embraces el-
ements of all these things, its essence is captured by none of them. For kata
is a highly complex teaching device with no exact analogy in modern sports
pedagogy. Its enduring appeal is a product of its multiple functions.
On one level, a school’s kata form a living catalog of its curriculum
and a syllabus for instruction. Both the essence and the sum of a school’s
teachings—the postures, techniques, strategies, and philosophy that com-
prise it—are contained in its kata, and the sequence in which students are
taught the kata is usually fixed by tradition and/or by the headmaster of
Form/Xing/Kata/Pattern Practice 135