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What is Sport Martial Arts Kata?

Overview

In today’s terminology, Sport Karate (or Sport Martial Arts) is the application of competitive martial arts in a sporting environment, and has been around for a few decades.

The two main categories or divisions of competition are Kumite and Kata. This article will focus on Kata, if you are interested in the Kumite category click here.

Within those two categories, there are various areas of competition – such as weapon forms, musical forms, team forms, team kumite, continuous kumite, and many more divisions (depending what sanction an athlete competes in). Sport Martial Arts is quickly evolving as competitors continue to push the envelope of what people are physically capable of doing. This not only has increased the level of competition, but also allows martial art athletes to be more innovative in their traditional and competitive training.

Kata

Kata competitions are similar to the gymnastic floor routines seen in the Olympics. While gymnasts put together routines that demonstrate their abilities in front of a panel of judges, martial art kata competitors will either perform a traditional kata from their martial art style or be more creative and incorporate flashy moves from Extreme Martial Arts. This is all performed in front of a panel of either 3 or 5 judges, (more if it is a national championship) who then give a score to each kata competitor. The competitor, or player, with the highest score takes first place, down to however many places are awarded for each division. Competitors who tie will have to perform their kata (or an alternative) again to break the tie. At times martial art athletes that win their division compete against other first place winners to determine an Overall Grand Champion.

Martial Artists are beginning to take their traditional martial arts training of kata and combined it with acrobatic/gymnastic moves to create the widely accepted term, Extreme Martial Arts. This basically encompasses traditional punches, blocks, and kicks of any art, with a flare of flips, tucks, twists, spins, and creative combinations (flips, twists, and spins combined with kicks and/or punches). At times, break dancing moves are also included.

If you are interested in kata competition, be sure to ask about specific training as you are researching a martial arts school to join. While every school will teach you the katas of their art (since they are essential to learning any style) some schools may offer training that focuses even more on perfecting the katas for competition.

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