About kata of Kodokan-Judo.

The reason to establish the kata of a school.
I would like to explain why and how we needed kata of Kodokan-Judo, that are still in use. I already told how I have learnt jiu-jutsu from expert masters who formed themselves at the end of Bakufu. In ancient times ju-jutsu was practiced only as a kata, but right when Bakufu was coming to an end, randori was introduced next to kata.

Kito Ryu (School of Light, “ki” and of Shadow “to”, a different way to express in and yo) used to parctice a free exercise called “ran”, that started from a distance, after the bow. Mister Kano considered it dangerous for many accidents that happend before contact (especially at the hands) and he wanted that Kodokan’s ran-dori (dori: hold, to seize) started only after the holds were taken at the gi. (C.B.)

So it is quite a recent thing that jiujutsuka are practicing free exercise, because before the Ishin age most of the schools used to recommend kata, neglecting free exercise. But my teachers both from Tenjin-shin’yo and from Kito-ryu used to practice kata and randori, and I was educated in both and I appreciated this method with my logic, because kata is the speech’s grammar, and randori is the content of the message.
That is to say that as randori needs kata, to write a comprehensible sentence we need grammar. When we are expert only in grammar, we are not able to write a good message, while writing without knowlege of the grammar does not allow an efficacious communication. So, also in judo, if we do not learn kata it is difficoult to widen the experience, and also to deepen it to reach a magistral mastrey of the art.
If we study prefigured kata only, and we repeat it always with the same order and form, when we get involved in a sudden attack we become nervous and we make mistakes. That is why it is necessary to prepare ourselves to the unforseeable situation of a non-conventional attack when we do not expect it. This training completes the kata’s exercise.
By studying kata and randori together I matured something. That is, with some experience in randori, you find out that you do not practice the same kata that you used to do before. Moreover randori wakes up some interest as it introduces an element of reality in the pracitice, as much as some students, even if they pracitce both, can manage to undertake only randori, neglecting kata.
In the first time of Kodokan I did not distinguish between randori and kata, but I used to explain the form while I was proceeding with randori. As you can explain grammar while you are proceeding in writing the letter.
But this method was working as long as I was teaching directly to the pupils, one by one. As the number of pupils was growing, I had not enough time any more, and especially by delegating other teachers it was becoming difficoult for them to adopt my method. So it was necessary to establish our school’s kata.

The structure of kata
In the beginning I used to teach original Tenshin-shinyo or Kito-ryu’s kata. Both these schools had some good qualities, but also some deficency. So I created at first the kata of nage with 10 forms, that later became 15, as many as are now, even if kata-guruma and sumi-otoshi have been modified.

Tadao Otaki and Donn F. Draeger, Judo formal techiniques, Tuttle, 1983: “Kano originally included sukui-nage as the last tecnique of te-waza”. We think that it was obi-otoshi, that was replaced with kata-guruma to limit the demonstration of techniques that throw from forward to side, allowing who wanted it, to compose an analogous kata in nage with throws which direction go from the side to behind. About sumi-otoshi we don’t know if it’s a typo, or a mistake in the translation, or a replaced techinque (for the same reasons as above, there could have been sumi-otoshi insetad of uki-otoshi. C.B.)

I created different kata because the initial teaching method, that used to put kata in randori (for instance: if you do this, the opponent loses his balance this way; and if you pull him, he uses his power this way...) was not practicable with many students. I selected the main strategies and I compesed Nage-no-kata with 3 movements where hands and arms are mostly used, 3 where the hip is used, as many where feet and legs are used, and finally 3 of ma-sutemi, and as many of yoko-sutemi. I tried to illustrate the fundamental strategy of nage-waza with these forms.
Today also Katame-no-kata includes 15 hon, but before they were 10. I choosed the main kata of osae-komi, of nodo-jime and of kansetsu.
This way I wanted to make understandable the strategy of nage-waza and the mechanics of katame waza, with respective Nage and Katame-no-kata.
Later we made Kime-no-kata, that today includes 20 hon. 8 of idori and 12 of tachi-ai. Also in this kata at the beginning there were only 14/15 hon.
Nage and Katame-no kata are the bases of randori. Kime-no kata used to be called Shobu-no-kata, which is the denomination of real fighting in former jujitsu. I should not generalize, but I have the feeling that today’s kata is lacking in spirit compared to how it used to be practiced once.

Today kata is tought and practiced separately from randori, but its function is pointed out when it is finalized to the free exercise, for instance: when every strategy of Nage is applied in a randori’s techinque; or: alternating 5’ of randori with a group of Ju-no-kata; or likewise: randori followed by an execution of Kime-no-kata until “something from randori passes into kata, and vice-versa”. It is quite evident that real fighting’s determination must combine with the typical judo’s adaptability during randori. (C.B.)

Considering some kata that used to be practiced in different ryu, there are some movements that do not combine with randori . Probably some movements were shown according to a learning gradient, and their application was kept secret. This way kata works little, because it’s original content is kept hidden. For this reason the original kata of different ryu were inadequate for Judo’s purposes, so I choosed the most usefull ones, and modifying them, I created shobu-no-kata, which is today’s kime-no-kata.

Agreement for a kata of Butoku-kai.
To create katame-no-kata and kime-no-kata I had some help also from some jujutsuka from other regions who joined the Dainnippon Butoku-kai.
It happend in the 39th year of Meiji, when viscount Oura was president of Butoku-kai. People from different ryu, each of them practicing their own style, used to come for training in the centres of this organization. But the President wanted to unify the practice, spreading all over Japan some common models of kata. And he asked for my advice to reach this goal.
He propesed that two school leaders, Totsuka Hidemi and Hoshino Kumon, received the charge to choose in different regions a group of experts, to create a Commission, that would discuss and decide a system of forms valid in all the nation. I would have given the arguments for the discussion, that is to say that I would have done the proposals of kata.
The president accepted. So the conference with Totsuka, Hoshino and other jujutsuka from various ryu took place, beginning the discussion on the base that I prepared with Kodokan Shobu-no-kata. Adding new hon, we decided that idori should contain 8 of them, and tachiai 12. This structure corresponds to the Kodokan’s conception, and also the new hon were created by me, and they have been accepted after they have been discussed untill everyone was convinced of their utility. So this form is valid both for Butoku-kai and Kodokan.
In the same way, Kodokan’s katame-no-kata was composed by ten forms, but we added five more, with the same praxis. Even if all this was done for Butoku-kai, as it responded to my conception, and I totaly agreed with the conclusion, we can say that this kata is valid both for Butoku-kai and Kodokan.
For nage-no-kata, there was no one between the numerous participants to the commission who was against my proposal, so with no modification at all, Kodokan’s kata had been adopted by Butoku-kai. So this one too is valid both for Butoku-kai and Kodokan.

Yawara-no-kata, Goo-no-kata
Yawara-no-kata has not been officially accepted by Butoku-kai; its conception is distant from the traditional one of jiu-jutsu, and it is a pure Kodokan-judo’s kata. But this kata is very practiced, also by the members of Butoku-kai.

Mr Kano has changed jiu-jutsu by adding to it a moral principle: the best use of energy and while Nage and Koshiki-no-kata derive from Kito’s heritage, Katame and Kime-no-kata from the heritage of Tenshinshin-shin’yo-ryu, Ju and Itsutsu-no-kata reflect the moral conception of Kodokan-Judo. Old teachers didn’t accept it easily. (C.B.)

I begun studying it in the 20th year of Meiji, and it help us solving different problems at the same time. First of all it make us understand the advantages of adaptability compared to strenght. At Kodokan’s dojo when there used not to be many students I could teach well how to react to strenght, moving forward or pulling backwards. But later on, as the number of students was growing, I could not follow everybody any more, therefore some were fighting with violence or applying techinques with strenght. I introduced training in the kata to correct this bad habit, promoting correct movements that take to a soft action that can control a hard attack; For example: if the opponent pushes we let him do it or if he pulls we second it, letting the opponent wasting his strenght in the air.
For those who can’t stand randori because it is too violent, we can propose this exercise in which there is less strenght, but you move with all the body, arms and legs. Yawara-no-kata reaches this goal. And beyond the non-violent movement, in this kata there are no falls, it can be trained also on a wood floor, it does not make holds at the collar or at the sleaves, so it can be done with common clothes. Nevertheless, with it’s soft and calm movement, it prepares to real fighting, for instance: if you are threatened to get hit you avoid the blow this way, against a knife you defend this other way, if you are attacked with a downward blow you let it go in the air, if you get seized at the wrist, you can free it with this movement. There are also other qualities: it’s a kata that can be appreciated by everyone, not only by judo practisers.
In the 20th year of Meiji also this kata had 10 hon, that later on became 15. Then there is Goo-no-kata, which is totally different from Yawara-no-kata. It is also called Goju-no-kata. This last form at the beginning proposes to contrast strenght with strenght, and the it makes tori apply a soft reaction to get an easy victory.
I used to teach it at the dojo, but I quit as i find it incomplete. I will wait to work again on it when I’ll have done it better.

Itsutsu-no-kata
There is also Itsutsu-no-kata. This one is incomplete too. The first 2 movements are taken from Kito-ryu, while the follwing 3 did not exist in traditional jujitsu.

Let us be carefull of easy conclusions: Kito’s school was quite widespread in warriors’ Japan, and naturally, many branches that were detached from hombu-dojo, could easily accumulate techincal variations, keeping faithful only in the principles that were enounced in the transmission’s densho. When Mr. Kano speaks about Kito-ryu, we can verify his affirmations by considering Tanaka-ha, that is the Tanaka branch of this school, from wich judo’s Kitoryu-no kata derives (C.B.)

Once everything was conceived in function of attack and defence. Then contents became more important than pure fighting and this was already evident in traditional jujitsu.
I want to make an example to make this idea clearer: once exchanges were made only with goods, bartering someone’s properties with of another one’s. But then money started to be used to get desired things. At the beginning coins were symbolic objects, as some shells, silver, gold, bronze, iron, then paper, that has no material value, started to be used. Today paper is the most used, for convenience of use.
But another step forward has been done, and confidence has become more important than paper money. Confidence is an invisible thing that can not be touched or kept in hand, but as it revealed itself useful and even necessary to commerce, it became more important than material obejcts.
This paraxis can be applied to many situations.
Jiu-jitsu, that was inheriting bujutsu’s point of view, had the aim of victory in fighting. But useful qualities for a fighter are serenity, body’s agility, training and so on, beyond physical strenght. Indeed these arguments became so important that tehy were studied in advanced training independently of research for strenght.
These characteristics take your attention as you consider Kito-ryu’s and Kyushin-ryu’s kata.
As a consequence some jujitu masters were not winners everytime in real fighting (maybe for age reasons), but they were demonstrating their great personality in kata.
As for commerce, where confidence is more important then objects’exchange, so it happened that in jiu-jitsu forming charcter has become more importatnt than winning in fighting.
Once we share this reality, we can understand the importance of style even if it is not finalized to material victory.
The meaning of Itsutsu-no-kata’s techniques consists of corporial interpretation of the movements of water, of celestial motions and of other natural phenomena. The last 3 hon of Itsutsu-no-kata explain these meanings (“Judo and life”, Autobiography – Satsuki-Shobo, Tokyo, 1983).

Then: Randori’s grammar is contained in Randori-no-kata; syntax is in Kime and Ju-no-kata and two Phd are represented by Koshiki and Itsutsu-no-kata, and in a kind of way they express with the body the story and philosophy of judo. But let’s report an historical event of this epic story.

A period of randori.

The foundation of randori.
Now I will be speaking about Kodokan again. When I built the dojo I did not have a Tenjin-shin’yo ryu’s teacher, but I was following Kito ryu’s teacher Ikubo, who has been teaching at Kodokan until 18th or 19th year of Meiji (1886-’87, C.B.), while I was keeping beginners classes. When I built the dojo the teacher was more than 50 years old, but he was so strong that for me he was unattainable in randori.

At the beginning Mr. Kano had rented four rooms in Eisho-ji, two for the students, one for himself and the last one as a reception room. In the evening they used to take off the movable partition wall that was dividing these last two rooms, they used to put the table next to the wall, and practice on the floor’s tatami. But the beams that were holding the plank floor under the tatami were crumbling away and Tomita Tsunejiro used to slip under the plank floor to fix them, while Mr. Kano was holding a candle. The vibrations produced by the falls were moving the votive tablets of the adjacent temple and the roof’s tiles, so the monk Asahi Sumpho was protesting (saying “a good person, that Kano, if he just was not practicing jiu-jutsu...”; he did not turn them out only because Kano often used to recive important persons). So they had to build a dojo of 6 meters by 4 in the park (C.B.).

So I used to teach to my pupils while I was learning kata and randori from my master. And now I would like to tell how I could make a big step forward in randori.
I believe that it happened in the 18th year of Meiji; one day making randori with my master, I could throw him over and over again. Before, with just a few exceptions, he was throwing me over and over again. But that day my master could not make it even once while my technique was working very good. As the teacher was from Kito-ryu, he was excellent in nage and he used to throw me every time. But that day was really special.
The master was left surprised and thoughtful. This was a result of my research in position-breaking. Also before I tried to make him lose his balance, or I was doing my best to take advantage of the opportunities offered me by his action, but that time I concentrated in breaking his position before attacking with waza and I put all my attention into it.
Later on at Kodokan I taught position-breaking roppo and happo, that were born from this research. It consists in this: pushing or pulling the opponent I surely get a reaction, and I obtain some moments in which his position is broken.
For how strong somone’s body may be, if he stands still on his guard, by pushing him he loses his balance backwards and pulling him he loses it forwards. He could counter-push when I push him and then, If I pull right away, he surely loses his balance forwards. So, skillfully using to push and pull it is possible to break his stability and to make him lose control on his position. The waza works well if applied right at the moment of the partner’s instability.
Before I talked about roppo position-breaking, that is: forwards, backwards, diagonal forwards (right and left), diagonal backwards (right and left), that make 6 directions. Happo adds 2 more directions, right and left. The moment when the position is broken depends by the partner’s attitude or by the provoking push/pull, but this should allow to apply the technique according to one of the 8 directions.
Naturally there can be many more directions but I simplifyed them in 6 or 8. Logically the position breaking happens consequently to the induced provocation.
So I had exercised this technique with my pupils, and some of them became good at it, and that day I applied it to the master adapting it to his strategy.

Receiving the ryu’s authority
I spoke to the master about this strategy that applies waza consequentely to the position breaking of the partner, and he recognized its validity, saying: “I don’t have anything to teach you any more by now, keep on with your research and go on with the young people”. From that time he quit doing randori with me. But I still had the teaching of the kata and many things from him.
A little after this facts the master gave me Kito-ryu’s diploma, the densho and all the school’s relics in his possession. So I received the authority of the ryu.
There are some old stories that introduce us in the mistery of someone who recieved the teaching by the holy man in the forest, or who had been educated by a daemon..
I don’t want to criticize these stories. But there is no doubt about the big difference between before and after the perception of a new, valid strategy.
Also other Jiu-jutsu professionals confirm that Kodokan dojo is superior in the use of feet and koshi, compared to traditional ryu.
This explains that we well understood the importance of breaking the partner’s position. Any waza works well when the oppponent’s position is broken. (Kano Jigoro, Judo and life, autobiography, Satsuki Shobo, 1983).