In some ways this podcast about the usefulness of kata was destined to happen…

In the last couple of years several people suggested that I should talk to Iain Abernathy, an expert in the application of karate kata, because I am generally quite dubious about the utility of karate kata and kung fu forms.

Then I published a controversial video on Youtube called “Why Kung Fu Forms and Karate Kata are (Mostly) Pretty Useless!” (That video is embedded at the bottom of this post if you want to see it.)

Turns out that this video of mine was forwarded on to Iain Abernathy by his friends and followers in hopes that he would debunk it. So when I hit him up to be a guest on The Strenuous Life Podcast he readily agreed.

On the podcast we talked about about kata as a training method, techniques advancing over time, ancient martial arts training methods, the reason for “freezing” between moves in kata, pushback from the traditional karate community, drills to make the application of moves instinctive, and more.

I really enjoyed it and I hope you do too!

Go grab episode 169 with Iain on the podcast player that you almost certainly already have on your phone, and it’s 100% free.

For example, if you have an iPhone then it’s the purple app with the antenna-like thing in it; just click the Apple Podcasts link below to go to the right place and hit ‘subscribe’.

Here are the links to find the podcast on various players – the episode with Iain on the application of Karate kata is number 169…

Or you can stream the audio here:

If you enjoyed this episode then please subscribe, rate, and review the show. I can’t tell you how much that helps and encourages me to pump out episodes more frequently!

About Iain Abernathy: Iain is an author, a 7th degree black belt, and an expert in the application of traditional karate techniques. Find out more about about Iain, his books, articles, and apps at iainabernethy.co.uk.

And here’s the video that catalysed this conversation:

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