Traditional martial arts, which are perhaps better described as “martial arts that are not sports”, tend to have a lot of forms, or kata. I’m thinking of karate, tai chi, wing chun, choy li fut, etc.

But what exactly is the role of kata, or forms? And has it changed over time?

In this new episode of the Heretics podcast I discuss the role of kata with Damon Smith who has extensive experience in various martial arts over decades.

It certainly became very trendy once MMA became a big deal to describe forms as useless, however, I think they do have uses, even today. As usual Damon has some pretty interesting insights into how forms have changed over time, and he can look back to the way they used to be trained in the 1980s compared to today.

Give it a listen!

Podcast.