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Bulletin 13 part 2
The Relevance of Kata—An Interview with Trevor P Leggett
Trevor Pryce
Leggett was largely responsible for shaping post-war British Judo and
coached many of our leading Instructors.
Nicholas Soames
conducted this interview with TP in 1982 regarding Kata and the
place it has in Judo.
The British Judo
world has never really taken to Kata. Though Dr Jigoro Kano regarded Kata as
one of the two main ways of learning Judo, emphasis has continued to be
placed on Randori, and despite the fact that Kata is a requirement for
senior grades, and there are Kata championships, the number of people who
practice Kata regularly remains small.
This is probably
the result of Judo being regarded primarily as a competitive sport rather
than, as Dr Kano envisaged, a more complete training, an education.
However, there is a certain irony in that
international opinion accords a series of books on Kata written by an
Englishman as one of the best to be written. The books are of course, by
Trevor Leggett, and have recently been re-issued by W. Foulsham in one
volume (covering Nage-no-Kata, Katame-no-Kata and Ju-no-Kata) called
Kata Judo (£7.95).
Leggett is now 68
and, since he retired from Judo in 1964, has become one of the leading
translators of Japanese Buddhist texts (he was, for many years, head of the
Japanese Service of the BBC) and, more recently, translator of abstruse
Sanskrit documents. But in the mid-20’s, Leggett became the first Western
student to be invited to study Judo in Japan at The Kodokan and, during his
years there immediately preceding the Second World War, followed a
traditional training pattern.
The object was not
so much to train for specific competitions but to regard Judo as a ‘Shogyo,’
an ascetic practice, pursued for personal development; thus Leggett would
spend four or five hours a day, divided into Randori, private lessons under
10th Dans Mifune and Nagaoka and other senior instructors and Kata. After
the war, he incorporated the training methods he learnt in Japan in his
teaching at The Budokwai and then at The Renshuden Judo Academy which he
founded. By the early 1960’s he was fairly pleased with the progress of the
Randori, but Kata, he felt, was less well developed — and it was to raise
the standard of Kata that he wrote the books on Nage-no-Kata and
Katameno-Kata; and, using unique and historically important photos of Dr
Kano himself, Ju-no-Kata. The photographs had been entrusted to him by
Jigoro Nango, the then President of The Kodokan following the death of Dr
Kano, to be used to further the spread of Judo in the West.
Though Leggett has
now been out of the Judo scene for nearly 20 years, he still has clear and
definite ideas on the value of Kata and the direction Kata should take.
“I
think Kata has a value, not only for people who are getting on in years, but
also for people who are still contesting,” he said in a recent interview
following the publication of
Kata Judo. “One of the perils of going to contests is that gradually you
develop your own stuff and you are liable to get narrower and narrower and
more and more fixed in your Judo.”
“Now, there ought
to be something which you exercise which makes you interested in things
which you are not particularly good at, and that you do not use in contest.
Kata does that. I suppose it corresponds to the scales that a musician does.
A musician will do his scales not as a musical expression, but as a
training. He will do scales he is not very good at, and scales like thirds
and sixths which don’t come very often in the pieces that he plays. But he
does them anyway, so that if he does come across them he is not afraid of
them.
“So I think there
is a value in Kata, but it must have meaning to those who practice them.
Part of the trouble is that people don’t think about the Katas. It is just
like reading a sacred book or doing a sacred ceremony. People don’t think.
They say: ‘I expect it means something,’ but that is a big mistake. In that
sense, I hope the book will be a stimulus to people.”
Mr. Leggett draws
a parallel between the way most people read Zen stories and the way they
approach Kata. He is known for collecting and using those short stories,
which are often used as training mediums in the Eastern spiritual traditions
rather than studying cold, philosophical treatises. In his new collection of
such stories — Encounters in
Yoga and Zen — Meetings of Cloth and Stone (Routledge and Kegan
Paul £4.95) Leggett remarks that the stories are not merely to charm the
reader, but to ‘act as flint and steel in making a light.”
The same should
apply, remarks Mr. Leggett to the study of Kata. He himself made a special
study of Nage-no-Kata, which is why he added a short commentary in which he
elaborates briefly on Dr Kano’s three aims in devising the Katas — to deepen
and perfect the study technique; as a method of physical development and
education; and as a means of spiritual training. “There is an inner thread
in the Kata,” added Mr. Leggett.
Despite
his respect for the Katas in general and Nage-no-Kata in particular, Mr.
Leggett feels that they would be more meaningful with some modification.
“For instance, the first technique of Nage-no-Kata is an absolute killer. It
knocks out 90 per cent of the people who try it after that first terrible
experience, and it makes it rather difficult to be done by older people.
“I
think somebody with great experience ought to reconstruct the Kata, also
introducing throws to the rear, for instance, as well as modifying it in
other ways. Some of the forms are very old fashioned - Uchi Mata is never
done that way now. Kata must have meaning in modern times!’
“One
of the difficulties with the Japanese is that they are not very good at
modifying things. They fossilise them and then you get a sudden genius who
scraps the whole thing and starts a new one. For instance, the thumb inside
the Judogi, Dr Kano discovered that the thumb can be broken in a twisting
movement, so it is now not allowed. But when you see the old demonstrations
of Ju Jitsu, they still do it—because they won’t change the tradition.
“I
do not think that the modification of Kata need necessarily come from Japan,
but it is no good changing just because you think ‘Oh, we will make a
British Kata.’ It has got to be done by somebody who knows both sides, the
Japanese end, and who has great experience — has been a contest man, but who
is also a good all-round technician; and someone who has also got the
application and the concentration. It is no use just stringing together a
few tricks. You want an inner thread. As I said, there is an inner thread in
Nage-no-Kata, but a new one can be constructed!’
Though
essentially a pragmatic man, Leggett does feel that tradition has a place,
even in the modern world, so long as the tradition itself is understood.
“Those last two sets of the Nage-no-Kata, for instance, are for people in
armour and if you know that, it makes more sense. I can remember the first
time I saw Nage-no-Kata, those last six techniques looked all the same to
me, just one man falling down and the other man rolling over him.”
And
as for the Uchi-Mata he remarked: “I once asked a very senior teacher why
we don’t use the modern form of Uchi-Mata. He said to me that the basic
principles are illustrated just as well in the ancient form as in the modern
form of it. So I said: ‘Wouldn’t it be better to use the modern form as it
illustrates the principles equally well! and I wondered what he would say to
that. He replied: ‘Traditionally, the principles have been illustrated by
these forms.’ So I said: ‘Well, if you had an English grammar, you would
illustrate it with modern sentences, with modern English.’ And he said (and
for a Japanese who didn’t speak very much English, it was quite a surprise):
‘I have seen English grammars with illustrations from Shakespeare.
“I
couldn’t think of anything more to say. It was a good point. It is true,
they still put Shakespeare in modern grammars.
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