Listening to Iain!

I listened to one of Iain Abernathy's podcast tonight, whilst ironing, well actually two.  
The first was about Zombies and Strawberries :), the second an older one about money and martial arts.

Now Zombies and Strawberries, I loved it, it was whether a kata is dead or alive, if your kata (form, Hyung) is Zombie, well it may as well be dead.  But if it is strawberry, it is alive and kicking. Now I am not putting a picture up of a Zombie, sorry no, they were just too scary.  

So what have strawberries got to do with it.  Well according to Iain (great guy to listen to, and his laugh is infectious).  A kata is created by whomever, this is the strawberry plant, it is then passed on to their students, who are actually the strawberries detached from the plant, they are not really dead as they actually give life via their seeds. The strawberry seed students, then take that kata, and implant in themselves, possibly altering, possibly tweaking, hopefully always improving on how the form looks and feels.  The kata is not dead as the students work hard at perfecting what they have been shown.  This seed is then grown to the plant and the cycle starts again.  Each student has their own expression that may appear in the kata, but the kata will be basically the same as the old Masters from long ago.

Now a zombie kata, oh I so hope I do not do one of those, this is where the kata has no soul or brain, it is performed solo and never collectively passed on.  It therefore dies.

If you have not heard of the man, pop over to http://www.iainabernethy.co.uk/audio for his podcast, it is worth the listen.