Hi everyone,
I'm fairly new to the forum, but have been avidly reading the fantastic
insights, cerebral debates and heated arguments that are emblazoned across these
pages. Although I started training in Wado 20 years ago the last 10 have been
on-and-off due to moving around and not finding a Sensei, so I guess I'm really
one of these 'armchair Wadoka' that thinks about Wado more than actually
practises it these days. Who knows, maybe one day I'll finally progress past the
1st kyu that i've now reached twice! I'm living in Aachen, Germany, until
October and then i'll be heading to Australia (Brisbane or Canberra) once more -
if anyone is in the area then please give me a shout :).

Hopefully my post won't distract the attention of the group from the current
train of thought too much, but I thought that I'd ask the group a quick
question. What exactly are the "36 kumite gata's", are they the same as
"urawaza" (which is also a mystery to me) and does any of the group still
incorporate these gata/kata as a mainstay of their training (i.e. does Kihon
kumite supersede these)?

Mr Threadgill showed us some really interesting 2 man drills/kata/gata that I
hadn't seen before during a 2 day seminar in Taunton a few years back (maybe
2005????) that I was most fortunate to attend. I believe that these were
performed by Ohtsuka to teach kuzushi - are these kumite gata/urawaza the same
thing? Whilst my question asking courage is still well and truly plucked, is
there a difference between a "gata" and a "kata" or is it simply 2 ways to
translate the same word?

Thanks for your time and your awesome forum - it really is an amazing resource
for a "wado orphan" like me that has to content himself with an internet
connection and a couple of junzuki's in his bedroom!

Kind regards,
Melrose
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FYI Today I collated some wado videos from the internet to try and form a
"syllabus" of sorts. If you own any of these videos then please accept my deep
thanks for putting them on the internet and I hope you don't consider it poor
form to have used them. I believe that vodpod just links to the original site so
hopefully I'm not violating any copyright restrictions etc. Please let me know
if you would like me to remove any of these links and I will certainly do so
(special mention to Mr van Dijk as I have borrowed significantly from his site).
My motivation for creating this was to allow me to quickly reference most
aspects of wado whilst attempting to train on my own, please don't hesitate to
correct me on any terms that I may have used/copied erroneously. If anyone has
video of the "1 step sparring" then please let me know - the sanbon gumite in
the collection doesn't quite ring as many bells as I would of thought so perhaps
this is from a different group's syllabus than I was brought up on?????

Some of what's there:
All of the katas except Bassai performed by Ohtsuka,
All of the kata's except Kushanku by Suzuki,
Kihon kumite 1-5 with Ohtsuka and Ohtsuka II
Kihon Kumite 1-10 Suzuki
Kihon Kumite 1-10 Shiomitsu
Idori kneeling defence 1-5 Ohtsuka II
Idori kneeling defence 1-5 Suzuki
All the Ohyo kumite by Suzuki
tanto dori knife defence - Ohtsuka, Suzuki, Shiomitsu
tachidori sword defence - Ohtuska, Suzuki
Kumite gata 2, 4, 22, 23 Ohtsuka
kihon/basics - Ohtsuka II, Shiomitsu, Suzuki

There's about 130 videos in total, some of the ones of Ohtsuka have really
crappy picture quality but are worth a watch anyways.
I lumped all of the videos into 1 location (http://melrose.vodpod.com/) then
copied them into various categories:
http://kata-wado.vodpod.com/
http://kihon-kumite.vodpod.com/
http://ohyo-kumite.vodpod.com/
http://kumite-gata.vodpod.com/
http://idori.vodpod.com/
http://tanto-dori.vodpod.com/
http://tachidori.vodpod.com/
http://kihon-basics.vodpod.com/
http://demos-misc.vodpod.com/