Over the years, with Wado-ka competing in open events, it has become
very obvious to the Wado `traditionalists' that many have `adapted'
their Wado Kata to fit in to the way kata are performed to `win'
tournaments. Some Kata have been `adapted' to such an extreme that
the `Wado-ness' of the Kata has been completely removed.

This has put us in two `new' schools of thought within both our
training and tournaments. The traditionalist who sticks to his guns
who doesn't get anywhere in tournaments (especially open events),
and has decided not to compete in them. And there is
the `competition' oriented school/s that change their kata to gain
medals.

Personally I am the traditionalist, and will not apologise for that.
I would also like to see that Wado Kata are performed as they should
be and recognised for the Wado principles and values contained
within.
However, even in this case, this may not be possible. We have at
least three branches of Wado that train kata differently. So even
here we may be accused of biasness if we score higher a Wadokai kata
to say a Wado-Renmei one.

The direction I like to see our AIWa Kata Tournaments go is away
from the `open' aspect and more towards the traditional. We can only
do this if we can `recognise' these differences within all our
traditional Wado Kata, and an experienced Wado-ka can recognise a
good Wado Kata even if there are some slight technical differences.

However, as explained before, how would this bring back
the `traditionalist'? To get competitor numbers to compete we need
these Wado events to be open, and by making the event `open' we
encourage those who `need' to change their Kata to suit the
environment.

The only answer to this would make the event purely a `closed' event
to AIWa Membership only, and only encourage the scoring
of `traditional' technique within them.

However, if we do close the event to traditionalists only, we may
not get the numbers to make the competition worthwhile to organise.
Hence creating a 'Catch-22' situation.

But I feel we need to show by example, and I also feel that it is
worth the risk in the long-run.

We need to lead...

Recognise the Kata for what it should be... Wado!

Gary E Swift Kyoshi.