Kyokushin style drills

[shinkyoku]

my gym does a lot of kata. Does that have any application for knockdown tournaments or a more open rule set like mma? Do any of you practice shotokan kata?

I guess you are trolling, but...
Kata in itself (doing the formalized set patern over and over, obsessing over minute technical details) has no worth as fight training for any combat sport.
Bunkai (breaking the form down into components, moving away from the foramalized dance, and training the techniques and principles taught, in realistic setting), trained properly, has a lot of worth for combat, even combat sports, but there are almost no dojos that train bunkai properly. Most bunkai out there is a poor joke, invented by people who had no clue what they were doing, and passed on without criticism by students to loyal ta ask "sensei could you show that in a realistic way?".

You need to find guys like Iain Abernethy to get it right.

But the formal steps? some cardiovascular training perhaps, but little other value. And the cardiovascular stuff could easily be gained in more effective ways.

Kata are a traditional method of remembering techniques and principles. Sadly it has failed and we have only the meaningless pattern, repeated without understanding as an artform in itself, left.

 

[A Muse of Fire]

I guess you are trolling, but...
Kata in itself (doing the formalized set patern over and over, obsessing over minute technical details) has no worth as fight training for any combat sport.
Bunkai (breaking the form down into components, moving away from the foramalized dance, and training the techniques and principles taught, in realistic setting), trained properly, has a lot of worth for combat, even combat sports, but there are almost no dojos that train bunkai properly. Most bunkai out there is a poor joke, invented by people who had no clue what they were doing, and passed on without criticism by students to loyal ta ask "sensei could you show that in a realistic way?".

You need to find guys like Iain Abernethy to get it right.

But the formal steps? some cardiovascular training perhaps, but little other value. And the cardiovascular stuff could easily be gained in more effective ways.

Kata are a traditional method of remembering techniques and principles. Sadly it has failed and we have only the meaningless pattern, repeated without understanding as an artform in itself, left.

No I'm not trolling at all. thanks for the reply

Although most of the kata I do involves a sword, as my teachers also teach Iado and sword work. I don't know if that makes a difference but I don't learn Iado for competion.