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I practice both “Chi Gong,” and “Tai Chi Chuan.” Both have contributed heavily toward my martial practice. It comes down to “How you practice kata.” There is no one way to use kata. Like the softer practice of shorin kata vs. the harder sanchin like practice of goju kata. It all depends.
You mention kata as a balance exercise, that too depends on what you mean by balance. In a literal sense not but two short years ago I was struck down with a “Vertigo” attack. Man, that vertigo was really bad and it took me another two years to get my balance back (very close to back to the way it was but not totally back). I can tell you that my kata, my tai chi and my chi gong exercise/practice are the only reason I got 99.9% of my balance back.
You see, when such things happen it changes your brain so I had to reboot and reprogram my brain and body to reacquire my physical balance.
Now, if you are talking about a balance of mind, body and spirit then that discussion needs about a book or two to just get out the fundamentals. When I think of balance I think of how I balance out many different things especially in martial disciplines such as balance out my attitude with the encountering of conflict, violence and violent conflict. You see, in those areas if my balance is heavy toward the pure physical I might prevail while failing, i.e., win the fight but end up in jail and all that entails.
If you do a little more research you will find that the traditional masters tended to use kata along with the tools of hojo-undo, etc. to build heath, strength and well-being (all balanced). So the answer is “Yes and No” because they all used other disciplines to maintain strong and capable bodies, mind, and spirits.
Another balance I can think of is the implementation and execution of martial techniques through a balanced, as in proper proportions as dictated by each unique situation in self-defense, application of physiokinetics. Take that a bit further in the striking arts of karate where we tend to train ourselves out of balance for defense with the focus on the strikes, i.e., the use of the fist to hit or be hit. We tend to lean heavily on our fists because that is what we are and were taught. After all, karate is about the empty hand. The balance is skewed even with the empty-handed reference where we forget that the open-hand strikes are actually superior to the closed fist and so on.
Balance is one of those things where overall if we don’t achieve balance in martial theory, physiokinetic, techniques and philosophy then we skew our application of it in defense and thus in life. In the last forty years or so I have come to believe that the true nature of our existence is to find “Balance.” You know, a bit like “Yin-n-Yang or better Yin-Yang.”
