Not everyone would agree, however, l have the total conviction that it is possible to understand the spirit of the masters who created our classical kata. Although there is no possibility of discovering the name and facts surrounding the progenitor of these forms, their spirit can be felt when an intimate understanding of the forms has been attained. It could perhaps be argued that this is an illusion. If that is the reality, I am nevertheless happy to experience and nurture such an illusion.

Many years ago, I made a deep and intensive twenty year study of the story of Bradbourne Estate in Sevenoaks. There came a time when I felt I could understand the very character, personalities and thinking processes of the people I had chosen to research and study. I felt like a neighbour and when walking around the estate, long lost to the developers and builders, could yet see the original buildings as they had stood years before, and could see the various personages in their daily pursuits as if I were there. It was as it I could feel their very dreams and aspirations.

In similar manner, whenever I settle down to play the Baroque harpsichord music that I so love and enjoy I am putting myself spiritually in touch with those masters of the keyboard of some two hundred years ago. It is easy to feel the presence, vitality, and inspiration of these creative geniuses through their music. To enhance the whole, it is helpful to me If I adopt the manner of performance at the time, the same mode of fingering and, to realise perfect spiritual harmony, to play on an instrument crafted during the Baroque period.

There are many, many pursuits that bring one in direct touch with the spirit of the past and the people who played an active part in the triggering of significant events. Such links are of vital and fundamental importance to me, I cannot envisage any activity or concept as being divorced from its historical roots. Such an idea is totally abhorrent and alien to me.

Continuing in this vein, having spent twenty-five years studying the various versions of the classical kata, I can now identify with and feel a sense of awe in the presence of their creators. Kata has enormous depth of meaning, from the mundane and simple to the deep and complex. Its apparent simplicity embodies a multiplicity of concepts that could only have been assembled by a great master of the art. Its creator was very wise and clever.

Of course, I totally accept that this 'creator' may well have been several different people, perhaps several generations of masters, gradually developing and perfecting a root form. This does not change the sense that one can perceive the spirit of those masters within the form.

In order to enhance this understanding, it is helpful (but not essential) to research and study the life and times of the Okinawan masters. Theirs was a culture and time very far removed from our own experience. The social conditioning and cultural norm of these people was vastly different from our own. Yet, despite this, the man was human, a member of our family species, and whatever the conditioning process, the physiological, psychological and spiritual inspiration remains fundamentally the same.

There is great satisfaction and inspiration for me in the knowledge that the movements that I perform when working my classical kata, have been performed countless times before by thousands of students, hundreds of practitioners and dozens of masters representing the long line of transmission of the form.

I make the spirit of the form, its progenitors and subsequent masters a specific meditative theme among the many themes that I pursue. Yet whatever theme it is that I reflect upon, I can never wholly exclude the spiritual presence of all those greater and wiser than myself who brought the form to its present state of evolution. I am simply a spiritual link in that chain passing the light of the candle onto the next follower in the long succession of those whom will pursue a study of these fascinating and important forms.