“Kata follows the essence of martial arts which is to minimize movement.” – Tsuguo Sakumoto 9th dan Ryuei Ryu
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Karate for me is about efficiency of movement, efficiency of combat, and natural movement lies at the heart of this efficiency.
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Karate has been described as unnatural movement that you do, until it becomes natural for YOU. And just because a movement feels natural, doesn’t mean it’s the most efficient or powerful way to move.
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Gavin Mulholland wrote: “[..] sometimes you need to spend a lot of time working on a specific movement in order to make it ‘natural’.”
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First we need to concentrate on the right body motion. Having done that students then need to perform techniques effectively in a fluid way….. and in the beginning, we need to break it down for them in to “bullet points”; i.e. this is what your feet do, this is where you hands need to be, this is what your hips do. Now move from there to here … and so on. Breaking things down step by step, will result in step by step practice.
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Step by step practice involves motions that are not “natural”; so there would be a problem if people mistook this stage for the end of the process (and there are many that do). However, step by step practice allows people to learn the key points of a given technique so that they can then smooth it out, which hopefully results in a good flowing technique that contains all the component parts.
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Now, I view all techniques and drills to be a means to impart a principle. It’s the principle we truly need to learn. We are given the “what” so we can learn the “why”.
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In the martial arts many times we refer to ‘principles over technique’. To explain this further, I see various principles as simply a ‘way of moving your body’, devoid of specific purpose.
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A principle is different from a technique in that the principle can typically be used to do ‘many’ things, whereas a technique has a SPECIFIC purpose.
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As regards the specifics of movement, there are core principles that should always be adhered to i.e. the bodyweight must move into the strike, torque must be generated from the hips, strikes must be “overlapped” to ensure flow, a high hit rate and maximum impact, etc, etc.
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But given a choice, the body will use what feels “easiest” to the person in order to accomplish a task. If we leave this up to “natural movements” people will typically use too much tension, move in a way that telegraphs what they are doing, and slows them down.
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Remember that intellectual understanding is one thing, it is intuitive and instinctive understanding that we ultimately need. Therefore, use movements that have “become natural to you”, not necessarily movements that would be considered natural. 
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With thanks to Gavin Mulholland and Iain Abernethy
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