The practice and purpose of kata in the martial arts is being debated (ad nauseam) once again. Do you believe that kata is the foundation of karate, or do you believe kata is an outdated method of practice that is not relevant today?
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“[..] If there is no kata, it is not karate-do, just kicking and punching.” – Shōshin Nagamine (1907 – 1997) Matsubayashi-ryu
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The trouble with determining the purpose of kata and its value, is directly related to your understanding. Everyone’s opinion of the purpose of kata is correct! If you believe that kata is outdated, and serves no purpose, then you will find no value in its practice.
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Of course there are different methods of training today, and different methods of passing on that knowledge, so the key to the purpose of kata is the intent you place in its practice.
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While karate has its birthplace on Okinawan, most people are familiar with karate that has been strongly influenced by Japanese culture. This is an important point. Why? Because Japanese culture has very strong views on kata. That is, they have a “kata” for many everyday tasks, not just in the martial arts.
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For them, kata is essentially the precise, the most formal, the most correct method for completing a task. There is kata for making tea, for getting dressed, for sweeping a shrine, and so on. Through the performance of these kata, people seek to develop personal perfection, and there can be a meditative quality to everything they do.
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When it comes to the fighting applications of kata, we have to consider the classical Chinese and Okinawan approaches. While they do not reject the benefits of kata for mental and personal development, or physical fitness and health, that is not the primary goal. Methods of striking, locking, throwing, choking, and dealing with a variety of attacks were translated from real fights, to partner drills, to solo drills, to kata. Practitioners who have had these applications taught to them will tend to see this as the core purpose of their kata practice.
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Today, many people believe that kata are outdated and useless and should no longer be practiced. Those who train in karate that don’t utilize kata so much, will tend to have a very limited understanding of them.
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Of course, if you are only interested in “fighting”, then kata will be outdated and of no significance to you. There are many other methods of training and practice that you can utilize….. And this is fine, for you.
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But kata were created to be used in actual combat. It is crucial that you understand this – every movement within the kata are designed to be used in real fights. This is not a dance. The primary function of every move is to disable or incapacitate an assailant in a self-defense situation.
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When applying the techniques and principles of kata, your primary concern should be the movement’s effectiveness, not it’s aesthetic. So, if you see kata as a necessary evil only there to pass a grade, and not seeing the relevance to the karate you are practicing, then you will never truly understand karate. The kata IS karate.
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To say that kata is useless is like looking at a book and saying it’s just a stack of paper. It may be useless for those who cannot read, but the value within it, is surely greater than the person imagines.
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The ability to find value in kata and allow it to survive in the modern world, lies not so much in the kata themselves, but in the capability of practitioners to understand, to adapt, to recognize the culture from whence it came.
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Within the history and culture of karate, for me…. kata is who we are, why we are, and the way we are. 
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With thanks to Noah Legal
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