On Sat, 11 Apr 1998, Terrence M Marks wrote:

ov techniques (or is supposed to be.  Several people [including myself and
Bruce Lee] have questioned the usefulness of katas).  In several karates,
a significant portion of advancement is based on kata.  

The reason that sticks in my mind is that it's a way to catalog in a
fairly comprehensive way the basics and combinations that form an art.
Without katas, there would be a danger of instructors not passing on
all of an art simply because they aren't suited to moving in a certain
way.

-chris