Practicing a Way
A 'Way', or 'Do', is a practice manifested through our entire being which other people can participate in, share and repeat through a system.
Sometimes these Ways changed with an individual's style, but they were still considered a process for studying universals of life, our life, and the life of the Universe with us. In the Tao, Do (Way) the individual's personal expression is of less consequence. What is of importance is to embody, to live deeply the practice. The practice directs our energies, our forms, towards a unifying experience of life, the relative and absolute.
Transmission
Kata is movement, form and energy. The kata do not change but the inner world of the person does. As the person practices the kata, the kata is infused by the living energy, the body of the person. In turn the person is infused by the practice, the forms of the kata. This becomes an interdependent exchange of form and energy (space). In this sense the Ways are a kind of textbook to see our real life. When a teaching (Way) was passed on from teacher to student there had to be a practical and concrete way for this to happen. This process was accomplished through the forms (body) and energy (spirit, mind) of the practice and called transmission, no matter what the essence was.