The "Rifle Kata" thing in Regiment is not a standardized thing. It varied greatly from one element to another, it went from most companies, platoons, squads having nothing at all, to some that internalized it and did it very well. It all depended on the leadership personalities in place. As a leader in the Regiment I tried my best to ensure that every time we picked up guns there was an end state and a goal to accomplish, sometimes large, sometimes not.
The worst thing in my view was that dry fires/manipulations and "Rifle Kata" (BTW - I think that is a pretty ghay term and in all honesty have not heard it used since like 07 in Bco 3/75) would NOT be utilized in a similar manner to push-ups I.E. "every time you draw your weapon, or every time you miss a knowledge question you owe me X number of "ready ups" or whatever. That is a sure path to a shitload of bad, uncoached reps that ensure some pretty shoddy work. I also decreed that no weapons were to ever be included in any sort of "punishment" however solid, coached weapons training / re-training with goals and benchmarks is another matter all together.
Bottom line is that I did everything I could to make sure that weapons training didn't unintentionally morph into dogma that while looking good from the outside was not really producing results other than a lot of young guys not being excited about playing with guns.
My apologies for not attaching some silver bullet PowerPoint covered in DUI's and scrolls that lays out the number of reps and manipulations to be performed everyday before you are allowed to turn your blaster back into the Arms Room. Those all went into my recycle bin years ago.
