Hard Mode Katas require a linkage state in the same way as normal Katas. The advantage is that some Katas may be overlapped, contain additional damage components, or are a little more free about stance changes. The downside is needing to remember specific moves for specific Katas which is both significantly more cognitive effort and conceivably could allow someone to predict what you are doing from your hand movements. You may freely switch between using Hard Mode Katas and normal Katas though no action taken as part of a normal Kata will start a Hard Mode Kata. Katas are targeted as normal.

Once you have entered a flow each of your hands can be positioned high (anywhere roughly above chest height) or low (anywhere below), or both hands may be in the rest position.

Steps are the set of actions that you may use to cross your hands between the zones, act within the zones or change your stance that progress you towards completing a Kata. Only one step may be performed at a time, and each must be slow and pronounced, taking about a second. Doing anything that transfers hands between zones or repositions your feet that is not explicitly a step breaks your Flow (when a hand leaves the rest position it becomes high or low without this being a step).

The steps that make up Katas along with their quick reference symbols are as follows:
Bring leading hand from low level to high level: ↑
Bring leading hand from high level to low level: ↓
Bring following hand from low level to high level: ⇞
Bring following hand from high level to low level: ⇟
Bring both hands simultaneously from low level to high level: ↿↾
Bring both hands simultaneously from high level to low level: ⇃⇂
With one hand starting high and the other starting low swap hand positions: ♻
With both hands starting high bring together and thrust forward at high level: ⇑
With both hands starting low bring together and thrust forward at low level: ⇓
With one hand starting high and the other starting low bring together to rest position: ↬
Move following leg to change stance, following and leading arms and legs swap: ◉

These symbols are shown after the Kata description on the Normal Kata page. Performing that step or series of steps allows you to make the call for the Kata.

As long as the Flow is not broken, multiple Katas may be performed. Steps performed as part of one Kata also count as steps in another, so it is possible to chain Katas together if there is overlap between their finishing and starting steps.

A single Kata cannot be repeated within 3 steps of having previously called it.

Characters who are unable to perform the necessary steps (eg. due to missing limbs) may still perform Katas as the manipulations are not happening entirely on a physical level, you should still out-of-character perform the necessary motions to phys-rep the effort your character is making.

Players who are unable to perform the necessary steps may still perform Katas, and should speak to the organisers. Workarounds will be provided on a case-by-case basis.