Some believe that “karate is just karate “― but nothing can be farther from the truth.
We find three different variations of this art today:
(a) the genuine Okinawan combat or “self-protection” version,
(b) the “Japanized” recreational, or “self-perfection” version,
and (c) the sports version for competition.
In all other Japanese martial arts, there are different terms for these different versions. For instance, there is the term ju-jutsu, [or ju-jitsu], for the original combat version used by samurai in ancient Japan, and there is the new term judo for its modern sports variation.
However, we do not see different terms in today’s karate, and
the same term is used for all versions.
In order to distinguish today’s three significantly different karate types, we should use the three different terms below:
(a) Classic “karate-jutsu” [initially called Ti in Okinawan language and Te in Japanese], is bugei-karate for the Okinawan self-protection version, created 600+ years ago, and practiced secretly on the island.
(b) Old-style “karatedo” for the “Japanized” self-perfection version; it is budo-karate to improve character, health, and as a way of life. Karatedo was created on mainland Japan shortly before WWII to support the nation's spiritual mobilization. Before the 1920s, karate-jutsu [Ti] was unknown on mainland Japan.
(c) Modern “sports-karate” for the art’s new competition versions, which were created about 60 years ago, in the 1950s, hence some decades after mainland Japan’s old-style [non-competition] karatedo. Sports-karate is as far away from karate-jutsu [Ti] as javelin-throwing or fencing are away from their initial martial use.
(part of Sensei Smith's foreword in the above book)
....... Genuine Okinawan ti, as the art was called in the local language (te in Japanese; both terms meaning “hand”) before its name change into Japanese kara-te (empty hand), is a complex art. It is composed of several martial methods beyond simple punching — grappling, limb and head manipulation, throwing, joint locking and joint straining, nerve striking, and more — in addition to its unity of martial, mental, and spiritual components. It takes a long time and much persistence to learn and to understand, which makes this art less attractive for those looking for quick or easy achievements recreationally or athletically. Moreover, karate, as it was intended to be on Okinawa, neither was, nor is, freely and completely shared with all non-Okinawans. Specifically, those outwardly “small” nuances in moves, which make all the difference to success in a fight, were not taught to all, not in the past and not today. Hence, karate did not become mass market in its classic Okinawan form. Karate became mass market through modified Japanese karatedo styles, and when I compare what we have learned sixty years ago to today’s mainstream karate, I see significant contrasts to how it was taught to me and others back in the day.
I learned Shorin Ryu karate on Okinawa as a self-defense art from Hanshi Judan Shugoro Nakazato in the 1960s, first while stationed on the island and then while living there with my Okinawan wife. Thereafter, I continued to train with O’Sensei Nakazato every year until his passing in 2016; after that with his son, Hanshi Judan Minoru Nakazato. Training was always based on the mindset of fighting an actual fight, and it produced a deep understanding of body-weight-power-transfer into direct, short, hard, effective moves. The reality of combat and its logic were the leading ideas for every training session in O’Sensei Shugoro Nakazato’s and in other Okinawan dojo at that time. When we actually fought, what we did with full force in the evenings, we used the most direct, fight-ending kata techniques, instead of trying to re-engineer new complicated kata applications.
A group of Okinawan and Western students like myself, for decades close to their Okinawan sensei and now in their upper seventies and their eighties, preserved and taught this mental and spiritual combat mentality as their leading idea of what karate was intended to be at its birthplace of Okinawa: the self-defense art of karate-jutsu. However, it is obvious that newer concepts beyond classic self-protection better match the demand of what younger generations are looking for today. Though classic Okinawan karate always contained the unity of physical, mental, and spiritual development, newer Japanese karatedo versions, favoring meditative, self-development, health, and athletic aspects over combat skills, seem to better fit that bill. Consequently, today many karateka of all ranks have no realistic fighting experience anymore and use a different logic to learn and to teach the art.
So, where does this leave us? Should we better understand the old or invent something new? Or both? Well, it depends. On the one hand, there is “right” and “wrong” karate in terms of the logic of combat and moves for the purposes of self-protection, which would favor better understanding the old. But, on the other hand, this perspective involving “right” and “wrong” dissipates when health, spirituality, and character development are pursued for the purposes of self-perfection; then individual effort becomes the purpose of training, and a karateka’s personal paths to improved health and character substitutes the initial self-defense logic. That way, by inventing something new, karate-jutsu evolved into its modern karatedo- and sports-forms as it did, based on the new leading ideas and noble intentions of the art’s reformers. .
Those modern recreational karate philosophies with self-development, meditative, and athletic interpretations of the art need to be understood and respected in their uniqueness instead of melting it all together with the classic ways. We are fortunate that Hermann Bayer does just that in his book Analysis of Genuine Karate 2: Socio-Cultural Development, Commercialization, and Loss of Essential Knowledge. Following Analysis of Genuine Karate: Misconceptions, Origins, Development, and True Purpose, this analysis clarifies the backgrounds and intentions behind today’s classic and modern karate versions, without putting one form above another. It reveals their differing purposes and identifying characteristics, and it leaves the choice of the karate type one wants to pursue to the reader. In the end, all of us karate enthusiasts are united in our dedication to upholding and disseminating the art.
Presenting substantially more than just an overview, the text further explains why karate developed as it did. It sheds light on the art’s Okinawan origin and on the cultural settings, the political intentions, and the social mindsets during the decades in which it moved from secrecy into public practice and competition sports. It shows how socio-cultural conditions formed today’s karate styles and prevents these key influences from falling into oblivion ....... (this text is a part of Sensei Smith's foreword in the above book).
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