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http://irkrs.blogspot.com/2013/04/siamese-boxing-original-source-of.html
I'm kind of skeptical of this, what do you think?
I'm kind of skeptical of this, what do you think?
Karate scholar says Karate originates from siamese boxing/muay boran.
- Thread starter Jimmy Jazz
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Okinawa traded extensively with Siam. Okinawa Awamore is is basically Lao Khao rice whiskey. They surely saw Muay Boran also. Who knows if it influenced Okianwan Te.
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It can simply be a watered down version designed for people who dont prize fight for a living, but need something, anything that will help them.
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If you think about it, training hand to hand combat unarmed is probably mostly for ego. People would all be carrying weapons when shit really goes down.
Your boxing ain't going to stop this machete.
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That's absolutely right. People shit on various styles of kung fu a lot, for example, but what they don't realize is that for many of them the boxing piece was an afterthought. They were mostly concerned with being good sword and spear fighters, not with empty handed stuff. It would be like if you took Escrima or Arnis and made a system just out of the empty handed stuff: it would look, and be, stupid. Because all of the empty hand stuff is designed to play off the main stick/knife stuff which is the meat of the system. European sword manuals show a lot of grappling, but that grappling wouldn't make any sense outside the context of also having a long sword. You certainly wouldn't expect it to make a sword master effective in a wrestling match against a wrestler. Proper context is really important for assessing the historical worth of various old arts.
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its closer to kung fu than boran its from china most things Japanese have Chinese roots
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Muay Thai is one of the best arts around for effectiveness and the sword and stick were the main focus of combat, knees elbows kicks etc secondary. Why cant you accept that kung fu is rather crap with weapons, without, with the context of weapons etc
WHY DO TRADITIONAL ASIAN MARTIAL ARTS HAVE TO BE GOOD ? WHY? YOU MAD MEN!
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I found Tai Chi sword to be effective against every weapons stylist I ever sparred against. I found the boxing part of it to be much, much, much less so. So I'm just going by history and my own experience. But in general, I think it's really silly to think that a country in constant armed conflict for thousands of years would only develop crap weapons fighting systems. That wasn't true of anywhere else in the world, I don't think it was uniquely true of China either.
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I'm a big fan of Patrick McCarthy and have his bubishi karate bible book.
I pretty much agree with everything he's written in that article except the Siam part.
There's virtually no evidence he's presented to conclude without reasonable doubt that Okinawan Te came from Siam or Muay Boran. In fact I'd say there's even little evidence for an assumption like that.
His basis for saying that he thinks Okinawan Te comes from Siam is; (1) Okinawa had historical trading relations with Siam and the areas around southeast Asia, (2) that out of all of the martial arts in the region only muay boran seemed to resemble the description of Okinawan Te.
The basis he has for concluding what he thinks about the origins of Okinawan Te are very weak imho. Sure it's a valid assumption but I think it's difficult to conclude that from the two pieces of circumstantial evidence he's provided above.
Nearly every country in and around southeast Asia has had historical trading relations with one another - Siam and Okinawa aren't unique in that regard. Also in regards to muay boran being the closest resemblance to Okinawan te - McCarthy I think erroneously tries to look for something that looks like the closest template to Okinawan Te. I think that's where imo he might have gone wrong. Most martial arts systems are not complete templates of one another - if you look at how many martial arts are historically formed they often borrow bits and pieces from other martial arts that have influenced them - very rarely do they just use one martial art as a template or just have one martial art as a sole influence.
If anyone is confused as to what I'm trying to say above - who's to say that Okinawan Te didn't borrow from many martial arts styles in southeast Asia - it doesn't necessarily have to be one style (muay boran) - after all there was a lot of countries in Southeast Asia trading with Okinawa, that had much stronger historical ties to Okinawa than Siam (like China, Japan, Korea, Indonesia).
Also in regards to the resemblance of muay boran to Okinawan Te that Patrick McCarthy used to justify his position - Pencak Silat also very greatly resembles Okinawan Te - maybe more so than muay boran - given that it's in similar geographical distance to Okinawa. Plus many of Silat's techniques bare an eerie similarity to traditional karate techniques in a way that Muay Boran does not as far as I know.
It's probably more likely that Okinawan Te was influenced by multiple martial arts styles from China - given than China has the strongest historical link with Okinawa and a link that's the oldest by far. Chinese migration to Okinawa started as early as the 14th century (probably even earlier but on a lesser scale). It's also the closest geographically and Okinawa was a tributary of China for a long ass time - many of the officials in the Ryukyu were descendants of Chinese. There was a lot of cultural, economical, military, technology etc back/forth with China - also there was a substantial amount of migration of Okinawans to China and Chinese to Okinawa. I think that's why karateka on Okinawa attribute the origins of karate to the southern Chinese mainland.
I think it's most likely that China had the most influence on Okinawan Te with other countries in Southeast Asia having less of an influence.
From what I know as well Sakugawa Kanga learnt styles originally from China.
I could be wrong - I'd like to hear more about Patrick McCarthy's reasoning behind why he came to that conclusion. I mean the guy is much more well versed in Karate history than me - so there's always a possibility I'm missing something.
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try against a fencer
its not silly because back then it was one of the most effective hand to hand styles around but back then swords were effective, now swords are obsolete , traditional martial arts are too
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I have. It works fine. Modern sport fencing is a far cry removed from actual sword fighting, the lack of lateral movement and the unfamiliarity with a heavier blade makes it less effective than you might suppose.
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Exactly.
Unarmed hand to hand combat was an afterthought in those days. It would be more accurate to say it was a lesser accompaniment to actual weapons training.
I mean how efficient would learning unarmed hand to hand combat be in an environment where swords, arrows, gunpowder is flying about. Weapons training takes precedent.
I mean if you look at the Sengoku period of Japan - how many people were actually dedicating time to unarmed combat?
Nearly all the jujitsu (unarmed combat) being learned in that period was mainly throws that followed with a killing blow from a weapon.
Even then dedicated weapons training like naginata, yari, bow, kodachi etc was being made redundant by Nobunaga with the introduction of firearms from peasants that had very little or no experience with weapons.
@Paradigm is 100% correct. Learning unarmed combat is mostly for ego when you think about it. A guy with zero experience training could probably kill a martial artists whose been training for decades with something as simple as a machete. Weapons pretty much make unarmed fighting redundant - just like firearms made the weapons the samurai carried redundant.
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Yeah it's shocking how many people think sport fencing is actually realistic sword fighting. Sport fencing is pretty much dueling made into a sport.
But then again in the past I use to think the katana was actually used in warfare - now I know better.
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Karate came from white crane. Look up white crane. I watched a documentary on it. Everything is very similar. They even found the origin.
But if you just look up white crane karate, there will b a ton of links and articles talking about the similarities and the origins of it.
But if you just look up white crane karate, there will b a ton of links and articles talking about the similarities and the origins of it.
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^^^
Yeah also you can't categorize all styles of karate as having come from Siam.
Uechi ryu never originated on Okinawa and it's development is separate from the other styles of Karate on Okinawa. It's one of the few karate styles where the founder learnt directly from the original source in China - outside the influence of the martial arts founder/masters in Okinawa.
Kanbun Uechi - the guy in my avatar - the founder of Uechi ryu when to China to avoid the military draft and ended up studying in Fujian under Shū Shiwa a pangai noon kung fu master for 10 years.
Eventually when he returned, he married and a while later he decided to open his own dojo teaching pangai-noon. Now it's called uechi ryu and named after Kanbun.
If you look at uechi ryu it looks the most kung fu-ish out of all the karate styles - even the katas look very kung fu-ish. IMHO if southern chinese styles were like this in the past - it's very sad to see traditional kung fu in the state it is in now.
Yeah also you can't categorize all styles of karate as having come from Siam.
Uechi ryu never originated on Okinawa and it's development is separate from the other styles of Karate on Okinawa. It's one of the few karate styles where the founder learnt directly from the original source in China - outside the influence of the martial arts founder/masters in Okinawa.
Kanbun Uechi - the guy in my avatar - the founder of Uechi ryu when to China to avoid the military draft and ended up studying in Fujian under Shū Shiwa a pangai noon kung fu master for 10 years.
Eventually when he returned, he married and a while later he decided to open his own dojo teaching pangai-noon. Now it's called uechi ryu and named after Kanbun.
If you look at uechi ryu it looks the most kung fu-ish out of all the karate styles - even the katas look very kung fu-ish. IMHO if southern chinese styles were like this in the past - it's very sad to see traditional kung fu in the state it is in now.
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I think it would be pretty well known that karate has a cross. As for hooks and upper cuts i'm sure they exist. I've only ever seen a ridge hand though.
A hook is called crescent punch in Karate/TKD
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It even still is like that today. I heard that the h2h taught in the military is just a self-confidence booster. The gameplan is to re-equip and regroup with the team, not engage in fisticuffs with an enemy. Self-confidence is good, you don't exactly want soldiers to be scared and frozen in the heat of an encounter when their tool is missing.
