The depressing state of karate

[Hotora86]

Wouldn't describe Kudo as a karate style in all honesty - has none of the kata, ido geiko, stances/uke etc that you would expect to find in a karate style.

Even the kihon is very different - basically kickboxing.

Only thing it shares with Karate is commonality with budo roots but even Judo has this to some extent (not unique to karate).

Otherwise I agree.

Well, it has "evolved" from Karate so there's that connection - but of course I see your point. I'm still counting it as Karate for my list tho.

But let me ask a few questions just to pick your brain:
- is Karate still Karate if we don't practice kata?
- was it Karate *before* kata were invented?
- since kata were a means of transmission when books weren't feasible - do they still make sense to practice now that we have all kinds of media to accurately describe techniques and application?
- what's more important - the practice of entire kata or the practice of bunkai drills?

 

[KOcounter]

Wouldn't describe Kudo as a karate style in all honesty - has none of the kata, ido geiko, stances/uke etc that you would expect to find in a karate style.

Even the kihon is very different - basically kickboxing.

Only thing it shares with Karate is commonality with budo roots but even Judo has this to some extent (not unique to karate).

Otherwise I agree.

I think to be traditional karate in a more pure, developed sense, an art must have the mnemonic learning device of kata with some sort of link to the elements and technical heritage of Chinese and native okinawan arts and include some attempt at self defence training.

I think however there are several main broad, zoomed out definitions of karate One is the more Okinawan defintion and the others is a more international/Japanese defintion.

The consistency between them however is that karate focuses on stand up fighting, be it striking, clinching and throwing as in the Okinawan mould or predominantly striking based as in the more international/Japanese mould. Karate also must involve more than just the use of upper body striking tools.

A hybridised and modernised style of karate can of course incorporate more kickboxing/boxing elements, regardless of whether or not they are seen as "traditionally authentic". The incorporation of ground fighting however, whilst not impossible in moderation, is going to be one of the more jarring things to add in image wise because if we define ground fighting as ground wrestling it was basically almost totally absent in traditional okinawan karate.

At first when Kudo was a kyokushin karate/judo hybrid , with kata and other karate elements edited out it was already pushing things at least a little bit karate definition wise.

Now in its modern form, where it is even more like modern mma lik due to the extra muay thai/kickboxing, bjj, and wrestling thrown in and has abandoned more of its karate self identification/branding (being reffered to as Daido Juku Karate much less often) I think there's a strong argument that on most levels it's not karate, despite it'd karate roots and dna and it's more kyokushin flavoured striking compared to what you would learn at an mma gym.

 

[JohnPJones]

Well, it has "evolved" from Karate so there's that connection - but of course I see your point. I'm still counting it as Karate for my list tho.

But let me ask a few questions just to pick your brain:
- is Karate still Karate if we don't practice kata?
- was it Karate *before* kata were invented?
- since kata were a means of transmission when books weren't feasible - do they still make sense to practice now that we have all kinds of media to accurately describe techniques and application?
- what's more important - the practice of entire kata or the practice of bunkai drills?

Kickboxing also evolved from karate, but no one considers it so, and from what I hear, kudoka don’t consider themselves karate.

move also already created a thread about when does karate stop being karate fairly recently.

 

[CorriganM]

Karate has moved further away from fighting over the years and more into a kids thing / an "art"

 

[Hotora86]

Karate has moved further away from fighting over the years and more into a kids thing / an "art"

In general, I would agree. Major WKF-aligned styles (Shotokan, Wado, Shito, Japanese Goju) are going the Olympic sport / kids route. On the other hand, you have styles like Ashihara and Shidokan (and Kyokushin to some degree) that very much focus on fighting (knockdown and kickboxing). Kudo even more, if you want to include that under the Karate umbrella.

Eastern martial arts in general (especially TMAs) have moved towards sport / kids since in modern times we don't actually have to defend ourselves from ruffians daily (in developed countries at least) and sport / kids brings the money required to run the business. Same thing happened to Kung Fu, TKD and Judo. You can still find fighting-oriented clubs (be it self-defense or MMA) based on those TMAs here and there, though they are rare.
IMO a nice example is Tiger Schulmann's Martial Arts which used to be a Karate place but switched to Karate-based MMA and has produced many capable fighters, Lyman Good and Uriah Hall being the most prominent.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uriah_Hall
https://www.tapology.com/gyms/822-tiger-schulmanns-mixed-martial-arts

 

[Hotora86]

The incorporation of ground fighting however, whilst not impossible in moderation, is going to be one of the more jarring things to add in image wise because if we define ground fighting as ground wrestling it was basically almost totally absent in traditional okinawan karate.

I agree with most of what you said, except maybe this part. As you probably know, one of the roots of Karate was Tegumi, and most OG masters knew it well. Per Wiki:
"There is little evidence of how tegumi evolved but the result was a rough and tumble bout where the winner was decided by submission, through joint locks, strangles or pinning."

Subs or pinning sounds like ground wrestling to me. I won't claim to be a full-blown Karate scholar (tho I do enjoy the subject) so I'll defer to a real Karate scholar who we have here on the forums for his opinion (if he still logs in here sometimes) @BudoNoah

 

[Matsukaze]

Well, it has "evolved" from Karate so there's that connection - but of course I see your point. I'm still counting it as Karate for my list tho.

But let me ask a few questions just to pick your brain:
- is Karate still Karate if we don't practice kata?
- was it Karate *before* kata were invented?
- since kata were a means of transmission when books weren't feasible - do they still make sense to practice now that we have all kinds of media to accurately describe techniques and application?
- what's more important - the practice of entire kata or the practice of bunkai drills?

- is Karate still Karate if we don't practice kata?
IMO.. no without the study of kata all you have is basically kick boxing

- what's more important - the practice of entire kata or the practice of bunkai drills?[/QUOTE]
I would say both.. we all know kata has health benefits and is a great form of exercise , especially for us older folks who can't fight anymore lol.
IMO the problem with bunkai is the original meaning has been lost and or the movement of the kata changed so much, to hide the original form, that we can't figure out the true meaning.
I remember reading a book from Funakoshi where he was walking with his teacher Itosu and was grabbed by a mugger. Funakoshi lowered his hips to preform a move but before he could Itosu basically told him to stand down.
BUT, then you have Motobu who walked into Funakoshis dojo in Japan and challenged him and threw him not once but two or three times.
Another Motobu incident had a student of his to grab Funakoshi in a rear bear hug but Funakoshi could not escape.
My point in all of this is..... Funakoshi was known as the kata sensei and Motobu was known for more fighting practice first and kata seemed less important

 

[KOcounter]

I agree with most of what you said, except maybe this part. As you probably know, one of the roots of Karate was Tegumi, and most OG masters knew it well. Per Wiki:
"There is little evidence of how tegumi evolved but the result was a rough and tumble bout where the winner was decided by submission, through joint locks, strangles or pinning."

Subs or pinning sounds like ground wrestling to me. I won't claim to be a full-blown Karate scholar (tho I do enjoy the subject) so I'll defer to a real Karate scholar who we have here on the forums for his opinion (if he still logs in here sometimes) @BudoNoah

Karate has roots in Tegumi, true. Yet this doesn't mean that all elements of Tegumi were incorporated into Karate. The ground fighting I've seen that was/is very likely in karate historically is not *ground wrestling* but stuff like hitting someone on their back, standing up techniques, a lock of sorts done over a grounded opponent when squatted over him/standing over him etc.

 

[JohnPJones]

Karate has roots in Tegumi, true. Yet this doesn't mean that all elements of Tegumi were incorporated into Karate. The ground fighting I've seen that was/is very likely in karate historically is not *ground wrestling* but stuff like hitting someone on their back, standing up techniques, a lock of sorts done over a grounded opponent when squatted over him/standing over him etc.

I’ve recently been wondering about those standing/kneeling/squatting locks I’ve learned.

I don’t know if they were taught like the specifically to be taken literally or not.
That being said I also learned how to the arm at the traditional way, as well as across my chest in karate.

 

[Hotora86]

- is Karate still Karate if we don't practice kata?
IMO.. no without the study of kata all you have is basically kick boxing

- what's more important - the practice of entire kata or the practice of bunkai drills?
I would say both.. we all know kata has health benefits and is a great form of exercise , especially for us older folks who can't fight anymore lol.
IMO the problem with bunkai is the original meaning has been lost and or the movement of the kata changed so much, to hide the original form, that we can't figure out the true meaning.
I remember reading a book from Funakoshi where he was walking with his teacher Itosu and was grabbed by a mugger. Funakoshi lowered his hips to preform a move but before he could Itosu basically told him to stand down.
BUT, then you have Motobu who walked into Funakoshis dojo in Japan and challenged him and threw him not once but two or three times.
Another Motobu incident had a student of his to grab Funakoshi in a rear bear hug but Funakoshi could not escape.
My point in all of this is..... Funakoshi was known as the kata sensei and Motobu was known for more fighting practice first and kata seemed less important

With all due respect but it sounds like you're contradicting yourself. First you say Karate is not Karate without kata, then give examples of "kata specialist" Funakoshi being beaten by a "kumite specialist" Motobu and his student. Who had the "proper" Karate then? Whose focus made more sense?

Funakoshi himself said:
“To practice kata is not to memorize an order. Find the katas that work for you, understand them, digest them & stick with them for life.”
AND
“You may train for a long time, but if you merely move your hands and feet and jump up and down like a puppet, learning karate is not very different from learning a dance. You will never have reached the heart of the matter; you will have failed to grasp the quintessence of karate-do.”

Modern kata-based Japanese Karate (WKF aligned orgs especially) are making those exact mistakes - they're focusing on the form and how it looks, practicing a "dance" for the judges at competitions. Their bunkai presented in demos (multiple attackers attacking in turns from afar) is ridiculous.

Real self-defense bunkai application (regardless of what you consider "true" and what is lost) should be direct, brutal and even uncouth - like the stuff Iain Abernethy practices. Of course his training also references kata a lot but with a focus on bunkai drills - short and segmented with a great degree of free flow. I like his approach, where bunkai drills are keys to a problem - and kata is just a collection of keys, not inherently valuable in of itself. This is very much in the spirit of Itosu's 6th precept:
"Learn the explanations of every technique well, and decide when and in what manner to apply them when needed."

 

[KOcounter]

With all due respect but it sounds like you're contradicting yourself. First you say Karate is not Karate without kata, then give examples of "kata specialist" Funakoshi being beaten by a "kumite specialist" Motobu and his student. Who had the "proper" Karate then? Whose focus made more sense?

Funakoshi himself said:
“To practice kata is not to memorize an order. Find the katas that work for you, understand them, digest them & stick with them for life.”
AND
“You may train for a long time, but if you merely move your hands and feet and jump up and down like a puppet, learning karate is not very different from learning a dance. You will never have reached the heart of the matter; you will have failed to grasp the quintessence of karate-do.”

Modern kata-based Japanese Karate (WKF aligned orgs especially) are making those exact mistakes - they're focusing on the form and how it looks, practicing a "dance" for the judges at competitions. Their bunkai presented in demos (multiple attackers attacking in turns from afar) is ridiculous.

Real self-defense bunkai application (regardless of what you consider "true" and what is lost) should be direct, brutal and even uncouth - like the stuff Iain Abernethy practices. Of course his training also references kata a lot but with a focus on bunkai drills - short and segmented with a great degree of free flow. I like his approach, where bunkai drills are keys to a problem - and kata is just a collection of keys, not inherently valuable in of itself. This is very much in the spirit of Itosu's 6th precept:
"Learn the explanations of every technique well, and decide when and in what manner to apply them when needed."

They might be separate events but I've heard so many versions of the motobu-Funakoshi meeting where Funakoshi supposedly had his ass handed to him and none of them sound like fights or even solid proof Funakoshi sucked like a lot of his modern haters claim.

Was motobu a better fighter? Probably but the stories I've heard range from motobu bringing a judoka and Funakoshi being unable to perform a grip break against said judoka, to Funakoshi being unable to break a grip from motobu himself to a claim, to the claim in this thread that he could not escape from a bear but to a claim that him and motobu engaged in a form of kumite that sounds more like a game (much in the same way chi Sao is a game) performed from a crossing arm postion with the aim of who can off balance or apply a joint lock/throw the fastest from that postion.

Even it Funakoshis karate was flawed that doesn't mean he had no useful knowledge, that his shotokan looked like the bad modern self defence applications often taught (his successors seem to have driven it to that point, even if Funakoshis was still flawed) or that he could not teach decent stuff because he wasn't as good as motobu or, worst case scenario, apply it himself at all.

 

[Hotora86]

They might be separate events but I've heard so many versions of the motobu-Funakoshi meeting where Funakoshi supposedly had his ass handed to him and none of them sound like fights or even solid proof Funakoshi sucked like a lot of his modern haters claim.

Was motobu a better fighter? Probably but the stories I've heard range from motobu bringing a judoka and Funakoshi being unable to perform a grip break against said judoka, to Funakoshi being unable to break a grip from motobu himself to a claim, to the claim in this thread that he could not escape from a bear but to a claim that him and motobu engaged in a form of kumite that sounds more like a game (much in the same way chi Sao is a game) performed from a crossing arm postion with the aim of who can off balance or apply a joint lock/throw the fastest from that postion.

Even it Funakoshis karate was flawed that doesn't mean he had no useful knowledge, that his shotokan looked like the bad modern self defence applications often taught (his successors seem to have driven it to that point, even if Funakoshis was still flawed) or that he could not teach decent stuff because he wasn't as good as motobu or, worst case scenario, apply it himself at all.

Look, I think we got away from the question originally posed. I have no doubts Funakoshi was a wonderful teacher and had good things to teach and pass on - that is not being questioned and getting beat by Motobu doesn't change it
(my av is the Shotokan symbol FFS!)

The point is that what is practiced in modern WKF actually goes AGAINST what Funakoshi wanted. He never wanted Karate to become a SPORT, done for ENTERTAINMENT. He wanted students to focus on the APPLICATION - the bunkai. Which goes back to my point - BUNKAI is more important than KATA because KATA without BUNKAI is just a dance.

So IMO Karate without kata can still be Karate - but only if it practices bunkai: the practical APPLICATION of techniques and move sequences. Whether you want to group those drills in a complete kata is not a big deal IMO. Kata come and go, get invented and dropped by masters over time. No need to attach oneself to kata.

 

[DoctorTaco]

What the hell are distinctly karate moves?

chops, obviously.

 

[KOcounter]

Look, I think we got away from the question originally posed. I have no doubts Funakoshi was a wonderful teacher and had good things to teach and pass on - that is not being questioned and getting beat by Motobu doesn't change it
(my av is the Shotokan symbol FFS!)

The point is that what is practiced in modern WKF actually goes AGAINST what Funakoshi wanted. He never wanted Karate to become a SPORT, done for ENTERTAINMENT. He wanted students to focus on the APPLICATION - the bunkai. Which goes back to my point - BUNKAI is more important than KATA because KATA without BUNKAI is just a dance.

So IMO Karate without kata can still be Karate - but only if it practices bunkai: the practical APPLICATION of techniques and move sequences. Whether you want to group those drills in a complete kata is not a big deal IMO. Kata come and go, get invented and dropped by masters over time. No need to attach oneself to kata.

I was making a point about the claims made another user in response to you, not insinuating that you were bashing Funakoshi and yes I'm well aware that your symbol is the shotokan symbol. I was replying to you in agreement with what you were saying, not challenging it.

 

[Matsukaze]

I like the kata debate and I know we all have different opinions. I have a very extensive background in karate ( over 35 years ) so I feel like I can speak, with some degree of experience, on the matter. I think, IMO, Funakoshi had different idea's of what he wanted from his karate to be. I think, like Kano judo founder, he wanted students to behave, act a certain way and kata was the vehicle he chose to get them there. Like Kano, Funakoshi was more concerned with the "Do" or the "Way" to being a better person. IMO, thats part of the reason he was known as being more kata oriented. Motobu was quoted many times calling Funakoshi a "paper tiger" because of that.. maybe it was more of jealousy on Motobu's part for Funakoshi success but who really knows.
From my experience ( Okinawan Kenpo ) most bunkai needs the attacker to execute the standard step in a punch straight to show the tech. This has always bothered me since no one, outside traditional martial artists, attacks in this manner. I think that's one thing I have enjoyed about cross training in BJJ. BJJ continues to evolve and has over the 15 years I have been actively involved in. Karate seems to be stuck in the past.. not that there is anything wrong with that

 

[Hotora86]

I was making a point about the claims made another user in response to you, not insinuating that you were bashing Funakoshi and yes I'm well aware that your symbol is the shotokan symbol. I was replying to you in agreement with what you were saying, not challenging it.

My apologies, I missed that. Feeling a bit nervous today so less attentive.

 

[Hotora86]

I like the kata debate and I know we all have different opinions. I have a very extensive background in karate ( over 35 years ) so I feel like I can speak, with some degree of experience, on the matter. I think, IMO, Funakoshi had different idea's of what he wanted from his karate to be. I think, like Kano judo founder, he wanted students to behave, act a certain way and kata was the vehicle he chose to get them there. Like Kano, Funakoshi was more concerned with the "Do" or the "Way" to being a better person. IMO, thats part of the reason he was known as being more kata oriented. Motobu was quoted many times calling Funakoshi a "paper tiger" because of that.. maybe it was more of jealousy on Motobu's part for Funakoshi success but who really knows.
From my experience ( Okinawan Kenpo ) most bunkai needs the attacker to execute the standard step in a punch straight to show the tech. This has always bothered me since no one, outside traditional martial artists, attacks in this manner. I think that's one thing I have enjoyed about cross training in BJJ. BJJ continues to evolve and has over the 15 years I have been actively involved in. Karate seems to be stuck in the past.. not that there is anything wrong with that

I agree with you that Karate seems to be stuck in the past... until you find gems like Iain Abernethy who is both a scholar, a teacher and a badass.

Here's one example where the bunkai he teaches does not require any specific technique (like the mentioned straight punch) to be thrown:

 

[listrahtes]

Guys kata as mnemonic device have ceased to exist many decades ago and even in Shotokan everyone including the cat knew it. Really no one with a brain used kata in a loooong time to use it for actual fighting.
Thats not only from myself but the big names from Japan I met. Most impressive was a chain smoking Karateka but I forgot his name. One of the famous ones from Shotokan.

Thats because Kata are so far removed from any application that trying to use it for learning to fight is as useful as using ballets Swan Lake dance as your main fighting style. Sure you can always reverse engineer something but its way way less helpful than just learning the same move from an actual art that fights with it. Karate standing arm / joint locks would never work.

What we know as "kata" never was anything other than gymnastics meant to transform a fighting art into a societal fitness program. The old katas that have survived in some styles are drills plain and simple and sometimes done with a partner or without but
they are close to what boxing drills are. Way smaller in movement, next to no artistic element. Who has the most efficient kata? Well the style who is the most competitive and actual fighting oriented: boxing & MT.

kata are a dance. Nothing else. All the fighting context is to stroke the ego of guys in pyjamas

 

[Azam]

Well, it has "evolved" from Karate so there's that connection - but of course I see your point. I'm still counting it as Karate for my list tho.

But let me ask a few questions just to pick your brain:
1- is Karate still Karate if we don't practice kata?
2- was it Karate *before* kata were invented?
3- since kata were a means of transmission when books weren't feasible - do they still make sense to practice now that we have all kinds of media to accurately describe techniques and application?
4- what's more important - the practice of entire kata or the practice of bunkai drills?

LOL of course we don't want to ruin your list

1. Is Karate still Karate if we don't practice kata? - That's a hard one and really subjective. IMO - no. Kata is what links Karate to it's historical roots - it's meant to act as a bridge between Kihon and Kumite when done right. If you don't practise the forms where most Karate techniques are derived from - are you really doing Karate? You could basically say via the no kata definition - that boxing and a few other arts are also Karate. I think the forms are an intrinsic aspect to what Karate is and removing them basically means that you are disconnecting the library of techniques from the art and not just that but disconnecting Karate from it's history and evolution from what it was.

2. Depends on how far back before is. If it's Te - it wasn't Karate - it was Te. I separate those two because they are clearly different arts despite the fact that Te is an earlier precursor to Karate. I'd even say that Te from what I've read also had it's own forms but I wouldn't call it Karate. Karate has evolved significantly and changed from what Te was - enough so that I wouldn't describe them as the same thing. Karate was pretty much a mix of different things as I'm sure you know - and according to what I've read forms were present very early on - as I remember reading in Funakoshi's autobiography that he was learning forms from his teachers (so they were already present). It's just that more kata were added to simplify the learning process for schoolchildren - which is great for children but terrible for adults.

3. That's also a hard one. Kata is still good as a solo training tool (especially if you don't have tools/equipment) but I'd argue that the way it's taught currently means that it's pretty much useless as a training tool. It's currently fixed shadowboxing without the functionality. If the functionality is added to it - then yes it makes sense to keep practicing it. If your doing Kata without any thought for functionality or purpose - then it's pretty useless IMO. But I'd question how much Kata would you arguably want to do - I think it's something that most karateka should focus less time on and more on drills/sparring.

4. Practice of bunkai drills by a country mile - but in a way where you extract the technique/application and allow for variations in combinations in an environment where you can experiment.

 

[Azam]

I think to be traditional karate in a more pure, developed sense, an art must have the mnemonic learning device of kata with some sort of link to the elements and technical heritage of Chinese and native okinawan arts and include some attempt at self defence training.

I think however there are several main broad, zoomed out definitions of karate One is the more Okinawan defintion and the others is a more international/Japanese defintion.

The consistency between them however is that karate focuses on stand up fighting, be it striking, clinching and throwing as in the Okinawan mould or predominantly striking based as in the more international/Japanese mould. Karate also must involve more than just the use of upper body striking tools.

A hybridised and modernised style of karate can of course incorporate more kickboxing/boxing elements, regardless of whether or not they are seen as "traditionally authentic". The incorporation of ground fighting however, whilst not impossible in moderation, is going to be one of the more jarring things to add in image wise because if we define ground fighting as ground wrestling it was basically almost totally absent in traditional okinawan karate.

At first when Kudo was a kyokushin karate/judo hybrid , with kata and other karate elements edited out it was already pushing things at least a little bit karate definition wise.

Now in its modern form, where it is even more like modern mma lik due to the extra muay thai/kickboxing, bjj, and wrestling thrown in and has abandoned more of its karate self identification/branding (being reffered to as Daido Juku Karate much less often) I think there's a strong argument that on most levels it's not karate, despite it'd karate roots and dna and it's more kyokushin flavoured striking compared to what you would learn at an mma gym.

Pretty much agree with nearly everything you've said here.

I'd add that if Karate did have grappling elements as research suggests - then it's quite highly likely that there were some basic incorporation of ground fighting techniques - specifically referring to submissions here. They probably would have been very basic fundamental stuff - nowhere near as advanced or as evolved as BJJ is. I doubt though that many earlier practitioners actually understood the functionality of most of the Kata's they learnt - it's quite evident from even recent testimony that many in the senior hierarchy of the Karate universe pretty much have no idea what they're doing as far as Kata is concerned but are too bogged down in the joojoo juice to admit they don't know what they're doing.

I think in many aspects Karate has evolved and hybridised like you said (more room for more of this) but it has also regressed equally in certain areas - especially in the kata area as evidenced from instructors telling us age-uke (jodan-uke) is a reasonable way to defend a straight punch - which it isn't and why we don't see it applied in any sparring/competition scenario.

I'd argue Kudo is even less Kyokushin now though. Some dojos you might get a more Kyokushin flavour when striking (generally with kicking technique - punching in Kudo is exclusively boxing based) but I think generally across dojos this isn't the case. The budo aspect is definitely there. But I'd argue at this point it's more Judo based than karate right now.