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“I want to know why there are so many versions of Karate and so many different fancy looking uniforms and if any of your techniques pre date WW2. Are your Kata forms really going to do anything to help me defend myself? Because I took Karate for 4 years and found it useless there was no purpose to throwing a kick for 20 min just to make it faster. Do you do mat crawls? I used to do all those silly push up and sit ups. “

                Its not often that my comments folder is filled with a question. I get the odd “hey great article” or “Did not know that, great stuff” and mostly “YOUR ARTICLES CAN BE SEEN BY MORE SIGN UP FOR…” and I read all the comments and encourage people to send them…but this time the comment was more a question, and a statement kind of taking Karate to task. So, I figured I would break down this persons comment and make a blog out of it by itself. 

“I want to know why there are so many versions of Karate….”

                That is a GREAT question…and it has more to do with Karate’s development and history than just the fact that someone used different names.  First off Karate developed in three small areas around Shuri Okinawa, Naha, Tomari and Shuri itself.  The styles were created by mixing local fighting with Chinese boxing, the styles merged and mixed and over a generation became different drastically from each other. Tomari was absorbed into Shuri and Naha styles and from those styles begot systems like Shorin Ryu, Goju Ryu and others.  See different people created the styles around the same time.

                Those systems moved to Japan and were altered even more, and at the same time people were creating more styles in China and Okinawa…basically each person had a spin on a fighting art that was indigenous to Okainawa and Asia at the time (meaning China and Japan).  They did not originally give them names, but in the third and fourth generation of the systems you see people naming the styles after their instructors, them selves and often using symbolism to pay respect to their masters….who ironically did not even name their own schools.

                In the end you get vastly different fighting arts all coming from Japan and Okinawa with roots in China having adapted and formed different ideas based on individual fighting and mentality to fighting principles. For my money you only have two kinds of Karate…those begot by Naha styles and those created from Shuri styles. The rest is in the details.  Oh, and a third kind…those created from mixing the two in the modern age, the Go Kan Ryu types that took Naha style fighting and mixed it with shuri style fighting….very new age kind of stuff and to some degree weaker for the merger! But that’s of a whole other blog!

“……and so many different fancy looking uniforms……”

               

                Now that’s another style all together.  Most traditional styles wear white Gis (Keikogi/Karate uniforms) to train in and most only allow one patch on the lapel to honor their style/school. The fancy color Gis are mostly attributed to more modern styles that were created in north America or after WW2 by people that don’t particular take into account Asian culture and the significance of wearing a plane white gi.

                Also this trend to wear different fancy color Gis and multiple patches is way more prevalent in other modern martial arts like Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, Kenpo/Kempo and other styles based on Asian arts but created by non-asians. And trust me I am not slamming them, I am Welsh/Canadian…not Asian.  We just don’t live the culture and think the same.

“ ……and if any of your techniques pre date WW2….”

                Well, like Bruce Lee suggested, all techniques of striking predate WW2, we only have two arms, two fists, two legs and two feet….how can we create a new punch when the tools are all the same! I would say that ALL our techniques predate WW2, all of our Kata…well maybe not all of them, but they all have roots going back pre war and seeing as Karate is fighting, and we have been fighting since before we left the trees…it all predates WW2.

                To be frank even Karate predates the big war! It all started back when China and Japan were fighting for ownership of Okinawa technically!  So that’s LONG before the war.  True it’s a bit simplistic but I would say 80% of all existing techniques were being used regularly pre WW2 in all Martial arts, its only new age grappling that has started to create some new moves that were not seen before the war…and even the majority of their moves were used pre WW2.

“ ……Are your Kata forms really going to do anything to help me defend myself? ….”

               

Yes and no.  People who go into Karate and do forms for sport or who do Karate at a sport Karate facility are not going to benefit from Kata. People who study Karate with people who don’t understand Kata will not benefit from Kata any more than a Muay Thai boxer who only hits pads will not be able to benefit from hitting pads if that is all he does.

Kata is meant to be a textbook of moves, not a complete fighting art, they show you some good ideas on “if attacker does A you reply with B” type stuff, the same thing as hitting pads or heavy bags only help tweak and give Thai fighters a good idea of form and function of specific techniques. They are a component of fighting, just like shadow boxing, pad kicking and other sparring are parts of Muay Thai, Kata, Kumite and Hojo Undo are part of Karate and with a while mix of the training you will get a better idea of how to defend yourself….but only if you look for that and find others looking for that…….

“ ……Because I took Karate for 4 years and found it useless….”

            If you were to take kick boxing from a Tae Bo guy for 4 years you also would be in decent shape and no closer to really using it to defend yourself. You need to find those that have the self-defense aspect down and who are interested in more than sport Karate. 

                However, the other side of the coin is always something I look at…You can lead a horse to water..but its damn hard to drown them in it! Some people could take Karate for a decade or four and still not ever be able to defend themselves…others don’t take a boxing lesson, a karate class or any kind of martial arts and they are hell on wheels and not to be trifled with!

                Not saying that you are inept at self defense or that you just “did not get it” more than likely your instructor was a Sports guy and he did not teach you how to defend yourself. Kind of like trying to get ready for a marathon and never leaving the weight room!  If your goal is to learn to defend yourself then you need to train in the right direction with the right coaches!

“ ……there was no purpose to throwing a kick for 20 min just to make it faster. ….”

                Three reasons to do this…and even longer….first is muscle development, you want a strong and fast kick to use in a fight or tournament ( I know back to sport) its been PROVEN that repetition of movement will help develop stronger muscles and hard wire in responses. Two, it’s the only way to get rid of extra and unnecessary movements to make the kick more efficient is to hard wire in CORRECT FORM, which only comes after repetitions are done. And lastly…you need to take the “I must do A if B does C” kind of thinking that will get you KILLED in a real fight. It’s the same reason that Cops practice drawing and shooting, Soldiers shoot at targets that look like men and the same reason that kick boxers slam their legs into bags for hours a week.  If you think about it…you don’t need to really practice shooting a gun for the gun to be deadly, but you do need to work on the finer points and get your brain locked in that if you are attacked and at the right distance your leg will shoot out and slam into an opponent.

                Karate is as mental as it is physical, as are other Martial arts. We imagine kicking a person 1000 of times while we train and only 1/4 of our training is against a actual person!  When I was in the army the Sgt. Teaching us to shoot said something that stuck with me and I use in Karate all the time…”anyone can shoot a paper dummy, but it takes a special kind of training to make them shoot an enemy. Most casualties in war are not caused by those that just get hit , the highest mortality rate is seen by those that pause and cant bring themselves to pull the trigger”. 

“……Do you do mat crawls? ….”

                First off we don’t have mats, we work out on hard wood floors, tiles floors are necessary but not my favorite.  We don’t do mat crawls if what I think you mean is pulling yourself along the mats…but I don’t know exactly if that is what you mean…

“……I used to do all those silly push up and sit ups. “

                So you are not in shape then?  Or do you do other kinds of training?  Push ups and sit ups are normally done when the instructors done have equipment to do Hojo undo with (conditioning).  Back in the old days calisthenics were only done when the weights were to few to have all students use them. Then it just kind of became the conditioning norm!

                Conditioning in my mind should be mostly done away from the club. Weights, running, sprints, jump rope, plyometrics, pad work, bag work, makiwara, calisthenics and any kind of training other than the three K’s should be done before, after or away from the club to maximize training time. Its not silly if it gets you stronger, gives you a stronger and healthier body and makes you better in the long run.

                Karate is what you make of it, and what you find when you show up at the Dojo. I have been to seminars and testing that I felt ripped off, the instructor was so into sport that he forgot he is teaching A martial art!  And I have been to seminars that put my head in full spin with the information I got in a single day.  You have to be partially lucky and partially picky.  You have to know what you want and were to get it…and work for it!