Soji its about honor!

Many moons ago when we had our own standalone club down town we had a ritual or two that was followed to the tee! Not only did we do the ceremony to start class (line up, mokuso, Rei’s to front and Sensei) and at the end pretty much the same thing but also the Dojo Kun added….we had Soji!

Now Soji is something that we started missing out when we left the down town club and moved into a community club based program. Partially because of difficulties with keeping a good supply of…well supplies on hand. Now if you ask a student “Hey, are you ready for Soji?” they may think you are asking about a screen…which is Shoji in Japanese. NO, Soji is a very important and mandatory part of training and one we need to get back to as a group.

Soji is done by the higher ranks before class and all ranks after to show the willingness of seniors to share in chores of the Dojo and afterwards, not just for health reasons but also to show respect to others who may train later. As you may have guessed Soji…is Dojo cleaning.

I remember when I was a kid we used to have cloths hanging at the back of the dojo and a dry mop in the corner next to them. If you came early enough you would see Sensei wet down a few cloths and kind of lay them over the mop then proceed to wash the floors slightly with damp cloths…they were filthy when he was done and he would wash them out by hand, hang them up and then go wash his hands. The floor we trained on was ALWAYS clean and if he was not there to teach the instructors and black belts did this ritual that took about 5 minutes to complete and they would do this ritual to show respect for those of us showing up to train.

After each class we would RUN to the guys change room to get the bucket and fill it with hot water to clean the floor with, just clean water and we would then rush out to the center of the floor for others to sink a cloth into, then we would all line up and clean the floor bent over with our hands on the floor and we would wash the floor clean of our perspiration and any oils from our feet. The floor would shine! This was mandatory and everyone did it, those that refused were not welcome to come and train. It built a kind of humble brotherhood to the dojo and everyone was seen as equal when we cleaned, You had white belts lined up next to brown belts next to orange belts and a Nidan at the end yelping orders for us to “GO” and we would zip across the floor cleaning the hard wood.

The cleaning was simple, you washed out a rag, ran it up and down the floor and then washed it out and tidied up the water that fell around the bucket. Several higher ranking students then went to the windows and cleaned their and along the ledges before they found a relatively dry area and warmed down or finished the work out. It was simple, it was easy and it was done by EVERYONE. Then on the weekends while some would be washing the floors some o f the students would vacuum out the waiting area and clean the bathrooms, it was frowned upon when some would skip the week end Soji because they did not want to tidy up the showers or toilet. After all its our Dojo and we want to show it off to those that came out.

Doing Soji in a dojo shows a specific kind of maturity to their character, it shows a willingness to give back for all that they get out of Karate. The more modern view of Soji is that it is a burden and that students pay for the right to train so the instructors should make sure the training area is clean…and some instructors feel that this is below them and they have busted their butts for years to get to the current ranks they have so they won’t be doing any cleaning anytime soon. This shows a great deal of self-importance and entitlement that should not be part of the martial arts training program. You cannot teach someone how to fight if you think they have a big ego and may use the skills to harm others, and a attitude of entitlement is not a great attitude for a potential successor in a martial art.

For me, students that frown on Soji or won’t even lift a mop handle to pitch in and do some basic cleaning are not worthy of learning Karate past the very basic Kihon and Heian Shodan…and when they ask why they have been a white belt for years and everyone else has been taught more and moved up the ranks, well I will let them know that it’s because they have bad Soji!

In todays Karate and I would venture other impact sports you hear a lot of talk about how to improve a specific skill set like “how to be better at Kumite” or “how to improve your Kata” and you get this long diatribe on strategy and drills ext…and trust me they have a place in the world of martial arts as they are the “end game” as it were of practice. I mean why spend hours in a Dojo training and pushing yourself if you never learn how to spar or your Kata looks like a weird dance of some sort with no focus ext. But not enough time is spent talking about Kihon and different ideas on how to fix up your basics!


In our organization Dingman Sensei knows and says that Kihon is GOD when training. If you don’t know how to do a good front kick…how are you going to throw one in Kumite and not hurt yourself? Well, I am going to go through a bunch of different things and training ideas that you need to go through to improve your form, your techniques or your Kihon waza as it were…All of which I train on a regular and semi regular basis. I will give some ideas on how to improve specific techniques but lal of these techniques in one way or another can be used to build the technique and some may be a bit different for you..but they work and you should think about picking these up and doing them to fix up bad form or to improve your current form.


Before I start however I have to elaborate on what makes good form or good techniques so you know what it is that you are focusing on. A good technique has these common elements:


Good form:

Good form means proper placement of the joints in movement. For instance when you do a Knife hand block/strike your elbow should never proceed your wrist in our Knife hand blocks and in the forearm block in Teckki your elbow and wrist should never be out of alignment and Should not go behind your shoulder. In Mae Geri you need to Coil-kick-recoil….in that order!

Bad form can lead to injuries in training, and also a less than effective technique. This is why we train so darn hard in getting proper alignment for good form.


Good timing:

Good timing means more than just countering at the right time, which is important but in Kihon waza I am talking more about the compartmentalization of a movement series…which is cheap Kinesiology talk for “the process and appropriate timing of specific movements in a series of required body alignments” so, when you front kick (remember this is going to be an important technique but we can do it with any movement) you must first raise the toes on the kicking foot, plant your weight on the support leg, Chamber the foot and use the core to strengthen the lift, Execute a kick, recoil and finally place the foot of the kicking leg down. Done out of sequence and the person kicking will have a less than perfect technique and can harm themselves.

As an instructor I cannot tell you how many times I have taught Mae Geri and seen some weird interpretations of the movements. The student will jerk their leg up, not chamber it and execute a “Goose step” form of a front kick or actually reverse things and start off with a straight leg and then coil after the leg has made impact…it’s a weird looking revers front kick like a pulling in motion.

Good timing in this case is all about executing the movements in the proper sequence and at the right time. The other poor timing issue I see is when someone start off slow and then gets jerky with movements, like they chamber for a side kick slowly then shoot their leg out and twist at a funny angle and wrench the hip hard, forget to recoil and then slam their leg down feeling like they just kicked really hard….Yah, they did…but in three years I will sell them my uncles walker!

Proper Target:

One of my pet peaves when testing juniors is when they throw their limbs about like they just have to execute some form of a move to garner points in testing….Not true, and the worst offender is the Uraken/Yoko geri to Empi in Heian Yondan and the Uraken/Yoko geri in Heian Nidan. The juniors are never taught to strike a proper target and to select one, they just throw their back fist at any level and try to kick as high as they can.

When you throw these kinds of techniques the targets are selected for you, or you can modify them as needed but they must have a specific target and show that the target is corresponding to the same spot on their body…so a temple strike back fist should never be aimed above your own head!


Good trajectory:

A technique has a specific path that it takes, and you should not modify the path, actually most of the time it is poor form to start a technique on one trajectory and change it when performing Kata or Kihon waza. Take for instance the much abused straight punch….NOTE I SAID STRAIGHT! The junior levels have some kind of strange heat seeking missile that moves with their body and makes the techniques sway and move as it off course more than it is on course, only to be pulled back to the target at the last second.

Or the back fist that shoves the elbow way past target and shortens the back fist distance of movement and thus lessens the impact and power you can apply. The most important thing about trajectory is to keep the move on track!


Good power:

Power is the application of force and movement! Power is the produce of force with velocity (speed of movement) not just pushing hard and not just using speed to snap something. Yes, speed has its place, and yes strength/force has its place, but a good technique has its root force in the core of the body and the connection used will apply movement to a limb at a great speed and move the limb into the target.

Okay, fancy talk aside….to often a student will hit air like they are superman and then you put a shield in front of them or a partner and they turn into Olive Oil (not real olive oil, the pop eye character)! You have to have some focus and power in your techniques or what is the point of slapping someone with your back fist? HIT THEM HARD!!!!


Well-conditioned:

By conditioned I am talking about the ability to hit something without hurting yourself so bad that you have lost the fight. Strong wrists and ankles, good strong frame and bones will help you in a real situation as well as making a technique look real! If you have hit a Makiwara and you now know what it’s like to hit a hard surface, if you need to strike someone in real life you won’t feel shocked by the impact.

Aside from solid striking surface and a strong body “well conditioned” also means practiced. A famous martial arts strategist said “Don’t fear the man that has practiced 10,000 kicks 10 times each….fear the man that has practiced 10 kicks….10,000 times each!” and no…it was not Bruce Lee…he just stole it! Focus on using the techniques and ingraining them in yourself so you can use them at a seconds notice. Practice them in the air, with partners and on impact training.


Good flexibility:

Lets face it we are not all gifted with great flexibility that just sprang out of great genes….some of us have to work at it and as I got older I found that I have to work on it to. My hips are sore and my lower back tight, but being a parent, less training time in the dojo and also getting older have given me all this. So, I stretch!

If someone is INCREDIBLY tight then they need to work on specific stretching to work on better kicks and even better stances. However all of these are attainable with some good old fashion stretching. Push yourself to have limber hips and lower back and you will find your form improves along with that. I am not saying you have to do the splits, I am saying you need to relax your hips and get some length in your legs.


Simplicity

The more complicated we make the form of a technique the more chances for us to look silly and throw overly complicated techniques that end up making the form useless! Watch as a junior learns how to do a front kick for the first time….its like learning long equations and doing it in Russian! Slow down, remember that Karate is the act of removing useless movements to do a simple task with power, speed and grace!


Good Explosiveness and speed:

Once the form is down you need to add speed and explosiveness. Speed is the over all rate of movement of a limb or the body in relation to the space it is in. Explosiveness is the rapid acceleration of that limb or body from rest to full or maximum require speed.

I bark at the senior s to speed up all the time, what I should be saying is “ACCELLERATE AT A MORE RAPID ONSET”…but that just sounds weird. ….And I already have a reputation so I wills tick with “Go faster”! The smooth Acceleration required for good form comes from practice and more practice…..watch juniors again and see the ‘herky jerky’ movements that come from not having good control of their speed and application of explosiveness…add that to the fact that they cannot catch a slow and old senior and you start to see what bad form and poor control of speed and explosiveness get you.


They are natural feeling:

If it feels weird, do it till it feels natural! The way we move is somewhat based on natural movements. I mean we are not asking you to disjoint your body and perform a movement that you should not be able to do…we are using basic biomechanics to build up your movement skills to apply natural movement in a slightly unnatural way…meaning we don’t front kick down the street but we can do it if we wanted to with out altering our body.

Some of our moves are not things our body does on a daily basis, for instance how often do you throw a shuto Uke at work…hopefully not very often if at all….but the movement is natural. We are just ingraining the move net specifics to make the move second nature so when it is called upon you don’t have to think, you just do the block and counter naturally.


Correct attitude:

This one seems weird and it is the hardest to teach. Attitude and intent refer to the techniques proper application and the seriousness when doing them. PAY ATTENTION is the best way to suggest proper attitude to beginners. Some people think that Karate techniques done in the air are “Throw away” techniques. They are not. Not only can you accidentally hurt someone, but you can harm yourself as well.

Kids provide a specific challenge in attitude when training, most flail about having fun, which is good…but instructors have to be very careful with this kind of added danger. For individual training the most important thing is to pay attention when practicing and remember “no detail is to small as to allow distraction when doing Kihon waza”.


They are connected to your core:

Good techniques generate power not from your arm, but from your hara (belly) and or core. Don’t throw a punch from the shoulder, but from the core, and use your core to connect to the floor for added power. Kicks are very much connected to your core, throw a round kick without a strong side muscle and you end up with an ankle kick!

Train yourself to always use the core when doing a technique so you are throwing it from the proper spot and supporting your center!


Solid focus-Contraction and relaxation:

Too Tight, Too loose! Those are two horrible habits when doing techniques. But by learning when to relax and when to contract you can add power, speed and focus to your movements. Watch a good technical player move, they are relaxed and their techniques snap into a solid rock like focus for a split second then evaporate back into a relaxed and ready state.

They are used at the proper time:

Nothing worse than seeing someone try and cram a front kick into a move when they are to close, or trying to lunge a punch in when they are to far away….or throwing two techniques in the wrong order or wrong timing.

We do not have techniques or Kata that have a back fist and side kick done at the same time….READ TOGETHER. T he moves don’t make sense and you end up throwing a sloppy back fist and kick together. Try a back fist THEN a side kick and you can concentrate your movements to add power and better form.



Okay, so now you know some elements that make up good form, and you can kind of understand what we mean when we are talking about form and techniques, so in my next blog I will go over self-training, Dojo training and partner training exercises that can be used to improve in these areas.

Pure Karate Hokum

Hokum

                Hokum is a 1917 theater slang meaning “Melodramatic, exaggerated acting”, probably formed on model of Bunkum/ Bunk or perhaps influenced by the term base Hocus-pocus!  It means none sense or fakery and is a sarcastic term used for myths, bunk and other junk that has replaced a lot of wisdom and truth because it is flashier and more sellable by others.

                In Karate we suffer from a lot of Hokum and in a lot of ways the seniors who taught us Karate, and their seniors are to blame!  We see so much of this crapola/Bunk passed on and then altered even further from the truth that people who study the history and really tray and follow the traditions get bogged down by this misleading crap that it’s sad. 

                What is even sadder is when we try to be more Japanese than the Japanese are!  We have traditions that we follow and I find that some are followed more properly than others, and some are so far off base that it’s kind of sad.  Also, we are not Japanese…well I am not. I’m a brawny little Welshman that lives smack dab in the middle of Canada and about the most Japanese thing about me…other than my training in Karate and liking to wear white PJ’s is my affinity for Sushi!

                Even the Japanese have corrupted much of the early Karate traditions and have made the Okinawan system seem even less Okinawan than it started with. Let me explain a few myths and Hokum that have made its way into Western Karate.

1.  High ranking black belts are more deadly than low ranking black belts! I wish this was true, that the level of your rank meant that you were just as deadly as it suggested…but realistically all it means is that you know more about the style than others lower than you.  As we age or as time goes on we lose the youth that we had and the spring in our step becomes the pain in our hips and knees.  I know of a few Nandans that could not fight their way out of a wet sack! The fact is that to get to a higher level in Karate takes time, and most people don’t start Karate at the age of 10, most start as adults, so by the time they get to Third Dan or higher they are probably in their 30’s and by the time they get to fifth Dan they are int their 40’s…keep going…Now show me a 50 year old that will take a healthy 20 year old and mop the floor with them consistently and I will say they are a HUGE exception to the rule of diminishing returns. 

                And all of that is fine!  Its not that our ability to kill someone or dominate in Kumite is better, its that our knowledge is better.  Hell when I was 20 I could do the full splits…both ways and side kick well above my own head! Now that I am in my 40’s with a tone of injuries built up, well my side kick is firmly stopping at the ribs now!  I hope to see my kick land at the hip and finally at the knee someday…that means I have stuck around long enough to really grasp the meaning of Karate!

2. All Japanese people sit in Seiza, they don’t have chairs in Japan! So, no chairs in KFC in Tokyo or McDonalds in Osaka?  Really!  I was told this gem by a instructor who should have known better and he was seriously telling the class that no one in japan owns chairs….Someone better tell Ikea Japan that they need to turf the chairs in their stores…no one is going to buy them!

                Seriously, I have been told some stupid things before and this is just one that demonstrates the “ I really should have thought that one out before it oozed out of my mouth!” kind of category! Yes, they have chairs in Japan…and from what I have been told they are often more western than we are! And they try to be that way…its cool to be western in Japan…the way we think its cool to be eastern in the west!  They have fast food restaurants popping up that are serving Western food and it is accepted and flourishes the same way we have Swamra restaurants popping up and Sushi joints…And I bet the new McDonalds in Isaka will have great seating….on chairs!

3. Gis are white to show purity of spirit and mind! OMG, so now I know why people think we are a Eastern version of the original flower children…all spiritual and such! The true history of the Keikogi is that the Judo folks started using them to grip better and not leave the kimono they wore traditionally in shambles…..it was at a time when western clothing was starting to become popular as well….so can you imagine us doing Karate in a sport coat and slacks or tee shirts and slacks because Kano designed a Gi that looked more like the western clothing he loved so much?

                 The color of the Gi is simple as well, the gis were created at a time when the Dyes that were being used to color were being used for military uniforms or were so expensive and lets face it the country was at war and probably had other things to worry about….that they went with a woven jacket that was off white!  The classic Karate uniform was modeled after the Judo gi so the fact that its white reflects the fact that the Karate uniform was designed and created around a time when Dye was not available for material, in fact the white Kimono became very popular at the time in Japan as well and pale white/yellow clothing was normal…if you had colored clothing it was a sign of wealth.

4. You have to go to Japan to learn real Karate! Really, so the fact that they sent out their BEST to teach around the world and spread Karate means nothing?  The JKA set up the best and brightest to go around the world and spread Karate to the masses, I assume they did their best job and I also assume that other groups like Shito ryu, Goju Ryu and the like did similar things.

                So, suggesting that you must go to Japan to learn true Karate is a bit of a back hand to the very founders of the JKA and to master Nakayama….and the other masters of other systems. The truth is that men like Schmidt in South Africa, Dingman Sensei here, Greer Golden in the US and thousands of others around the world took the knowledge that the masters brought to them and built on it….to learn real Karate you simply need to find someone with enough knowledge to teach you..the rest is up to you.

5. Karate was created by farmers to defend themselves against Samurai! My GOD! I have had a argument with someone about this the other day and left the whole thing feeling like “really, you are so uninformed and brain washed that you believe this in the face of facts”.  Todays students deserve better than the Hokum that we were told as students!

                Karate was created by SAMURAI in essence because the men that created Karate were royal retainers/body guards and had the same jobs as high level Samurai in Japan. They were the Shimazu class or Pachurin class members of the royal court that had enough spare time on their hands to dedicate to training and also the need and social ability to decide to learn this.  It would be socially and psychologically unheard of for a farmer to think about fighting a Samurai at all, they were instilled with the idea that the samurai were ruthless killers and the samurai would kill people just to incite fear…

                No, Karate was not created by farmers and fishermen!

6.  Bowing and scraping! OUS! Rei!!!!!  To much of this is looked upon as silliness that us western folk seem to love and adapted from the Japanese.  Bowing is a specialty of the Japanese with a dynamic set of rules and regulations, we tend to scrap that and just bow deep and often and get upset when they are not returned.  Then the scraping part!

                Some instructors feel that because they get to a specific level that people should bow and scrape and worship at their feet….why, the students PAY YOU for your services.  Do they need to show respect, well yah, just as you need to show the same respect right back and not pray on them and their adulation.  The thing with the respect thing is it is a two way street.  If you don’t respect your students, who are showing great respect for you…they won’t be your students very long!

                If you find that you have a chip on your shoulder then you are not in the right business! And if you find that you are wanting others to worship you….become a movie star or something, this is the wrong place for you!

               

7.  The word Sensei means Great Teacher and it is reserved for only high ranking masters of martial arts! Nifty little ignoring of facts here….Sensei is a term for ANY teacher in Japan. I have a friend that teaches English in Japan and they often call him Sensei in class.

                Some other terms for Teacher in Japanese are “Kyoushi, Kyouyu, Kyokan and Kyoshi” but Sensei is more commonly used in Japan and a more recognizable term for a instructor in a school.

                Also, depending on your system and organization the title or Shogo for Teacher/Sensei can be restricted to 5^th or even 6^th Dan instructors or given out to anyone that teaches, including and not restricted to brown belts and even purple belts in some cases. The fact that Rank traditionally has nothing to do with titles has been confusing for western Karate people for years!

8.  “I speak great Japanese”!  Probably not! And you probably only know “Karate speak” and not real Japanese.  I was told once by a exchange student that my Japanese pronunciation is almost perfect when I was saying things to her in Japanese…but it was all Karate stuff and mostly “Mimic” type stuff.  I can say the Dojo Kun in my head and to others, but it is just repeating a phrase that means little to me.  Yes I know what the meaning is for the translation, but if you ask me what Jinkaku means…NO IDEA!

                Your ability to parrot the Japanese language aside, the Japanese may feel you “sound” good but I doubt they will then walk up to you and assume you know the language, because they know you probably don’t!

                I once sat in a room full of Japanese Karate students and was “engaged” in conversation by a few of them. They tried their best to speak proper English and did a great job, but I listened as they spoke to each other and in a 20 minute back and forth…I might have recognized two words!...and I am guessing at them as well!

                Lets not suddently think we can speak a new language on a few hours a week and think we are now fluent or able to even ask for basic things like the bathroom…which I actually did learn.  I have been doing Karate for 34 years or so now and I don’t even pretend to think I know more than a few phrases in Japanese that are passable, but I laugh my butt off when others  act like they can say the Dojo kun in Japanese so they are good to go to a trip to Japan!

9. the Japanese never changed their belts, the belts got dirty and bloody and that is where the colors came from! In a word EWWWW@WWWWW!  The truth is that the Japanese are an extreme clean nation! They were doing the whole HOT BATH thing while Europe was trying to cover up the smell they had with powerful perfumes and avoiding water at all costs.

                The typical Japanese bath is more of a soaker tube….you wash before you get into the tub! They insist.  First you sit on a small seat and you scrub the skin raw and wash all dirt and extra oil  off your body and Then you sit in that hot bath to relax.  And you never wear the same Kimono without it being cleaned…and the under garments are changed as often.  Even Japanese farmers were cleaner than nobility in Europe!

                So, the story of the unwashed Obi changing colors would have HORRIFIED the Japanese! Its simply not true!

10. Jumping kicks were designed to knock Samurai off of horse back.  I am 5’6” and at my most athletic I could probably kick my own head with a jump kick….the Kiso horse or the Archery horse is roughly 4’6” tall…which means that the armor wearing Samurai who on average was an additional 5’3” was sitting about as high as I can kick to get him in the hip or side….yes that jump kick could work then, but most kicks that are thrown jumping are about 3-4’ in the air….landing square in the ribs of the horse…not the rider! 

                Jump kicks were also made popular in the 60’s…the 1960’s not the 17 or 1860”s.  The Jump kick was not used to knock a rider off a horse, that’s what the spear was made for!

                I have dozens more but these are my favorites!  The problem is that someone will say “Make sure your gi is clean and you show your pride” and a generation down the line we get crap like number 3…and people say it with a straight face and don’t realize how foolish they sound!       

And we also have things that we do in Karate that some don’t understand.  Heck most people outside of Karate don’t understand why we dress up in our PJ’s and scream at each other!  Some Home Made Hokum that people think about Karate and is not true would include things like……

1. Karate people break boards and tiles to prove their strength!  Tamishiwara is a test of technical proficiency, but the board breaking you see today is mostly done with wood that the Japanese did not have access to in Japan or they are complete hokum and done with baked boards! 

                If an instructor does a demo and board breaking is involved throw some Japanese red wood in their or Ash and make sure he does not bake the moisture out of the boards to make them brittle….now that’s a true test!

2. You have to register your hands with the local police once you get your black belt.! LMAO, yah….no cop in my area knows I am a black belt…nor does any intelligent person care.  What makes me dangerous is not my years of training in Karate…its my temper and aggressive nature when upset!  Karate has actually toned that down a lot over the years, so the fact that I am a black belt is nothing to fear…its my saving grace in a lot of ways!

3. Put your Kid in Karate and they will learn to be better People! A) its not my job to teach your child how to behave outside of Karate, just to keep them in line as long as they are in the club. B) if I have that much influence over your kid and you have none…what is wrong with this picture? C) I can not fix in one hour a few times a week, what you FAIL to fix in 24 hours a day 7 days a week!

                The fact is that Karate can have a huge and great impact on kids lives, but it takes a village to raise a child and a parents influence, for good or for bad, is going to mean 10,000% more than an instructors influence! Its just a fact!

                I have seen far to many times when parents drop kids off at “Karate day care” and wonder why the kid still has attitude issues and does not pay attention in school…so they take the kid home, feed him a cheese burger with fries and a sugary coke and put him in front of his video game or TV till he goes to bed…and that is the extent of their parenting skills!

                We will work with you, but you have some changes to do at home as well! 

4. Karate is a deadly art and anyone that trains in it will be DEADLY!  Really, we have a wide variety of people who train with us, and I can only name a handful that I would see as “Deadly” most are just good people who work hard and who want to be better at Karate. 

                You want deadly, join a gun club and pack heat…you want healthier and happier then you can come train with us.  We don’t turn out monsters that can be deadly  and hurt people, we try and avoid those kinds of situations actually!

5. Karate is for men between the ages of 16-25 only.  Karate is perfect for everyone because it can be used to improve health for everyone.  The problem is that sport Karate is probably better suited for 16-25 year old male/females who are more athletic…but it should not be the focus of training at all.

                We have had members as young as 4 and as old as 80 training in Karate!

6. Karate is linked to some kind of Eastern religion. No more than baseball is a Catholic linked sport or Basketball is a Christian sport!  Karate is influenced by the Eastern traditions, but not religion!  We bow, which is like a hand shake, we say the Dojo Kun, which the boy scouts of America also say an oath so are they Religious in any way?

                We do not pray or worship any ancestors in Karate, and we only have pictures of Funakoshi and other instructors up to show respect.  I once had this conversation with a religious kind of guy in his church when he said, “yah, well we don’t bow to picturs and woship them, we only have pictures of Jesus up and angels and Mary and….” I stopped him dead in his tracks and said “okay, two things…one you are worshiping Mary when you have her picture up and put them next to Jesus right”!  He said yes, to which I said “but the bible says she is a simple and honest women and should not be worshiped “ she was a vessel for God to bring his son to the world and as such she is no different than an egg that brings a duck into the world….He got pissed…Then I pointed out that they also have pictures of the pastures and junior pastures up on the walls and its no different than us saying thank you to the instructors in Karate!

                Yah, he did not bite and got very agitated because he was unwilling to admit that we are not doing something that he thought we were doing and he would not sway from his position, so I pushed it and said that they were breaking church “law” by putting up pictures of others on the walls of a church that were reserved for Christ, Angels and Mary! And then said…what do you think God things of this?

                The conversation went no place after that but it was fun!

7. Karate is no good for real fighting or MMA fights! Machida, Bellfort, GSP, Liddell, Set Petruzelli, Bas Rutten, Guy Mezger, Yuki Kondo, Katsunori Kikuno, Rory Markham,Jeff Joslin, Ryo Chonan, Takanori Gomi, Semmy Schilt, sam Greco, Antoni Carvalho, Jeff Newton, Shonie Carter, David Louseau, Ed Ratcliff, Jason Dent,  and a slew of other fighters would suggest your wrong! 

                Karate is a versatile tool, but is only as good as the person using it.  It can be used for many things and as was proven by many different MMA fighters it can be used for that SPORT!

8. If you train in Karate you will be able to defend yourself! Just like the last one, this is a bit of a “Depends on who you are and how good you are” kind of situation.  I have met fifth dans that I am fairly sure would suffer at the hands of a street thug! And I have met people who don’t need Karate to be great fighters and able to defend themselves..

                Like any other martial art, people take Karate for different reasons and excel in different ways.  It never guarantees that you will be good at defending yourself just because you show up to class!

9. Bowing is a form of worship!  If that’s true then handshakes are a form of worship too!  Bowing in Asian cultures can be seen as a greeting, a show of respect and other things, worship is not often one of them really.  When someone bows they are not praying or saying “oh, man in the picture I worship thee”…

                Bowing is no more a form of worship than hand shaking and saying “Welcome” are!  This argument is normally made by narrow minded religious people, of which I run into them infrequently enough to make me happy not having to deal with it. 

                My thoughts are that Religion and karate don’t mix and should not be forced to mix. I once read a story about a Dojo that in place of the Dojo kun said the lords prayer and had Jesus on the wall and not a founder….talk about scary and confusing all at the same time.

                I could probably go on and on about these Hokum situations but to be frank..their are way to many of them to deal with in one blog!

Reply to a comment...and thank you.

“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!

History of the “36 family” village in Okinawa: a history lesson

History of the “36 family” village in Okinawa


I was asked by one of our members to quickly review the cultural exchange done at the Kumemura village with the “36 families” and the Okinawan people. First let me say that it is a bit overstated in some cases that the cultural exchange was the most important point in Karate’s development. One has to realize that there were multiple sources of information that was brought in to Okainwa to create what we now know as Karate. However, the Kumemura area was very lively with cultural exchanges and at the time the Okinawan culture was a bit of a hybrid of Chinese, Japanese and native cultures. The people of Okinawa were in a kind of cultural schizophrenia and often would mix cultural norms to create the hybrids that they came to see as acceptable to both larger countries.

Under pressure from China and the Chinese court to be a way station of sorts for Chinese exchanges and also under pressure from the Japanese to be a port for them to use in both military and exchange missions, the Okinawans were in the middle of two of the most powerful countries in the region at the time, and two powers that did not like each other very much.

Okinawa was faced with being pressured by a Japanese military that was bent on ruling the region through raids and putting puppet governments into areas they took as well as supporting rulers that bowed to their emperor and more importantly the Shogun. The other force that they were being pressured by was the Ming Imperial government from China, a very orderly and ritualistically ridged government that had a large army and would also send them into areas that they wished to rule and who would not “play ball” with them. The Okinawan government and people did their best to appease both groups and play off each group to not only prosper but to keep the larger two nations from swallowing them up.



So, what was the Kumemura? The Kumemura was a village outside of the ancient Okinawan port of Naha. Naha was once a port city that had deep water docs for ships that were traveling from major ports in China and Japan to other countries and had many warehouses for the goods that were brought to the port. Often the port city acted as an informal trade post for the major powers who “officially” did not want to have any relations with the other.

The Chinese government was engaging in further trading with the Ryukyuan government once the three kingdoms were united under King Sho and as such many of the Chinese businessmen that had visited Okinawa now had a more stable government to trade with and to set up commerce with. For the most part it is suggested that this was nothing really new for China and governments in the Ryukyu island chain but now that they had one over all government to deal with the relationship was cemented.

Soon after the Ming court established a set relationship with the Sho Kingdome (read they intimidated by intimating they may invade and just scoop them up if they did not behave and play nice) the diplomats brought with them scholars who were sent to study and learn to communicate with the Okinawan people. They brought with them an attitude of superiority that was encouraged by the Ming Court and set up in Tax free lands by the Okinawan court…probably not a suggestion that the Sho Court Came to on their own if you know what I mean. Further they were given food and a rice stipend, which at the time was seen as giving them funds simply for the act of culturally invading the country.

Okinawa was swiftly set up as a tributary state for China and seen as a “Lesser nation” by the Chinese and were expected to carry themselves as such. Now the settlement was set up before the unification and to some extend the Kumemura group enjoyed diplomatic and trade with all three kindoms to some extent before they were united into the single governing group. Once the Okinawan kingdom was untied as one the Kumemura settlement began to share even more with the Okinawans; teaching them to read Chinese, navigation, geomancy, shipbuilding and how to make specific and very important textiles and equipment. The relationship was seen as beneficial to both parties, even if by force.

Most historical notes say that the first of the Kumemura people were scholars, but most likely, and based on research I read, the Kumemura people were originally Ship guilders sent to China by the Ming Courts to help repair the Chinese trade ships that were often docked in Naha waters. They would send workers to live on the island and do work to keep the trade ships sailing and money changing hands. After the obvious advantage of “Owning” a country that was on their shipping lines came to be seen the Ming courts then sent administrators to “take” the spot of administration away from the lower cast country. After the administrators came other culturally important people like scholars, religious monks and finally artists of all sorts.

By the middle 15th century not only were Chinese officials living in the now protected and enclosed village, but so were Korean diplomats and officials from other countries in the region. This secluded village housed many cultures and many cultural dignitaries that had official business with the Ryukyu kingdom.



The term “36 families” is a misnomer really. First off their were probably many more than 30 families in Kumemura, but the term was probably more a illustration than a accurate depiction of the number of people in Okinawa. Also, it probably would have been rare for a government official or business man establishing trade in Okainawa to bring their families with them. The truth is many of the people sent to Okinawa would have been lower class Chinese and single men sent by the government and other business interests in China to establish a connection then to take on the task of influencing the Okinawans. The Island nation played the middle man between Korea and China as well as any other nation in the region that traded with each other.



The Chinese government sent reams of envoys, bureaucrats, diplomats and scholars over the years and many of them were sent without family, but the group became known as the 30 families for the mass and size of the group that came to settle outside Naha port. Now a distinction has to be drawn here that many people don’t do…the people that came from China and Korea more than likely knew NOTHING of martial arts. The business envoy from shipping companies and the government officials and scholars were more than likely educated men that may not have been high level government officials but they were not interested in fighting or the fighting arts.

So, where did the Chinese martial arts come from….well every envoy and official that was sent from China brought with them a staff, and on the staff they brought would have been soldiers, body guards and basic security experts who were more than likely trained in hand to hand and weapon fighting. As the majority of the security that were hired by the business men were local to Fujian the majority of the fighters that they brought with them were trained in the prevalent styles of the area. Fujian white crane was the style practiced by the majority of the fighters. However there were many other styles of fighting that were taught in that region.

Chun fa fighting in China (kung fu or any other term associated with the fighting arts) is a mish mash of training arts. In a single region of China the size of London the pleather of styles available for one to study was probably in the number of 70 schools with styles as vast as the academies were. It therefore stands to reason that the men that came over as body guards were schooled in a multitude of arts.

Also the diplomats did not have to hire men to protect them, they had the Ming military to back them up, as well as private hired men. This means that skilled fighters from many Chinese schools of fighting came to Okinawa and along with the men they worked for teaching their culture and scholarly wares, some of the fighters passed on their arts to the Okinawan people.



The importance of this exchange of martial skills is vastly overstated by most to be the start of Karate on the island of Okinawa. My thoughts are that it is simply a cog in the machine that soon became known as Karate.

We have people like Uechi, Higaonna and others traveling to China to study and bring back the art, we have people who came to Okinawan on their own for other reasons unrelated to the Kumemura location or for business/political reasons and lets face it, almost all cultures have their own indigenous arts that existed from day one.



The Kumemura village faded into the Naha Township and finally the Shuri Capital took all of the area under its own walls. The main reason that the Kumemura village did not last however was probably directly related to who was living in the village when the Satsuma clan took Okinawa for the Japanese.

For many years the Okinawan or Lewchewan people played interference between the Chinese dignitaries and the Japanese Samurai that inhabited the different areas of Okinawa. While the Chinese ran their interests from Kumemura, the Japansese held a seat of power in the capital. This delicate balance of letting each group think they were in control was difficult to maintain and often the Okinawans had to lie to both groups and work them with deceptions to keep the peace. The Chinese had been a powerful influence in Okinawa since 1392 and the Lewchewan people had rapidly integrated many of the cultural elements of Chinese life, including clothing and many rituals, into their own culture and the royal family had also “converted” their lives to be more Chinese.

In 1609 however the Shimazu clan invaded Okinawa and sacked the island. The Satsuma Samurai of the Shimazu clan banned the people of Okinawa from wearing weapons and also started to influence the Okinawan culture and ban the clothing that the Chinese had brought to the culture a few centuries earlier. The art of Karate is said to have come out of necessity because of this banning, but we have to get again some perspective here. The people learning Karate were called Commoners, but that meant all Lewchewan people, including the royal guard, retainers and those that were of Samurai status but Okinawan decent! So, it was not the farmers and shop keepers learning Karate by moon light as some of us have been lead to believe but the military who were basically unarmed by the Japanese…the dignitaries that also guarded the king who also were unable to use weapons or even keep them.

Soon after the Japanese took the island by force the Okinawans began doing what they did best…absorbing the new rules culture and hoping for peace through assimilation. This meant that the circular self-defense they had learned from the Chinese was not being influenced by the more direct and linear Japanese sword based fighting skills.

The situation was a strained and strange position for the Okinawans to be put in. They still had tight ties with China and still paid their “tax” to the Chinese, but they were not directly ruled by the Japanese. To counter this they began meshing the Japanese culture into the Okinawan/Chinese culture. Clothing changed as did the language and traditions, all of this happened in a very rapid time frame. Most of the young men that had been sent to Fujian province and even Bejing to study at the Royal Chinese academy were not sent to Japan for higher learning and many suggest that Azato Sensei was one of these men, and he came back with Japanese influenced Kenjutsu over the Chinese influenced Chun Fa fighting his predecessors would have learned when attending school off island.

By the Meijin era most of the Chinese influence was “garnish” and not relevant to then modern Okinawan society. They had bent to the will of the new masters culturally, or as I like to see it, assimilated out of self-preservation. The culture had become more Japanese and the fighting arts followed suit, adopting much of the hand to hand defensive techniques from an amalgam of Ju jitsu styles, Kenjutsu styles and traditional Okinawan fighting systems that had adopted the previously learned Chinese styles. What we end up with is a much more linear system of fighting that still has more robust movements in striking that the Ju jitsu counterparts and a culture that is heavily influenced by the Japanese, but with direct undertones of Chinese society and traditional Okinawan ideals of assimilation and adaptability.

One of my friends said to me that the best part about the Okinawans is that they are pliable people. You can see it in the fact that first they were a small nation that needed to change and become one single kingdom and soon after the wars to unite they acted as if they were always one people. Then the Chinese came in and they quickly became entrenched as a off shoot of Chinese society…the Japanese came and they became somewhat more Japanese than the Japanese for a while. And after the war they were the most flexible and quickest to adapt to western ways. They are seen to be traditional in many ways and staunch traditionalists, but when they do change, the change is almost like it was always that way.



The Village of Kumemura is simply one root to the tree that is Karate and while a major influence, not THE influence that created Karate or even the only source for Chinese martial arts on the islands.