JKA of Manitoba. A historical view of training and its development over the years

This year marks my 35 year training in Karate. Now I have to be up front and tell you that it has not been a solid 35 years in a Dojo training. I took time off, a few months here and there, and also left Karate to train in other arts, or to focus for short periods on the other arts while being “Away” from Karate.  But at the same time I have to say that while I was “Away” I still did my Kata. At one point I left for a few months (9 to be exact) to focus on my grappling in Judo…but the back yard on Consol ave was worn out that year from doing Kata every day in the summer! I may not have physically been down to the club but I was still training in Dingman Sensei’s Karate!

                Now, I also did not start training at the JKA of Manitoba, I actually started training with one of Dingman Sensei’s Sempais in the same city, but I found I did not like his teaching…and I was a little kid. So while I started at the age of six, I trained for a year and a half and then left Karate for almost a full year before finding Dingman Sensei’s Dojo (It may have been a tad more than a year…give me a break its over three decades ago).

                I hate stories that start off with “IN the olden days” or “Way back when…” so please forgive me in recounting the evolution of the JKA of Manitoba by starting off with “In the old days” and “Way Back When” kind of ramblings and recounts of the past, but I think it is very important to start off at the beginning of my journey in the JKA. Anyways, when I started Karate with Dingman Sensei, or to be more accurate , in the kids class at the JKA of Manitoba Down on Albert street the club had just moved from Transcona and was in its new digs on Albert street. They had been their about a year or two when I joined from what I understand and the club already smelled like a club and looked like a broke in Dojo.

                I remember coming into the club and right away I knew it was different than the previous Karate program I had taken. The kids were huffing and puffing and to be frank…no games were being played…just hard training. I actually watched and Adult class first with my big brother having dropped me off to go find comic books at a local store, I made the climb to the fourth floor and opened the big wood door. The door just said JKA and had the JKA logo under the golden letters. The first thing that hits you when you enter a club is the smell. I cannot describe it really, its actually a mix of everyone’s hard work and perspiration, the smell of moist hard woods and the cleaning supply that was used to clean the floors of everyone’s sweat.

                The class itself was crazy and I had gotten upstairs about half way through class on a Saturday and the adults were doing Kumite…I think it was one step but the movement and rotation of bodies made it hard to tell what I was looking at. They flowed and the whole class kind of undulated in front of your eyes, it was not uniform and robotic at all but the class was moving at different times and lunging at each other, sliding back and blocking and the noise was amazing, Kiais and shuffling of Gis made it hard to focus on one person or one group. The spirit in the room, even the waiting area was almost tangible and you could just feel the exertion and spirit being used in that class.

                At the front of this chaos was a shorter man, about five three ish with a wooden sword in his hand, A Shinai, and he was barking out orders. The volume he could produce without any effort was kind of scary. Now, his orders did not come out violently or in a negative way, he was urging on the mayhem and trying to get people to move. Most of what he was yelling was in English, but the odd word of Japanese (I assumed) would come out. You could not sit in the waiting room and watch this without eventually becoming transfixed by the instructor. He seemed to just exude spirit and an aura I had never seen….and I don’t believe in Auras.

                Class ended and the whole group bowed to each other, looking happy, but worn right out and lined up behind the instructor. When the line was straight as an arrow and all the students were standing straight at attention the instructor lowered himself to one knee, then to a full sitting position and the most senior student yelped some order that I had never heard before and the whole line in unison lowered the same way as the instructor and sat on their knees, in what I thought at the time seemed like a silly thing to do on hard wood floors…..little did I know I would adopt this sitting position for the rest of my life.

                After a short, and very quiet moment or three, the whole class repeated some kind of boy scout oath that seemed to remind me of my cub scout oath I had to learn…of which I do not recall at all at this point in my life. And the group bowed after the instructor turned around and then waited for the instructor to get up and leave. Then they stood up, bowed and a young Green belt flew off the floor, bowing as he left, ran into the mens change room and returned to the floor with two buckets of hot water. The whole class cleaned the floor and the instructor walked towards me, turned to bow off the floor and then walked right past me. I will never forget, he did not say a word to me as he passed by me, but he ruffled my hair with his hand closest to me so fast I could not even see his hand move from his side! That was my first introduction to the JKA of Manitoba….well actually…

                When I came into the JKA for the first time I actually had two very different things happen to me that I would say NO first time student will ever have happen to them. I opened the door to the club, a large wood door and immediately got hit in the head with a big Tonka Toy truck! Now as it turned out it was the instructors daughter that threw it at me, or in my direction…I never did get the answer to that.  If that was not enough of a welcome I was immediately accosted by the secretary. She pointed at me and said “you come here” in a growly voice….now keep in mind I am a young kid and never been here before and did not know who this adult was who was seemingly upset with me. Turned out that after a brief conversation I had been mistaken for another student and was let off the hook. But As a confirmed introvert and shy kid…well my heart was POUNDING in my chest.

                After signing up for the club I started training in the kids class, which was three times a week before the adults trained.  I have to stop and say that the kids class back then was VERY different than the kids classes we hold now. First off it was from five to twelve years of age and no one under thirteen trained in the main classes. Also, we did not do games! The class was basically a mini version of the adult class with some variations, very little Kumite and lots, I mean LOTS of calisthenics and weird exercises designed to torture you and also train your body. We did duck walks, Seal pulls (picture using your arms to pull yourself across the ground from one end of the club to the other), we did pushups…lots and lots of pushups, sit ups, leg lifts and a variety of other exercises that I really hated as a kid…I wanted to hit something not do pushups…did I mention that we did LOTS of pushups?

                We were not allowed to hit the old beat up punching bag or the Makiwara, which was fine by me actually, both were covered in dried blood and the Makiwara often had bits of skin stuck to the harsh looking rope that was used to cover it.  It would be a few more years before Sensei and a Sempai of mine had me hit that thing 100 times before each class with both hands and I would start to like it…..a bit too much if you ask my mother.

                I stuck to the kids classes for a few years, and Sensei never taught more than once in that time frame. He would sit in his office and work or read and have a coffee while one of the sempai, normally a brown or black belt youth (around 16-20 years old) would take the kids through the class and run us till we were exhausted. The whole time he would sit in his Gi or street clothing and often behind a big newspaper so he could hear the class, but not see it. His office was down a hall just past the public bath room that seemed to always be occupied for the 40 minutes before class you may need to pee, which meant a quick hike to the top floor, up four more flights of stairs, in your Gi to quickly relieve yourself, then back down the cold stairs to the class…or worse…to the basement if the top floor was being used.

                Normally 13 was the magic number to transition into the adult class, but I was bound and determined to get in the class at 11. Keep in mind, I was no giant kid, actually I was most often the shortest kid in class and 9 year olds were often a tad bigger than me. I was also not physically gifted to be the fastest or strongest…so it may have shocked Sensei when I interrupted his pre class coffee to ask him if I could stay and try the adult class. The first time I asked he looked out over his news paper and simply said, “No, you are to young”. But I had read or been told this story about a kid that wanted to learn Kung fu and went to the master every day to ask to join the temple and become a fighting monk and I was not going to give up….well I almost did when the third time I asked he looked over his paper and told me I was to small and to short and would get trampled! (now, never mind that he was right…I still wanted to be in the adult class). 

                I was ready to give up and throw in the towel. Now to be honest, it was all on me. If I were in Sensei’s position I would do the same thing! But!!!!! I guess my attitude towards training changed and I missed a few of the kids classes, and Mavis, the gruff secretary noticed my attitude was changing and she took it upon herself to call my mom and ask why I was so glum. My mom told her how I was board with the kids class and I was actually paying for my own classes with a paper route my brother and I did. When I tested I got extra money by selling my comic book collection and saving up my money I got for doing chores (back then doing the dishes for a full week got you two dollars) and I paid for my own training.

                I did not know this but Mavis went to Sensei and pleaded my case to him. Apparently it did not take much for him to agree to let me move up to the big class, with the understanding that this was my choice to do this. I was told at a Saturday Class to try the adult class after my kids class and see if I could manage it. I was ecstatic!

                This was the summer and the kids class was early on and cool in the Dojo still, but as we trained you could feel the heat raising. The old Dojo did not have air conditioning, hell most places did not back then, but we had six big windows that we would open up to try and get a breeze in class. The adult class started and was VERY different than the callisthenic and Kihon centric kids class. While I was an orange belt I lined up in the back at the end of the adults. We had two lines and because I was a kid I was seen as a junior to everyone and I was actually kind of happy….except for one thing. I will never forget that the guy in front of me had the worst smelling feet and when we lined up this brown belts feet were rank as heck and I had to then bow and get closer to them! Yah, that was almost a deal breaker right their!

                The training was also very different, we did not do much calisthenics, just in the warm up. And after the warm up we did basics…and more basics..then a bit more basics and finally….you got it…more basics.  And it was nothing fancy! We did Zenkutsu dachi, age uke to Gyaku zuki hundreds of times on each side. I thought that this was going to be a whole class on this one move! We did 30-45 minutes of basic movements and really it consisted of about four or five different blocks done with a reverse punch at the end and then we finished off  the basics with what I would come to know as the perfect kick…Mae Geri. I knew all these basics from the kids class…but I don’t think I had ever done 1,000 front kids…each leg…in a kids class before.

                Then we did Kata. 30 minutes of Heian shodan and nidan. The whole time Sensei making minor corrections and pushing students slightly to test balance and once and a while poking them in the gut to check tension. He would kick legs lightly to test the base and then push on the hands or pull the hikite hand and turn heads to face the right way. Very little talking and lots of physical training and corrections. In the kids class we danced through Kata and we knew the “moves” but the expression of the Kata was so different and violently perfect it was like it was a completely different exercise.

                After going through the Heian Kata we were split up to work on our testing katas and a senior would walk around and teach us or work with us. They taught us the same way Sensei did, a demo then getting us to do it and finally poking and prodding as we did the kata, a movement of a hand or physically touching and lightly striking to test or point out details.  So far the class was different and tougher in its own way but I thought that class was almost done and I had not experienced the dreaded Kumite component of Karate.

                It is very important to explain at this point that the hour long class was a basic idea of when the class would start…when it would end was a mystery that only Sensei knew and apparently the Seniors were all in on this fact, and most of the adults that were training knew that an hour could stretch out and normally did stretch out to some unknown time. The only defining factor was when sensei would finally feel we had enough, or he ran out of things to teach for that day or lost interest in a specific part of class. While the classes were always an hour long…that was a minimum time. You were sure that Wednesday and Friday classes would end on time because the senior/black belt class was right after and he would even end class a tad early on those days…but this was Tuesday and you never knew when it would end. One time we went two hours solid training, and Mavis would call my parents and let them know I was fine and class was running long and I had a ride home and would not be on the bus at 8 at night.

                Well, the Kumite started after a very brief explanation from Sensei about control and using proper form. We would line up with the juniors running down to find a senior to train with. Sensei would adjust for size and sometimes rank, moving students from one partner to the next to make sure the assigned partner was appropriate for the junior. My first Kumite experience in a seniors class was with a black belt named Keith. He was an older balding man with glasses and really did not look at all dangerous. He punched funny and to this day I wont forget his dipping elbow when he punched. He also had taught me Heian Nidan when I was in the kids class.

                Now, Keith was slower than the other seniors and he had funny form, which Sensei would constantly be trying to correct, but Keith just seemed to be wired different. I have to say that first three step Kumite we did was an eye opener. His arms were HARD as a rock  and blocking his punches hurt your arms, when he blocked he would not smash your arm but it was like blocking a baseball bat with your arm, the harder you blocked the more it hurt and the more it hurt the less you wanted to block, which meant you would get hit in the chest or the face (lightly) to remind you to block harder. Kumite back then was a game of tag, we said “no contact” but what that meant was “don’t cause them to bleed….to bad”.  I was training with the trees now and actually liked it a lot. My first class ended and I was so tired and sore that I had to go home and ice my forearms. My mom thought that I would give up, but really I was getting hooked!

                The Dojo was kind of a temple to most of us, it was a special place that held a magic of its own. Looking back it was probably because of Sensei and his serious attitude towards training. Things were so different back then with training. It was not unique for people to walk around after class with blood on their gi like it was a badge of honor and if you left class and were not five pounds lighter from perspiration then you were not working hard enough. Bruises were badges showing your commitment and attitudes were specific in training. If you had an ego, someone was going to pound you down! If you were seen as lazy you were going to get pushed even harder than most! If you were disrespectful or dangerous when sparring you were in for a world of pain! And while gender was left at the door, if you hit a lady during training…well you were going to have the honor of waking up looking at the dingy ceiling. I only saw this once but while it was scary you had a sense that it was not just sanctioned but warranted!

                 One other thing that we would all brag about, and by this point I was 13 or so and had been training for a few years as a adult class member….was the ability make the walls sweat! This was a unique phenomenon that happened in the summer and sometimes in the deepest of winters when the class got so active that the humidity in the class topped out and we could get the walls to bleed sweat down them.  We managed to do this on several occasions in the summer, which seemed very easy seeing as Winnipeg’s summers are often humid and hot, but on the odd occasion we would have a two hour grinder with Sensei and we would push so hard that all of us were soaked in perspiration and drove up the humidity to the point that the walls would turn to rivers of moisture!

                One other badge of honor we all held highly was the state of the hard wood floors on the fourth floor Dojo. See the first part of the floor that you worked out on when you first came onto the dojo floor was pristine! And after a few years of absorbing oils from human sweat and the cleaning solution we used it was a reddish wood that almost glowed it was so polished. But the back part of the club was a mess. Broken floor boards, duct taped sections and cut out sections replaced with solid pieces of Oak to replace parts of the floor we would break from time to time doing Kata or when someone flew at the floor in Kumite after being thrown. Pretty much any time we broke the floor or the Kicking bag  or the granddaddy …the makiwara…well it was something to boast about and show off as a badge of honor and proof of our training.

                Now I was in the adult class but one very important distinction has to be mentioned here, till I was 16…at least…. we were seen as juniors and basically white belts even if we walked around with Purple or even brown belts. We lined up at the back and at the end of rows and we were to treat adults with respect no matter what the rank. I recall a purple belt getting tossed out of the adult class for two months and banished to the kids class for disrespecting a yellow belt adult. Sensei was VERY clear that respect was the number one thing he demanded in class. He also gave you respect back, but if you were caught being disrespectful or if you developed an attitude seen as disrespectful you were going to be corrected.

                It almost became a paranoid habit of everyone to respectfully bow and say OUS whenever a black belt came on the floor and God save you if you did not bow when Sensei came on the floor. Not because of him, but because some senior was going to grab you by the back of the neck and remind you what bowing felt like…and how your neck would feel after they gripped it with their death grip!

                Sensei rarely had to correct someone’s behavior, we had the “Dojo police” for that. About five different black belts took it upon themselves to keep us in line and truthfully I may have been more scared of Sensei than them,….but just slightly. Kids were expected to show respect to everyone and to train hard and keep up with the adults. If you slacked you were slapped down really fast and pushed hard by seniors, if you were caught Yawning, the worst offence in Sensei’s big book of offensive behavior on the floor, you were “corrected” quickly. Training was strict but it was actually much more fun than you would think in that kind of environment.     

                Another aspect of training that you don’t see much now a days is who is to blame if a student gets hit during Kumite. When I first started this was a given that you were responsible for your own safety! Never did we put blame on seniors for not showing control or juniors for not pulling back. It was not ever suggested that the person throwing a technique was responsible for the safety of the person that would be defending themselves. The idea being that in the street the attacker was going full force and was not going to give you the benefit of pulling a punch. Getting hit in the dojo meant one of two things….you were training really really hard…or you were not paying attention. It was all on you!

                The neat part about class down town was how sensei organized the classes…or rather how the classes kind of subconsciously were organized. The classes at the start of the week were all about Kumite and repetitions of basics. If you went to a adult class on Monday or Tuesday you would get your Kumite in and your basics would be sharpened, as we approached the week end it became a Kata clinic and we would do reps and then Kata. The week end was a mixed bag however and often became all about pushing yourself hard in Kata and Kumite equally. It was funny, even with all three K’s in class you would inevitably find that your training was heavy in one of the three elements. 

                We would almost always start with a very brief warm up, if any, and then transition into Kihon training. Lots and lots of reps and drills or exercises to build our basics up, then we would do Kata and finish off with Kumite. On Mondays we would spend 10 minutes on Kata and 30 on Kumite and by Fridays class we would zip through basics and sit on Kata for 45 minutes and finish off with a little light Kumite. I asked sensei at one time if this was planned and he looked at me like I was crazy.  He simply felt his way through teaching and put emphasis on different aspects of training naturally based on his mood.

                Now before I go on I have to say that testing has never been “My thing” its always been something I avoided as much as possible coming up through Karate. I started and graded with a different Dojo up to orange belt and when I joined the JKA I came in with a white belt and started retesting right from white.  Sensei never pushed us to test, his wife did, but he did not. I got good at timing my quarterly retreat from Karate to avoid seminars and testing, partially because I did not do Karate for rank and partially because I was paying for all this on my own and as a kid I had limited funds. I tested maybe once a year…and only if I could not avoid it! Around “that time” I would cut back to two classes a week, and normally the Saturday when Mrs. D would not be their and the Wednesday when she was busy with other things. Then the week of the seminars I would get a cold or something and miss seminars, coming back in Monday to be berated by Mrs. D for my missing testing.

                I held the rank of yellow belt for a year and Orange for a year and a half. Between Orange and purple however Sensei pulled a fast one on me. He told Yaguchi Sensei how long I had been training and that I knew all the Heian Katas and Yaguchi Sensei gave me a double rank advancement that time….so I justified this as a great chance to take two years off from testing and held my green belt for almost two and a half years before I was forced to test again.

                I also did not originally like competing. I was not one to want to be in the spot light, and that was why I loved Karate. You could go to class and just do the work outs. You could escape into your own head and not feel like you were being singled out or you were in the spot light as it were. I hated competition until one time I got hit in the face…really hard. It threw me for a loop but right away I was hooked. I cant explain the realization that you were really getting hit, it was an adrenaline rush to think that could happen every time you stepped into the ring.

                Now I know we got beat up a lot in class, but it was significantly different when done on the floor in the club opposed to in the ring at a tournament. It was kind of fun! I knew I was “wired different” as someone once said right about that time. You never wanted to get hit, but you  knew you could and the adrenaline was addictive.

                One side effect of missing seminars and testing was that I missed out on training with some really cool masters. One that breaks my heart was missing out on training with Nakayama sensei.  See at the time the normal cost for seminars was about $30, but the office was charging $50 to train with Nakayama and I just could not justify the cost….now I would have paid $2K for the honor of training with him, but I was a kid!

                Nakayama was one I missed, but Senseis dedication to bringing in the best and brightest instructors the JKA could offer up, or rather the ISKF was obvious. We got very close with Sensei’s Sensei, Yaguchi Sensei and he was out every other month and normally he was the Key guy we would see. However, we also had Tanaka, Koyama, Takashina, Okizaki and others come out and train with us. At some point I realized that I had missed Nakayama Sensei and who he was and I just started going to seminars, begging and borrowing money along the way to make sure I could afford it. If it was Yaguchi Sensei I would go every other time and avoid testing as much as possible, but the rest I would see who was teaching and try to make it out no matter what.

                When I was in High school we moved out of town to a small new community north of Winnipeg in Birdhill and the bus trip from down town to home was no longer an option. I was heartbroken when I had to give up Karate. I trained on my own for about three months in my make shift Dojo in my basement and one day my mom came home with the local newspaper and rushed up to my room to show me an add she had seen. A local Karate instructor was opening up a club in East. St. Paul rec center in the spring. Well it was six months away but it was something.

                With out knowing who it was or what style of Karate I called the number on the phone and Jennifer, the instructors wife, answered all my questions and said that she knew her husband was teaching a small group twice a week in their basement and asked if I wanted to join them right away. I was excited and said yes. As it turned out the instructor was one of my Senseis’ senior students that had only trained during the noon class at the club and I had never really met Terry before.

                The classes were surprisingly familiar, he taught basically what Sensei was teaching at the club at noon in his evening class. It was fun but the majority of the students were kids so it was kind of like I was back in the kids class but with the adult class format. The one thing that was different was sparring with Terry. He had this real smooth feel to sparring with him, and he would never hurt you, even if he was going full force. Sparring with him was relaxing and you could have fun. If you ever sparred with Sensei you were nerve racked and paranoid through the whole experience. Terry had a gruff exterior but he was smooth in his Karate and his control amazing, his teaching was basic and clean. 

                I stayed out at the ESP club for a few years till I moved back to the city, and in the summer Terry would grab me and another student and we would go to the noon classes to train down town. I kept a connection to the main club even when I was living out of town.

                One story kind of stands out in my mind however. One Halloween my father “borrowed” My Karate Gi and he sewed on a tone of patches I had collected over the years to make it look cool….well in his mind it did…I was very upset! We had a seminar with Dingman Sensei the next night and I got my Gi back totally covered in patches. Patches from “CANADA” on the arm to  a big Shotokan Tiger on the back. Our Gis are pretty much one patch…that’s it.

                I tried to take off a patch but it left a horrible set of tiny holes in the Gi and the outline of the patches was visible on the Gi so I had to leave it, I only had one gi at the time and that was what I was going to wear! I packed it up knowing it was not going to go over well with others at the club and marched off to catch my ride.

                It took all of about a minute for Dingman Sensei to see the walking billboard I had on and to bee line it to me. He reamed me out for about three minutes before I could explain what happened and left me with a stern warning and told me to have it fixed before I showed up at noon for a class or went to the dojo to training. I apologized to him and Terry and agreed to have them taken off before I would come back to train. I was utterly embarrassed and gutted and my dad got an earful when I came home. I told him that I would borrow all his work ties and sew little patches on them and then give them back before he went back to work….somehow that sounds as dumb today as it did back then!

                Near the end of my living out in East. St. Paul the Dojo moved to the main floor from four flights up and I remember going to the club with Terry and helping Sensei scrape and paint the roof and paint walls.  The new Club had a big glass shield to keep the noise of the Galley away from the training floor, it had a small office that never really did get finished for Sensei and it also had a small office for the secretary, his wife, just as you came in. The move was huge, it was a nice new facility with two working showers in each change room and a toilet in the DOJO…in both rooms! And it had a nice mirror, the Makiwara and beautiful hardwood floors. And despite all this I still think it was a big mistake!

                As much as that club would become my home away from home for the next ten years or so it was the beginning of the down fall of the JKA main dojo. We gained a lot of students from the buildings that housed offices all around us, and the foot traffic was fantastic, but we also ended up with more issues with students and political issues took over our daily lives.

                At some point I went to university after basically taking three years to “find myself” which meant three Karate classes a day EVERY DAY and I even trained Sundays as I had keys to the club. But once in University I had to do the right thing and book my courses….around the Noon class and evening classes. I also tweaked my courses after talking to Sensei so I could learn things that would help me teaching and training and running a club or helping with his. Not a great way to get a degree as it was kind of spotty and had a little of this and a little of that.

                It was around this time that the politics and lack of assistance from the masters got to Sensei and he held a vote with the students after telling them the whole story, of which I knew because I was the one writing and sending the letters to the masters for assistance. We voted and sent a letter of resignation to Both masters resigning from the ISKF, which was a sad day for all of us. I felt really sad for Sensei because it meant he was leaving his Sensei and I think that was the first day I saw him cry in my life, not a lot but enough to show how much it hurt him, All that because some students of his wanted all the power and forced his hand. It truly was a comedy of issues that cause it but we were free and clear of politics and we had four clubs that followed us so its not like we were completely alone.

                After we left Sensei ramped up training, or at least it seemed like it to me. We got harder, classes were pushed hard to show we were keeping or exceeding some kind of mythical standard that he old group had set, and our classes were so much harder now and testing….yah, we went from 5 minute black belt testing to 25 minutes of torture at camps that made the old testing look easy. My first few black belt tests (of which I failed three times) were five minutes each and the actual test seemed to blow by so fast it was not funny, the summer I tested under Dingman sensei for my Shodan I almost died. In place of two Kata and some drills and capped off with a short Kumite component we had four Kata, standard Kihon, then drills from four different instructors, one step, semi free and some god forsaken 20 step full speed Kumite drill, a pencil focus test and then back for one last kata…it was crazy, but I passed and it only took a week to get rid of the stiffness that caused.

                Times were changing for us however. Sensei made a shift from the hard nosed Karate that lead to feelings of pure terror and a feeling of possible bodily harm every time you went to the club to a more family friendly Karate program. This was done to in response to a dip in membership due to the style of teaching and training we had once enjoyed.  And the whole atmosphere changed. The club strived to maintain membership and it became an obsession with some of us to keep the whole thing going, we never had to worry about that in the late 80’s and the early 90’s, we just showed up and did our best to survive a class at a time.

                The club also lost out when we left the organization in that we now did not have the tournaments we once had, we also did not have the masters coming out to grade us and Sensei was so much more picky than they were and the testing was really harder. We started to see a shift in martial arts training in general in our city, more TKD clubs opening because of the Olympic participation of that art in the games meant most people sent their kids to that art not Karate. We also saw a drop in participation in general by kids and adults in Karate. The economy was going in the toilet and it really affected all of us and Karate a lot. People were far more picky with what they spent money on and they were scared!

                Sensei moved us first to the basement of the building and the JKA move down stairs made the foot traffic marketing die, also new members did not like the idea of training in the basement. It was dark and looked dirty and scary, when we were on the main floor we used to joke about the old building once being a funeral home and the bodies were kept in the basement, now we were in the basement! The one good thing that happened is just before the move we found our way back to the JKA and had started to form a relationship with Saeki Sensei in Ottawa. We were solid in our core, but issues with one instructor, my old ESP Karate instructor separated us from that club and a second instructor retired and moved to BC. We had three clubs now and my little club was building in students as well, so really four. 

                During the early ears and right till we left the ISKF and then rejoined the JKA I had the pleasure and honor of training with some great seniors and all of them affected my training. Some I still talk to but because of politics and my inability to get past what some of the seniors did to Sensei I have left many of them alone and not communicated with them in years, but I still feel that when the JKA was at its height it was built by Sensei and those seniors to be something Great.

                I enjoy seeing that most of them still train and that the issues of personality have not affected their passion for Karate.  I also enjoy seeing people from the old days flourish in Karate, people like Scott Middleton who is now a very high ranking person in his new organization. Scott worked so hard and it is only because politics and distance that I don’t train with him now.          

                We really were blessed by great circumstances and a dedicated instructor who gave more than just his time to build the organization and give us all a great club to train at as well as more than just a little information to build our own Karate training around.

                Since then we left down town and moved the club to a tennis facility, that was eventually ripped down, we moved to a church in the down towns less than nice area and lost even more students. But we eventually found our way to a community club in the western part of the down town-ish area and began to rebuild the organization. We saw instructors retire and leave and some new ones pop up. Our style of Karate still holds the traditional components but we now focus much less on sport and more on health and enjoying Karate.

                One of the senior students opened his own stand alone and we are looking at other options for clubs. The whole organization and clubs have changed and are now starting to form into solid clubs and the future is bright again for the JKA. My training has changed as well. I once was very young and my training was all about just doing as much as I could, now with a family and being much older I train smarter and focus more on getting inside of the techniques and understanding what I am doing more than just performing like a purebred horse!

                Karate will always change, but the one thing that has to stay the same is the passion and commitment one has to their own Karate!

Learning a new Kata

Recently I started dipping into Naha katas and really trying to explore other Katas outside of my Shotokan based JKA syllabus. Its been a trip to say the least. But it has gotten me thinking about how I have been learning. I had to self-learn a few of the Shotokan Kata because I used to train with a instructor that did not believe in teaching advanced Kata to brown belts (I was a kid) and he used to say that we only need know the first seven up to black belt. Now in his defense, we used to do a tone of drills and he specialized in teaching Kumite so we did not really miss out or have a dull class…ever. But we did have to learn kata on our own some times. By on my own I mean from books, this was before we had internet and google ext….and no you-tube to watch!

I had self-taught myself Empi/Enpi and Jion, as well as using books ext for reinforcement for most of the other Katas. I had transferred back to my original instructor when I started training for Shodan and he was very open about teaching Kata to who ever wanted to learn the advanced Kata. Over the years I watched Sensei Dingman teach Karate and really watched his very fundamental approach to teaching Katas to people and while it can be frustrating I learned a lot about teaching Kata to others. It’s a very basic principle but it leads to a system of thinking and learning I developed over time.

Learning Kata comes in phases. I call them “Dance, Memorization, Depth, Integration, exploration, and Adaption. Each of the steps to learning the kata fall in specific categories and NON-of the are ever skipped, even if you don’t see them clearly, they do occur! Now the method you use to learn may vary, Sensei D liked to go 1-2-3-4, 1-2-3-4-5-6, 1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9 ext and so forth, Basically getting to a specific spot then restarting again until you have made it through the whole Kata. This method is great for the first phase of training….but lets look at the phases.

Phases of learning

Dance

The first phase of learning a Kata is the dance phase. This is the one were you learn the moves and basically dance through the kata. It’s a very shallow level of understanding that often does not go past the “I know what move is next” Kind of level. Training at the Dance phase means you basically can keep up with the class when they do the moves but you have no clue what you are actually doing.

The Dance phase is a very important phase, it includes a cursory understanding of the movements and little else, but you need to know you are getting the moves right! So, this phase is very important in training and should not be rushed through. Get it down so you can understand and apply the moves you are being taught.

Memorization

So you can dance, but now you need to remember the whole Kata through smoothly. This is the memorization phase. You have to think still but at least you know the finer details and you are working towards knowing the Kata. Memorization means you can “Dance” through the Kata, but without thinking, you just do it.

This is not a deep understanding this just means you remember the moves. Many people think that this is the last level of learning a Kata and to be frank most of the advanced Kata fall into this category for me and many others, and if people tell you that they know each and every kata in-depth…they lie! There is also nothing wrong with knowing all 26 Shotokan Kata at this level, with maybe four or five more deeply, its natural. How can you explore and integrate each kata deeply when there are 26 Kata and some are very very different.

Depth

So, the next step is to dig into the Kata deeper and really get to know the katas ins and outs at a deeper level. This is normally done with the first seven Kata (Before black belt level) and probably a student will learn Bassai Dai the best in the JKA of Manitoba. We focus a lot on this Kata and how it works. The Depth component means you get to really understand what you are doing and a bit of why you are doing it. You have a much deeper understanding of the Kata and its applications to say the least.

Depth sounds, well deep….but the truth is that its still not the deepest that you will get to know a Kata. Its basically the understanding of what the unique movements are, you still have not dug deeper and really gone to the next level. But most students will do this with Bassai Dai in our organization.

Integration

Beyond memorization is the integration component. Its not having to use the memory to do the Kata. You just do it, it becomes a part of you. The first five or six Kata normally get this, but we tend to skip depth with them a bit. A Black belt in our organization should be able to do Bassai Dai without thinking and apply the movements without thinking. Or at least they can do the applications they are shown.

Integration means you make the movements part of you, you train in the Kata so long that you make the Kata part of your movement skill set and you integrate it into your natural movement system. Integration takes a lot of time and tones of repetition. But it still is not the deepest depth you can go to. Bassai Dai in Our organization is done for about two years in reality.

This truly is the beauty of Kata. It can get inside of your head and wire you to react to specific things a specific way. I used to do a TONE of Tekki Shodan and I often found when I used to do Ippon Kumite that I would use Kiba Dachi and counter from that stance (turned sideways to the attacker) and I used to do the Kata so much that I could sit in Kiba Dachi through a whole half hour TV show.

Point being that when you have done a Kata long enough you will have moved beyond memorization and directly into Integration and you will start to use the moves in the Kata more fluidly and naturally.

Exploration

After integration or just before it you go through a Boredom point and I don’t want to sugar coat that. You get board of the Kata and it is natural to want to move on. Hell after a year of Bassai dai we end up wanting to leave it and move on. But if you can make it past that you can start to really explore the Kata. Sometimes you need different teachers to help you with this or someone that has dug deep before and explored, often with the help of past instructors.

Exploration means doing the Kata and using different applications, breaking down moves and using it in Kumite or just drilling in the different moves. Moving out of the accepted “Box” that we are put in when we do these Katas. The deeper you dig and explore the more you get to know the theories and ideas that are wrapped up in the Kata…note I did not say HIDDEN. That’s a false hood we end up perpetuating often, some mystical answers are not “HIDDEN” in the Kata, they are in plane site!

Exploring the Kata means looking at each movement from different angles, looking at accepted Bunaki and also working the movements into different defensive situations, you have to look at the whole Kata from different angles and really rip it apart.

Adaption

Most people may get to a point were they COULD adapt the Kata but they tend to NOT adapt the Kata. By adapt I mean make slight changes based on their own ability, preference and experience. We are taught that we need to keep things the SAME as we learned them from the masters, and the funny thing is that the masters tend to change Karate Kata OFTEN…and often for the same reasons we would change the Kata…ability and preference.

The changes and adaptions must be made for logical reasons not just because they want to. The changes and adaptions must be natural and should reflect a person and their understanding of the Kata. It takes YEARS of training to get to that point, and by years I mean YEARS in that Kata. I try not to “adapt” to much in my kata as I like to keep it relatively similar to what I learned. But often we find that we have to make some changes because of age or ability changes.

Adaption also means making radical changes to applications and after digging and researching finding new ways to apply a Kata that are far more personal than the instructors who taught it to you may have. You must learn the Kata inside and out, explore it and then apply things appropriately to specific ideas you have trained. It is very important to be more than just acquainted with the Kata and even deeper than deep before you make this Jump and to be honest, I don’t know of many people that can do this with anyone Kata let alone a whole series.

In todays sport minded environment I see this as being a dying level of training and its kind of sad that people prefer flashy acrobatics to solid basics and that some want to get to fighting and forget the Kata practice can lead to better Kumite.

Training in Kata should be a life time of repetition, exploration and if you are lucky, you might get one or two you adapt!

Learning new things on the net….dont always teach before you study!

Learning new things on the net….dont always teach before you study!

Lately I have been trolling around looking at web sites and I read an article from a fairly well known lad that seems to know what he is talking about and I was so very glad I read further and did a bit of review of one of his articles before implementing the terms he used. Now to be upfront, I don’t speak or write Japanese. I know some Japanese from doing Karate for 30+ years, but to say I speak Japanese would be the same as saying I was a brain surgeon because I took anatomy in school and know a bit about the brain….well bad example but you get the point…I aint no Japanese fluent guy, hell my English is kind of weak at times and…well you get the point.

Anyways the article in question was talking about the Three K’s of Karate…no Not Kata Kumite and Kihon…which would still be the three K’s by the way. No, the author used a play on words by using Kiken, Kitsui and Kitanai as the “old three K’s” but obviously he was not really reviewing his source material. He thought that it meant dirty, hard and Dangerous.

He then went on to talk about how Kiken or Dangerous was basically used because…well the old school training was no friggin joke. The common injuries of students and instructors mounted and became everyday things. Broken nose, twisted fingers, smashed lip….all in a days work out. He was right in that. Hell in the 80’s when I started we used to go to Dingman sensei’s Dojo and you really would fear that you would get really badly hurt some days. And when the masters came up you were pretty much assured you would get your lumps and good.

Next he talks about Kitsui or Hard training. Oh, it was hard. By the time I joined we had “one hour” classes that often lasted two or even three hours some nights. If you had to leave (and it was not recommended) you could bow out at any time after the hour, but Dingman sensei once started a class at five o’clock and I just made it to class…he ended the class at nine o’clock…several parents had called the Dojo and the secretary had assured them it was just that we were still in class! It was HARD back then. The kind of work outs that made you cry and that’s not the kids class! You can imagine the older training, have read stories of students beaten with clubs to train defense and masters knocking out students with punches if they were not blocked properly…hard as in…WHO DOES THAT!

The last K stands for Kitanai…Or Dirty. By dirty the author illustrates that the techniques that did not work in real fighting were tossed aside, I would have to say that it was not like this in my Old day recollections, we were drilled in techniques till they passed inspection with Dingman sensei. I can remember hours of reverse punching till we used our hips properly, hours of front kicking and moving in stance till we had legs on fire and we also would spar and have to use perfect form….but by dirty…well sparring with Sensei often meant getting elbowed in the face, kicked in the groin, thrown to the floor with a foot sweep or getting punched in the forehead so he could get you to lift your hands up and you would then get nailed in the guts! Sparring was more an exercises in toughness than techniques, but you did have to do proper form while “cheating a little” in the tactics department. Old school Karate was supposedly often more a street fight and down and dirty than it was about good form….but I would have to say…probably one with a few instructors.

Here is where the wheels came off the train for me…I looked up Kiken, Kitsui and Kitani for to research it a bit more and I found out that the author had borrowed the terms from a phrase (terms) used to describe hazards in the work place…….No, I am not kidding. AND the translation should read “Dirty, Dangerous and Demeaning or Dirty, Dangerous and Demanding/Difficult”. The term concept that refers to certain kinds of labor often performed by unionized blue collar workers. The term started out in Japan and gained widespread use, particularly regarding labor done by migrant workers. The workers that fit into the category of the 3 K’s tend to perform “undesirable” work and thus the three K’s tend to be a derogatory term used for those people that perform jobs no one else wants, granted it also points tout that they are well paid jobs because the industries need to attract workers.

The term often refers to jobs that uneducated and relatively unskilled workers can find and that the jobs often attract people from regions that have high unemployment rates, harsh poverty and drive migrant workers to find employment in these jobs because of the positions they are coming from. The workers are also susceptible to exploitation and have a hard time maintaining a living wage once they move to the more expensive areas for the work. The work is dangerous, dirty and can pose great threats to the workers both physically and mentally. The workers often lose employment due to injury, general joint depletion and or mental fatigue. Due to watching and living in the poor conditions, watching co-workers get injured and even die, the migrant workers that fall under the 3K’s often suffer mental fatigue and even post traumatic stress disorder…….

The one thing that the author also avoids talking about is that the three K’s have an opposing economical/financial theory that is used called the 5S’s. The Five S’s are Seiri, seiton, seiso, seiketsu and shitsuke. They have little to do with Karate…kind of like the Three K’s but for giggles they stand for… are Seiri: sort, structure or sort out, seiton: Straighten, systemize, systematic arrangement, seiso: Scrub, sanitize, spic and span, seiketsu: Systematize, standardize and shitsuke: standardize, self-discipline. Basically if you have these five components your doing a job that is Upwardly mobile and most people want to do…..yah, I don’t get it either! But Im a body guy not an economist…let alone a Japanese one!

So, what does this all show. Well not as much as the author reads into the terms, but much more in terms of learning a valuable lesson. Often we read a post online and we start using the terms in class, we throw them out their like we are experts and know what the hell we are talking about, we introduce a new concept or we go to town on a new term we learned and often…we have no idea what we are saying. I remember one time I was listening to a Karate instructor and he used the term “Baka” when talking about someone techniques. He was a Canadian guy who probably knew a handful of Japanese words only. I knew what it meant, but I was interested in finding out if he knew….

So, being the confident young black belt I was I asked the instructor if he knew what it meant, well I actually played dumb and asked him what it meant…like I did not know. His answer “oh, I was told it means wrong or bad!” and he was sincere about it. However, Baka does not mean bad or wrong..it means idiot or stupid. So, this instructor was referring to his students as Idiots for a while. I mentioned to a senior that the instructor was using this term and said maybe we should tell him…the senior who was senior to the instructor just laughed and said he would tell him. I never found out if the instructor found out his mistake or not.

The point being that before you start teaching and using foreign terms you should do a bit of research. Its so much easier today to throw a term or word into a search engine and get your instant access to answers about terms that are being used and make up your mind if you want to use them or not. The three K’s that the author used are actually kind of used as a derogatory terminology for unwanted jobs that migrants tend to do. I wont be using them in class anytime soon. Not because I fear that I might have a Japanese economist in our mids that knows the terms were created for “other reasons” but because I personally wont be using terms that could be viewed as derogatory…even if I am just about the only one in the room that knows this.

The evolution of Karate part one: shared and true history

The Evolution of Karate Part one: Shared and true history

Introduction

Around 2.7 MILLION years ago a small Hominid known as Australopithicus Garhi started to roam around east Africa. This was the first Hominid species known to have used tools to cut food and probably the very first Martial arts experts. Martial arts basically means military art, or self-protection art form. Use of a stick to pound someone or something over the head should be seen as a martial skill, and practice of this skill is a martial art!

Bit of a reach back for a set of articles purported to talk about the development and growth of Karate as a skill set, but lets be honest, we have a long way back to go to look at the true history of Karate or martial arts in general and lots of cobwebs and cow crap to push through to get there. We also have a few things to consider about the generation of true Karate, like A) what is True Karate and B) when did it start being Karate.

My definition of Karate is going to be really general, broad and accepting of anything that was created from the time of Okinawan influence on. I will generalize and consider anything before Okinawa as Chinese martial arts and use appropriate terms to keep this less confusing than some have, I personally don’t care if you think that a particular style of martial art in China is “More Karate like” than its fellow arts in China, my definition is not going to be based on what they wear, what the style looks like ext, just the context of where that art is seeded.

Karate evolved from fighting arts that were needed at the time. Man was at war not just in mass, but on a daily basis with himself. We fought hungry animals, we fought each other for sport, to get more land, for more women, food you name it we settled our disagreements with spears, stones, fist and just about everything else.

My five part paper is going to explore the different transmissions of fighting and how it went from a human requirement for survival to a sport done in an arena. I hope the process serves to clear up some marketing myths and give us a really good idea of how we practice and art that has evolved and been influence by different people and cultures and by groups that had other ideas beyond just scraping by and living to earning power and prestige by training in martial arts.

Most of all I hope that this give you a clear picture of where we came from..and possibly the direction we are going now.

Why I put this together

After years of watching seniors rape history to market the martial arts and other groups out right lie I’m kind of sick of seeing it. I mean how many times can you hear that the noble Okinawan kinds stripped farmers of weapons, which they never had, with a law to protect the samurai….which they never really had. We end up mixing cultures and fixating on drama that did not exist to sell some Dojo “tickets” to the show. The truth is far more interesting and way more revealing as to why we do what we do today.

The reason its spread out over five different papers is simple, I did not want to brush past things and not go over them the way that others do. I wanted a slightly more comprehensive paper that explained history a bit better and showed how our style developed differently than most Okinawan styles and show the merging and synergy that came from Okinawan Karate meeting Japanese martial arts and culture. We are a really unique style of Karate and most seniors don’t understand the differences, how they came about or some of the basic truths that we brush past.

My hope is that this clears up some of the mystery that needs clearing up about Karate and gives us some perspective no why Shotokan looks different than Shorin ryu styles or other styles. When I was coming up in Karate and pointed out that the Pinan Katas of shorin ryu looked so different than ours I was told things like “yah, they are ugly” or “yah, they got it wrong” and never was I told why they were different, now that I know I want to share this with others. My students all know and probably have a better base in Karate history than most 5th and 6th Dans in Karate.

One thing we need to realize as Karate students is that we are STUDENTS no matter how old you get or how high in rank you get. The beauty of this is that you keep growing and you keep learning and the history of a style or art is just as important as the practice. Why do we do Kata the way we do…don’t just say because…there is a smarter answer.

If your sensei were to look at you and say “Do it that way because I told you to” I would find a new one. Time to learn the true history and pass it on to your juniors and students and then you don’t end up giving wrong information and giving out silly answers.

I remember asking why we wear Gi’s one time and the senior I asked said it was what the Samurai trained in. He also said that the art was made up by peasants that needed to defend themselves against the Samurai and that the Tobi Yoko geri was to knock Samurai off of their horses. Okay, three issues here…First off Karate was created in Okinawa and not Japan, not many horses in Okinawa! Also, the Gi was created IN JAPAN by a Judo instructor…not the peasants or Samurai they spoke of and to boot…Karate was created by Okinawan UPPER CLASS called the Shizoku or Peichin class, not peasants that were far to busy being abused and actually working for a living.

I got sick of lies that became truth through retelling. I am going to challenge a lot of things that people have read with real facts or by pointing out facts that would suggest the “story” is a complete lie! Hold on because the real reason that I am putting this together…my seniors lied to me a lot! They lied through omission and they lied by passing on crap marketing that was meant to paint a pretty picture of the “Ancient” martial arts being something it wasn’t. So, I am going to throw some truth around and see what we can get done.



The truth is out their

So, why the lies? The truth is now much easier to find than it would have been in the early 80’s when I started training in Karate. We were left with asking questions of the masters, or buying expensive books. I opted for books but even they had a lot of rehashed BS that was set up to sell Karate for something that it was not.

The truth is out their more and more however, the seniors passing on Garbage history and expecting students to eat it up are going to be in for a rude awakening. First off more students are internet savey and have access to information on their phones now. Before it was just looking through books and praying that you got a good one or asking seniors that may have to make things up to not look stupid (which never really works) or ask masters that are taught to sell their martial art.

Now this is not just in our style of Karate (Shotokan) this is in all styles of martial arts, the selling becomes a primary focus and getting bigger and selling more Gi’s and getting buts on the floor is a priority, telling a few lies to get this to happen is seen as a necessary evil.

Look around and research and you will see a lot of discrepancies in what you were taught by often good intentioned seniors, your Sempai was probably lied to as well, its up to you to figure it out and I hope that my series will be a bit of a help in this regard.

History vs marketing

First off the truth is often much more interesting than the BS that is made up to sell the style, so why make up the lies to begin with? Well, I am going to say a large number of them were used to market the systems and get around the truth that might have actually slowed progress.

For example, the truth is that Karate was taught to upper level society that worked in the royal court. Most of those taught this style were expected to use it to kill those that may attack the King of Okinawa and to defend their family and wealth if the peasants rose up and attacked. Marketing then kicks in and says “hey, violence does not sell well to most people and adding that the rich used it to defend their wealth from commoners…like those you are trying to sell the style to now…not going to fly”. So, lets make this a self-defense art that the lower class created to defend against…uh, samurai…yah that’s it samurai!

The truth is that none of the founding masters of Karate were poor farmers, some were upper level Shizoku, others were wealthy merchants, none were actually “hands in the dirt” farmers or fishermen. So, Karate kid lied to me!

Also, the use of Karate is kind of a stretch against Samurai…but a few things need to be known before we throw the baby out with the bath water. First off Karate used to consist of empty hand AND weapons training. Weapons from China that were often small and easily concealed by the palace guard and the empty hand fighting taught if you were unarmed. Secondly the Samurai sword was not often drawn, easily broken and only good for cutting, not blocking weapons. Studies have also shown that far more people dies by the samurai’s Naginata and bow than by the sword.

So what you end up with is a Samurai attacking with a staff that has a blade on the end and the Okinawan or Ryukyuan guard defending with Sai, Tonfa and Kun (bo staff). This is what is more realistic…they fight for a bit and the samurai is unarmed, the Ryukyu Shizoku loses his weapons and the Japanese man turns to Jujutsu to defend himself while the Okinawan turns to Tode or Te (early Karate). Now that’s more like the real thing. If it were a peasant vs a Samurai…well that’s a trained Military man vs a hard working laborer that does not have time to learn to fight…you figure it out.

But again, its much easier to sell Karate as the defender of the weak to modern Japanese Post Meijin restoration society that looks on Samurai as oppressive…not so much now but back then yes. The new romance we see in being of Samurai lineage was not a selling point when the oppressive society first changed. Again, another truth, the Samurai…seen as bullies and a blight on society at the point. They were the military in a military dictatorship! So, it was very popular to paint them as bad guys before world war II and actually those that claimed Samurai lineage at that time probably had a hard time and were rather oppressed.

Okay, so we get that the marketing was used to draw in students, but other things need to be considered as well. We all know that “Karate” means “empty hand, but did you know it originally meant “Chinese Hand”…Yup, the early instructors brining Karate to Japan realized that was a hard sell to Japanese people who had just come out of cultural and real wars with China. The Chinese culture was not very welcome in Japan pre-WWII nor was Korea people for that matter. Often the Chinese and Koreans that emigrated to Japan changed their names and lied about birth places ext.

Also, the Okinawan people were kind of looked down on as well in Japan, lets face it the Japanese people were fed a stead and healthy stream of nationalism that did not include the same “melting pot” mentality we have in the west. Okay, it would be like suggesting someone in England eat French food….prior to WWII or even after that would have gotten you a “England is better”. Heck my grand father hated the French on principle…and he lived in Canada! Same thing with the Japanese and just about every other Asian country, they saw them as great places to visit…and conquer them but not accept anything of value form the other culture.

Rather ironic for a society that has so many Chinese things already, but it is what it is. Funakoshi Sensei tried to realize this and twist a few things. The names for Kata had already been changed to Hagoan , the Okinawan dialect, from Chinese….why not change them to more Japanese terms as well? Well, some changed and some didn’t. stick.

The point is that some changes are made out of necessity and they become “history” after a while but really, they are marketing. Marketing to make the substantial good and bulk of the style accepted. But at this point I think its much better to dig past the BS and reveal the real history of Karate. No more marketing just pushing truth and history.

Bias, Bigotry and the roots of our style

Japan is a unique culture. It is a solid mix of western influence and deep ancient traditions. They seem to exist between modern and ancient world and their society is filled with hidden meanings and an unspoken connection with the old ways and a language that is suggestive and also direct at the same time. People can say one thing and mean a completely different thing based on subtle movement and inferences that one needs to be sensitive to.

One of the less than appealing cultural components was that of being a tad biased towards their own culture and less than enthusiastic about other cultures. The culture was force-fed a lot of nationalism pre WWII and really convinced that their culture was better than others. Or, to be more accurate they were told if it aint Japanese…it aint good enough. Now, to be fair, they were basically fed the same nationalistic BS that the US force fed their own people in the 30’s and 40’s but because the US is a bit more of a melting pot…and lets face it they won the war…. it does not affect them the same…or does it? And seeing as they were part of the coalition that won the war…and they were the richest nation at one point…well they get away with it.

Well that’s for another debate. The fact is that many Japanese at the time that Okinawan masters were bringing over Karate to the “mainland” were bigoted against anything “not from Nippon (Japan)”. And to make matters worse…well Karate actually originated by mixing Te, the local Okinawan art, with Quanfa from CHINA….China, the evil empire that dared to stand up against Japan! Well, it made for a hard sell.

The Japanese military machine tried to Crush the backwards Chinese peasant class/communist bound country in the Sino-Japanese war…and well they failed…badly! The results were that the Japanese ended up failing to expand into China, well for any amount of time, and the Chinese managed to recover all the territories that were lost to Japan in the embarrassing treaty of Shimonoseki., which was horrible for China and once the war was over…they basically threw the book at Japan and burned the Shimonoseki treaty as they marched back across pretty much ALL the land they had lost to Japan.

So, you have a bunch of Japanese that were seeking to expand into China at the time, had a poor view of them and then you try and sell them that Chinese fighting is something they should study…yah, not going to fly. The Okinawan masters had to act quick…..they realized that they were selling a Honda in Ford country and they needed a plan.

Anything Chinese was seen as backward and lower than the powerful and forward thinking Japanese! So, the Okinawans, seen as the country bumpkins of the Japanese family, Changed a few names, fixed up some weird looking (reach Chinese looking) moves and sold the art as purely Okinawan…..heck they changed the name. They took the ideals of Kenjutsu and applied them to the movements of Quanfa and came up with KARATE! Wrapped up Chinese fighting in a Japanese box and sold it to the masses in Nippon!

When the newly minted “Empty hand” got to Japan it had been scrubbed clean of a lot of the Chinese influences, the name was changed and the art was mixed and filtered through current Japanese martial arts lingo and bada bing, you got a Okinawan-come-Japanese style of fighting that was much easier to sell to the masses in Japan. They did such a great job of it that Japanese people began creating purely Japanese versions of this “Okinawan” art and saying it was Japanese to their students, convincing them that they took the backwards version of the style and updated it…but the Kata they taught were all Chinese in origin.

The new product was sold to the masses by Okinawans that spoke Japanese, changed their names to be more Japanese and those that did not speak Japanese were sent home. Point in case, Motobu Choki was a very popular Okinawan Karate fighter that proved his style in many fights, he trained under great masters…how he did this is for another story…but he was the guy that put down boxers from the west, he blasted Okinawan masters for being Dancers and taught “real Karate”. But because he spoke little to no Japanese he was sent packing.

The Japanese saw Okinawan masters dressed like Japanese and embracing Japanese culture and they did not even realize what was going on. They bought in and Karate soon became more popular than Kendo in schools and for business men. The bigotry that the Okinawan masters saw as a hindrance was reduced and or removed and they saw great success. It was not until the last 30-50 years that the Japanese started to embrace foreign cultures, and mostly in small components and from the USA mostly, but they are much more accepting of this cultural exchange now and even pure Kung fu schools are opening more and more in Japan.

Lets just say that at the time, they were not as open minded as they are today, and from what I understand Japan is a completely different culture and place than it was pre WWII and has really embraced non-Japanese cultures and people now.

Realizing Culture had a lot to do with it

Before I move onto the evolution of Karate from Chinese art to Japanese powerhouse…I really want to ensure that those that are reading this know that culture and ideals or dogma had a lot to do with the changes from one phase to the next and it was the cultures that existed at the time, not those that exist now that influenced these changes.



First you have to briefly understand China and hits roll and interactions with both Japan and Okinawa. China is a Multicultural society made up of many areas that all fall under the greater nation. Called zhonghua Renmin Gongheguo or the peoples republic now, the history of China shows invasions from outside, cultural and dynastical revolutions that saw great dynasties set up, establish and then fall over and over again. They were ruled by the Xia, Shang, Zhou, Qin, Han, xin, Wei/Shu/Wu, Jin, Sui, Tankg, Yuan, Ming and Quing dynasties at one point or another and have made so many cultural changes that its hard to really figure out what is “traditional” Chinese culture.

However, in the 15th Century they began a relationship with the Ryukyu islands that created a tributary relationship with the Chinese Empire. With cultural exchange happening with the Ming dynasty or the “great Ming” dynasty the Okinawans were interacting with a group post Mongol ruled Yuan dynasty. The Ming were ruled by the ethnic Han Chinese from Beijing. The Han were an ethnic group that had just come out of great oppression and were used to setting up secret societies, working to over throw governments and were part of a culture that developed a great deal of martial arts styles.

The Han Dynasty sent tributary missions internationally along with diplomatic missions and had found exchanged a lot of cultural important customs with the Okinawans, as well as influencing their dress. The flowing robes of the Chinese were adopted by the Okinawans as well as raised sandals, different foods and other customs.

While the Han people were quick to defend their ethnic people they were also quick to share. They saw Okinawa or Ryukyu people as extensions of Asian culture and tried to progressively create a “Ming” style court within the royal Ryukyu courts and also teach the locals how to be “Ming Chinese”.



This tributary state was or Vassal state existed between 14-29 and 1872….but you will also note that a practically vassal state existed with the Shimazu clan of Japan at the same-ish time…being between 1609-1872. So, how do you serve two masters? Well you need to examine the Okinawans at this point to see that. They were a small island nation that had just formed after merging the three existing states. The state that we know as Okinawan was established and in the native language was called the Lewchew or Luchu nation. The three nations were the Hokusan, Chusan and Nanzan nations. The capital was in Shuri and the people were made up of native Lewchewan people who were indigenous to the island nation and adopted many customs and cultural idioms from China, Thailand and Japan. A maliable culture they were very open to change as a whole.

This flexibility in culture made it very easy for the group to be flexible and after the Chinese “Expressed” their want for the Ryukyu kingdom to become a tributary state and manage all of the Pacific Oceanic dealings for China they began taking on many Chinese customs. The King sent a group of emissaries, often called the Fujian 36 Families to the island to actually run the operations for the Ming Dynasty.

The family’s or officials were actually kept away from shuri in a official colony called the Kumemura village or Kume village. The new outpost served two very important and culturally significant purposes. One it gave the Chinese a base of operations and allowed the Okinawans to control their movements to some degree, and two…it served as a place to hide them from the Satsuma clan after the clan felt it was in their best interest to invade.

Early on the Okinawans had a art called Tegumi or Muto, which was a version of wrestling and grappling that they taught and used as a form of Folk wrestling. The Chinese at the Kumemura village introduces a style of Quanfa called Bai He Quan or Fujian White Crane. The mix of the two cultures and the two arts resulted in a style called Te, which was to be then refined into ToTe or Tode, the precursor of modern Karate.

But now we have some Japanese strict dudes showing up and knocking at the door suggesting they should be running the whole island nation. In the early 17th Century the Satsuma Clan of Kyushu invaded the Ryukyu islands under the leadership of Shimazu tadatsune. The clan was one of the most powerful and rich of all the clans and held a lot of power and influence in Japan. They were part of the Tokugawa Shogunate and were allowed the invasion and profits because the shogun wanted to avoid an uprising and loss of Sekigahara. The nature of the invasion is kind of different than what we would expect however. The Japanese arrived on a series of boats, killed little but met with the king and basically said “you are ours now” and that was it.

To avoid blood shed the Okinawans served two masters at the same time, on their own island. They adopted many of the Japanese customs and clothing ext and mixed it with the Chinese customs they had adopted a generation before. Each of the three cultures were comingling in the Okinawan petree dish and creating a new Okinawan culture.

How did the intermingling create Karate

How did this create a system of fighting that we now know as Karate. Well its actually simple and should be logical after reading up to this point. The Chinese Ming Dynasty shared White Crane boxing with the Okinawan or Lewchew people. White crane was a mix of several styles of Quanfa that were popular in the Fujian area of China…they taught it and mixed it with the local grappling art and then the locals were taken over by the Japanese…who had different ideas and martial traditions. In fact the Satsuma clan brought Jigen Ryu kenjutsu to the islands and many of the Tunchi or higher class would study the linear art and bring it back to their current studies.

Anko Azato (Azato Yasutsune) was one of the Okinawan tunchi that would both learned the Chinese style of chunfa and then the Japanese art of sword fighting and would incorporate and cross pollinate the systems to create a very linear style of fighting. Jigen Ryu was created by the Satusma Samurai and master swordsman Togo Chui in the 16th century and had very similar strategies to what we see in Karate now.

Jigen ryu, even though it was a sword art, emphasized ensuring that you had the first strike and also that it was very straight forwards and basic, not fancy. Even the Kiai Sounds much like modern Karate Kiai’s, which apparently were not used previous to the Jigen ryu influence.

Azato style fighting is more in line with the style of Funakoshi, as Azato was his primary instructor, and not those that trained more with Itosu Sensei. The style that Itosu Sensei taught was rounder, more evasive and did not have the straight line and direct feel of Azato’s style. By mixing Jigen Ryu with White crane and Tode you end up with a very effective, straight line defense program that will drive power and techniques into your opponent and end the fight quickly. The foot work was also different, not as fancy and free, more mechanical and efficient.

The mixing of ideals, and techniques all meld into what we know as Karate today, or at least Shotokan on our part. Other styles that trained mainly under Itosu and Higoanna sensei will look very much different. Naha style Karate like Goju and Uechi (to some extent) are more circular and you can see the Chinese influence in most of what they do, the fancy names for moves are gone but the movements are still circular and then jut in quickly.

Itosu style fighting was influenced less by the Japanese sword styles so you find that the styles that come from his teaching exclusively (shorin ryu styles) look more Chinese and also make use of things like the cat stance over the more popular Kokutsu dachi that Shotokan uses. All of these come down to the filters that the styles went through as they were evolving.

Filters

So I hope I have shown that the style we recognize as Shotokan Karate and even those other styles that have made it to Japan have been filtered through many filters and have several sources that make the whole thing unique.

Now to be fair the Chinese were just as nationalistic as the Japanese were and the Okinawans were like the little kid that everyone wanted to pick on. But they actually did something so smart and slick that it kept them from being crushed by either of the oppressive nations. They mixed and matched cultures and they adopted the things that they needed to, which influenced everything from their language and the food they ate tot the martial arts we do today.

They filtered their own culture throw a Chinese cultural colander and then did the same through the Japanese filter and they told the Japanese that the “Chinese parts” were traditionally theirs and the told the Chinese the opposite.

They mixed and merged and created a unique perspective all while retaining a lot of their own culture and views. They avoided aggressive behavior and made the best of the situation right up till the Japanese annexed them and then it was Japans problem in dealing with China.

The filters influence Karate a great deal and in the next few parts of my paper I am going to show the way that Karate started, the way it changed when it hit Okinawa and then how it changed again when it reached Japan. And finally I will show how Karate changed when it was sent out to the world. Most of the views are based on Shotokan but I will also drop little crumbs about Okinawan Karate and how they evolved as well.