Hoshin

I didn't have the time to write an entire volume of books to discuss how trade links and conflict and piracy (the original kind) and pilgrimages and contests and displays moved various skills all around the region influencing each other over centuries, all while politics led to pockets of isolation and skills being refined at a local level and sometimes in secret, and sometimes only for the aristocracy etc, all leading to the styles we recognise today. Others have already written such books. 2. I was trying to illustrate a point in an environment where most contributors would already have a good understanding of the history, and this wanted to keep it brief enough for folks to read in their spare time. which is all a very fair statement. except your missing one of my key points. while all this transfer of knowledge was happening over the "centuries" Kanbun Uechi was no where near the island of Okinawa. except for the last year or two of his life he never even lived on the island. so uechi ryu was a Chinese system brought to Okinawa in 1948. could Uechi influenced other styles during the 1930's in main land Japan yes sure, or other styles though the 1950's on Okinawa again yes. but from anyone who knows Uechi ryu there is no stylistic evidence that other styles influenced Uechi....EXCEPT one thing ,,we added a round house kick during the early 1960's because it looked good for demos. but its not in any part of the curriculum.

if your not sure of the name of your style,, its more than likely not a traditional style,,,,,so why would you expect to use traditional kata?

It is my understanding, and I may have got this wrong, but I believe shorin is just the Japanese pronunciation of shaolin. And as we all know that ryu just means school, that means that shorin ryu is the school of the Japanese interpretation of shaolin kung fu. And we can ditch the kung fu because that just means skill. So shorin ryu just means school of a style we learn from the guys at shaolin. Undoubtedly the Japanese would put their own mark on it. But if you watch the shaolin dudes train, compared to the more flowy tai chi style kung fu, you'll see very clear common ground between shaolin kung fu and karate. i listed more than one style that calls itself shorin ryu. this can be confusing so at times it has been known to use the shaolin in conjunction or the Chuba or othodox. ect. so the person knows what school is being discussed. but yeah its a bit redundant. as the kung- fu VS karate comment...your take on it is a bit simplified and when you do this it can get confusing. i would want to be more detailed. i would first want to understand that there is a big difference between main land Japan and Okinawa in terms of karate. they are separate and should not be lumped together. second thing i would want to understand is that there is old and new kung-fu. i would add that anything that is called shaolin today is pretty much a new art and would not resemble the arts karate was derived from. there may be a link to the southern shaolin temple but its mostly folklore and as distant as we humans are to neanderthal. karate or early Te in Okinawa came in a few waves, the really old stuff came with Chinese immigrants to Okinawa the other influx was from native Okinawans traveling to China in the late 1800's early 1900"s. these fighting arts are from Fuchou area and even these arts are rare in China today due to Governmental policy. however if you want to see the roots of naha-te karate the fukian/ fuchou area still has arts that are not only similar but share the same kata albeit we have to account for changes on both sides over the last 200 years.

my counter to this is that on Okinawa no one claims to be unique. every single Okinawan style is attributed to that persons teachers. so as i stated Shito ryu is well known to have derived from Itosu and Higaonna. there is no mystery about it. now the claim that Uechi and Goju are unique, that is actually simple to ascertain. prior to the 3 styles (Ryuei ryu- Uechi - Goju ) arriving from China 1890 - into 1900's the shared kata between the 3 do not exist on Okinawa. the primary styles on Okinawa all derive From Sokon Matsumura and he did not know, practice or teach these kata.

In the case of traditional Uechi- ryu it is a very clear cut history. kanbun went to china when he was 19. he learnt a chinese system of fighting and taught in China. after the Boxer Rebellion he moved to main land Japan. this is simple because he never studied or taught on Okinawa other than some Bo stuff as a kid. the style didnt come to Okinawa until his son Kanyei and Kanbuns top students brought it there. the style is very consistant and shows no Okinawan influence. for Goju-Ryu there is a similar story. Kanryo did study fighting arts on Okinawa but it was with seisho Arakaki. he left for China when he was 24. where he studied with Ryu Ryo ko and Wan Shin Zan and/or Wai Shin Zan the stories get a little fuzzy there. Now when kanryu started teaching he called his Style Shurei- Ryu. this locally was known as Naha-te. but it is not derived from older Te styles and this should not be confused with the other styles derived from Sokon Matsumura; orthodox shorin ryu shorinji-ryu shaolin shorin ryu chubu shorin ryu ryukyu shorin ryu kobayashi shorin ryu or even Shuri -te now to confuse things even more there is a Kanyei Uechi who teaches on Okinawa and teaches kenwa mubuni shito- ryu. kenwa mabuni's teachers were Anko Itosu and Kanryo Higaonna. unless there is some evidence or source other than the wiki page i would go with this information.

i dont post much, but reading this i cant help interject. i would have a real hesitation in the statements about Goju and Uechi being derived from Shorei - ryu. is this something you took from wikipedia? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sh%C5%8Drei-ry%C5%AB you would have to define your use of the term Shorei - ryu but i can say that neither Goju or Uechi were derived from any prior Okinawan art. dont believ everything you read on wiki. further: there is no link between Goju, Uechi and Funakoshi. they are complete separate entities with different histories. EDIT: however it is possible Funakoshi might have been inspired by Goju- Ryu but the harder aspects of his karate were taught to him by his teachers.

Matsushishii wrote: Holy cow 2000? does a manual equate a book or a small print out? i have several hundred books but not two thousand (at least not yet) so i go by the adage that if your not reading your not learning. i will agree with others that pictures of technique is somewhat useless Youtube now would be better. but its not the pictures or techniques that matter its the idea's that you gain that make a difference. the books you read and the people you meet have the greatest impact on your personal journey. there was a time when i would go to the book store and i remember looking at the karate books and thinking to myself that there was nothing there anymore to learn from. i was wrong. the problem was i was looking at the wrong books! then i started reading psychology, biomechanics, biology, neuroscience, histories greatest military strategy books the topics go on and on and on. the key is do not limit yourself to the "sports" section of the local book store. martial arts books for the most part are very first grade. at some point you have to graduate to a university level. it will make a huge difference in your understanding of your art.

i would guess that if ones style has its history spelled out and everything is codified and its a well formated system then history would not be that important. For myself and Uechi ryu there a lot of shrugging shoulders and "we dont know's" as a result it fosters a desire to figure it all out. but other than looking backwards in time for clues on bunkai its really an academic entertainment.

if i am reading your post correctly, this is in part something i have thought a lot about. the practicality of any given technique or style. i came up with a different answer then yourself. i didnt get "is or isnt " i got ..it depends. and it depends on a lot of different things: the person, the style, the training methodology, the persons occupational choices and power dynamics ect, ect. many years ago a mystic said "every person is a star". this stuck with me. that every person is their own universe. every universe will have its own unique laws and/or truth. their own reality. no one can say what is true without looking at the reality in which that truth may or may not exist. thats a little bit cryptic but its what i came up with.

all i can say is that its like archaeology and it takes a lot of time. your right that anything before 1900 is hard to look into. so for me i find little nuggets of information. the average person would look at it and move on. i like to keep it, and over time i find another nugget and notice that they go together. so with time puzzle pieces start to go together. sometimes that gap between pieces is decades. and like i said earlier that for me a lot of it comes down to percentages and probabilities more than a fact. its also important to define what it is your looking to know or understand. i am less interested in names and dates then the evolution of an art. in school i always detested the fact that i had to remember that Eli Whitney invented the cotton gin. it hasnt helped me in life to know that and i dont even know what a cotton gin is. lol

Matsushinshii, i enjoy the discussion and debate. if i misunderstood you , my apologies. you seem to hesitate to give any kind of backing or proof (for lack of a better term). i understand about people coming to their own conclusions but that is exactly why i engage in the forums. one person can only know so much though their own experience, so i come here to learn from others. my posts are not to prove others wrong but to back why i believe what i do. i know full well that some of what i believe will be incorrect. i expect others to point out my misconceptions and correct me. i would appreciate if you would make some points that would help me see your point of view better. as to my posting video's of Muay Thai, i understand your point. i post them knowing that these are public forums and others will be reading and learning and to give a visual to what i am thinking in my mind. sometimes the written word is not enough. a lot of how i make my conclusions is based on the study of the evolution of the arts. there are facets of combative behavior i call "Genetic Markers". it is very much like looking at human DNA genetics. there are behavior patterns that get passed down. even within the evolution of an art often there are recognizable markers that indicate past genealogy. however with this, it becomes a matter of percentages and probabilities. so i need to break things down like ,,, what part of karate comes from Muay thai? what aspects? or is it the pre cursor arts of karate that evolved from Thai boxing,, again what aspects? how long ago did this influence take place? was it direct teaching or someone merely see a Muay Boran festival fight and incorporate the concepts? all these factors will sway my opinion and how i analyze the data. thanks for replies so far.

in this video at 20.00 min, they show punching technique. looking at the manner in which they punch, how they generate power, the angles and foot work & stance...it is very different from karate. notice that they never draw the hand back to the "chambered" position with the hand next to the ribs. also notable is that the power in the straight punch comes from the rotation of the shoulders rather than the hips. there are subtitles but they are very poor.

มวยไทยไชยา so has it happens my wife is from Thailand and has dual citizenship with the US

https://toshujutsu.wordpress.com/2014/03/11/siamese-boxing-the-root-of-karate-by-hanshi-patrick-mccarthy/ it seems to me that Matsushinshii's view echos of the same view as Patrick McCarthy's. Im sorry Mr. McCarthy but your blog post did not succeed in illustrating your premise. there seems to be a question about the disconnect between the performance of karate and that of Chinese Quan fa. the sentiment has been made that karate is direct and hard where as Chinese arts are large and flowing. well as Mr. McCarthy was so kind to point out , martial arts change over time. we have a tendency to compare Japanese karate styles to the modern Wushu styles and think they do not look the same. it would be important to keep in mind that kung fu of the 1900 era in Fuchou was not large and flowing. as far Okinawan styles go the style that most resembles Muay Thai is Uechi-Ryu. they share low leg kicks and lots of elbows and knee strikes. its a very hard style no flowery movemnts and relativly simple in complexity. but as i pointed out this is one of the most compete and direct Chinese style there is on Okinawa. Chinese arts before the boxer rebellion (1900) in the Fujian area were different then they are now. after this point in time the Chinese government has increasingly interfered with martial arts. making all but government sponsored arts basically illegal. it is because of this that most of the smaller fight effective/ oriented systems ,, the ones where Uechi ryu and Goju ryu originated from have disappeared. however many of these older styles still exist in Taiwan and Singapore. if we are going to say karate looks more like Muay Thai, lets make sure we are comparing apples to apples.

Matsushinshii wrote:

Hoshin wrote:

Matsushinshii wrote:

This thread is a spin off from the "Hohen Soken Hakutsuru" thread. i seem to have derailed that thread talking about the origins of karate. so i opened this new thread to discuss it further. (if there is any interest in continuing)

i think discussing the history of karate might warrant its own thread at this point. to continue would be to side track the original topic even more then we have already done.

India's Niyuddha Lohan Quan version of sanchin kata lots of closed hand fists here too it is said Annan taught the kata Chinto to Sokon Matsumura people can make up their own minds but Muay Thai is a very distinct style with some very unique strikes and attacks. to me the feel and way of moving is way to dissimilar to anything found on Okinawa. not to mention the integration of old religious rituals that would be passed on like the Wai-kru. then there is the fact that Annan taught the kata Chinto.....Muay Thai doesnt do kata. i am willing to change my mind if some facts were presented that are convincing.

yeah which was kinda my point too. that history is never as clean as we would like to think. its often muddy and sometimes dark.

One kick wonder, a lot of what you wrote seems to be contrary to history i as know it. Funakoshi did not coin the term kara te. http://irkrs.blogspot.com/2013/08/the-1936-meeting-of-okinawan-karate.html in a 1936 meeting of karate masters , Master Chomo states that he wrote a book in 1905 called "karate Kumite". the meeting had a discussion on the naming of Okinawan Te. Funakoshi was not at this meeting. however the suffix DO may have been what you were referring to but i would suggest that Do was a common martial art word in main land Japan and thus it would have been the Butokukai that added the word Do. Karate in the educational system was a goal of Itosu for Okinawa. there is a letter i could referrance of Itosu's thoughts on this. however i think it was more the Japanese National movement using the Physical education system as a method of indoctrination of political policy prior to WWII. they kinda hijacked karate for a push of propaganda. history is never so clean and idyllic. names where changed for political reasons and often for the sake of self preservation. you couldnt go around talking about Chinese stuff without being a national traitor.

https://www.quora.com/Did-Alexander-the-Great-really-lose-a-battle-in-India-or-retreat i think it is generally accepted that Alexander was not defeated but rather his armies called it quits and wanted to go home. they did win some battles in Indian territories before the mutiny. i will state again the custom of the Greeks to stay in the area's they had conquered and make that location their new home while taking local women as wives. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_conquests_in_India of course it is quite correct that every culture has a military fighting system. any culture without one would perish very quickly. but it is my belief (as well as many other experts) that what we today call martial arts IS NOT A MILITARY COMBATIVE SYSTEM. Hopology (the study of human combative behavior) is very quick to distinguish many factors that separate a military fighting war art and an interpersonal martial art. when i mention a lineage from karate to the Greeks i am not talking about a war art i am only talking about a form of boxing. karate comes from what is called Chinese boxing. it has been proposed that this style of boxing comes from India and therefore is totally plausable that it mya originate from the Greek boxing called pankration that would have been practiced and passed down from those soldiers who lived out their lives in India. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_martial_arts does this sound familiar? these cities that taught military science are the same cities that Alexanders men resided in. coincidence???? Indian fist boxing is Musti-Yuddha or Loh-Musti which is from Punjab which again is the area in which the Greeks resided. Now it is known that boxing is referenced before the Greeks so the deciding factor on whether or not the Greeks had an influence would be on how Musti- Yuddha is taught and how it is formated and passed down. technique is not a good "genetic" marker for lineage because humans tend to find the same effective ways to fight in many cultures thoughout history. however the format of a system and how it is passed along from generation to generation can be very distinct. the issue for us is that Pankration does not exist today and therefore we have no reference point. all that being said i dont think the suggestion that the Greeks may have played a part in the history of karate is in any way sinister.

in your middle paragraph you mention that there is a Chinese influence on Okinawan karate but only acknowledged to a lessor extent?? i am not sure what you mean. did i understand you correctly? there is a direct link to the Chinese and it is very obvious one. its not a hidden fact today. it was down played during WWII but its never been a secret. i find it very unlikely that there is a Thailand influence to Okinawan karate. as far as where did Chinese kung-fu come from..well there is a theory that it traveled over the silk road from India. that the Budhidharma legend was probably many people traveling over many years. the Chinese leaned from the Indian fighting styles which had Yoga like forms. In turn it is believed that the Indian culture picked up combative fighting from the Greeks. Alexander the Great and his men who practiced Pankration when not in battle made it all the way to the edge of India. it is well known that many of his men stayed and the Greeks had a practice of assimilation into the other cultures rather than dictate its own culture upon those that it conquered. while many laugh and mock at this idea it is the most probable lineage.

i believe there is a market for pure self defense or scenario training. the issue with karate is that its been in the US for almost 70 years now and over all it hasnt changed at all over that time. the major changes have been for the worse with the commercial mcdojo type schools. while these schools may have their place and fill a need they have flooded the market. the market has changed. what people find interesting has changed. i know a few schools in my area that are run in an identical way as things were run back in the 1980's. the feel and look of the school is very dated. as a consequence their enrollment is dismal. like it or not people care about perception and image. typical karate is passe. it doesnt have the mystical image it had back in the 1960's and 70's. MMA has a much more popular image, thus it fills the enrollment. but MMA is waning due to its limitations or image as a sport. so whats next?