Erase Styles

[Emei89]

What's more, they fought the Chinese during the end of the 16th century in Korea, before Japan had any real connection with Okinawa anyway.

didn't okinawa invade japan in like the 1300's? thats how certain weapons came into being like tonfa. Farmers used thier tools as weapons to drive out the Okinawans. am i wrong?

[Shorin Ryuu]

didn't okinawa invade japan in like the 1300's? thats how certain weapons came into being like tonfa. Farmers used thier tools as weapons to drive out the Okinawans. am i wrong?

 

Quite wrong. I'm almost not sure where to start, really. But that's okay, even people that know a lot about karate history get stuff wrong quite often.

 

Okinawa is a small island which is part of the Ryuukyuu island chain, some 500-odd miles south of Japan. Consequently, it wasn't what you could call a war-like state that set about on a conquest of terror over it's neighbors like China and Okinawa.

 

In the late 1300s, Okinawa was formally recognized by the Ming emperor as a vassal state of China. At this time, there was a big cultural exchange, including families that moved to Okinawa from China. This is one of the earlier periods of Okinawan and Chinese martial arts mixing together.

 

Around the late 1400s and early 1500s, the Ryuukyuu Islands became more unified under successive kings, who actually imposed a weapons ban (of varying success, usually inversely proportional to the distance from the capital) long before the Japanese came.

 

In 1600, Japanese samurai from Satsuma invaded Okinawa and quickly overran them, since they didn't really have a large army of their own, nor did they have many weapons to begin with (weapons ban in place earlier). The Okinawans lasted a few days, I believe, but that's all. Myths of Okinawans using karate in guerrilla tactics against the samurai are just that, myths. They further restricted the possession of weapons, which led mostly the nobility and other classes of people (bodyguards, constables, etc.) to try and develop their own methods of fighting without traditional weapons. Things easily available to the common person (bo, perhaps kama, tonfa) were obviously practiced by commoners. There are a great many village and family traditions in the staff, for example, which is a fairly common tool. However, things like sai (I believe it was always a weapon) where usually practiced more by law enforcement personnel or bodyguards. The same happened with karate. Peasants usually didn't have as much time to dedicate to the martial arts. Some did, but it wasn't this huge popular uprising. Most of the people, especially in the more Shuri-te branches were nobility. In addition to the Chinese methods mixed in with Okinawan methods, there were also family methods, like Motobu Ryu for example.

 

Long story short, there was never this huge uprising among the populace or the nobility against the Japanese. Most, not all, people who were able to spend a large amount of time researching the martial arts were well-off or otherwise employed.

 

Satsuma government of Okinawa was always a tricky affair, as Okinawa was still supposed to be a vassal state of China. Usually, they got around this by "looking the other way" when a Chinese or Japanese group arrived.

 

Just a pretty brief overview.

[Emei89]

o so actually if i had just added about 200 yeras and switched the sides iwould've been right. gotcha. i just remembered it form one of my teachers whos a karateka for like 22 years i guess i rememebred too vaguely.

[ovine king]

chinese martial arts tended to be practiced in the courtyards of the their home/school/quan.

 

the main doors of the quan were usually kept open to allow people to look in.

 

this was for the general practice.

 

usually, there was a closed off room within the main building where the sifu could if he so choose, teach advanced forms.

 

there was no need to hide things in forms.

 

they had a nice room for this.

 

hence the term 'closed door'.

 

the organisation of forms seemed to have mainly happened during the last 500 years in china due to the growing need to have a simple to learn and organised teaching system that you could take around the country with you.

 

those who know about the history will know why this was needed.

[italian_guy]

Going back to the original question my point of view is that you need a sort of martial art system put togheter by someone who devote a life to this mission. I do not trust MA pachwork put togheter just to found a new school. This is why I like traditional system, to this extent it is also useful to cross train in some other martial art in order to have a broader orizon... I also like attending seminar about other martial art to get a grasp on their principle and some useful technique.

 

The thing I have done myself is that I choose my style (goju ryu karate) and cross train in other styles ( for the moment is Tai chi chuan but this may not be the choice of a lifetime) and also enjoing the MA seminars organized by my dojo (e.g. jujitsu, kickboxing) in order to get a broader view. But I think that we need style to have a better definition of our choices.

[Infrazael]

Do you honestly I would tell a Wing Chun guy any of my Choy Lay Fut secrets just for the hell of it???

 

I would respect them, but not in that sense. Oh yeah, and before you call me arrogant, I would expect them to keep all their secrets for themselves.

 

This goes to all the different styles.