Can you say that japanese Karate came from Chinese Kung Fu?

[yireses]

Can you say that japanese Karate came from Chinese Kung Fu? In the Japanese karate history they talk about Bodidarma, and we all know that Bodidarma went to China not to Japan.

[ovine king]

three things.

 

i) karate has some[i/] influence from chinese styles.

 

ii) bodhidarma didn't actually teach any fighting.

 

so, you can't really say that bodhidarma is the origins of chinese martial arts.

 

iii) the chinese style that karate was influenced by was/is not strictly a shaolin style (bodhidarma has nothing to do with it)

 

bodhidarma is mentioned because japan was/is mainly a buddhist country.

 

it's hard to talk about buddhist ideas in karate without mentioning him.

[Shorin Ryuu]

To be technically correct, Japanese karate came from Okinawan karate. In the transmission from Okinawan to Japanese karate, there were a lot of things that changed, and those changes weren't necessarily one-sided either.

 

Okinawan karate is a mixture of indigenious fighting arts and Chinese fighting arts which have had an influence on Okinawan arts for many years. As early as the late 1300s in terms of what records show (conceivably earlier than that), the Ming Dynasty and Okinawa had cultural exchanges which included Chinese nobility and craftsmen moving to Okinawa itself. This probably represents the first large influx of Chinese influence on Okinawan martial arts. In fact, much of Okinawan culture, while retaining a language that is close enough to be considered a dialect of Japanese is very much so Chinese in orientation. Of course most East Asian nations have this sort of experience. Ti(te) was usually used to refer to indigenous fighting styles which no doubt were already influenced by China. Toudi (toute, toude) was used to refer to styles with a much more Chinese influence that is the more direct ancestor of what we now call karate (a term not officially adopted until 1936). These were perhaps more coalescing towards what we now see as karate from around the mid 1700s, although their roots were much older. The "tou" character was a way of writing the character for the Chinese Tang dynasty and an alternate prononunciation for this was "kara". Later, the "kara" was changed to mean "empty". Ti or te just meant hand. Oftentimes even in the early 1900s, it was still referred to as toudi(toute, toude) or ti(te).

 

I think the myth of Bodhidarma teaching Shaolin monks martial arts is a pleasant one, but still a myth nonetheless. The figure of Bodhidarma really is sort of irrelevant to the connections between karate and Chinese martial arts though. Karate does have links to Shaolin. The word "Shorin" is the Japanese pronunciation of the same characters which were used to reference it. You have to remember that even with the Chinese roots and influences on "native" Okinawan martial arts, many Okinawan masters also trained in China and Taiwan as well.

 

You won't catch me dead saying everything was a 1-to-1 transmission. It most certainly wasn't. If anything, Okinawan martial arts (and many martial arts traditions are the same way) were sort of Mixed Martial Arts if you look at their history (and you don't necessarily have to look far back to see this).

[Emei89]

Shorin: the seocnd i saw the title of this thread i had a feeling you replied.

 

Hey do you have a site about how the Bodhidarma did NOT teach the monks MAs and just Buddhism? i was arguing with some guy on a nother forum and i know it's true because a pupil to the Karmahpal told me so, when i was in India but this guy will only accept hard proof.

[Shorin Ryuu]

I don't rely on web sources because for the most part they are either plain wrong, faulty or have no source citation in anything they say. Many websites you encounter most often simply repeat common myths and legends about this or that martial art. Therefore, I tend to shy away from them.

 

Instead, I use more academic sources such as Unante written by John Sells and perhaps the most reliable book of its kind in English as it draws heavily from such landmark sources as Uechi Kanei's Okinawa Karatedo or in this specific case, actually had a professor remark about this in grad school one day in class. Both he and more academic books assert that there really is no proof that Bodhidarma taught the Shaolin monks martial arts other than "stubborn tradition", as John Sells puts it. Instead, he taught them various exercises intended primarily for physical fitness. The temples did become a gathering place for Chinese martial arts practice and expanded on those exercises to actually form comprehensive fighting systems. But as far as a website or anything like that, I haven't looked. Google may be your best bet.

[Emei89]

ok. actually that stuff and info. you just gave me was great thanks.

[ovine king]

but even the myths and legend don't say he taught them martial arts/fighting.

 

all the stories say is that on his first visit, he gave them three books to help them be healthier in body and mind.

 

the three books are mainly body exercises and mental excercises (meditation).

[The Hammer]

Shorin Ryuu's answer is right on the money. All I would add is that Naha Te's Chinese influence is more recent than Shuri Te's. Chinese influence is evident in many Gojuryu and Uechiryu katas.

[SevenStar]

what I've always heard about bhodidarma is not that he taught them fighting, but that he taught them a series of static postures that when linked together made for a decent method of exercise for the monks. these postures where the the 18 lohan postures.

[ovine king]

that's one of the three 'books' he gave them.

 

the other two (bone washing+sinew transformation) are also static (meditatory) exercises.