Karate and Weapons

[senna_trem]

Karate is the way of the open hand, meaning most karate-ka do not fight with weapons. Then is it not an oxymoron that some of the demonstrations are done with weapons?

[Shorin Ryuu]

This is a fairly common question.

 

The term karate in use today comes from "kara" (empty) and "te" (hand). This was actually only officially adopted in 1936 in order to provide a more appealing name and simply just to adopt a common name for it in the first place. Before then, it could have been called karate (kara actually referring to China) although the first mention of "karate" in a published text was in the early 1900s, I believe. A much more common way of pronouncing it was toude/toute/toudi ("tou" being the same character as "kara") depending on whether you were speaking Okinawan or Japanese. Further still, it could have just been referred to as ti (te). Usually, the more Chinese influenced styles were referred to as toudi, although this wasn't necessarily a strict rule, either. Plus Chinese influence came in many waves, so much of that is even subjective.

 

ANYWAY.

 

In the proverbial "old days", many masters trained both in empty hand and weapons training. The reason for this is simple. Most of the people who actually did the main bulk of martial arts were part of the warrior nobility. It really wasn't until relatively recently, with the abolishment of the nobility class in the late 1800s and the introduction of karate into the school system in the early 1900s that Okinawan "karate" has been "open to the public", so to speak. But back on topic, these people did weaponry because they were nobility, royal bodyguards, merchants/merchant guards, constables or other law enforcement, etc.

 

I and others have mentioned how relatively new the concept of "styles" in general is on Okinawa, although it is very much a hard reality in the present day. In those old days, masters shared students or traveled to other places and trained/shared knowledge and all that. The weapons development was much the same way. You had family traditions as well as some village traditions. Obviously weapons like the bo had many practitioners among nobility and commoners alike. Weapons like the sword or the sai were far less common amongst regular folk.

 

Nowadays, there are schools dedicated solely to empty hand, solely to weaponry, or schools that include both, either incorporating their own weaponry systems or borrowing from established weaponry schools. The efforts of such weapons greats like Taira preserved and formalized many weapons kata all around Okinawa. Other schools like Yamani focus on the bo.

 

Regardless, the point is that "empty hand" is a new name and really has no bearing on what true "traditional" "karate" is. The use of weapons was always and still is fairly common.

[ShotokanKid]

I see weapons as a supplement to karate. A fellow black belt and I were playing with shinai full speed and we were supprised to see that our karate experience helped us to block because of reactions that karate teaches you.

[senna_trem]

Thank you for your reply Shorin Ryuu.

[1kickKO]

Basically I view as weapons as just an "extension" as your open handed techniques. If you look at your kata, empty handed and weapons katas, you will notice that you can do your weapons katas with no weaponry, and your open-handed katas with weapons.