Kempo 'karate'

[Blade96]

Just a question on something my Sensei said. Maybe you can tell me if he's right or wrong. I was gonna post this question on a few different MA forums to see different responses from different people.

I was talking about the fact I trained in kempo for 2 months last year and i had a black gi. I named the kempo sensei and my shotokan sensei who knew of him and his family said "He's a fraud. Kempo is chinese. and karate is japanese. He calls his schools and advertises as "Kempo Karate" and thats just fraudulent and isnt even right."

Is this true what Sensei says? I only did kempo for 2 months and really dont know a whole lot about it. But I did say that I felt and still feel that school had some characteristics of a McDojo.

[Toptomcat]

The systems identifying themselves as 'kempo karate' in the United States have their origins in a blend of Okinawan, Japanese, and Chinese martial arts that got their start in Hawaii in the thirties. While quality control is a serious problem in a lot of such systems, and there are a lot of McDojos in the kempo karate world, there are those who have made a good fighting art out of it, and the terminology- while odd and perhaps somewhat misleading- is not truly fraudulent.

The biggest influence on them by far is still the Okinawan and Japanese martial arts that influenced most modern systems of karate, so they have as much claim to be called 'karate' as anyone.

[sensei8]

What I think is this. It's not fraudulent to say Kempo Karate in advertising because nobody owns the rights to the word "Karate". While Kempo is the primary core of that style/system, the word "Karate" is universally recognised. As long as I can remember, Tae Kwon Do, for example, has used the word "Karate" in its building signage as well as in its printed materials. Why? The laymen understand and recognise the word "Karate" when they see it, whereas the laymen might not know what Tae Kwon Do is, and in that, the prospective student wouldn't enter the dojang at all. But, when the laymen see the word "Karate", well, the laymen understands that and they'll enter the school. Every business needs a hook and the word "Karate" is a big hook to the laymen.

Now, it's up to the Kempo Karate, for example, sensei to teach their students the art as well as to its history and the like.

A name by any other name is...well...it's just a name!

[krypto]

Adding to what Sensei8 posted, Kempo and TKD have been using the word 'karate' for decades. People understand what the word means and thus what to expect.

A blog for KarateBC tackles this issue but not the way I see it:

Wednesday, February 11, 2009

BEWARE THE "McDOJO"

http://karatebc.blogspot.com/search?updated-max=2009-05-02T05%3A24%3A00-07%3A00&max-results=30

I found it quite demeaning to Koreans.

[Toptomcat]

Why the singling out of Tae Kwon Do as 'not karate' by both of you? It's an art taught while wearing gis, with chambered punches, a colored belt system with ten junior and ten senior ranks, versions of the Pinan, Naihanchi, Ba/Passai, and Jitte kata, sweeping forearm blocks, and a fundamentally similar technical syllabus to karate. The only martial system that all of its major founding figures can be historically verified to have shared in common was Shotokan karate. Tae Kwon Do is a Shotokan karate lineage that happens to focus on kicks and use Korean terminology rather than Japanese. The fact that those high up in the style's hierarchy like to distance themselves from their Japanese roots for political reasons doesn't change that.

[Kuma]

There's also Kenpo Karate, different spelling but still legit.

http://www.okinawakenpo.com/

[Toptomcat]

It's worth noting that before he even called it 'karate' Gichin Funakoshi was calling the art he learned 'Ryukyu kempo'. That's the term he used in his first book on the art, before the 'karate' terminology caught on.

[Blade96]

It's worth noting that before he even called it 'karate' Gichin Funakoshi was calling the art he learned 'Ryukyu kempo'. That's the term he used in his first book on the art, before the 'karate' terminology caught on.

LOL! interesting. I could if I wanted to, poke the ferret and tease my sensei about that =]

but i wont

as I said i dont get involved in the my-ma-is-da-bomb-yours-is-garbage type stuff.

But another question. Even if they did use the term karate because the word is universal, I know they wanna give their potential students a word they can understand, but is it still kind of twisting the truth because these arent 'karate'? so to speak?

[Toptomcat]

They aren't Shotokan and they don't say they are. They're descended from the same Okinawan systems all other modern martial arts that call themselves 'karate' also descend from. They also mix in some other things- but then Wado-ryu is recognized almost absolutely universally as a karate style and they freely admit they mix in Shindō Yōshin-ryū jujutsu.

Mind you, your sensei may have his facts mixed up but the general thrust of his point is a valid one: in my experience the American kenpo systems have a huge and systemic problem with fraud and substandard teaching, and having contempt for them in general is not something I'd write off someone as being unusually closed-minded for. The good schools are fewer and farther between than they are in many other branches of karate.

[sensei8]

Why the singling out of Tae Kwon Do as 'not karate' by both of you? It's an art taught while wearing gis, with chambered punches, a colored belt system with ten junior and ten senior ranks, versions of the Pinan, Naihanchi, Ba/Passai, and Jitte kata, sweeping forearm blocks, and a fundamentally similar technical syllabus to karate. The only martial system that all of its major founding figures can be historically verified to have shared in common was Shotokan karate. Tae Kwon Do is a Shotokan karate lineage that happens to focus on kicks and use Korean terminology rather than Japanese. The fact that those high up in the style's hierarchy like to distance themselves from their Japanese roots for political reasons doesn't change that.

Here's what was said and asked in the OP...

He calls his schools and advertises as "Kempo Karate" and thats just fraudulent and isnt even right."

Is this true what Sensei says?

I'm not singling out TKD at all. My post was along the lines of "marketing/advertising"! I've seen many TKD dojangs over the many years that don't even hang up any signage on their dojang that says "Tae Kwon Do", for example, as well as in their printed materials. I've seen other forms of the martial arts that use the word "Karate" as I've described, yet, these that I've seen will get upset if you remind them about Karate or call them Karate or asking them if they're Karate, and it boils down to the huge sign that reads "KARATE". If your TKD, for example then be proud of it and market/advertise TKD. But if they want to use the word "KARATE", then that's their business, and that type of marketing/advertising isn't fraud. Why? Because nobody owns the rights to the word "KARATE", no more than any word found in a dictionary.

One of my students is a lawyer and he'd tell whomever that the word "Karate" in marketing/advertising is just a general term, and it would hold no merit in a court of law. If the dojang says their XYZ and they teach XYZ and they tell their students that they train in XYZ and their ranks are in XYZ, then what's on a sign means nothing as far as fraud would be concerned.