What did early karate look like?

[Taikudo-ka]

Just so you can see how high the karate front stance once was...

 

http://www.vordingborg-karate.dk/whatis6.gif

 

This is Miyagi Chojun, founder of Goju-Ryu, training with Juhatsu Kyoda.

 

Anyone else have any interesting pictures, videos or links showing how the famous karateka of old really did it, in person.

 

 

[chh]

I've never seen that picture, pretty cool. But their stance is really no different from today's hanzenkutsu-dachi (short front stance)?

[hobbitbob]

Tsunami videos (https://www.dragon-tsunami.org) has several videos that feature footage/photographs of the pre WWII crowd.

[Ai Hate]

On 2002-07-26 11:51, chh wrote:

 

I've never seen that picture, pretty cool. But their stance is really no different from today's hanzenkutsu-dachi (short front stance)?

sth like that. "han" means half. so it means "half the length of a normal zenkutsu dachi".

 

i think another name is "motodachi"? not sure though

[chh]

We've never called it moto dachi, but I took a quick peek on the web and that sure looks like hanzenkutsu dachi to me, the first few hits I got were shi-to ryu. Just different terminology maybe. I just commented on that because it's not like there's a general karate front stance that used to be that high and was lowered over the years, the art has always had both.

 

I was more interested in the position of their hands in this picture. They're obviously in a basic stance, not a natural fighting stance, but compared to what I've been taught their chambered fists look pretty low and extended forward. We're trained to chamber the fist almost up at chest level, pulled back a bit further. My lineage sort of goes back to Miyagi Chojun, I wonder if that's an exaggeration of the original stance that has occurred. Will have to pay more attention to that in other pics...

[Taikudo-ka]

The hand chambering is interesting. I do goju and the hand is chambered at the chest, as has all the modern karate I've seen.

 

Perhaps the high and low stances have always been there, but it seems to me the emphasis has changed more to low stances. I mean, if someone could actually show me a picture of Funakoshi getting down as low as some modern Shotokan-ka, I'd be interested (and surprised).

 

 

[chh]

Hmm...I thought it was more common in other karate styles to chamber the hand at about the base of the ribs. That's one of the few things I remember from when I took Shotokan as a little kid, and a couple people that have come to our dojo with previous training in karate have had a lot of trouble remebering that high chamber. That's about all I have to base it on, though, haven't really observed other styles/schools.

 

Shotokan is supposed to be especially big on low stances, isn't it? I just figured that Miyagi Sensei is the one who created Gekisai dai ichi & ni, and those make use of zenkutsu dachi, which is low, and also sachin & hanzenkutsu dachi, which are not. Presumably you should be able to tell by looking at the Shotokan kata whether low stances were used, as those were the same kata Funakoshi practiced. But of course "low" is subjective. All very interesting stuff...

[shaolinprincess]

In my karate, our stances are like that all the time, we do not practice deep stances.

 

 

[DokterVet]

I do Wado Ryu and our hand rests just above our hip. On the fat roll if you have it.

 

We keep it a bit further back than in the picture, but keep in mind we don't know if he had begun a technique when the picture was taken.

[Taikudo-ka]

Shaolin Princess, I notice you do Okinawan Shorin-Ryu - that is what I'm talking about. I think the ultra-low stance was a Japanese development.

 

More on the hand chambering. I found a teacher who does it pretty much as in the picture. He teaches the Goju style as passed down from Seko Higa, a contemporary of Miyagi who also studied with Higaonna until the later's death.

 

In fact, I noticed that he often keeps the other hand in a guard position rather than "chambering", particularly with close hand techniques. He only chambers after things like open hand blocks, and the way he does them they are clearly grab and pulls.