sensei please teah me how to fight.

[Harkon72]

Yes, Warriors have the Option.

[CredoTe]

After a recent training session a black belt asked his teacher to teach him how to fight. What has he been teaching him for the past 6 years? Isn't karate about self defense/ fighting? Thoughts....

The debate over whether karate is about self-defense / fighting has a long history. Currently, this debate manifests itself as "sport karate/MAs vs 'real' karate/MAs", which, in turn, foments the "MMA vs karate/MA" argument. In the past, this debate was manifested in different ways; since most of my experience, knowledge, training, etc has been in Karate, I'll focus my rhetoric there, and let others that know more than I comment on other arts.

Tode / Tote / To-te

Before it was known as "karate" in its modern form, the art was referred to as Tode (or Tote / To-te, take your pick). This is commonly translated as "China hand". However, in the native Okinawan Shuri-Naha dialect (Ryukyuan Hogun / Uchinaaguchi), Tode appears as Tudi and refers to the "the hand of Tang" or "Tang hand", which refers to the Tang dynasty of China. Why does this matter regarding the debate about karate being for self-defense / fighting?

We better understand the debate by understanding the history / root of the art, itself; much of which is lost in translation (not just from Japanese or Chinese into English, but from native Okinawan into Japanese). To continue...

The root of Tode / Tudi is Te; in Okinawan, it's Ti, or more precisely, Tii. This is translated as "hand" (as we know). The art of Ti / Tii is natively Okinawan; thus, originally had no influence from mainland Japan. Many aspects of Ti / Tii were native / unique to Okinawa (including the grappling art that's now known as tegumi), but other aspects had similarities to Tai Chi from a spiritual / philosophical sense, as well as from a martial sense.

To take this further, the term Tii is derived from the Okinawan term tchi, which means "inner wisdom". IMHO, this lends to the Okinawans and Tii having more in common as a people and art with the Taiwanese / southern Chinese (Min / Yue peoples) as a result of proximity to Taiwan and its "melting pot" status.

So, what does all of this mean?

Tii, at its core, was both martial and spiritual. After the influence of sourthern Shaolin Kung Fu was mixed with Tii, Tode / Tudi maximized both aspects of martial and spiritual. However, disagreements and divergences over how to teach and pass on the Tode / Tudi arts arose. The prominent examples involved those that taught Tode / Tudi more as a fighting art versus those that taught Tode / Tudi more as a path for self-improvement, both groups neglecting the opposing aspect of the art.

This argument over how to pass on Tode / Tudi is best exemplified, IMHO, by the feud between Choki Motobu and Gichin Funakoshi. As both were students of Itosu, neither master totally neglected the opposing aspect of Tode / Tudi. Motobu emphasized the fighting art in his teachings and kept the spiritual aspect to a minimum. Motobu was as spiritual as the next Okinawan, but thought the training of Tode / Tudi should strictly be as a method of fighting and that the spiritual / self-improvement stuff should be left to the temples.

Funakoshi emphasized the spiritual aspect, teaching the art as a path of self-improvement through training, meditation, etc. Funakoshi focused less on the fighting aspect; indeed, he called the art "karate-do", rather than "karate-jutsu" or Tode / Tudi, in an effort to both re-brand it in order to assuage the mainland Japanese of its Chinese influence, and to emphasize its value as a self-improvement plan.

Please note that I'm not trying to disparage either master or their arts, and many other examples exist, both internal to karate / Ti and external in other arts.

Incomplete Hand-Me-Downs

As time went on, and karate was passed on, practitioners mainly fell into either the "fighting art" group or the "self-improvement art" group. Due to Funakoshi's success with popularizing / modernizing karate-do in mainland Japan, the "self-improvement art" group was much larger than the "fighting art" group.

The "self-improvement art" group gave way to the development of sport karate / MAs (NO! I'm not saying Shotokan is strictly a sport karate!). Sport MAs have many positive, self-improvement aspects to them; but, they're not fighting arts.

Likewise, the "fighting art" group gave way to things like knockdown or full contact karate (not necessarily Kyokushin), strictly combative arts, MMA, etc. Students of these arts definitely know how to fight and beat people up, but they don't necessarily seek or find spiritual/self improvement.

Both groups have their pros and cons, but both are incomplete hand-me-downs of what Tii / Tode / Tudi was supposed to have been. While I don't advocate putting religion into karate training, I do value the spiritual aspects to help improve oneself. Likewise, while I don't advocate just learning how to beat people up, a "martial art" that doesn't teach self-defense / how to fight is utterly useless.

A Question to Determine Your Karate's Effectiveness

A question you can ask yourself, and your instructor, as to whether the karate you're studying is teaching you how to fight / defend yourself is this: Does your Karate have any Ti / tchi in it?

Remember, this question is in reference specifically to Karate, not Kung Fu, not TKD, not MMA, etc...

[sensei8]

"The art of fighting without fighting"

If you have respect for your Art, then violence is the last option.

But does that mean you know how to be violent when you need to?

Well...resolvent, at least!!

[sensei8]

I don't fight and I didn't learn how to fight, and I didn't want to learn how to fight, and in that; I'm complete in my totality as a MAist!!

We tag labels inappropriate at times throughout all of the MA no matter what its intent was, and in that, laymen grasp upon what sounds good instead of learning about the MA by asking pointed questions.

Imho!!

[quinteros1963]

I found it ironic that a martial artist does not know how to fight. The 3 K's should be a start, right? I guess my interpretation of the arts is fighting his may be kata, yours may be........?

[ShoriKid]

I admire Pacifists but I owe my life to my training.

There is a quote I've seen floating around here: "Only warriors can choose pacifism."

Beat me to it sir.

Karate contains the tools to fight. The person who has the tools has to be willing to use them. Without that, you can train all you want and you're still not a "fighter". There has to be a switch there that you can flip when violence is called for. Some people just don't have that capability no matter what they physically know.

[CredoTe]

I admire Pacifists but I owe my life to my training.

There is a quote I've seen floating around here: "Only warriors can choose pacifism."

Beat me to it sir.

Karate contains the tools to fight. The person who has the tools has to be willing to use them. Without that, you can train all you want and you're still not a "fighter". There has to be a switch there that you can flip when violence is called for. Some people just don't have that capability no matter what they physically know.

Great post!

[andym]

Some approaches to the teaching and training of karate - excessive formality and rigid structure. Plus the good old : a million and one ways to defeat Oi-Zuki. Can undermine Karate's fighting effectiveness. It all depends on the circumstances within that Dojo.

[Harkon72]

Yes, the elusive factor of Realism; this is the Holy Grail of the Martial Arts world. Cross training, Seminars with total strangers, testing in the Cage, Exchanges of vision and mind set. All have their place in finding the right path, but then if a person is on a different path than you; it doesn't mean they are lost.