Traditional MA; No Longer Respected!?!

[xinyitaichi]

Honestly...jump for joy.

Those who flock to the latest MMA, Krav Maga, Ninjutsu, JKD or whatever is currently on the cover of Black Belt schools that are suddenly on every corner with instructors of dubious credentials were likely never going to benefit your dojo in the first place.

I only wish they'd stop calling what they do "martial arts" entirely and come up with a more suitable name like "cage fighting", "TKD done in a ninja suit", "Making it up as we go along concepts" or in the case of what is passed off as traditional martial arts "performance nonsense done in absurdly low stances."

I was lucky enough to have several knowledgeable instructors who took the time to show me correct and authentic martial arts even if it meant I never had a cool looking gi with lighting bolts and tigers on it and a camouflage rank belt with 5 different pieces of colored electrical tape on it.

Authentic martial arts are now exactly where they belong. Somewhat underground, and practiced by the fortunate few who recognize the significance of what they are learning and willing to devote the time and energy to their development.

What a great post! Thank you, thank you, and thank you!

[muttley]

Having read some of the posts on this thread (sorry, there are 11 pages to get through!) here is my two penny worth:

Traditional martial arts (in my view) get frowned upon purely because people do not understand them. People find MMA easy to understand - it's like WWE but without the costumes and make-up (and a bit more "real"), it's sport, there are rules for it. The same thing goes for Judo and TKD now thanks to the Olympic legacy of these arts (however, despite not having looked at the history of these 2 arts, I can almost gaurantee that Olympic Judo and TKD are nothing like the "traditional" system that was used way back when).

My art (Karate) is, in my view a traditional art, although I haven't studied a "traditional" style of it (all styles of Karate nowadays are hibreds of Shuri-te and Naha-te are they not?)

People don't understand the history of an art like Karate, how and where it developed from, that it is a form of civilian self protection, not strictly a Martial Art (it was never used by an army in battle), it's techniques, when performed correctly are very dangerous, it's practicioners do not use these techniques in every day life as they would have to spend a lot of time arguing the necessity of using them.

Karate was never meant for sport, was never supposed to be used for competition or for a "sqaure go", it has always been a form of self protection for it's practitioners and I for one hope that these traditions continue. You can mix tradition with modern (I am off to a club tonight with any luck that claims to do this, and claims to teach Karate as a self protection method). For this to work, you need to teach the traditional techniques and spirit (which is what Karate-Do is all about) alongside such things as self defense law (obviously this is dependent on area), in the UK we should be being taught where we stand in a civilian self protection situation and how The Criminal Law Act 1967 Section 3(1) relates to this as well as Common Law etc.

We should mix the traditional with the practical, instead of learning how to do head height roundhouse kicks and telling students that this will work "on the street", we should be teaching knee strikes, shin kicks, headbutts (the dirty arts)...head height roundhouse kicks worked for Terry O'Neil, but he was an exeptional kicker!

That's my stance on this argument...sorry if it's a long post, lots to get off my chest on the subject.

[CredoTe]

...

My art (Karate) is, in my view a traditional art, although I haven't studied a "traditional" style of it (all styles of Karate nowadays are hibreds of Shuri-te and Naha-te are they not?)

...

Do you mean to say that all Karate practiced currently is a hybrid of Shuri-te and Naha-te together, or that all Karate practiced currently is either a hybrid descendant of Shuri-te or a hybrid descendant of Naha-te? Two different interpretations of your statement...

[muttley]

...

My art (Karate) is, in my view a traditional art, although I haven't studied a "traditional" style of it (all styles of Karate nowadays are hibreds of Shuri-te and Naha-te are they not?)

...

Do you mean to say that all Karate practiced currently is a hybrid of Shuri-te and Naha-te together, or that all Karate practiced currently is either a hybrid descendant of Shuri-te or a hybrid descendant of Naha-te? Two different interpretations of your statement...

The latter interpretation.

[SteyrAUG]

My art (Karate) is, in my view a traditional art, although I haven't studied a "traditional" style of it (all styles of Karate nowadays are hibreds of Shuri-te and Naha-te are they not?)

Not always. Motobu Ryu (the family style not the one founded by Choki Motobu) comes to mind and it doesn't have any Shuri, Naha or Tomari roots. Orthodox Tomari styles have been documented. There are several Okinawan Kenpo systems that have little or no influence from Shuri, Naha or Tomari.

And of course there are a handful of Fukien imports that were never blended with the local Okinawan "te" methods.

Additionally, there are many modern Japanese methods that are so removed from the systems brought to Japan in the 20s and 30s they have virtually no Okinawan influence or foundation at all.

[muttley]

My art (Karate) is, in my view a traditional art, although I haven't studied a "traditional" style of it (all styles of Karate nowadays are hibreds of Shuri-te and Naha-te are they not?)

Not always. Motobu Ryu (the family style not the one founded by Choki Motobu) comes to mind and it doesn't have any Shuri, Naha or Tomari roots. Orthodox Tomari styles have been documented. There are several Okinawan Kenpo systems that have little or no influence from Shuri, Naha or Tomari.

And of course there are a handful of Fukien imports that were never blended with the local Okinawan "te" methods.

Additionally, there are many modern Japanese methods that are so removed from the

systems brought to Japan in the 20s and 30s they have virtually no Okinawan influence or foundation at all.

These are not exactly common styles though and widely practiced (at least not where I live).

[SteyrAUG]

My art (Karate) is, in my view a traditional art, although I haven't studied a "traditional" style of it (all styles of Karate nowadays are hibreds of Shuri-te and Naha-te are they not?)

Not always. Motobu Ryu (the family style not the one founded by Choki Motobu) comes to mind and it doesn't have any Shuri, Naha or Tomari roots. Orthodox Tomari styles have been documented. There are several Okinawan Kenpo systems that have little or no influence from Shuri, Naha or Tomari.

And of course there are a handful of Fukien imports that were never blended with the local Okinawan "te" methods.

Additionally, there are many modern Japanese methods that are so removed from the

systems brought to Japan in the 20s and 30s they have virtually no Okinawan influence or foundation at all.

These are not exactly common styles though and widely practiced (at least not where I live).

Well if you go by "common styles" they often have no relationship to any genuine martial traditions at all.

But my point was not to start a debate. All I was doing was providing information that you may or may not have been aware of. In "general terms" you are correct that the vast majority of legitimate Karate systems have roots in Shuri and Naha (as well as Tomari but methods unique to that village are hard to prove as they had a strong overlap with Shuri methods).

At any rate I'm just glad to be on a martial arts forum where we are even discussing things like the "Three villages of Okinawa Te." Gives me hope that there are bugeisha under 30 year of age that don't think Kenwa Mabuni is some kind of adult novelty device.

[muttley]

My art (Karate) is, in my view a traditional art, although I haven't studied a "traditional" style of it (all styles of Karate nowadays are hibreds of Shuri-te and Naha-te are they not?)

Not always. Motobu Ryu (the family style not the one founded by Choki Motobu) comes to mind and it doesn't have any Shuri, Naha or Tomari roots. Orthodox Tomari styles have been documented. There are several Okinawan Kenpo systems that have little or no influence from Shuri, Naha or Tomari.

And of course there are a handful of Fukien imports that were never blended with the local Okinawan "te" methods.

Additionally, there are many modern Japanese methods that are so removed from the

systems brought to Japan in the 20s and 30s they have virtually no Okinawan influence or foundation at all.

These are not exactly common styles though and widely practiced (at least not where I live).

Well if you go by "common styles" they often have no relationship to any genuine martial traditions at all.

But my point was not to start a debate. All I was doing was providing information that you may or may not have been aware of. In "general terms" you are correct that the vast majority of legitimate Karate systems have roots in Shuri and Naha (as well as Tomari but methods unique to that village are hard to prove as they had a strong overlap with Shuri methods).

At any rate I'm just glad to be on a martial arts forum where we are even discussing things like the "Three villages of Okinawa Te." Gives me hope that there are bugeisha under 30 year of age that don't think Kenwa Mabuni is some kind of adult novelty device.

Under 30...I wish!

[SteyrAUG]

Under 30...I wish!

Didn't necessarily mean you specifically. But I assume there are a few here reading these posts. Most forums ask questions like what is the best speedo for fighting.

[Patrick]

Not to derail this serious discussion, but I just did a quick search and, excluding your post, the word speedo has only been mentioned in 28 of our 506,258 posts. And 11 of those were a spammer. Spammers, etc. aside, there are only 14 posts that used that word.

Before you used it, it actually hadn't been used since December 26, 2012. 2013, like 2008, 2007, 2002 and 2001, was a speedo free year here on KarateForums.com.

I guess we're just not that big on speedos around here.

Patrick