The future of karate

[Kyonovice]

The "traditionalist" will usually see blending as a bad thing I think. I blended because I had such a mixed background that I thought it would be silly to teach one art. At any rate, I think it was stated but the martial arts grow and adapt to society's needs.

I think the tradition is important, which is exactly why, although I blend, I maintain a traditional base. I also think evolution and growth is important, which is why I blend other things in.

Karate will always have the purists I think, but I don't think we should fear people using it to help their system offer more, I think we should see it as an open minded compliment.

Here's the thing, for instance what is a Shotokan Traditionalist ? Is a Shotokan traditionalist a practitioner that only practices what Gichin Funakoshi taught, or is it what was taught by Masatoshi Nakayama? At what point do you say the tradition started, because there is a bunch of difference between what was practiced by Funakoshi and Nakayama and even what is practiced by traditional JKA Shotokan today. I know many traditional Shotokan instructors that think they practice exactly what Funakoshi taught, then show them pictures of Funakoshi teaching weapons, throws, and tuite and they are dumbfounded.

Was tradition started with Tode Sakugawa, the Mastumoras, or was it in 1960 something when some American GI was stationed in Japan or Okinawa? Tradition is a very vague and arbitrary term and I also think it's often misguided.

Many of the modern day so called "traditionalist" don't even know that Karate is a blended martial art to begin with, do they think it started exactly like they were taught? I would also dare say your going to find it hard to locate any technique in any modern fighting art that wasn't used in some way or fashion, by some old school karate practitioners, at some dojo, at some point in time.

Solid post and I think it can be related to kata quite easily. Look at the development of kata, the pinan series was developed by Anko Itosu to pass his fighting methods on, Bassai/Passai developed by someone else etc. They all put their own views across in the kata that they developed based on their own fighting style. I wonder what a "modern" kata would look like today.

[Judodad_karateson]

I wonder what a "modern" kata would look like today.

A very Interesting question.

[Kyonovice]

I did do a google search for "New Karate Kata" and this list came up:

Junro Series (Shodan - Godan)

Hachimon

Kitei

Kakyoku Series (Shodan - Sandan)

Does anyone out there with a bit more knowledge of this than I have (I got to Jin/Jion when I trained before leaving) know anythign about these kata's - where they originated from etc?

I know that there was once a website dedicated to Shotokan karate who were trying to "invent" a new kata for modern times, sadly that website has gone now.

[JR 137]

Enshin Karate and Ashihara karate use "modern" kata. Both systems' founders made their own kata and got rid of traditional kata. Ed Parker did the same thing when he founded American Kempo. There are a lot of people who've done the same; some have big/well known organizations, and some are probably people we've never heard of nor will ever hear of.

IMO traditional karate observes the "traditional" etiquette such as uniforms, rank structure, the various ways of showing respect, adherence to the ethical/moral principals laid down by the likes of Funakoshi, Miyagi, etc., and teaching traditional kata. I think most think of that stuff as a minimum when they think "traditional." Outside of that stuff, I view it as differences in teaching methods, not traditional vs non-traditional.

As far as I know, Enshin karate checks all those boxes except traditional kata. Their slogan is interesting - "Traditional Karate, EVOLVED."

In response to what a "modern kata" looks like:

Enshin black belt kata

[wildbourgman]

Junro kata was developed by Sensei Asai in the JKS Shotokan offshoot. Sensei Asai was an amazing innovator and one of the things he did in order to shake things up was to go back to Karate's roots in Taiwan to learn White Crane Kung Fu.

So that's one heck of a concept, innovation by going and digging deep into the past!

Edited September 20, 2015 by wildbourgman

[Kyonovice]

Junro kata was developed by Sensei Asai in the JKS Shotokan offshoot. Sensei Asai was an amazing innovator and one of the things he did in order to shake things up was to go back to Karate's roots in Taiwan to learn White Crane Kung Fu.

So that's one heck of a concept, innovation by going digging deep into the past!

That bold bit, I really like that concept and think that this is exactly where we should be going, back to the "routes" of the art.

[Maybetrue]

Junro kata was developed by Sensei Asai in the JKS Shotokan offshoot. Sensei Asai was an amazing innovator and one of the things he did in order to shake things up was to go back to Karate's roots in Taiwan to learn White Crane Kung Fu.

So that's one heck of a concept, innovation by going and digging deep into the past!

Not sure if that was Asai original intention. How did you get this story?

[wildbourgman]

Junro kata was developed by Sensei Asai in the JKS Shotokan offshoot. Sensei Asai was an amazing innovator and one of the things he did in order to shake things up was to go back to Karate's roots in Taiwan to learn White Crane Kung Fu.

So that's one heck of a concept, innovation by going and digging deep into the past!

Not sure if that was Asai original intention. How did you get this story?

No, your right but I don't know if any of us are sure of Asai's original intention. The JKA's stated intention for him going to Taiwan was for him to teach Shotokan. Check the story in the link below.

Regardless Asai's intent it seems like he trained a good bit in Kung Fu well prior to starting his own federation. From what I've seen of Asai Karate it sure looks like something other than JKA Shotokan rubbed off on him.

http://asaikarate.com/why-does-asai-senseis-butt-stick-out-%E6%B5%85%E4%BA%95%E5%85%88%E7%94%9F%E3%80%81%E9%AA%A8%E7%9B%A4%E3%81%AE%E4%BD%8D%E7%BD%AE%E3%81%AE%E8%AC%8E/

[Maybetrue]

Junro kata was developed by Sensei Asai in the JKS Shotokan offshoot. Sensei Asai was an amazing innovator and one of the things he did in order to shake things up was to go back to Karate's roots in Taiwan to learn White Crane Kung Fu.

So that's one heck of a concept, innovation by going and digging deep into the past!

Not sure if that was Asai original intention. How did you get this story?

No, your right but I don't know if any of us are sure of Asai's original intention. The JKA's stated intention for him going to Taiwan was for him to teach Shotokan. Check the story in the link below.

Regardless Asai's intent it seems like he trained a good bit in Kung Fu well prior to starting his own federation. From what I've seen of Asai Karate it sure looks like something other than JKA Shotokan rubbed off on him.

http://asaikarate.com/why-does-asai-senseis-butt-stick-out-%E6%B5%85%E4%BA%95%E5%85%88%E7%94%9F%E3%80%81%E9%AA%A8%E7%9B%A4%E3%81%AE%E4%BD%8D%E7%BD%AE%E3%81%AE%E8%AC%8E/

Take what you read on the internet and books as "almost" true.

That blog has a couple of timeline mistakes. Mrs Asai was already with Sensei Asai when in Hawaii. Mrs Asai herself was a great MA/Dancer including weapons,etc,etc.

Asai Sensei was a great if not the greatest innovator and had great vision of what Karate/MA could be.

Personally , i think nobody will be qualified to teach "ASAI" karate because he had Mental and physical abilities that no one else can duplicate. I cannot see how instructors that take "seminars" a few times can actually teach what "Asai" did. It takes everyone a lifetime to just do standard shotokan katas, i cannot image perfecting "Asai" techniques.

[wildbourgman]

Regardless, of how Sensei Asai came to be the innovator that he was, the outcome is the same. As far as my debate point in this discussion on how to make the future of karate a good one, Asai was probably considered a non-traditionalist and was looked at poorly by some.

Myself, I highly doubt that the influences that Sensei Asai obviously had around him in Hawaii and Taiwan didn't seriously affect his style.

Almost every genius in every art has been influenced and has had artistic changes due to those new influences, I doubt Asai was immune to that. That's not a knock on any artist it's just a natural outcome of life.

Whether Asai picked up Kung Fu or not is beyond my point. I think that Karate is at a major inflection point where we need to decide how we are going to handle to future and Asai helped the cause. In saying that I really want to learn more of Asai's style and incorporate that into what I work on.

My instructors instructor says that you keep what works and toss out what doesn't.