Hohen Soken Hakutsuru

[Hoshin]

The Indians defeated Alexander the Great's armies, they clearly had their own martial culture and a civilisation that predates Ancient Greece. I think the attempt to trace MA back to the Greeks is dubious at best and a bit sinister at the worst.

https://www.quora.com/Did-Alexander-the-Great-really-lose-a-battle-in-India-or-retreat

i think it is generally accepted that Alexander was not defeated but rather his armies called it quits and wanted to go home. they did win some battles in Indian territories before the mutiny.

i will state again the custom of the Greeks to stay in the area's they had conquered and make that location their new home while taking local women as wives.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_conquests_in_India

Alexander left behind Greek forces which established themselves in the city of Taxila, now in Pakistan. Several generals, such as Eudemus and Peithon governed the newly established province until around 316 BC. One of them, Sophytes (305–294 BC), was an independent Greek prince in the Punjab.

of course it is quite correct that every culture has a military fighting system. any culture without one would perish very quickly. but it is my belief (as well as many other experts) that what we today call martial arts IS NOT A MILITARY COMBATIVE SYSTEM. Hopology (the study of human combative behavior) is very quick to distinguish many factors that separate

a military fighting war art and an interpersonal martial art.

when i mention a lineage from karate to the Greeks i am not talking about a war art i am only talking about a form of boxing. karate comes from what is called Chinese boxing. it has been proposed that this style of boxing comes from India and therefore is totally plausable that it mya originate from the Greek boxing called pankration that would have been practiced and passed down from those soldiers who lived out their lives in India.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_martial_arts

The ten fighting styles of northern sastra-vidya were said to have been created in different areas based on animals and gods, and designed for the particular geography of their origin.[citation needed] Tradition ascribes their convergence to the 6th-century Buddhist university of Takshashila,[citation needed] ancient India's intellectual capital. Located in present-day Panjab, Pakistan, the Ramayana ascribes the city's founding to Bharata who named it after his son Taksha. From the 7th to the 5th centuries BC it was held in high regard as a great centre of trade and learning,[20] attracting students from throughout present-day Pakistan and northern India. Among the subjects taught were the “military sciences”, and archery was one of its prime arts.

does this sound familiar? these cities that taught military science are the same cities that Alexanders men resided in. coincidence????

Indian fist boxing is Musti-Yuddha or Loh-Musti which is from Punjab which again is the area in which the Greeks resided. Now it is known that boxing is referenced before the Greeks so the deciding factor on whether or not the Greeks had an influence would be on how Musti- Yuddha is taught and how it is formated and passed down. technique is not a good "genetic" marker for lineage because humans tend to find the same effective ways to fight in many cultures thoughout history. however the format of a system and how it is passed along from generation to generation can be very distinct. the issue for us is that Pankration does not exist today and therefore we have no reference point.

all that being said i dont think the suggestion that the Greeks may have played a part in the history of karate is in any way sinister.

[Hoshin]

It was Gichin Funakoshi that coined the term Kara Te Do that we've since abridged to simply karate. His goal was very openly to take his style to the masses. He tried to get it included in schools as part of the physical education programme. He tried to get it into the military, most notably the navy, as a fitness training programme. He wrote letters and to and tried to organise demos for many institutions. Even the name kara te do was carefully chosen to make it more palatable to ordinary Japanese citizens, and he pushed it as physical training requiring no equipment, self defence, and spiritual betterment.

Funakoshi's karate is not a replacement of early systems of to de, or te, shuri te, naha te etc, and tang te and whatever other local names applied to local style variants. It was simply the consolidation of organisation of what Funakoshi had learnt of such styles. He knew that the only way to get karate to be widely accepted was to ditch the culture of relative secrecy, and local cliques, and introduce a formal structure. Even the kata he selected to be in his style were carefully selected from several styles so as to include what Funakoshi considered to be the most useful core of all the styles he'd practiced. He even renamed a load of them to make them more palatable and less obscure, and broke up and rearranged some to make them easier to learn. Most notably with pinnan / pyung ahn being split into 5 and renamed heian.

One kick wonder, a lot of what you wrote seems to be contrary to history i as know it.

Funakoshi did not coin the term kara te.

http://irkrs.blogspot.com/2013/08/the-1936-meeting-of-okinawan-karate.html

in a 1936 meeting of karate masters , Master Chomo states that he wrote a book in 1905 called "karate Kumite". the meeting had a discussion on the naming of Okinawan Te. Funakoshi was not at this meeting. however the suffix DO may have been what you were referring to but i would suggest that Do was a common martial art word in main land Japan and thus it would have been the Butokukai that added the word Do.

Karate in the educational system was a goal of Itosu for Okinawa. there is a letter i could referrance of Itosu's thoughts on this. however i think it was more the Japanese National movement using the Physical education system as a method of indoctrination of political policy prior to WWII. they kinda hijacked karate for a push of propaganda.

history is never so clean and idyllic. names where changed for political reasons and often for the sake of self preservation. you couldnt go around talking about Chinese stuff without being a national traitor.

[OneKickWonder]

It was Gichin Funakoshi that coined the term Kara Te Do that we've since abridged to simply karate. His goal was very openly to take his style to the masses. He tried to get it included in schools as part of the physical education programme. He tried to get it into the military, most notably the navy, as a fitness training programme. He wrote letters and to and tried to organise demos for many institutions. Even the name kara te do was carefully chosen to make it more palatable to ordinary Japanese citizens, and he pushed it as physical training requiring no equipment, self defence, and spiritual betterment.

Funakoshi's karate is not a replacement of early systems of to de, or te, shuri te, naha te etc, and tang te and whatever other local names applied to local style variants. It was simply the consolidation of organisation of what Funakoshi had learnt of such styles. He knew that the only way to get karate to be widely accepted was to ditch the culture of relative secrecy, and local cliques, and introduce a formal structure. Even the kata he selected to be in his style were carefully selected from several styles so as to include what Funakoshi considered to be the most useful core of all the styles he'd practiced. He even renamed a load of them to make them more palatable and less obscure, and broke up and rearranged some to make them easier to learn. Most notably with pinnan / pyung ahn being split into 5 and renamed heian.

One kick wonder, a lot of what you wrote seems to be contrary to history i as know it.

Funakoshi did not coin the term kara te.

http://irkrs.blogspot.com/2013/08/the-1936-meeting-of-okinawan-karate.html

in a 1936 meeting of karate masters , Master Chomo states that he wrote a book in 1905 called "karate Kumite". the meeting had a discussion on the naming of Okinawan Te. Funakoshi was not at this meeting. however the suffix DO may have been what you were referring to but i would suggest that Do was a common martial art word in main land Japan and thus it would have been the Butokukai that added the word Do.

Karate in the educational system was a goal of Itosu for Okinawa. there is a letter i could referrance of Itosu's thoughts on this. however i think it was more the Japanese National movement using the Physical education system as a method of indoctrination of political policy prior to WWII. they kinda hijacked karate for a push of propaganda.

history is never so clean and idyllic. names where changed for political reasons and often for the sake of self preservation. you couldnt go around talking about Chinese stuff without being a national traitor.

Perhaps Funakoshi plagiarised the whole thing then. I don't know. I wasn't there.

[DaveB]

It was Gichin Funakoshi that coined the term Kara Te Do that we've since abridged to simply karate. His goal was very openly to take his style to the masses. He tried to get it included in schools as part of the physical education programme. He tried to get it into the military, most notably the navy, as a fitness training programme. He wrote letters and to and tried to organise demos for many institutions. Even the name kara te do was carefully chosen to make it more palatable to ordinary Japanese citizens, and he pushed it as physical training requiring no equipment, self defence, and spiritual betterment.

Funakoshi's karate is not a replacement of early systems of to de, or te, shuri te, naha te etc, and tang te and whatever other local names applied to local style variants. It was simply the consolidation of organisation of what Funakoshi had learnt of such styles. He knew that the only way to get karate to be widely accepted was to ditch the culture of relative secrecy, and local cliques, and introduce a formal structure. Even the kata he selected to be in his style were carefully selected from several styles so as to include what Funakoshi considered to be the most useful core of all the styles he'd practiced. He even renamed a load of them to make them more palatable and less obscure, and broke up and rearranged some to make them easier to learn. Most notably with pinnan / pyung ahn being split into 5 and renamed heian.

One kick wonder, a lot of what you wrote seems to be contrary to history i as know it.

Funakoshi did not coin the term kara te.

http://irkrs.blogspot.com/2013/08/the-1936-meeting-of-okinawan-karate.html

in a 1936 meeting of karate masters , Master Chomo states that he wrote a book in 1905 called "karate Kumite". the meeting had a discussion on the naming of Okinawan Te. Funakoshi was not at this meeting. however the suffix DO may have been what you were referring to but i would suggest that Do was a common martial art word in main land Japan and thus it would have been the Butokukai that added the word Do.

Karate in the educational system was a goal of Itosu for Okinawa. there is a letter i could referrance of Itosu's thoughts on this. however i think it was more the Japanese National movement using the Physical education system as a method of indoctrination of political policy prior to WWII. they kinda hijacked karate for a push of propaganda.

history is never so clean and idyllic. names where changed for political reasons and often for the sake of self preservation. you couldnt go around talking about Chinese stuff without being a national traitor.

Perhaps Funakoshi plagiarised the whole thing then. I don't know. I wasn't there.

Lol, more likely you just got your history wrong. Funakoshi was sent to Japan to further Itosu's plans for karate. He first called his art Ryu kyu kempo Karate Jutsu, changing to do and emphasising character development later, possibly after ww2. And the 5 Pinan weren't split from any protokata, itosu created them as a self-defence short course, a way to get kids into the basics of karate training.

[OneKickWonder]

It was Gichin Funakoshi that coined the term Kara Te Do that we've since abridged to simply karate. His goal was very openly to take his style to the masses. He tried to get it included in schools as part of the physical education programme. He tried to get it into the military, most notably the navy, as a fitness training programme. He wrote letters and to and tried to organise demos for many institutions. Even the name kara te do was carefully chosen to make it more palatable to ordinary Japanese citizens, and he pushed it as physical training requiring no equipment, self defence, and spiritual betterment.

Funakoshi's karate is not a replacement of early systems of to de, or te, shuri te, naha te etc, and tang te and whatever other local names applied to local style variants. It was simply the consolidation of organisation of what Funakoshi had learnt of such styles. He knew that the only way to get karate to be widely accepted was to ditch the culture of relative secrecy, and local cliques, and introduce a formal structure. Even the kata he selected to be in his style were carefully selected from several styles so as to include what Funakoshi considered to be the most useful core of all the styles he'd practiced. He even renamed a load of them to make them more palatable and less obscure, and broke up and rearranged some to make them easier to learn. Most notably with pinnan / pyung ahn being split into 5 and renamed heian.

One kick wonder, a lot of what you wrote seems to be contrary to history i as know it.

Funakoshi did not coin the term kara te.

http://irkrs.blogspot.com/2013/08/the-1936-meeting-of-okinawan-karate.html

in a 1936 meeting of karate masters , Master Chomo states that he wrote a book in 1905 called "karate Kumite". the meeting had a discussion on the naming of Okinawan Te. Funakoshi was not at this meeting. however the suffix DO may have been what you were referring to but i would suggest that Do was a common martial art word in main land Japan and thus it would have been the Butokukai that added the word Do.

Karate in the educational system was a goal of Itosu for Okinawa. there is a letter i could referrance of Itosu's thoughts on this. however i think it was more the Japanese National movement using the Physical education system as a method of indoctrination of political policy prior to WWII. they kinda hijacked karate for a push of propaganda.

history is never so clean and idyllic. names where changed for political reasons and often for the sake of self preservation. you couldnt go around talking about Chinese stuff without being a national traitor.

Perhaps Funakoshi plagiarised the whole thing then. I don't know. I wasn't there.

Lol, more likely you just got your history wrong. Funakoshi was sent to Japan to further Itosu's plans for karate. He first called his art Ryu kyu kempo Karate Jutsu, changing to do and emphasising character development later, possibly after ww2. And the 5 Pinan weren't split from any protokata, itosu created them as a self-defence short course, a way to get kids into the basics of karate training.

Possibly. It's based on what I read in Gichin Funakoshi's book, karate do kyohan.

There's a section where he describes why he chose to use the term 'kara' instead of 'tang' which is written the same. He clearly suggests he did it.

But then there are contradictions even within the same book. For example he writes of the history and the Chinese influence but in a layer chapter describes it as uniquely Japanese.

I don't know. I give up.

My earlier point in contributing on this thread was that politics very much get in the way of truth. Perhaps this is just another example.

[Hoshin]

My earlier point in contributing on this thread was that politics very much get in the way of truth. Perhaps this is just another example.

yeah which was kinda my point too. that history is never as clean as we would like to think. its often muddy and sometimes dark.

[MatsuShinshii]

Karate was absolutely certainly not meant to be the reserve of the upper classes. It was Gichin Funakoshi that coined the term Kara Te Do that we've since abridged to simply karate. His goal was very openly to take his style to the masses. He tried to get it included in schools as part of the physical education programme. He tried to get it into the military, most notably the navy, as a fitness training programme. He wrote letters and to and tried to organise demos for many institutions. Even the name kara te do was carefully chosen to make it more palatable to ordinary Japanese citizens, and he pushed it as physical training requiring no equipment, self defence, and spiritual betterment.

You are right. "Karate" was not meant to be reserved for the upper class. However the art that turned into Karate was strictly reserved for the upper class. Gichin Funakoshi did not coin the term Karate. For the life of me I can't recall those that did by name at the moment but it was certainly not Funakoshi.

Funakoshi's karate is not a replacement of early systems of to de, or te, shuri te, naha te etc, and tang te and whatever other local names applied to local style variants. It was simply the consolidation of organisation of what Funakoshi had learnt of such styles. He knew that the only way to get karate to be widely accepted was to ditch the culture of relative secrecy, and local cliques, and introduce a formal structure. Even the kata he selected to be in his style were carefully selected from several styles so as to include what Funakoshi considered to be the most useful core of all the styles he'd practiced. He even renamed a load of them to make them more palatable and less obscure, and broke up and rearranged some to make them easier to learn. Most notably with pinnan / pyung ahn being split into 5 and renamed heian.

I would beg to differ. The art that Karate sprang from (Toudi, To-di, Suidi, Di or Ti) was in effect stripped of it's elements and what we now call Karate does not in the slightest represent it's predecessor.

Funakoshi neither invented the Pinan's nor did he rearrange or split them up into 5. Matsumura taught a Hsing called Channan. It is rumored that he split this Hsing into two Kata. It is also rumored that he broke down this Hsing into two parts which Itosu later renamed Pinan Shodan and Nidan. We know that he taught the two Kata because his direct students learned and passed these on. Itosu is credited with creating Pinan Sandan thru Godan.

I'm not sure you'd find the older styles these days. Good luck in your search though. I suspect they'll have been lost, effectively swallowed up by the styles we know today. What you might find interesting though is if you look at styles like aikido and some of the Chinese styles, while superficially they look quite different, after a little while I think you'll see that they share a great deal in common, but just have slightly different teaching methods.

Again I must disagree with you. Hard to find an older style? Shotokan is not old in terms of Okinawan (or Okinawan influenced), martial arts. In fact far from it.

Matsumura Suidi, Kobayashi-ryu,Goju-ryu, Ryuei Ryu, Kojo-ryu and Uechi-ryu just to name a few are all older and still taught to this day and are not that difficult to find. If you are speaking in terms of "Karate" from Mainland Japan then yes your statement is probably true.

[OneKickWonder]

Again I must disagree with you. Hard to find an older style? Shotokan is not old in terms of Okinawan (or Okinawan influenced), martial arts. In fact far from it.

.

I know. In fact most of the styles we have around today are actually fairly modern. My point there was that the modern styles have become so successful that I think it would be difficult to find an older style. Not least because until modern times, there was no real way to record and preserve the styles other than through forms, but they are always open to interpretation and external influence. So unless someone invents a time machine, I think it would be difficult to find an accurate representation of an older style.

I'd love to be wrong on this point. I think that while it's absolutely right that styles should move on, I also think it's a bit sad to lose the originals.

[MatsuShinshii]

Hello, I have heard the suggestion that Okinawans included Mauy Born once before. Can you explain from where this idea comes please?

Well since most things Okinawan or from any other country was removed via the Japanese, most documentation (at least written) was long removed and or destroyed in an effort to claim the art as strictly Japanese.

However - if you research the art and where specific techniques come from you will have a very hard time connecting them all to China (Quan Fa) or Okinawa (Ti or Di). If you look at the weapons arts (Buki-gwa), you will find the majority comes from Siam (Thailand). One example would be the Tuifa (tonfa) and Thailands Mae Sawks (Hope I spelled that right). These weapons were not used prior to trade with the Siam empire. Popular belief is they came from a mill handle. Sure they did.

Another hint would be the fact that a man named Annan was ship wrecked and taught his art form of fighting. Some seem to think that this was not a mans name but instead a countries name (Vietnam) which traded with Siam.

If you look at Quan Fa you find many of the open hand techniques that are present within the art. Ti has some of the closed hand techniques but are not reflective of all of the original techniques. So where did they come from?

If you research Muay Boran and look at the techniques you will find that many are identical to the arts.

Yes I may seem short and evasive in my explanations but it's better you do your own research and come to your own conclusions rather than some guy on the web you don't know from Adam telling you that this is so.

IMHO the documentation is there, you just have to find it.

As far as actual written documentation that you can point to and say that's fact... again like most things in the Okinawan culture that revolve around the art of Ti or what is now called Karate, its either been destroyed, was never written down or very hard to find. Interestingly enough some documentation has only been presented in the past 70+ years from families that had kept them secret or had just been passed down from generation to generation.

[Hoshin]

India's Niyuddha

Lohan Quan version of sanchin kata

lots of closed hand fists here too

it is said Annan taught the kata Chinto to Sokon Matsumura

people can make up their own minds but Muay Thai is a very distinct style with some very unique strikes and attacks. to me the feel and way of moving is way to dissimilar to anything found on Okinawa. not to mention the integration of old religious rituals that would be passed on like the Wai-kru.

then there is the fact that Annan taught the kata Chinto.....Muay Thai doesnt do kata.

i am willing to change my mind if some facts were presented that are convincing.