Classical, traditional, and the future

[LionsDen]

Classical- pre export to Japan

Traditional- 1930ish-2010s

Future-…the future

Miyagi once said something along the lines of “we need to open our doors to other styles for critique, and learn from them”

Not sure when this was said, but I believe it comes from an old school mind set about being effective and open minded.

And imho that mind set of effectiveness and open mindedness has largely been lost during the traditional period.

I am currently seeing some movement away from the traditional mindset back towards something a bit more classical, but that won’t likely resemble classical karate in practice.

I say this because of the relative successful but ultimately short lived karate culture channel on YT, and karate combat league both seem to have represented a movement away from the more traditional karate.

Just curious what the general consensus is around here.

Will the traditional era of karate continue, and will the traditional training methods continue to dominate, or is the future of karate something else after roughly 90years?

[sensei8]

I'm eclectic. As a traditionalist MAist, I always keep my options way wide open because change is inevitable on and off the floor.

Personally speaking, I don't have time to worry about what this topic is discussing because I'm complete in my totality as a MAist and as a human being.

My traditional core is primary, while the other methodologies and ideologies are respected, and intertwined with my traditional core. Effectiveness and open-mindedness are the properties of the practitioner, whether that practitioner is mature in their techniques define effectiveness and/or mindedness, that IS a very cold dish to serve. Techniques without it being mature, is the furthest thing from being effect.

Mizu No Kokoro and Tsuki No Kokoro are the not the ramblings of yesteryear whatsoever. This mindset requires maturity, the same maturity that techniques crave for. Hence Shu Ha Ri needs to be willing to allow it to run its courses over and over and over.

Will the traditional era of karate continue, and will the traditional training methods continue to dominate, or is the future of karate something else after roughly 90years?

Well, I have to worry about MY MA betterment, and not the rest of the MA world as to if IT will or if IT won't. My MA betterment is all I can forge forward with, and not another's. Because of that, I decline to answer the provided poll.

[bushido_man96]

I'm not sure if it will evolve much more or not. I think there are many of the traditional styles that will hold on to the way they do things, and any that change and evolve past those tend to get labeled as breakaways, and then I think they no longer get viewed in the same light.

But I could be very wrong, too.

[LionsDen]

I'm not sure if it will evolve much more or not. I think there are many of the traditional styles that will hold on to the way they do things, and any that change and evolve past those tend to get labeled as breakaways, and then I think they no longer get viewed in the same light.

But I could be very wrong, too.

I agree, that’s exactly what happened with kickboxing.

However if KC sticks around it is very clearly karate, and the modern karateka in MMA are very open about how their karate is applicable to actual fighting.

Something that didn’t happen historically.

[bushido_man96]

I'm not sure if it will evolve much more or not. I think there are many of the traditional styles that will hold on to the way they do things, and any that change and evolve past those tend to get labeled as breakaways, and then I think they no longer get viewed in the same light.

But I could be very wrong, too.

I agree, that’s exactly what happened with kickboxing.

However if KC sticks around it is very clearly karate, and the modern karateka in MMA are very open about how their karate is applicable to actual fighting.

Something that didn’t happen historically.

So what do you classify as "classical?" More open-minded to training with other styles, and exchanging theory and technique?

[LionsDen]

I'm not sure if it will evolve much more or not. I think there are many of the traditional styles that will hold on to the way they do things, and any that change and evolve past those tend to get labeled as breakaways, and then I think they no longer get viewed in the same light.

But I could be very wrong, too.

I agree, that’s exactly what happened with kickboxing.

However if KC sticks around it is very clearly karate, and the modern karateka in MMA are very open about how their karate is applicable to actual fighting.

Something that didn’t happen historically.

So what do you classify as "classical?" More open-minded to training with other styles, and exchanging theory and technique?

that’s in the original post. Pre-export to Japan is what many have begun to consider classical karate.

A time when students and instructors travelled to learn from others both domestically and abroad, before the long lines and deep ranks of students doing kihon, and kata endlessly.

[Wastelander]

Personally, I don't think it will ever be left behind, entirely, but I do foresee the schism that currently exists between, broadly, three categories of karate, becoming more clearly defined, and possibly even resulting in the naming of distinct styles. Those being sport, budo, and practical karate.

Sport karate is pretty broad, encompassing everything from point sparring, to knockdown and Karate Combat. The consistent feature is that success in competitive sparring is the goal, meaning that the competitive ruleset is what selects the techniques and training methods. This effectively removes the need for and importance of kata training, and honestly could just be called "kickboxing."

Budo karate is all about preserving tradition and striving for the perfection of oneself. This is your typical 3-K approach to training, and typically doesn't involve much sparring, if any. There can be a competitive aspect to this, but you'll typically find that it is kata performance, because it requires the highest level of refinement. This would be the "traditional" approach.

Practical karate is about the ability to use the kata as templates for techniques that are effective for self-defense, including grappling methods, and using training methods that will allow one to actually apply those techniques under pressure. Due to the context for which karate was developed, this can cross over pretty well to MMA--mainly for the clinch and cage-work--but not all that well to sport karate competition formats. This would incorporate the "classical" approach, but I could honestly see it ending up with a different name than "karate."

[LionsDen]

Personally, I don't think it will ever be left behind, entirely, but I do foresee the schism that currently exists between, broadly, three categories of karate, becoming more clearly defined, and possibly even resulting in the naming of distinct styles. Those being sport, budo, and practical karate.

Sport karate is pretty broad, encompassing everything from point sparring, to knockdown and Karate Combat. The consistent feature is that success in competitive sparring is the goal, meaning that the competitive ruleset is what selects the techniques and training methods. This effectively removes the need for and importance of kata training, and honestly could just be called "kickboxing."

Budo karate is all about preserving tradition and striving for the perfection of oneself. This is your typical 3-K approach to training, and typically doesn't involve much sparring, if any. There can be a competitive aspect to this, but you'll typically find that it is kata performance, because it requires the highest level of refinement. This would be the "traditional" approach.

Practical karate is about the ability to use the kata as templates for techniques that are effective for self-defense, including grappling methods, and using training methods that will allow one to actually apply those techniques under pressure. Due to the context for which karate was developed, this can cross over pretty well to MMA--mainly for the clinch and cage-work--but not all that well to sport karate competition formats. This would incorporate the "classical" approach, but I could honestly see it ending up with a different name than "karate."

I don’t think that kata is necessarily a bad thing for sport fighters to train. The machidas, and wonderboy still make time to train kata.

I do believe with the right mindset kata does have plenty of benefits for fighting both sport and self defense.

I think in both of those focuses, that kata will take more of a backseat compared to the traditional model of training, but I think the modern mindset will keep kata around in both methods even if it’s only learning and practicing one kata a year while most of the focus is on dynamic drills and sparring.

[smuraix1]

Id like to see all the fancy bunkais be applied in battles or the main stage.

I was also a strong advocate of the Karate culture and the direction it was taking.

So far, Karate Combat appears to be a WKF fight with added ground and pound.

[LionsDen]

Id like to see all the fancy bunkais be applied in battles or the main stage.

I was also a strong advocate of the Karate culture and the direction it was taking.

So far, Karate Combat appears to be a WKF fight with added ground and pound.

it’s widely believed the rules for KC were originally adapted from WKF which makes sense as those are rules many if not most karateka would be familiar with, that mixed with the fact most of the competitors have a WKF background and the appearance is highly reminiscent of WKF point fighting.

However over the years there’s been changes to the rules, and I think there will still be more rule changes in the future, and as karateka begin training specifically for KC i think the WKF resemblance will slowly die out.

That will take years, and likely require ammy promotions under KC rules before that truly happens, or they begin recruiting more and more karateka from. MMA and KB promotions to break their fighters out of that WKF looking fighting style.

As for all the fancy bunkais, that’s just symptom of the greater problem in karate. Lack of experience and understanding.