americankarategal Posted January 21, 2003 Share Posted January 21, 2003 Is anyone training in American Karate... AmericanKarateGalblue belt in American Karatewhite belt in RyuKyu Kempo Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Karateka_latino Posted January 22, 2003 Share Posted January 22, 2003 Wellcome to the boards, American Karate??? you mean Full Contact karate, Chuck Norris Karate, American Kenpo karate??? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
americankarategal Posted January 22, 2003 Author Share Posted January 22, 2003 It's not Kenpo, or full contact..it's a non-traditional almost free-style I guess. The reason I asked is my sensai doesn't teach any history of the art and I teach an after-school program for children age 6-16 and wanted to offer them a little background info... AmericanKarateGalblue belt in American Karatewhite belt in RyuKyu Kempo Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gheinisch Posted January 22, 2003 Share Posted January 22, 2003 Hello Americankarategal, Not sure exactly what kind of history you are looking for, Gichin Funakoshi is often refered to as the "Father of Karate". If you want to go back further (Bodhidharma) her are a couple links with some good history. http://www.geocities.com/suiken000/dojo.htm http://www.tmac-sd.com/funakoshi.htm Hope this helps a little! See Ya in the forums, G "If your hand goes forth withhold your temper""If your temper goes forth withold your hand"-Gichin Funakoshi Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Karateka_latino Posted January 23, 2003 Share Posted January 23, 2003 Freestyle American Karate... Hard to track the history on that one.. can be anything!!! Freestle/American Karate is a generic name for a combo of diferent Karate like Styles ex. Shotokan/TKD or Tang soo Do/Shorinryu or Kempo/Shotokan/Boxing etc.. That its done in a less traditional; Less oriental way or if you want to call it "americanized" karate. You can go and check the History of Karate in China, Okinawa and Japan but only your instructor can really tell you where His Karate came from. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Makoto Posted January 23, 2003 Share Posted January 23, 2003 American Karate does not have a history as such. Sure, it is only 30 years old, and there is no clear founder because it is a mish mash of styles. Not only that... one American Karate style can be completely different from another american karate style, so trying to track down a common history is hard. IMO american karate came into being by people who had some training in the traditional arts when they were in korea, japan etc, but wanted to go it alone, or could not find proper training to contiue their education in the traditional arts when they returned home. So with out access to traditional arts they took whatever they could to improve themselves. Sometimes it would be techniques from traditional karate, next time tae kyon do, next time kung fu, etc etc. Mixed it all together and now you have American Karate. Is traditional karate better than American Karate? I would say neither is better. But American Karate has a short history and very little connection to the traditional arts, and therefore the founders of the traditional arts should not be referred to IMO when talking about the history of American Freestyle Karate. Not only that it is AMERICAN karate, why would you even want to try to trace a history back to the orient? Because I said so, and I am that damn good. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gheinisch Posted January 23, 2003 Share Posted January 23, 2003 I and submissionfighter where only trying to help americankarategal to answer a question that she asked "my sensai doesn't teach any history of the art". The "Art" leaves it wide open for when and where. She wanted to teach afterschoolers some history about the "Art". Sure American karate has a short history but it is still based on a lot of traditional styles and techniques. No harm in reseaching the history from the roots. I apologize if I spoke out of turn for you submissionfighter. G "If your hand goes forth withhold your temper""If your temper goes forth withold your hand"-Gichin Funakoshi Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Karateka_latino Posted January 24, 2003 Share Posted January 24, 2003 No problem ghe.. well, i think every karateka should know about the origins of karate in general... I feel Karatekas should do some reserch, Specially if they are Teachers, Instructors, Masters, etc... Even if you do American Karate, doesn't hurt to learn more about Shotokan, Goju, Chitoryu, and you can even go back to Shorin Ryu, Isshinryu, and even go more back to , Shurin Te, Naha Te, Tomari Te and to the beggining , Okinawa Te (To-Te), etc.... You will find many interesting things about Karate that your intructor may left out. Like understanding the techniques, Original Kata Bunkai, etc.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
omnifinite Posted January 24, 2003 Share Posted January 24, 2003 Why bother calling it "Karate" if its Asian origins don't matter? Just call it "Hittin' People". This isn't the case in every situation I'm sure, but when I think of American "Karate" that has no origins, I think of some oblivious black belt peddling something they don't really know anything about (possibly because their instructor didn't know anything either). I hope no one here is becoming victim to that sort of thing. There are probably a lot of good American Karate schools out there too, but why toss out the origins when they're so useful? No reason to reinvent the wheel. 1st Dan HapkidoColored belts in Kempo and Jujitsu Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
americankarategal Posted January 24, 2003 Author Share Posted January 24, 2003 Thanks to all of you who have voiced your opinions..I do agree on the aspect of the sensei' that wasn't taught any background, That was the case of my sensei' his instructor concentrated on the buddism which my instructor was not interested in. Sensei' is an excellent point fighter so he concentrates more on technique and Kata. He is very supportive of my quest to dig deeper into the background. I have been doing research on people such as Joe Lewis and Ed Parker (i know his style is american kenpo). I have also incorporated some japanese things such as terminology and a basic history of okinawan karate the kids love to learn these types of things and I am learning with them. Thanks again for the input. AmericanKarateGalblue belt in American Karatewhite belt in RyuKyu Kempo Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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