Has karate lost somthing?

[ninjanurse]

Having read all the posts up to this point, I have to say that I am impressed with the depth of thought here. My feelings on the matter parallel most-kirves and martial girl in particular.

 

[Guest]

Martial_Girl: That is a good response. Perhaps you should sell it to the JKA?

[mArTiAl_GiRl]

Thanks smr.

 

Sell it to the JKA? What is JKA?

[EstKarateka]

That girl is wise indeed

[mArTiAl_GiRl]

EstKarateka?! That's unusual, I almost never hear any good words from you.

[Shorin Ryuu]

It takes two zen masters. One to change the bulb, and one not to change it.

 

Okay, only funny if you are into zen proverbs.

 

Heh, I thought the answer would be "Only after touching the moon in the lake"

 

I did some interesting reading for a project in school about how zen buddhism influenced Japanese society, specifically the samurai...good stuff...

 

Q: What is Buddha?

 

A: This flax weighs three chin...

 

gotta love it...

[WhiteBelt]

After reading the article that Kirves posted I realize how much harder they used to train. Now I have a guide for training on my own time, thanks.

[hobz]

First off what I wanna say is everyone is forgetting one thing: Wasn't karate practically invented to be used dishonorably if you think about it? Hiding in the shadows and hitting the samurai from behind when they wern't paying attention? I can understand why they would do this, but it is not the "honour" everyone is talking about. I believe you need to understand this is how it was originally. before it was tought by masters.

[Kirves]

It's a myth that karate was designed for fighting against the samurai. Basically karate is a mixture of Okinawan uchinadi and Chinese kung-fu (kempo or whatever you want to call it) and was studied just for self defence like we do. These "Samurai-legends" are only told in some very modern organizations and books written by the modern instructors. Read books by the older generation and you get a different view.

[Shorin Ryuu]

Yeah, Kirves brings up a good point. Most peasants and such had to spend their time farming and such. It was the nobility, the shizoku, who had time to dedicate themselves to its study (think Sokon Matsumura, he was the king's bodyguard and a bushi, which is pretty much a samurai in effect). Most peasants did not have the inclination nor the ability to do this.