okinawan and japanese karate

[Drunken Monkey]

what was the native okinawan forms like?

[Kirves]

You mean Te of Okinawa? Nobody really knows, but by reading books by karate researchers like McCarthy, Bishop and others we can get a glimpse. It was definitely mixed with Okinawan Ko-budo, so a journey into that world would help understand Okinawa-Te greatly, I think. Bishop wrote an excellent (and cheap!) little book on Okinawan Kobudo.

[Drunken Monkey]

so um, if no one really knows what it was like, then how do people know/say that it is different/better/worse?

 

i mean, just because the japanese changed it does it make it worse?

 

anyway, keep the info coming.

 

thanks for posting.

[Kirves]

I have never heard of anyone saying the old Okinawa-te was better or anything than the toudi/karate that later formed out of it (with the Chinese chuan-fa influences).

 

I guess there's a slight misunderstanding here.

 

First there was Te on Okinawa. Then it was influenced by Chinese Chuan-fa. Now this hybrid was called toudi/tode/karate on Okinawa. Of this we know plenty. Of the original Te we know little. Later, during the early 20th century, this karate was introduced to the Japanese (meaning mainland Japan). Then, after WW2 the Japanese styles started to look quite different than the original Okinawan version. Some people feel that the original Okinawan styles are "better" or "different" according to who you ask.

 

And what do we mean with "better" or "different"? We mean this:

 

- Okinawans studied defences against common street attacks, so all their studies were composed of studying the kata for self defence applications (bunkai). These techniques are designed to work against typical street attacks from (usually) untrained people. They didn't focus so much on fighting someone using karate techniques.

 

- Japanese focused more on sparring and tournaments. This meant that in their mind, the opponent was not an untrained street thug, but another karateka. So in most Japanese styles most of the partner training and techniques is done against someone using karate techniques.

 

So you see the difference? Okinawan styles train defences against haymakers, tackles, headlocks, grabs/pushes/pulls. Japanese styles train defences against another karateka: karate punches, karate kicks. This changes the training dramatically.

 

And some additions here with the help of the "edit" button:

 

We know a lot about old Okinawan karate/tode (the mixture of Okinawa-te and Chuan-fa) from 18th and 19th century. We don't know just about anything but legends from times before that. Okinawa suffered a lot in the bombings of mid 1940's and many records and libraries were lost completely. Karate ("Chinese hand") as it was then known, was introduced to Japan in 1920's, with the new name karate (meaning "Empty hand"). When Japan got into war in the late 1930's many men including karateka went into army. This started the loss of contact with their original Okinawan masters. In army, the people who had studied karate for some years, taught those who were beginners. When the war ended in the 1940's, few karateka had any contact with the Okinawan masters anymore, and those who had been teaching karate for years, even decades in the army and before the war, were seen as masters in Japan. Problem was that even though they were now very good at what they did, their original knowledge and teachings from Okinawan masters had been limited to only few years and then total loss of contact. This means that many famous Japanese karate master actually never learned any advanced stuff, only basics from the Okinawan masters. And now as these people were themselves considered masters, lots of misconceptions took place. People thought that karate only had the basic techniques and kata but knew nothing about bunkai (or ti-chi-ki as it's called on Okinawa). So they did what they could with the basic kicks, punches and blocks and thus the Japanese karateka focused on "karate-kickboxing" sparring and tournaments. Add to this the Japanese sport budo (gendai budo) mentality and the endeavor to mass teach karate to children in school class. This further simplified the techniques and kata to make them easier to grasp, correct and mass teach for small children with limited attention span. Also focus on less dangerous techniques was imminent.

 

Hope this gives some idea about why there is a difference between Japanese and Okinawan styles of karate.

[Sasori_Te]

Kirves, that's a bit of an over-simplification, but understandbly so. A book could, and maybe should, be written on this topic alone. Some of the Okinawan karate masters, such as Motobu, Choki, would go and seek out other masters and challenge them to fight. These usually did not end in the death of either opponent but sometimes they did. So in essence Okinawan karate was used to train to, I hate to say defend but I will, against anyone.

 

Generally I think you are right. However, I personally think the Japanese removed a large portion of the martial applications of karate so that you could have a more friendly, if a little rough, sport.

[Kirves]

Yes, you are correct. Whenever a large and very complicated issue like this is discussed on an anonymous web-forum, an oversimplification is imminent. I tried to use careful wordings, for example I didn't say "nobody in Japan kept in touch with Okinawan masters" because that would make it a lie. Some styles developed in Japan are more "Okinawan" than others. And as I've said earlier, many Okinawan styles are nowadays quite "Japanese", if you get my drift... I was merely trying to shed some light on the history of this subject so those interested are better equipped for searching more information from other sources. If for no other reason than to just try and prove my point of view wrong...

 

And one more thing... A couple of centuries ago, it was easy to beat a champ of another style or art with basic karate for the simple reason that karate was not that well known... We didn't have satellite-tv, books, internet... So a boxer for example, had never seen karate, and was easily beaten by some kicks because he just couldn't understand such techniques. Today it is different, every boxer has seen some movies and read books, and even though they don't train kicks them selves, they are mentally better prepared and informed about them and that helps them in a fight against a karateka.

[Drunken Monkey]

so the original karate of okinawa was a fusion of okinawan and chinese. which means modern karate as we know it is actually less that 100 yrs old?

 

so what about the native japanese arts?

 

where do they fit into the scheme?

[Kirves]

Yes, modern karate is less than 100 years old. There still are Okinawan styles that (try to) stick to older methods.

 

Native Japanese arts are those of the samurai (and arts derived from those), meaning the koryu jujutsu arts (includes also arts such as aikijujutsu, taijutsu, and so on) and their derivatives. These are the basis of old budo, and modern budo philosophies, and spawned such modern arts like aikido, judo, kendo, iaido, kyudo and so on. And let's not forget the oldest one: sumo. These have developed on mainland Japan, with little or no Okinawan influences, but with some Chinese influences, during the last millennium or so. An excellent book on this subject is the trilogy written by Draeger ("Classical Bujutsu", "Classical Budo" and "Modern Bujutsu & Budo").

[Sasori_Te]

As far as I know the arts in Japan were mostly martial weapon arts such as sword and spear that type of thing. The art practiced by the palace guard was Aikijiujutsu ( I don't know anything about it's origins but I'm sure it was Chinese influenced. There were also the northern ninjitsu clan styles and again I have no idea of the history here. If I'm wrong or have forgotten some things then please feel free to remind me or correct me. I don't know about Japanese martial history.

 

But yes in essence most modern Okinawan Karate is 100 years old or less but no more than a little over 250 years for the 3 classical styles.

[Sasori_Te]

I had written this last night but had problems posting it. I'm sure Kirves has a better picture of it than I do except for the ninjutsu styles I mentioned. I haven't had the opportunity to read much of Draeger's work, just little bits here and there. I see I need to check those out. Also, I believe that I have the more accurate picture on the "classical" Okinawan styles being a little better than 250 years old.