An excerpt from an interview with an Okinawan Karate teacher living in the US.. I found it on the net and edited it in a couple of places to make it more readable and to cut to the chase.. its similar information to what was passed to me from instructors in direct lineage to Itosu. Boz

'The karate that I study, and the karate that is taught in most dojo today is modern karate. Long ago, karate was taught very individually, face-to-face, and training and knowledge was passed directly, personally from teacher to student like a private lesson.

Itosu Anko was commissioned around 100 years ago to design a physical education program for the public school system in Okinawa, he and his student, Yabe Kentsu, changed karate a lot. Please do not misunderstand. I am not being critical. Okinawa and Japan were just opening up to the modern world at that time, and they wanted to make a modern teaching system.

Itosu and Kentsu had to create a standard, build a step-by-step method for teaching many people at once in a class structure. To do that, and to make it safe for children, they made the Pinan kata and changed techniques and timing to make it easier to follow and technically, they wanted to make karate safer to study.

For example, I heard that in ancient karate they used open hand techniques very much. I think Itosu emphasized the fist because he liked that technique and because a fist protects the fingers-especially for children. Also, they took out a lot of the more dangerous techniques like strikes to the eyes and joints that were prevalent in old karate not just the jodan and chudan targets that we mostly see now. And since they were interested in physical conditioning, kicks were raised to stomach or even head level however it used to be that no one ever kicked higher than the groin. But there is also a deeper reason that they changed karate.

In ancient karate, I heard, there was a lot of "doseki-sayo" or isometric type training for developing power. While this type of training was good, it was also very easy for practitioners to over- emphasize "doseki-sayo" and injure their bodies and physical condition. So Itosu and other instructors took this type of training out of their program, and we don't have doseki-sayo in modern karate kata.

Bo never had any doseki-sayo, any isometric technique, it makes no sense for bo, so the old ways of practicing bo were never changed or influenced with the coming of modern karate. Through study of the Bo, it is possible to see how karate used to be or is supposed to be, there is a lot of karate lost in history, and I am very interested in that. Early in my karate training Nagamine Sensei talked about the difference between koshi and gamaku, your sides vs. your lower back, in making power and focus. It wasn't until I had studied Bo deeply that I found what he was talking about.

Follow what your teacher says, exactly. But you have to understand your body, your strong points and weak points. Kata, in any style really, gives you a guide, a mirror, to examine your own practice. From a certain level you must open your mind, talk to other martial artists, and try to figure out for yourself why and how your movement is supposed to be. And don't be blind about styles or different arts. There is some reason why their training developed that way. Try to see that reason. Train hard, push your limits, and never give up. And good luck....'

Boz

Is there anything left of the older way, before it became modified?
Some of these dare I say secret techniques must have been passed down personally.

Hi Deano,

Although there is such a thing as 'hiden' (secret) techniques, what is a secret to one man is common knowledge to others. What we think of as secret is more akin to knowing what was changed to make karate more appropriate for all members of the community, but especially children. Itosu trained school teachers to teach his MA program and some of them only knew the outer shell. Some went on to become the next generation of experts. Luckily there were a few school teachers who were already MA expert teachers.

The sorts of things involved were changing the target areas by making kicks higher, closing the fists and turning some strikes into chudan blocks. Of course the grappling applications of kata such as joint-locks and throws were just not taught. In any case, even students of the older karate were expected to prove their character was good before learning applications that were a little dangerous to practise.

There are few schools around today that teach old style karate. Many say and think they do but in reality, modern karate has taken over IMO.

Cheers,
Boz

Ive been doing some study into Goju history and there is a strong suggestion that all training was informal originally the respect and humbleness was from the culture of the people not specific to karate. I also found the lining up was introduced to fit in better with high schools and followed the 'new tradition' of the army who when performing drilling and p.e. style training were copying the french army.

so we should all return to the garden in faded 3/4 khaki pants, no ranking belts and move rocks.

cheers
Freek

Cheers,
Boz

That article along my embarrasingly little exposure to traditional techniques really seems to reinforce the point that tournament style sparring is against all the actual concepts of karate. I can see some benefits - reaction times, zoning perhaps, but can the real karate techniques be applied to tournament sparring??

thanks Boz i must admit the garden thing was partly a joke, but a few of us do train like this from time to time. When its warm enough. We cant all live in QLD


Matt that was another point i forgot in the topic on aiming if you always train to score points by hitting the easiest or closest point how does that trainslate to real life. Though i do have some respect for contininous semi to full contact kumite. pure points kumite is really a game of tag.

cheers
Freek

Hi Matt,
It all depends on how well you are taught sparring. The best idea is to learn how to get in and count coup on an opponent with an effective technique without getting scored on yourself. Its desirable to understand the difference between a match and a real physical confrontation and therein lies the problem for many. Its all a matter of education methinks.. as I said how well you are taught!

Cheers,
Boz

Hi Freek,

I would agree with your comments above after seeing how some perform in controlled contact sparring. I use that term because non-contact is plain misleading. I decided a long time ago that kumite could be used as a tool to enhance one's training or it can be used as a game or a dangerous sport. The level of skill of a practitioner and the quality of the refereeing detemines the final results inregard to safety in points type competition.

The majority of one's techniques should be transferable to a car park stoush. Other techniques such as roundhouse kicks and reverse punches to the body need to be taught as techniques for karate vs karate in the competition arena. Old school karate principles can be applied to modern sparring with great results and have purpose for outside the tournament situation too.

A shared principle pf old school karate and eclectic self-defense schools is CWCT (closest weapon closest target). Shotokan in particular had a fascination with the rear leg and fist as theirmain attacking weapos. Its not as prevalent today but they did think that front limb techniques wouldn't have enough power to be effective.

Timing, distancing and the use of momentum make these techniques very difficult to evade, block and even get past when launching one's own attack. Add agility and foot work to the mix and some valuable training in getting in effective pre-emptive strikes without getting hit yourself can be achieved. Plus it takes courage to face unknown opponents and have to work them out quickly. There is not absence of danger because in plenty of the AKF competitions I have been at, there have been doctors and ambulances assisting victims of excessive contact.

There are some loopy training methods out there that I have been told about.. anyone seen some strange kumite preparation methods?

Cheers,
Boz