If Karate Arrived Today

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MikeK
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Re: Mike. . .

Post by MikeK »

George, the question that comes to my mind when you say...

The answer is "nothing"! It will continue to exist as an ever changing physical activity, along with Judo, Yoga, Taichi and many other activities that are based on useful core principles and taught by sensitive, intelligent and knowledgeable instructors.

is... will it be ever changing in a positive way true to it's roots, or will it break down into something less? It'd be nice if these arts were doing more than existing, being small, thriving and being cutting edge would be a goal I'd rather hear about.
Who are the guiding lights and shapers for Karate 5.0?
gmattson wrote:When is the last time you performed seisan or the many new versions of the bunkai?
Would love to seen them George, are there any videos? 8) [/quote]
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Change or no change. . .

Post by gmattson »

Nothing remains the same.

Although Japanese martial arts attempts to preserve the essence of the "old style", outside of Japan the martial arts continue to evolve and improve while in the best of cases, retains what I call the "core" of the art.

Methods of fighting have evolved and become more effective and complex. The fighting arts must evolve to combat these ever improving/changing methods of combat.

If you live in a bubble and are never exposed to these changes your uechi will probably remain the same and in the process regress in effectiveness.
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Bill Glasheen
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Post by Bill Glasheen »

I really should be heading to work. But I'm standing here reading this thread with a flawed premise.

To start with... I like the guy from "fighting chickens." He makes thoughtful posts.

This reminds me of a "Look that up in your Funk and Wagnells" e-mail that my brother-in-law sent around on Sunday. It had a bunch of "what if" mind-twister questions in it - many meant to be silly. But one in particular piqued my interest. It asked that if you were traveling at the speed of light and you turned your lights on, would it do any good. And you know what? It wasn't a stupid question. It might be one asked on a 4th semester physics quiz in my engineering school. (The short answer is "no" as the speed of light is the speed limit of the universe. The longer answer is complicated.)

So we ask what if karate came to the United States today, and would it all just waste away because we Americans know it all and we're all like the fighting masters (of doom) who engage in cages on pay-for-view fights. No... Those Okinawans would immediately be assaulted by a busload of grannies who had just come out of their tae-bo classes which came after their RBSD coffee groups which were held on alternating Saturdays, in-between the Gracie jiujutsu seminars and their HGH injections.

What's wrong with this scenario? Well... the state of things today is what it is BECAUSE of martial arts having come over here in wave after wave. Fercryinoutloud... the MCMAP is based on a handful of traditional martial arts - one of them being Uechi Ryu. (I have inside information, as Rich was one of its first black belts.) And those boys put it to the test where it counts. And we have Rory writing books about his experience as a prison guard while applying his VERY traditional sosuishitsu ryu. You don't want to fuk with Rory when he's applying methods meant to kill others on the battlefield with bare hands so you can steal their sword and continue on with the business of decapitating and disemboweling.

The premise is flawed. If martial arts were to come over here today FOR THE FIRST TIME, then we wouldn't know jack. And any fool who could break an innocent piece of lumber would attract a crowd. Again. For the first time.

And once again, it would take a generation or two to separate the real deals from the posers, and find the many niches that "it" could occupy in a diverse society.

Just my 2 cents and some change.

- Bill
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Glenn
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Post by Glenn »

Bill, I sent you a PM. Thanks.
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Post by Panther »

THANK YOU Bill-Sensei! That's basically what I was thinking as well...

with a couple of extra thoughts...

First, All of the current crop of MMA, BJJ, Ultimate fighting, etc. are here and popular BECAUSE traditional martial arts came here after WWII - the early 60s. It is debatable (and that debate would only be based on conjecture) as to whether any of those other arts, styles, practices would be what they are (at least as far as the U.S. is concerned) if those traditional martial arts hadn't been brought to the U.S. when it was.

And secondly...

While there were/are certainly plenty of "intermediate at best" martial artists coming from the far east both then and now, just as Bill-Sensei points out, those who truly know/knew what they are/were doing have withstood the tests of time. (And those tests of time are getting harder and harder to withstand as we watch more and more umpteenth belt "masters" fall by the wayside...) Yes, it is true that plenty of charlatans passed themselves off as "masters" back then, but looking around it appears that some things never change. Caveat Emptor has been good advice all along.
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Post by maxwell ainley »

Basically I am on a survival footing ,with the idea of teaching a few ,but I have not suffered in the same manner as the big groups ,with instructors having to shut dojo after dojo in this changing fortune for karate .

I offer Kanbun like training for a very tiny market ,which as a natural drop out rate ,that was even worse when the overall turn over of students was at its hight ,so far I have not had to shut down .
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OK. . .

Post by gmattson »

No question about our Dr. Bill being "right on" in his assessment. Without the infusion of karate 101 in 1958 - 65, we would probably be working on our wrestling and boxing and attempting to use these skills in our self defense.
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MikeK
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Re: Change or no change. . .

Post by MikeK »

gmattson wrote:Nothing remains the same.

Although Japanese martial arts attempts to preserve the essence of the "old style", outside of Japan the martial arts continue to evolve and improve while in the best of cases, retains what I call the "core" of the art.

Methods of fighting have evolved and become more effective and complex. The fighting arts must evolve to combat these ever improving/changing methods of combat.

If you live in a bubble and are never exposed to these changes your uechi will probably remain the same and in the process regress in effectiveness.
In this rare case I have to respectfully disagree with most if not all of your post George. The martial arts in Japan have moved right along with the rest of the world. While there are many traditionalists there are guys who are pretty darn modern.

I also don't believe that methods of fighting have evolved, become more effective or more complex. If anything it's our perception of what fighting is and our training that has drifted away from reality. Grappling has always been around, striking has always been around, weapons have always been around, multiple opponents, sneak attacks, various methods of working on the ground, close quarter tactics, psychopaths, all have always been around. Often it's the training that forgot about these things.
gmattson wrote:Without the infusion of karate 101 in 1958 - 65, we would probably be working on our wrestling and boxing and attempting to use these skills in our self defense.
I agree with that and those are two arts that are being used in self defense and MMA with pretty good success. Maybe we should have always looked closer to home for things to add to our arsenals. Also both arts have always shared a particular training methodology with currently popular arts. 8)
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Post by MikeK »

Bill Glasheen wrote:What's wrong with this scenario? Well... the state of things today is what it is BECAUSE of martial arts having come over here in wave after wave.
Bingo! That's the flaw in the argument. But martial arts have always been here in the States, long before the late 50's/early 60's. Some home grown, some from else where. Also what version of karate would show up, and would the Koreans leave any room for them to open a school.
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Post by f.Channell »

There was a strong tradition of hand to hand fighting in the south prior to the Revolution. Cheap and available hand guns is blamed for it fading. This is how disputes were solved without much law around. This is how we kicked British deriere.

"The term "boxing," however, did not necessarily refer to the comparatively tame style of bare-knuckle fighting familiar to eighteenth-century Englishmen. In 1746, four deaths prompted the governor of North Carolina to ask for legislation against "the barbarous and inhuman manner of boxing which so much prevails among the lower sort of people." The colonial assembly responded by making it a felony "to cut out the Tongue or pull out the eyes of the King's Liege People." Five years later the assembly added slitting, biting, and cutting off noses to the list of offenses. Virginia passed similar legislation in 1748 and revised these statutes in 1772 explicitly to discourage men from "gouging, plucking, or putting out an eye, biting or kicking or stomping upon" quiet peaceable citizens. By 1786 South Carolina had made premeditated mayhem a capital offense, defining the crime as severing another's bodily parts."
http://ejmas.com/jmanly/articles/2001/j ... .htm[quote][/quote]
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Mike. . .

Post by gmattson »

The martial arts in Japan have moved right along with the rest of the world. While there are many traditionalists there are guys who are pretty darn modern.
As written, you are right. Japan is currently keeping pace with America in this area.
I also don't believe that methods of fighting have evolved, become more effective or more complex. If anything it's our perception of what fighting is and our training that has drifted away from reality.
My turn to disagree. Certainly there has been a steady improvement in the quality of sport fighting from the 1960s to today. Same thing with early full contact karate matches to today's UFC matches. (I believe the same thing can be said about boxing since it's beginnings)

Yes, I suppose many early street brawls included going to the ground and included some kicking, but I suspect that street fighters today are far more skilled.
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Re: Mike. . .

Post by Panther »

gmattson wrote:Yes, I suppose many early street brawls included going to the ground and included some kicking, but I suspect that street fighters today are far more skilled.
And I would suspect that you suspect correctly... :wink:

Let me start by saying that what we refer to as "street fighters" are not the same as the colonial "brawlers". Those folks, while vicious, possessed a sort of "moral code" which meant that most folks were fairly safe from them. Those fights in colonial days, while very vicious, were set events which were done between people specifically. On the other hand, today's street fighters are probably not really that much more skilled than the thugs from yesteryear, but from everything that I have read, they do seem to have a different "mindset". Today's street fighter will attack any desired victim without warning. Today's street fighter uses both the element of surprise and an intense, sudden viciousness that is basically unimaginable to most of today's population in order to get what they want. In colonial times, those brawlers were fighting for different reasons than to get someone's wallet or such. Back then to steal from someone, they had cutpurses... today a group of street fighters will attack to get your wallet & money. Different times, different mindsets. Back then, they were vicious, but they had some reason to be. Today, they're vicious just to show they're vicious. Those fights in colonial days were specific. The attacks today are not... On the plus side, you don't hear too much about eyes being gouged out today.

:roll:
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Post by maxwell ainley »

I think that I posted this before,James Figg pugilist UK fought Ned Sutton within three areas ,swords first bout Figg won by cutting suttons arm ,half hr later they faced off again puglism ,Figg won this bout via taking sutton to the ground and a submission ,the last bout was with cudgels ,again Figg was victorious breaking suttons leg 172Os .

Purring [KICKING]and Gouging were banned years after this specific bout .
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Bill Glasheen
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Post by Bill Glasheen »

There are some opinions being expressed here that do not agree with some written publications.

A brownie point goes to the first person who can tell me where this comes from.

- Bill

P.S. No brownie points go to professionals, Van. ;)
Mystery Writer wrote:
Tradition. Often we don't respect the environment that spawned the old combat arts. There is, in my opinion, a persistent myth that we live in the most dangerous and lethal era in human history. Surely our weapons and delivery systems are more powerful, but our perception of the value of life has far outstripped our destructive abilities. For generations raised like I was on the myth of the destructive, wanton Killer Man, this will be a hard sell.

For 2002, the Bureau of Justice statistics put the murder rate at six per 100,000, the lowest rate seen in at least thirty years. Overall violent crime was 25.9 incidents per 1,000. This has shown a steady drop since 1996 (as far back as I was willing to go with some slow-loading tables on their Web sites).

I don't know whether those numbers seem low or high to you.

In early 1945, the Battle of Iwo Jima lasted 35 days and resulted in 26,000 dead, combining both sides. The combatants used artillery, bombs, naval guns, and the most sophisticated personal weapons available at the time: rifles, machineguns, flamethrowers, and grenades.

In 1600, the Battle of Sekigahara resulted in about 40,000 dead in six hours. The battle was fought with horses and the most sophisticated personal weapons of the day: swords, spears, bows, and muskets.

It is estimated that the total civilian and military deaths of World War II would be around 50 million people. This was a war where the major industrial nations of the earth fought a war of attrition to the bitter end, a war where nuclear weapons were developed and used.

It is also estimated that using bow and spear and sword, the Mongols conquered Northern China between 1210 ad 1240 at the cost of 40 million lives...but they also conquered Russia and the Middle East, another 10 million (perhaps a million in the sack of Baghdad alone) and another five million conquering Southern China from 1250-1280.

Do we really believe that the serial killer is a modern phenomenon? Modern serial killers don't approach the body counts of Elizabeth Bathory who may have killed and bathed in the blood of 600 young women or Gilles de Rais who was eventually executed for the torture, rape, and murder of 200 (more or less) young boys.

What is different today? A countess could not hide behind her nobility and it is difficult and rare to say that peasants don't "count." We have a computer network that helps us know if a murder is part of a larger pattern. We have a media that reports what happens. At the turn of the last century, if someone were killed in your town, no one outside of your country and the relatives would even know - unless it made excellent news, like the Lindbergh baby or the Lizzy Borden ax murders.

We also have the police. The idea was a new concept in the 18th century, The U.S. Marshals Service was founded in 1789. Scotland Yard was founded in 1829. Think about the implications: If you were killed, unless your friends or family sought vengeance, there would be no investigation, no search for justice. You would be forgotten. The killer would move on. Many of these killers lived and worked in bands, sometimes gangs, but somtimes agents of authority. The press gangs beat and kidnapped citizens to "recruit" for the British Navy. The soldiers of the Hundred Years War, the Thirty Years War, and much of the Napoleonic era roamed the countryside supplying themselves, which means robbing, raping, and killing for anything that they wanted or needed. The largely unarmed citizenry had no recourse to any higher authority.

This is the environment and the context in which the older martial arts arose. It was an answer to a primal understanding of violence, something we often miss without the experience to understand and evaluate it.
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Post by Glenn »

Rory Miller
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