# On the removal of grappling from Shotokan



## Makalakumu (Dec 7, 2008)

I've got two books in front of me right now.  Both of them are very old and are contained at the Honolulu public library system.  Which, by the way, has one of the most extensive sections on martial arts that I have ever seen...in both English and Japanese.

The first book is Karate Do - My Way of Life by Gichin Funakoshi.  It was written in 1956 in Japanese for Japanese Karateka by Funakoshi Sensei.  The first translation of this book was made available to an English speaking audience in 1975, thirty three years ago.  In this book, GF discusses the the origin of karate, his training under the great masters, bringing karate to Japan, the foundation of the Shotokan, and his vision for the art in the future.

The second book is Karate Do Kyohan by Gichin Funakoshi.  This is the second edition of the book.  The first edition was written in 1936 by Funakoshi Sensei.  The second edition was written before GF's death and was made available in 1958 post humously.  

This edition was translated for an English speaking audience in 1972 by Tsutoma Ohshima.  In the translator note on the first page of text, one can find the following passage, "Most of the Master's students will see some variations from the _kata_ as they have long been practicing them.  Where possible, these variations have been pointed out in translator's notes."

In the description of _kata_ Kwanku, the following passage appears, "Without moving the left food, lower the right foot to the front into a fron stance and rest the digertips of both hands on the floor as shown in figure 69.  It is important to look to the front during this movement.  This is a stance peculiar to Kwanku, used in a stalemate situation in which each opponent has apparently exhausted his potential.  The one now suddenly drops is body to the ground to startle the opponent for an attack."

Many of the other translator notes on changes in the kata and in basics raise eyebrows to the skeptical reader.  It should be noted also that the 1972 translation of Karate Do Kyohan includes brief descriptions of locking and throwing techniques in karate kata as well as knowledge of vulnerable points on the body, but these are relegated to the back of the book and are not explained in relation to the kata.

In my opinion, these changes in material show a deviation from the material that Funakoshi Sensei originally taught.  In his autobiography, he notes that, "karate was designed to defend against all manner of attacks, striking, pulling or pushing."  He further goes on to relate many personal stories where he himself or masters he trained with, used all sorts of means to defeat opponets, including means of subduing or grappling with opponents.  On page 14, he shares the following story, "However, when, in the famous encounter, he attacked Azato with an unblunted blade, he was very much surprised to find his attack turned aside by his unarmed adversary, who, with a deft flip of his hand, not only managed to evade the thrust but also brought Kanna to his knees."

Anyone familiar with a simple arm bar technique can see that the technique describe in Kwanku is not a stance used to trick an opponent into attacking.  That stance is an arm bar and take down.  In fact, Karate Do Kyohan gives the exact name for this technique in the back of the book in a chapter entitled Engagement Matches.  On page 228 in sub-section entitled Throwing Techniques, a technique called _Byobudaoshi - to topple a folding screen_ is described.  The sequence of moves described in pictures is exactly the same sequence of moves found in kata Kwanku.  

Both of these books when read together by karateka who have knowledge of locking and grappling techniques point to a concerted effort that removed all traces of these techniques from the Shotokan curriculum.  Why this took place, I cannot say, but the fact that it was done, is undeniable.  With that being said, what do you think about this?  How does this information affect your practice of karate?  Why do you think this happened?  If you could change your practice of karate, how would you do it?  

In my opinion, all of these questions are important for karateka because the help to recapture the roots of where the art came from.  They help the karateka recapture the core self defense principles that the art once contained.  Without knowledge of these techniques, gaping holes appear in the karateka's repetoire of responses to violent encounters.  These holes are artificial, however.  They were created on purpose.


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## Makalakumu (Dec 7, 2008)

Funakoshi Sensei changed the ideogram for kara from China to Empty.  He talks extensively about this in both books.  I wonder how much this affected the curriculum?  When an art is "empty hand" you can't very grapple very well can you...


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## thetruth (Dec 7, 2008)

One book was printed before WWII and one was printed after.   After the war there was a lot less knowledge sharing by the Japanese as far as the martial arts were concerned.   I would say that the grappling elements were removed deliberately.

Cheers
Sam:asian:


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## exile (Dec 8, 2008)

thetruth said:


> One book was printed before WWII and one was printed after.   After the war there was a lot less knowledge sharing by the Japanese as far as the martial arts were concerned.   *I would say that the grappling elements were removed deliberately.*
> 
> Cheers
> Sam:asian:



It certainly seems that way...

Here's a thought. Rob Redmond, at 24FightingChickens, argues here that Funakoshi and the circle around him deliberately tried to change the Allied occupying force's perception of karate from what their own prewar view as&#8212;a valuable disciplinary tool to stimulate patriotic militarism and esprit de corps in Japanese conscripts&#8212;to a character-building tool based on introspective spirituality, as a way to short-circuit the danger that karate would be suppressed as part of the demilitarization of Japan that MacArthur had ordered, which came down hard on all aspects of Japanese bujutsu culture. It could well be that the grappling aspect of karate didn't comport well with this revisionist image of karate that the Japanese worked like hell to sell us (and apparently succeeded in doing so). Grappling is a little too sweaty/gritty, and clearly combat-directed, to pass muster as part of the ascetic spiritual/personal growth picture that Funakoshi's group wanted us to swallow (neither jiujitsu nor wrestling have ever managed to acquire that aura of Mr. Miyagi saintliness )... and so here we are, rediscovering, along with Iain Abernethy (_Karate's Grappling Methods, Throws for Strikers_), maunakamu and others, this crucial component in karate and the karate-based arts....

Thoughts about this?


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## Makalakumu (Dec 8, 2008)

It does make sense, but it's not well documented.  I don't think we'll ever know why it was done.  What matters is that we agree that it WAS done.  Then we can start to see how we can move forward with our art.  This little essay is part of the research that I'm pulling together for my book on Tang Soo Do.  As a karate researcher, I'm limited because I do not read Japanese yet.  However, I think what this research shows is that from a few sources, you can easily build a case that this material was once part of the Shotokan curriculum.  

That said, it was not part of the Shotokan that I learned as a child.  It was not part of the Shotokan that many friends learned or are learning.  Somewhere along the line, a move was made and all mention of grappling technique was completely removed.  There was no tuite whatsoever, only striking.  This happened in the last 35 years (the English version of Karate Do Kyohan became available in 1973) and there are a lot of people who are still very active in the practice of Shotokan that would directly remember when this happened.  Perhaps even some members of this board.  

So, here's my question.  How was this accomplished?  What changed right away, what took a while to go?  When did gedan barai become gedan barai instead of hiki-te, kake-te or any of the other real combative blocking principles.


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## punisher73 (Dec 8, 2008)

I don't think that this was solely unique to Shotokan.  If I remember even in Funakoshi's autobiography he makes mention that Itosu had also made changes to make it "safe for children".  

Think about the simple "reverse punch" that people always think of when they hear "karate".  If I throw it out there so that it is parrallel to the floor and comes out perfectly straight from the shoulder at shoulder height, what anatomically weak target did I just hit? None.  I think some of the stuff was "hidden in plain sight".  It only takes a slight modification to teach kids discipline and perfection of technique into "combat mode".

I think also, the "removal" wasn't so much of a removal as it was a "I didn't learn this" aspect.  If you look at MANY of the karate masters and students of that era, how many of them died as a result of the war?  I think they focused on the spread of karate and it's benefits to the masses so it wouldn't die out instead of just teaching a small group of students how to use it for fighting.  I think some branches/instructors got that training but others didn't.  Same as today.  

I also, think that some of it was the japanese mindset of the time.  You didn't ask questions like "What is this for?"  If you were told it was downblock, then it was a downblock.  You didn't search to find your own answers.


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## TimoS (Dec 8, 2008)

maunakumu said:


> Funakoshi Sensei changed the ideogram for kara from China to Empty



Sorry for the off-topic, but if you mean that Funakoshi pioneered the change, he did no such thing. He used the current kanji, true, but this is hardly unique, as the first time it was used in written form was already in 1905 in a book by Hanashiro Chomo ("Karate Shoshu Hen"). And since this was the first known time that it was used in writing, it was probably used in that meaning even previously, just not in writing. Also the official decision to start using the kanji for empty was in a meeting of masters in 1936 and Funakoshi was not present there (probably he wasn't even invited).


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## TimoS (Dec 8, 2008)

exile said:


> Grappling is a little too sweaty/gritty, and clearly combat-directed



And punching through your opponent's face isn't? 

Anyway, here's my understanding of why you don't see much grappling in Shotokan. As I see it, there are at least two major reasons for this: first, during WW2 many of Funakoshi's elder students perished and with them, quite a lot of knowledge. The kata of Shotokan have in many cases been pieced together from fragments and by going to other masters. The second reason and I think this is the main reason is that Shotokan practitioners started focusing on competitions and the kata were pushed aside as less important. Combine these two with the fact that usually in Shorin ryu styles (I consider Shotokan to be just another branch in that tree) you don't see too much grappling in the first place. Shorin ryu concentrates more on kicking, punching, blocking and positioning. Throws, locks, takedowns, grappling etc. don't play such a major role, although there is such stuff in the kata.


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## Makalakumu (Dec 8, 2008)

TimoS said:


> Sorry for the off-topic, but if you mean that Funakoshi pioneered the change, he did no such thing. He used the current kanji, true, but this is hardly unique, as the first time it was used in written form was already in 1905 in a book by Hanashiro Chomo ("Karate Shoshu Hen"). And since this was the first known time that it was used in writing, it was probably used in that meaning even previously, just not in writing. Also the official decision to start using the kanji for empty was in a meeting of masters in 1936 and Funakoshi was not present there (probably he wasn't even invited).



Interesting, because in his autobiography, he claims credit for changing this.  Can you suggest some sources for your information?


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## TimoS (Dec 8, 2008)

maunakumu said:


> Interesting, because in his autobiography, he claims credit for changing this.  Can you suggest some sources for your information?



Well, here are couple of quite important links on the subject:

http://www.fightingarts.com/reading/article.php?id=100
http://seinenkai.com/articles/sanzinsoo/1936.html

I'll give Funakoshi this much: he popularized the usage of the current kanji, but he most certainly did not originate the change, whatever he may have claimed (I don't know, since I've never read any of his works. They simply don't interest me that much)


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## exile (Dec 8, 2008)

TimoS said:


> And punching through your opponent's face isn't?



Ah, but the way karate was presented to the demilitarization boards, you weren't actually _fighting_ anyone. All of it had to do with self-discipline, 'kata as moving meditation', and so on. The punching motion, the kick at the air&#8212; all that can be presented as something very much like a cheerleading gesture, or something along those lines, a physically difficult kind of martial folkdance (as Redmond indeed calls them in the title of one of his books). But a grappling-based set of movements is going to be very hard to explain on the assumption there's no one there at the other end.



TimoS said:


> Anyway, here's my understanding of why you don't see much grappling in Shotokan. As I see it, there are at least two major reasons for this: first, during WW2 many of Funakoshi's elder students perished and with them, quite a lot of knowledge. The kata of Shotokan have in many cases been pieced together from fragments and by going to other masters. The second reason and I think this is the main reason is that Shotokan practitioners started focusing on competitions and the kata were pushed aside as less important. Combine these two with the fact that usually in Shorin ryu styles (I consider Shotokan to be just another branch in that tree) you don't see too much grappling in the first place. Shorin ryu concentrates more on kicking, punching, blocking and positioning. Throws, locks, takedowns, grappling etc. don't play such a major role, although there is such stuff in the kata.



It's possible, of course&#8212;but Oshima was a senior student of GF himself, starting in 1948, maybe the _last_, and hence the disappearance of technical knowledge due to war losses amongst GF's own student's oughten't to have had a bearing on what TO himself learned from GF.

So far as the competitive aspect and its impact on the transmission of combat knowledge of the kata&#8212;yes, it's true, but I would have thought that Oshima would have adopted GF's own personal take on sport-competitive karate, which was quite negative. What I would think is more likely is that Funakoshi in 1948 just wasn't _teaching_ the grappling interpretations of kata. And then, of course, you would have to wonder why not...

Or possibly, by 1972, TO's own attitudes had begun to change to reflect the culture of competition karate that was beginning to take hold. I think we would need a bit more information about Oshima's biography before we could be on solid ground here about his intentions here...


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## Makalakumu (Dec 8, 2008)

exile said:


> Or possibly, by 1972, TO's own attitudes had begun to change to reflect the culture of competition karate that was beginning to take hold. I think we would need a bit more information about Oshima's biography before we could be on solid ground here about his intentions here...



It would be nice to find a first edition of this book and compare or even a copy of the second edition as it was printed in Japanese.  These books are exceedingly hard to find.  The good news is that there is a Karate Museum complete with an extensive library right here on Oahu.  I'm going to check this out sometime in the near future.  

The questions about Ohshima's background and influences are salient.  Here's some interesting information.

http://www.ska.org/index.php?p=1

Mr. Ohshima is the head of the Shotokan Karate of America Association.  



> Tsutomu Ohshima is the founder and Shihan (Chief Instructor) of Shotokan Karate of America (SKA), and is also recognized as chief instructor of many other international Shotokan organizations. Mr. Ohshima's branch of the Shotokan world has become known as Shotokan Ohshima Karate.



Mr. Ohshima was one of the innovators of tournament karate.



> It was also during 1952 that Mr. Ohshima innovated the judging system still used in modern day tournaments. However, for students wishing to participate, he cautions that tournaments should not be viewed as an expression of true karate itself.


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## Makalakumu (Dec 8, 2008)

Here's the wiki on TO.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tsutomu_Ohshima

Interesting.  I can definitely see some support being gathered for the idea that grappling was removed because of the shift of focus toward tournament karate.


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## exile (Dec 8, 2008)

maunakumu said:


> Here's the wiki on TO.
> 
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tsutomu_Ohshima
> 
> Interesting.  I can definitely see some support being gathered for the idea that grappling was removed because of the shift of focus toward tournament karate.



Yes. As Iain Abernethy has been writing about in his latest e-newsletter, the same difference is apparent between classic 19th c.  bare-knuckle boxing, which had grappling methods, locks, pins and throwing moves as well as a full range of hand techs (not all of them punches!), on the one hand, and modern professional boxing under WBA rules, on the other. Abernethy suggests that 19th century Anglo-American boxing was very similar, even technically, to 19th c. Okinawan karate. So you can imagine looking through boxing manuals from then, and instruction manuals written in the past ten years, and marveling at the difference in methods between them.

The question then arises, if this line of reasoning is correct, why were grappling moves removed from the rules of competition? Why wasn't the original quasi-'mixed martial art' profile of early karate retained in the competition format? People do watch grappling-based competitions, after all... :idunno:


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## Makalakumu (Dec 8, 2008)

There are threads on this matter where people have stated this or that master said to teach the forms, but not the applications.  Does anyone have any documentation of this?  My guess is that my guess is that the removal of grappling is due partially to the fact that it was intentionally not taught to certain groups of people.


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## exile (Dec 8, 2008)

maunakumu said:


> There are threads on this matter where people have stated this or that master said to teach the forms, but not the applications.  Does anyone have any documentation of this?



Well, in Gennosuke Higaki's _Hidden Karate: the True Bunkai for the Heian Katas and Naihanchi_, he indicates that the Okinawan expats had a gentleman's agreement not to teach the serious, combat-ready applications to the Japanese, though GF slipped up a bit and taught some forbidden stuff to Shozan Kubota and maybe a couple of his other very high ranking students.





maunakumu said:


> My guess is that my guess is that the removal of grappling is due partially to the fact that it was intentionally not taught to certain groups of people.



I get the impression that you have certain _particular_ groups in mind.... ?


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## Makalakumu (Dec 8, 2008)

exile said:


> I get the impression that you have certain _particular_ groups in mind.... ?


 
Japanese, Koreans, Americans, etc.  Anyone not Okinawan.


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## exile (Dec 8, 2008)

maunakumu said:


> Japanese, Koreans, Americans, etc.  Anyone not Okinawan.



OK, but let's think through what that means.

Prewar, on the basis of your research, it's clear that GF was teaching grappling apps and relating them to the kata. Now, the 'Secret Pact' that Higaki calls the gentleman's agreement between the Okinawan expatriates and their masters back home not to teach the 'deep' bunkai to the Japanese was in force from the earliest days of organized karate teaching in Japan, so that the fact that Funakoshi was happily putting things in his book about throws and locks means that those techs weren't part of the embargo on deep applications. It's *after* the war that these things stop being taught... so the question is why? Why would you teach the Japanese and Koreans, and anyone else who knew enough Japanese to read your book, grappling techs before the war and then stop after the war? I.e., if it were a matter of Okinawans not wanting to teach non-Okinawans grappling methods associated with kata movements, why would _that_ particular self-censorship only come into play _after_ the war, given that other kinds of combat-based bunkai were suppressed by the Okinawan expats _prior_ to the war? You see what's confusing me?


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## Makalakumu (Dec 8, 2008)

Yeah, I see what's at issue.  One possible explanation is that GF wasn't teaching anything that was "super secret" to his Japanese audience.  I think that many of these men could see the material already from cross training in Judo, Aikido or any number of Koryu arts.  

I was reading the Bubishi this evening and I am convinced that this book leads the reader like a beacon to the real depths, the real secrets in Karate.  From what I have seen, GF was not teaching anything that even resembled the material in the Bubishi.  

That said, the events _after_ the war include the introduction of a real occupying enemy, one that mercilessly bombed the islands of Okinawa and Japan into ruin.  Here is an enemy that had no familiarity with asian ma technique or culture and were completely depenedent upon a people they were occupying.  

It would be easy to pull the wool over the eyes of this group.

The Koreans, that is a different, and more complex story.


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## exile (Dec 8, 2008)

maunakumu said:


> Yeah, I see what's at issue.  One possible explanation is that GF wasn't teaching anything that was "super secret" to his Japanese audience.  I think that many of these men could see the material already from cross training in Judo, Aikido or any number of Koryu arts.



I agree completelya lot of these folks had backgrounds in judo, aikijutsu or other 'controlling' arts simply because, for generations, those had been the 'default' homegrown MAs. I know there's a lot of controversy about whether the house H2H combat art of the Japanese warrior class was something like Daito-ryu Aikijutsuthere have been some threads on this, and some plausible arguments made that the traditional empty hand bujutsu were school- or family-specific versions of something like DRAbut there can be little doubt that a lot of the Japanese MAists in the early phase of karate in Japan would have had some exposure to the various pins, grip-reversals with locking payoffs, and other joint-pressure controlling techniques that make up a large part of these 'indigenous' Japanese MAs. If so, then yes, you're dead right: none of *that* would have been regarded as secret info.



maunakumu said:


> I was reading the Bubishi this evening and I am convinced that this book leads the reader like a beacon to the real depths, the real secrets in Karate.  From what I have seen, GF was not teaching anything that even resembled the material in the Bubishi.



I agree with this also. Patrick McCarthy, who translated the Bubishi with a very enlightening commentary, regards it as the repository for a lot of the deep technical heart of karate. And lest we forget, Choki Motobu was loudly and publically very skeptical of the extent of GF's knowledge of the combat core of karate at the level of fundamentals. Clearly there were personal issues and rivalries there as well,  but still...



maunakumu said:


> That said, the events _after_ the war include the introduction of a real occupying enemy, one that mercilessly bombed the islands of Okinawa and Japan into ruin.  Here is an enemy that had no familiarity with asian ma technique or culture and were completely depenedent upon a people they were occupying.
> 
> It would be easy to pull the wool over the eyes of this group.



In effect doing the same number on the American occupiers that the Okinawans are said to have done on them: teach the techs, but only the surface; the deep undercurrents stay concealed. Could well be!



maunakumu said:


> The Koreans, that is *a different, and more complex story*.



And therefore all the more interesting!!  So what's your take on _that _question?


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## Makalakumu (Dec 9, 2008)

exile said:


> And therefore all the more interesting!!  So what's your take on _that _question?


 
A lot of it relates to the long standing hatred and out right racism the Japanese have had for the Koreans.  Look at Mas Oyama, a Korean, who changed his name when he moved to Japan in order to be more Japanese.  I don't see the Japanese teaching any more to the Koreans then to the Americans.  In fact, there is such long standing animosity in the culture, it would probably make it down right impossible for a Korean to be accepted into the inner circles of Karate training.  

This is why I think there probably isn't anything more to many of the TKD forms created in the Kwan era.  I don't think they learned much more then punch/block/kick and were forced to cross train in order to round out their martial skills.  IMO, this is why KMA curricula seem so scrambled.  You've got all sorts of peices being drawn in from a number of different arts in order to fill in the holes.  Sure, you can go back and reinterpret sections of forms that are similar to the classical hyung, but I maintain that the resemblance is probably coincidental.  

Of course all of this relates to the topic of this thread.  You've got information that is obviously being obfuscated about Karate through the 50s, 60s, and 70s.  During this time, the hearts of many KMA's were forming and I do not think they had a clear picture of what karate was all about.


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## chokimotobu (Dec 9, 2008)

An alternative argument that I believe was presented by Patrick Mcarthy was that Karate was modified to fit the Japanese mentality when it was brought from Okinawa.  Rather than a complete fighting art, it was refined to a striking art because of an overall perfectionist attitude.  The Japanese wanted to focus the art down to a basic form.  I really can't do the argument justice.  Try www.koryu-uchinadi.com  Personally, i think the techniques were lost due to the proliferation of competition Karate, particularily in the University system, much in the same way Judo lost it's striking techniques.  If you look at old Taekwondo, it does not contain a great deal of grappling unless it was brought in from Hapkido.  The Korean instructors predominantly learned in the Universiy system along side Japanese rather than training with westerners.  This would seem to say that the Japanese were not training in grappling techniques either.


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## GBlues (Dec 9, 2008)

My understanding of karate from the books that I have read when I was younger, was that it was created as a way for the peasants to defend themselves against the samurai. Since the common folk were not allowed to own or even brandish swords, they came up with Karate-The way of the empty hand. That was always my understanding. However, since the inseption of so much grappling, in the UFC, and how everyone at the time was touting it as the greatest art since sliced bread. I began to wonder, if karate was the answer to jujitsu for the okinawans, why no grappling? It doesn't make any sense. Since the samurai for the most part were jujitsu practioners. 

A possible scenario I thought of was, perhaps, the strike part of karate was never meant for fighting an unarmed opponent? Since it would be hard to fight an opponent with a sword on the ground. YOu wouldn't exactly want to shoot. You know what I mean, unless you disarmed him first. Then you could begin the grappling game. Perhaps it was no longer necassary to defend themselves from the samurai, because they were no longer in existance, or very scarce at that time, and the art was simply changed to reflect the fact that an era had passed? So maybe it had more to do with forward thinking, more than, I don't want to teach the Gweyelow, our secrets? Maybe grappling wasn't necassary to an art that could do the sam techniques against an armed opponent, just as well as an unarmed opponent. Just my thoughts.


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## TimoS (Dec 9, 2008)

GBlues said:


> My understanding of karate from the books that I have read when I was younger, was that it was created as a way for the peasants to defend themselves against the samurai. Since the common folk were not allowed to own or even brandish swords, they came up with Karate-The way of the empty hand. That was always my understanding. However, since the inseption of so much grappling, in the UFC, and how everyone at the time was touting it as the greatest art since sliced bread. I began to wonder, if karate was the answer to jujitsu for the okinawans, why no grappling? It doesn't make any sense. Since the samurai for the most part were jujitsu practioners.



Oh dear, the myth of the brave peasants fighting barehanded against the vicious invading sword-wielding samurai again. That one's been busted a long long time ago. Also, jujutsu was never really the main art of the samurai, at least not when they were fighting wars.


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## punisher73 (Dec 9, 2008)

chokimotobu said:


> An alternative argument that I believe was presented by Patrick Mcarthy was that Karate was modified to fit the Japanese mentality when it was brought from Okinawa. Rather than a complete fighting art, it was refined to a striking art because of an overall perfectionist attitude. The Japanese wanted to focus the art down to a basic form. I really can't do the argument justice. Try www.koryu-uchinadi.com Personally, i think the techniques were lost due to the proliferation of competition Karate, particularily in the University system, much in the same way Judo lost it's striking techniques. If you look at old Taekwondo, it does not contain a great deal of grappling unless it was brought in from Hapkido. The Korean instructors predominantly learned in the Universiy system along side Japanese rather than training with westerners. This would seem to say that the Japanese were not training in grappling techniques either.


 

I think that another consideration is GF was trying to DISTINGUISH karate from other activities.  If you show all the grappling and such it would look alot like Judo.  If you want to compete against the sport of judo as something new and unique, you take out the grappling aspect of it and only train on the striking aspect of it.


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## chokimotobu (Dec 10, 2008)

Perhaps Funakoshi was trying to distinguish it.  I'm not saing I buy into Mcarthy wholeheartedly, I'm just presenting his ideas as one option.  He certainly does know more than I do.  I still think competition karate is the answer.  The throws and takedowns that stayed in predominantly fit into competition rules.  I certainly remain open to all ideas, as I am no expert.


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