# Is Kyokushin Traditional??



## Nicholas82555 (Feb 4, 2011)

I don't know whether last night's thread got through but.....

Considering Kyokushin Karate, the founder and his philosophy on What is and This is Karate. Would Kyokushin fall into the "traditional" category???

If it's considered so, then can the effectiveness be that the Japanese are more attentive, serious, dedicate and train harder in Japanese than others....

When you mention Karate, usually you'll get the mainstream styles from Japan and Okinawa with KK pulling up the rear.

Yes it does come down to the individual but overall, it's something to think about.


----------



## searcher (Feb 4, 2011)

Depends on what you define as traditional.    Most of the karate styles are less than 100 years old and come from similar sources.


----------



## punisher73 (Feb 4, 2011)

searcher said:


> Depends on what you define as traditional. Most of the karate styles are less than 100 years old and come from similar sources.


 
Everything that we consider "traditional" was new at some point and made up by somebody.  How far do you go back until something is traditional?  Is traditional only reserved for an art created by an asian person?

For example, could American Kenpo or Kajukenbo ever be considered traditional another 50 years from now?

Is it traditional because somebody says it is?  Aikido came from Aikijujitsu and is less than 100 years old.  Is it traditional?  Are the offshoots (Koichi Tohei's version or Seidokan Aikido)?

Shotokan is now considered traditional, but at the beginning it was a new art that was changed and modified by Funakoshi for his Japanese students.  At what point did it become traditional?

About the only real thing that all of the "traditional arts" share is that at some point they were a new creation by someone taking other arts and techniques that they learned and put them together and started to share it.


----------



## Aiki Lee (Feb 4, 2011)

I don't know if I would consider them traditional, but they certainly have traditions that extend way past the birth of some of these newer arts and organizations.


----------



## dancingalone (Feb 4, 2011)

I would argue that 'traditional' styles of karate use kata and kata exercises as the primary means of transmitting their system's concepts and techniques.

Even though kyokushin has kata, my belief is that sparring drills are far more important comparatively to most kyokushin people.  Thus, if you buy into my criterion, no, it is not traditional.


----------



## Tez3 (Feb 4, 2011)

Does it work? can you fight/defend yourself because you train it? If the answer is yes does it matter whether it's 'traditional' or not? If the answers no, it doesn't matter whether it's traditional or not you should be looking for a new instructor who can teach you properly in that style or another, it doesn't honestly matter as long as it gets the job done.
Too much worrying over history and tradition, just train.


----------



## Aiki Lee (Feb 4, 2011)

That would depend on whether or not he is into martial arts for self-defense or combat training or if he is more interested in the culture or tradition


----------



## Tez3 (Feb 5, 2011)

Himura Kenshin said:


> That would depend on whether or not he is into martial arts for self-defense or combat training or if he is more interested in the culture or tradition


 

Seems also to depend on whether we want long long threads of argument or threads of interest!  Perhaps he can post up his interest and we can have one thread on MT about martial arts 'history' that doesn't descend into arguing, pretty please!


----------



## seasoned (Feb 5, 2011)

I personally feel that if I started a more modern style, considering my personal makeup, I may well feel the the old traditional arts may be antiquated. Now considering I chose my current art many years ago, I feel that this is the best way for me. What it boils down to is personal choice. There have been many discussions about which arts is better or more traditional in teams of combat efficiency, but bottom line is how you make it work for you. I think *punisher73* had some good points.


----------



## searcher (Feb 5, 2011)

punisher73 said:


> Everything that we consider "traditional" was new at some point and made up by somebody. How far do you go back until something is traditional? Is traditional only reserved for an art created by an asian person?
> 
> For example, could American Kenpo or Kajukenbo ever be considered traditional another 50 years from now?
> 
> ...


 

I love this post.     Superb points.     You stated all the question I wanted to ask.


----------



## Tez3 (Feb 5, 2011)

searcher said:


> I love this post. Superb points. You stated all the question I wanted to ask.


 

Agreed. it depends on how old you are too and how close you are to when your art started lol!

If Aikido is less than 100 years old to a youngster it's 'very' old, to me that means it was founded in my father's life time. The founders of Shotokan,Wado Ryu and Aikido were comtemporaries of my grandparents. To a teenager this would seem almost like the dark ages and certainly very traditional but many people my age remember their grandparents so it seems less 'traditional'.


----------



## Bruno@MT (Feb 6, 2011)

In Japanese systems, there is a pretty solid definition: it is traditional if it as founded before 1867, hich marks the date Japan transitioned from a feudal to a modern society. Systems form before that date always follow the original ryuha structure of transmission. Systems from after that typically follow the kyu / dan structure.

One of the reasons this difference can be observes is that the feudal systems ere developed and transmitted for the purpose of life or death situations. Only the modern arts have concepts like rules, or specificity. With the latter I mean things like: judo has virtually no atemi and few locks, karate has virtually no throws, aikido has virtually no atemi, kendo has only 4 valid targets ...

I don't mean that they are less valuable etc. It is a conceptual difference. Old style jujutsu usually has a range of everything: locks, strikes, kicks, throws, ... and there are no rules and all body parts are targets.

As I said, the date is a pretty good definition for Japanese systems.
There are a couple of post-1867 systems that have the same intent as the old systems, but they are not numerous. And the ones I know of also follow the kyu / dan system.


----------



## K-man (Feb 6, 2011)

Bruno@MT said:


> In Japanese systems, there is a pretty solid definition: it is traditional if it as founded before 1867, hich marks the date Japan transitioned from a feudal to a modern society. Systems form before that date always follow the original ryuha structure of transmission. Systems from after that typically follow the kyu / dan structure.
> 
> One of the reasons this difference can be observes is that the feudal systems ere developed and transmitted for the purpose of life or death situations. Only the modern arts have concepts like rules, or specificity. With the latter I mean things like: judo has virtually no atemi and few locks, karate has virtually no throws, aikido has virtually no atemi, kendo has only 4 valid targets ...
> 
> ...


In this case, using the definition of only arts in existence prior to 1867 can be traditional, no karate can be traditional because there was none until the early 1900s. That takes us back to 'Te'. Te is traditional but when the Okinawans such as Kanryo Higaonna, Kosaku Matsumora and Sokon Mutsumura learned the Chinese forms and blended them with Te we had the beginings of Kara-Te. So is karate traditional?

Aikido still has provision for atemi and I practise that twice a week. Karate has all the locks and throws and I teach that twice a week. The others I have no first hand experience of. Is what I train traditional? Not by the 1867 definition because what all of us train is more recent. :asian:


----------



## Bruno@MT (Feb 7, 2011)

K-man said:


> Aikido still has provision for atemi and I practise that twice a week. Karate has all the locks and throws and I teach that twice a week. The others I have no first hand experience of.



Aikido still has provision for atemi, but it is not practiced seriously in too many dojo. Same with Judo. Karate still has locks and throws but honestly, they are not practiced seriously in any karate dojo I know of. Even a layman will not walk into a karate dojo and think it is judo. Or mistake aikido for karate

If those systems were really 'general', then there would not be such big differences, people wouldn't cross train for the purpose of adding judo throws to their karate, and modern jujutsu systems would not be created by combining karate, aikido and judo.

Now as to whether those arts are traditional or not... that depends on your definition of traditional. The koryu - gendai definition is only one, but a good one to determine is an art was feudal or modern.


----------



## K-man (Feb 7, 2011)

Bruno@MT said:


> Aikido still has provision for atemi, but it is not practiced seriously in too many dojo. Same with Judo. Karate still has locks and throws but honestly, they are not practiced seriously in any karate dojo I know of. Even a layman will not walk into a karate dojo and think it is judo. Or mistake aikido for karate
> 
> If those systems were really 'general', then there would not be such big differences, people wouldn't cross train for the purpose of adding judo throws to their karate, and modern jujutsu systems would not be created by combining karate, aikido and judo.
> 
> Now as to whether those arts are traditional or not... that depends on your definition of traditional. The koryu - gendai definition is only one, but a good one to determine is an art was feudal or modern.


I like to think that my karate students have no need to cross train now. We train locks, holds and throws every session and we practise them seriously. We also train to gauge the eyes and crush the nuts. 
	

	
	
		
		

		
			





 I believe this is in line with the original Naha-te as we train much closer and more with open hands than the modern sport based karate. This is in line with the Jundokan training in Okinawa.

If anything my students might like to go BJJ for a bit more grappling, because that is not my scene, but our system is now pretty broad.

I train Aikido for the 'ki' not for the ordinary aikido techniques. However, if I didn't have karate as my first string, I would have no hesitation in staying just with the aikido I train because, unlike much I have seen, we do train to strike with hands, knees and elbows. True, you would not mistake it for karate but you might be surprised at how much the two have in common. :asian:


----------



## TimoS (Feb 7, 2011)

dancingalone said:


> I would argue that 'traditional' styles of karate use kata and kata exercises as the primary means of transmitting their system's concepts and techniques.


I agree, it is really the only reliable criteria IMO to defining whether a karate style is traditional or not. Traditional doesn't (automatically) equal better, it just means in this case that the kata have a real purpose, and they're not just, as a friend puts it, "ugly dances".


----------



## Martin h (Feb 7, 2011)

Kyokushin as a style was formally founded 1957 (the developement started a few years earlier and the international organization was formally founded 1964).
Shotokan (the original Funakoshj dojo) was founded 1939. Gojuryu (the arguably oldest formal style) was founded in the late 20ies/early 30ies. Sure, both of these styles started developing earlier, before the formal founding of the style, but so did kyokushin.

Basically, Kyokushin is about 20 years newer than the so called "traditional" karate styles.
That is not all that much anymore!


----------



## K-man (Feb 7, 2011)

Martin h said:


> Kyokushin as a style was formally founded 1957 (the developement started a few years earlier and the international organization was formally founded 1964).
> Shotokan (the original Funakoshj dojo) was founded 1939. Gojuryu (the arguably oldest formal style) was founded in the late 20ies/early 30ies. Sure, both of these styles started developing earlier, before the formal founding of the style, but so did kyokushin.
> 
> Basically, Kyokushin is about 20 years newer than the so called "traditional" karate styles.
> That is not all that much anymore!


Not quite right regarding Goju. Goju didn't change a lot from Kanro Higaonna's Naha-te that he developed after returning from China ib the 1880s.  Goju was called Goju by Miyagi to differentiate his school from other similar schools in about 1930.  As practised in Okinawa Goju is still similar to the original style.  Yamaguchi's Goju Kai is similar to Shotokan, different animal to make it more polpular and suitable for school children. Also these have developed for competition whereas the originals didn't.   :asian:


----------



## Never_A_Reflection (Feb 8, 2011)

If you are including Okinawan arts when you talk about Japanese arts then I have to agree with the use of kata as a blueprint for the style as being the primary consideration.  If you are sticking with just Japan then yes, going by the transition from feudal to modern would be the turning point.  I would not personally consider Kyokushin traditional by either definition simply because it was developed in the mid-20th century and, from what I have seen, kata is not considered the core of the art--sparring is.  That said, I do not train Kyokushin and have only worked out with a few Kyokushin practitioners, so my opinion is a bit biased simply because I don't know any different.


----------



## Brandon Fisher (Feb 8, 2011)

"Whether or not the kata have real purpose?" EXCELLENT!! That is what makes karate traditional or not. The Rengokai in Okinawa says 50 years of consistentcy makes a style traditional. I believe Kyokushin has 50 years in exsistence.


----------



## K-man (Feb 8, 2011)

Brandon Fisher said:


> *"Whether or not the kata have real purpose?"* EXCELLENT!! That is what makes karate traditional or not. The Rengokai in Okinawa says 50 years of consistentcy makes a style traditional. I believe Kyokushin has 50 years in exsistence.


Did I miss something? Why would you write "Whether or not the kata have real purpose?" 


*To be recognized by the Okinawan Prefecture Karate Rengokai as being a traditional karate system or style, certain criteria must be met. The system must have existed at least 50 years. In addition, it must have maintained it&#8217;s original forms as taught by the founder of the style, with no variations.* 


You must have forgotten the rest of the requirement.  The other element is that the system must have maintained its original forms as well. Oyama studied Shotokan for several years then swapped to Japanese Goju where he rose to 8th dan. But Yamaguchi changed the Goju kata and Japanese Goju is different to Okinawan Goju in other aspects as well. He introduced many kata and made four up himself including Garyu. 

You could call Kyokushin a traditional '_style_' as long as it is identical to the style taught by Oyama back in the 50s but since his death it could be argued legally that NONE of the Kyokushin schools are legitimate Kyokushin apart from the original Honbu, IKO. All other schools have broken away and many have changed things. 

So technically, by this definition, Kyokushin, if still practised with all of the kata from its inception could be 'traditional' but still would not be recognised by the Okinawan Rengokai as it is not Okinawan.

At present, there are only three recognized styles, Shorin-Ryu, Goju Ryu and Uechi-Ryu. 
Isshin Ryu is trying to achieve recognition. :asian:


----------



## Brandon Fisher (Feb 8, 2011)

Sorry K-Man..  No I didn't forget the rest of the requirement I was just in a rush early. Someone made a comment about kata having a real purpose vs. kata as a dance. That's what I was referencing.  Sorry for being vague. Gomenasai!!


----------



## Brandon Fisher (Feb 8, 2011)

K-Man,
Just a note about Isshinryu trying to gain that recognition of being a traditional style. I think Uechi Sensei who is working on that is really making a strong effort to make it happen I think it will be a very difficult task but after working out with Uechi Sensei and Shimabuku Sensei in Okinawa not being a Isshinryu stylist I can say I believe what Uechi Sensei is doing is what Tatsuo Shimabuku did.

I know a different topic for a different time.


----------



## Victor Smith (Feb 9, 2011)

Traditional depends on how you define it.

1.If you break karate into periods of creation using Joe Swift's rough guidelines:

 Classical      - pre 1900
 Traditional   - 1900-1950
 Modern post- 1950
 Current        - past 10 years

Systems like Kyoushin and Isshinryu clearly fall into the Modern Period
Systems like Shotokan, Shito-ryu, Goju ryu all fall into the Traditional Period
Systems of study like Hiagonna Kanryo's or Itosu's fall into the Classical Period.

While useful as a classification it is important to note each generation of instructor in each system will move the system to the needs of their students, the times and their own interests. There is no 'control to keep a system of study from changing. Also different dojo in the same system are likely divergent as well.

2. If you try and follow the Okinawan Rengokai of 50 years, all of those systems fall into that category. (sub note there is a Kyuoshin dojo on Okinawa) Okinawa of course likely follows standards that only considers those systems created on Okinawa. Isshinryu is a member of the Rengokai as a result of Uechi Sensei.  Of course as Uechi ryu didn't move to Okinawa (from Japan) until 1948 it's somewhat on the cusp of time too. This is just an outsider's opinion, likely one not held on Okinawa.

3. David Lowry's definition. Traditional is whatever your instructor tells you is traditional. Of course this is most correct too, especially following the past where things were not documented. If you have an instructor you respect, whatever your are told must be correct for you.

4. Traditional is anything that has been around for a while.

Take your pick.


----------



## Victor Smith (Feb 9, 2011)

Brandon,

Note it is on Okinawa Uechi Sensei is working to establish the presence of Isshinryu within the Rengokai as a member. Isshinryu exists in many forms and, likely as a totality, is larger than many other Okinawan systems. There is no  way to fully establish the current size of Isshinryu.

Whether the Okinawan Rengokai's efforts to police what is a traditional Okinawan system succeeds is of little merit.  I have a suspicion that the controling aspects of the Rengokai may not be the best answer for Okinawan karate in the long run. But I am not Okinawan, none of them are soliciting my opinion, nor am I soliciting theirs.

Isshinryu is and it is as valid as any other system.  Especially  when a vertical fist meets a jaw <GRIN>.


----------



## K-man (Feb 9, 2011)

Victor Smith said:


> Of course as Uechi ryu didn't move to Okinawa (from Japan) until 1948 it's somewhat on the cusp of time too.


You might argue that Kanbon Uechi was an Okinawan, who went to China in 1897 to avoid conscription and studied martial arts until about 1907. He established a school in China but supposedly one of his students used what he had learned to kill a neighbour, and Uechi returned to Okinawa in 1910. He didn't go to Japan until 1925. Initially on return to Okinawa he gave up teaching but at some stage obviously resumed because he taught his son Kanei Uechi and Ryuyu Tomoyose to a high level of competency. Kanei Uechi continued to teach in Okinawa after his father went to Japan so was Pangainun-ryu Todi-jutsu really Okinawan before it went to Japan? Uechi Ryu didn't really move from Japan to Okinawa in 1948. Kanbon Uechi died in 1948 and his son in Okinawa took over as head and continued to develop the style. The name, Uechi Ryu came about in 1940 but the style dates from sometime between 1910 and 1925, although you might say it started in China in 1907. :asian:


----------



## Victor Smith (Feb 9, 2011)

K-man,

You are very historically correct, I was shortening the story too much and regret any confusion, but it was only after the war the Ueichi became established on Okinawa.

Not to slight them, personally I consider Ueichi one of the most efficient Okinawan systems, especially the Okinawan seniors I've seen.

Makes the point descriptions of traditional are not terribly important. Power and effecient effective technique are more to the point.


----------



## Brandon Fisher (Feb 9, 2011)

Victor Smith said:


> Brandon,
> 
> Note it is on Okinawa Uechi Sensei is working to establish the presence of Isshinryu within the Rengokai as a member. Isshinryu exists in many forms and, likely as a totality, is larger than many other Okinawan systems. There is no way to fully establish the current size of Isshinryu.
> 
> ...


 
I agree 100% Isshinryu is incredibly large and almost everywhere if you look hard enough. In regards to its validity no doubt it is valid. A close friend of mine and now my kobudo sensei is a Isshinryu 6th Dan and she has shown my things that no one else ever had. While in Okinawa we obviously did a lot of Isshinryu since I was with her and someone who was a Isshinryu 4th dan asked me on the second day we were there "How long have you been training Isshinryu?" my response was last night was my first Isshinryu class.  But I have a great deal and respect for the art and its history.


----------

