Karate and Shortened lifespan?
- Thread starter miyagi
- Start date
I went further and chased up many articles. I think most of the fraud was mainland Japan, not Okinawa, but it is a mute point. The life expectancy in Okinawa is only about 2 years, from memory, more than mainland Japan. Also from memory, it was the number of centenarians in Okinawa that drew attention. So, I'm not convinced that a lot of karate practitioners in Okinawa did die much ahead of their time. :asian:
Happy-Papi
Green Belt
I don't know much about the karate since I'm not a real karate guy but since my son is doing karate and sometimes I teach at dojos other martial arts, I do meet lots of senior martial artists. Comparing senior karate guys to ordinary senior guys in the same age bracket, normally the karate guys would look more muscular, more fit, more genki (lively), and looks a lot younger. Most of the senior guys that I have met eats normally, drinks alcohol and smokes like a chimney (smoking is very common in Japan). They are no karate masters like the guys in this topic but they seem to be having a good long life.
Basing on this thread I talked to some senior karate guys on what they think. They said that probably life was tougher back then and medicine was still at an early stage that a common flu can kill, unlike now that even cancer can be cured. One commented that probably the old guys didn't have much stuffs to think about aside from economy, politics, war and martial arts. One commented that these days we have TV shows, computer games, MP3 and iPhone which helps in keeping them young and away from Alzheimer disease, lol. They both said that life expectancy in the older days were shorter compared to now because of industrialization, war and lack of food and said that these guys have actually have lived longer than normal people in their time. Again, I don't know much and I have talked with only a few senior Japanese karate guys around my area so please don't take my word seriously.
Basing on this thread I talked to some senior karate guys on what they think. They said that probably life was tougher back then and medicine was still at an early stage that a common flu can kill, unlike now that even cancer can be cured. One commented that probably the old guys didn't have much stuffs to think about aside from economy, politics, war and martial arts. One commented that these days we have TV shows, computer games, MP3 and iPhone which helps in keeping them young and away from Alzheimer disease, lol. They both said that life expectancy in the older days were shorter compared to now because of industrialization, war and lack of food and said that these guys have actually have lived longer than normal people in their time. Again, I don't know much and I have talked with only a few senior Japanese karate guys around my area so please don't take my word seriously.
Victor Smith
Blue Belt
When you consider Okinawa's people have the longest lifespans in the world, and consider the hardships of WWII had much to do contributing to the deaths of many aged instructors and the effects on survivors all such stories are suspect.
There are karate-ka who do sanchin and died younger. There are karate-ka who do sanchin who died in their 90's and as concrete a case can be made that their training contributed to their long lives.
What we can say is that people everywhere are catty about talking about others.
On Okinawa they feel that the instructors are best who live the longest, period.
And in the end it's really about how we live not how or how long, does it matter.
Living in Okinawa, eating the traditional Okinawan diet, eschewing hamburgers, likely do more for you living longer than other training issues,
Or so it seems to me..
There are karate-ka who do sanchin and died younger. There are karate-ka who do sanchin who died in their 90's and as concrete a case can be made that their training contributed to their long lives.
What we can say is that people everywhere are catty about talking about others.
On Okinawa they feel that the instructors are best who live the longest, period.
And in the end it's really about how we live not how or how long, does it matter.
Living in Okinawa, eating the traditional Okinawan diet, eschewing hamburgers, likely do more for you living longer than other training issues,
Or so it seems to me..
FullPotentialMA
White Belt
There are certainly things that, done to an excess, are bad for you.
One example would be excessive body conditioning / iron shirt. Especially if done incorrectly, in later age it can lead to osteoarthritis, and to compartment syndrome -- a very painful and debilitating condition.
Having a good instructor is important to avoiding those downsides.
One example would be excessive body conditioning / iron shirt. Especially if done incorrectly, in later age it can lead to osteoarthritis, and to compartment syndrome -- a very painful and debilitating condition.
Having a good instructor is important to avoiding those downsides.
I know not breathing causes health problems.
FullPotentialMA
White Belt
Unfortunately, not all that is "old" and "authentic" is good for you.
There several things that some old masters taught and that were plain bad for your health. In that category is drinking various potions. I would also put excessive body conditioning in that category. You still see karate martial artists today who are proud of their callous and swollen knuckles. It's fine and cool when you are young. At middle age, it leads to early osteoarthritis, and the very painful and debilitating "compartment syndrome".
There several things that some old masters taught and that were plain bad for your health. In that category is drinking various potions. I would also put excessive body conditioning in that category. You still see karate martial artists today who are proud of their callous and swollen knuckles. It's fine and cool when you are young. At middle age, it leads to early osteoarthritis, and the very painful and debilitating "compartment syndrome".
chinto
Senior Master
Goju Ryu practioners doing sanchin with full dynamic tension usually suffer from high blood pressure and some other things. this is a result of the practice of the dynamic tension raising the blood pressure and triggering the adrenal glands. the Okinawans have commented for over a century how the Goju instructors tend to die much younger often of aneurisms and strokes and things like that.
the correlation to early death is not there with Shorin Ryu styles to the best of my knowledge.
the correlation to early death is not there with Shorin Ryu styles to the best of my knowledge.
dancingalone
Grandmaster
I don't think there is a real link there. Most of the people who died 'early' that are mentioned in discussions like these are guys like Miyagi who suffered incredible privation during WWII. Or they're people from a different era where medical technology wasn't as advanced and drinking and smoking to excess was common.
We should look at the lifespan of current Goju-ryu practitioners and compare them to other karate-ka, though inevitably we run into that sampling size problem since the numbers of high level karate-ka that can be tracked are miniscule. Anecdotally, Miyazato Eiichi the founder of my lineage died in 1999 at age 77. That's certainly not an early age to die at.
donald1
Senior Master
I can't say why the shortened lifespan because I never lived in that time period but if it is true it could have been from internal bleeding... Just a guess but possible
dancingalone
Grandmaster
You've been watching too many movies, man.
donald1
Senior Master
Nope, I don't watch movies, just a guess(I'm going to ask my instructor this question i bet he knows)
Dirty Dog, I work in the healthcare industry and would advise you to understand statistics (and probably read the book) before making such statements - the data is normalized by being compared against such variables given the normal population comparison (the book actually gives an intro on this topic and these variables from the University involvement it had). . The statistics used the same industry and research standards that are used by life insurance agencies, national health bodies, medical university studies etc. So I don't really understand why they are being questioned as an approach backed up by the appropriate statistics. The 118 masters of karate broken down in the stats is not a small number compared to many patient group studies when being compared to the larger population lifespan data via what is called life expectancy at birth prediction tables and life at death prediction tables etc.
Karate of course is not the only sport that appears to reduce lifespan and the book talks about some others - other studies like this one also tease out the variables around diet, region, occupation, training types, psychology and the list goes on. As the book states in one part, people have to be aware of the difference in exercise in regards to whether we are training for health, fitness or enjoyment as they are all different things (and the government health bodies recognize this).
Well I just ran a few figures. I picked 23 well know karate figures who have either started styles or been the senior students of those men. They died at ages ranging between 62 and 90. Their average age at death was 77. The year they died averaged was 1963. (I only picked the best known guys because I don't have access to huge numbers, but my 23 include all the guys that you normally read about.
In Okinawa in 1963 the average life expectancy was between 72 and 73. http://www.okicent.org
In most cultures there is a difference of two or three years between male and female so let's say the average age of death for males in 1963 was 70. By my back of envelope figuring these guys did better than the average by 10% or 7 years. In actual fact only 5 of the 23 died before age 70.
As has been attributed to Mark Twain .. "Lies, damned lies and statistics".
I'm with Dirty Dog on this one.
(BTW .. I also worked in the healthcare industry all my working life. That doesn't change the fact that these figures are open to question at the very least.)
:asian:
I'm with Dirty Dog and K-Man on this one!
I will say though that excessive body conditioning as cool as it is when you are younger may not be so cool when you are older. Just sayin......
I will say though that excessive body conditioning as cool as it is when you are younger may not be so cool when you are older. Just sayin......
Tgace
Grandmaster
I don't believe the average American Karate practitioner has much to worry about, but extreme body conditioning practices and a lifetime of head blows can't be good for you. Martial Arts are not singular in this. Look at what is happening to older boxers and football players in our society.
Well I just ran a few figures. I picked 23 well know karate figures who have either started styles or been the senior students of those men. They died at ages ranging between 62 and 90. Their average age at death was 77. The year they died averaged was 1963. (I only picked the best known guys because I don't have access to huge numbers, but my 23 include all the guys that you normally read about.
In Okinawa in 1963 the average life expectancy was between 72 and 73. http://www.okicent.org
In most cultures there is a difference of two or three years between male and female so let's say the average age of death for males in 1963 was 70. By my back of envelope figuring these guys did better than the average by 10% or 7 years. In actual fact only 5 of the 23 died before age 70.
As has been attributed to Mark Twain .. "Lies, damned lies and statistics".
I'm with Dirty Dog on this one.
(BTW .. I also worked in the healthcare industry all my working life. That doesn't change the fact that these figures are open to question at the very least.)
:asian:
I guess it obvious this quoter and the last few have not read the book... The stats in the study support your statement above, it is a style based finding more aimed at Japanese mainland and Western lifespans - the effects in Okinawa were intriguing in a few different ways. And the data has no one way to broadly sum it up without getting specific - it simply is more complex than that - hence the 200+ citations used to formulate the hypotheses.
Also the gist of much of this thread over focuses on Sanchin's breathing - sanchin is merely one chapter in the book and there it focuses on the fact there are 2 more common variants of sanchin across karate, one which touts a heavy health focus (which, according to the data, seems to not be harmful or helpful (look at Miyagi's and Mabuni's [2 of perhaps the most famous regular sanchin practising masters] low ages of death as two examples - but again be careful about singling out individuals without factoring sparring practices and other things... This is backed up by recent medical studies cited in the book on breathing in stress and health therapy & yoga etc). The other version of sanchin kata, which is a theme in a few styles, does not focus on health but instead budo, & the core of that version is also broken down and physiologically analysed.
So the speculation going on here re the contents of the book is very unspecific due to lack of research/reading by the posters....
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OK, I confess .. I haven't read the book and I have no intention of buying the book. What I did do was find the book on Amazon and read as much as was available. The book creates as many questions as it answers. The author works for Amgen, a drug company that produces an anti inflammatory drug. It also gives research grants. Not to take away from the content of the research but did the company contribute financially to the work?
I'll mention Sanchin kata as it is mentioned in the above post. The book talks about Sanchin as a number of variants but in the post it points out that Miyagi was one of the guys who died relatively early. Kanryo Higaonna, who was one of those who brought Sanchin to Okinawa from China, also died early at 62. Kanbun Uechi, the other to bring Sanchin back to Okinawa also died relatively early at 71. Yet they practised totally different variations of Sanchin and at greatly different levels of physical intensity. Gogen Yamaguchi practised an even more intense version of Sanchin and lived to 80. On those thoughts you could argue that the harder you practised Sanchin, the longer you live. However, Sanchin is an internal kata as the book points out and most people don't practise it with that in mind.
The information in the book linking inflammatory conditions to chronic disease states is interesting but nothing much seems to have come of that research in recent times. The demise of Vioxx and questions about Celebrex may have dampened the enthusiasm for research there. As to taking anti inflamatories on a regular basis? Not this little duck. The potential for side effects are way too high for me. But back to chronic inflammatory conditions. Sure, most of us that have been around for a while are carrying multiple injuries. But what of professional footballers? They have far more injuries than the average karateka. Same could probably be said for mountain bikers, and one the biggest causes of injury and death is horse riding, or perhaps not riding as head hits ground. Does kumite play a part? Sport based styles are far more likely to cop injury than the traditional styles that don't spar. So why would it be the case that Okinawan Goju which doesn't spar would be worse than so many others that do?
Please don't be so quick to criticise those of us posting. A book is just one person's opinion. I could well be convinced but nothing I have seen so far suggests to me that training a TMA is likely to reduce my lifespan. By the same token, I don't expect it to increase my lifespan either. What I do expect is for it to produce a higher quality of life for the time I continue to train.
:asian:
Good points k-man.
IMO, no one dies from breathing since it's been said that "life is in the breath". But, inappropriate breathing techniques can lead to all kinds of complications.
