hoshin1600
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ok that is a kindergarten level description. can you try again?
ok.. adding to Kempodisciples comment...your definition then, boxing has grappling.
would you then say that if i grab someones shoulder or behind the head while punching them repeatedly in the face that because i have seized them, that i am doing grappling?
if that is your definition then yes everything has grappling. but that definition would be your own and not common nomenclature.
the error in your thesis is that you are making the presumption that martial arts are an actual "thing". we do often talk like this but it is an error in ones critical thinking. martial arts or karate in this case, is not an inanimate object that can contain something. karate is a practice that allows the practitioner to acquire a set of skills. in actuality it is the skills that is the thing not the art.
your presumption that karate can contain something is in direct contradiction to the idea of evolution within the practice. the Chinese had in ancient times Jiao Di.
The earliest Chinese term for wrestling, "jǐao dǐ" (角抵, horn butting), refers to an ancient sport in which contestants wore horned headgear with which they attempted to butt their opponents.
Shuai jiao - Wikipedia
it can be assumed that other arts that arrived after this also were influenced by Jiao Di and may have possibly been derived from it. but over time as one style gave way to the next, if these techniques were not taught and practiced then it cannot be said that they also are Jiao Di. they have their own name and their own identity.
as an example... it is thought that the nunchucku was derived from a horses bridle. i would challenge anyone to bridle a hose with a nunchuck.
also by your premise.. if i were to sit in a race car and drive it around town going grocery shopping that i am the equivalent of a race car driver. this is of course ridiculous. just by driving to the store does not give me the skills to be a race car driver.
the problem comes back to the fact that karate is a practice. if you practice punching you are a puncher. without actively engaging in grappling you are not learning grappling thus not acquiring the skills of a grappler.
now the basis of your idea (all though most likely taken from writings of Ian Abernathy) is kata. What do the movements mean? Is there bunkai to suggest that the kata included grappling. this brings me back to the definition of grappling. without defining the word we can not come to any agreement on the subject.
we would also have to take into consideration the diversity of karate and its genealogy of lineage. where many styles of Okinawan karate have a lineage to Sokon Matsumura other styles are relatively new like Goju-ryu and some are uninfluenced by older Okinawan culture and practices like Uechi-Ryu. then there is Japanese karate which has its own spider web of genealogy.
the genealogy is important if you are going to dissect kata. what Abernathy is trying to do is reverse engineer meaning into the kata. while it can be a useful learning tool it is a mistake to make any conclusion on the history of kata and how the practitioners of the past understood the kata. the reason being that kata changes over time. any one kata has several versions to it and due to our current limited historical knowledge and documentation of the kata we cannot know how the kata was actually done in the past. just one generation of teacher to student has a significant impact on the performance of kata.
ok back to the thesis of grappling in kata. it may be true that Matsumura had studied Tegumi (i dont know if he did but lets assume for the sake of the conversation) and being a Pechin and official of the kingdom could be assumed he knew grappling. but we do not know where his kata originated. some suggest the kata were of his own creation others say they were past to him intact from the Chinese that he encountered. if we take the idea of the kata being of his own creation then he may have included some grappling into his kata but we do know for a fact that for the past few generations grappling bunkai was not shown. we can then assume that either it was not present or that the understanding was lost. if it was lost ,we can then conclude that the kata would have changed over time to coincide with the understanding of the practitioner. thus present day kata would not include grappling.
on the other side of the problem if the forms were of Chinese origin then we are going further into the abyss of the unknown. all i can say on this is that the Chinese to my knowledge called this art a form of boxing not Jiao Di.
many southern kung fu styles had a heavy influence of Qin na, seizing and controlling. while it may not be prominent in todays Uechi ryu doing a genealogy comparative study you can identify the common actions and see the Qin na. however seizing a wrist and/or elbow is a different classification than grappling. Shuai Jiao (jacket wrestling) is predominantly a throwing art like judo. these actions are not practiced in Uechi ryu.
as to weapons, it is known that Kanbun Uechi did learn weapons in China as well as healing herbs. but these weapons were not taught to the next generation. Thus Uechi ryu as a style of karate does not include weapons or herbal medicine.
i would also make that same assumption about Goju ryu. Kanryo Higaonna went to China and if he did learn weapons he did not teach it to Miyagi or anyone else. so no weapons there either.
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