Going back to the original statement about Okinawan karate is practiced like Japanese karate, that is a given on some levels.
Today Okinawan karate wears uniforms, uses belts, contians organizations none of which were hallmarks of pre WWII Okinawan karate.
The changes had a lot to do with the war. The efficiency of the fighting destroyed over 1/3 of the Okinawan population. Many of the seinors who might have controled the direction of karate post WWII were no longer alive. The Okinawans saw clearly the American conquerors were returning Okinawa to Japanese control in 1972, and when the Japanese organizations started lobbying in the 50's for Japanese style practices the Okinawans saw the handwriting on the wall and started adopting Japanese style practices (not to mean they changed their training to what the Japanese were doing).
Prior to the experiment of exporting Karate to Japan, karate used a non-literate form of oral transmission of thier art. Then in the 20's and 30's Funakoshi, Mabuni, Motobu, support from Nakasone and others combined to document the Okinawa arts (in small part) beginning a trend that would grow after WWII.
Then in the 50's the 2nd wave of export began training the occupying troops and allowing the Okinawan arts to spread world wide.
In 1972 when Japan regained control of Okinawa the study of karate dropped to almost non-existant. The Japanese started pouring money into the Islands and full employment (Japanese style) caused traning to drastically drop. In the 80's the Okinawans started teaching youth in numbers and as I understand it 75% of the current Okinawan karate population is youth.
View
www.OkinawaBBTV,com for a few years and get a feel for what is happening on Okinawa. They're into all the trends the rest of the world follows, including Kyokushinkai (a Japanese system) is also taught on Okinawa.
I'm not inditing anything, just suggesting Okinawa works under the same pressure the rest of world does too.
Yet there are still pure Okinawan systems, with Japanese trimmings too.
There are no simple answers for such simple questions.
I've never met Patrick McCarthy, I don't train in his system, but I have suported his reasearch, have translated a few books from the French for his purposes and contributed to his latest edition on the Bubishi.
Patrick has detractors everywhere, he also has plenty of supporters everywhere too, including Okinawa. His latest Bubishi edition goes into great detail who on Okinawa has supported his research.
No his 'translations' are not 100% pure ones. But then none of the Japanese Bubishi translations ( for example) are 100% pure ones either.
There really is no financial incentive to produce 100% pure translations for the geeks such as myself who would prefer to do so.
He correctly writes for a larger audience to share information to help them understand what he is offering.
You can like or dislike that, but that is what others have done too.
The Japanese and French works on the Bubishi do exactly the same. He isn't alone in his approach, simply because very few understand the core idea.
He has by his efforts made translations of the Bubishi, Funakoshi, Motobu, Nagamine and others available.
If you want to take issue about translations I suggest you find your own sources, learn the languages involved and show exacly how you can do it better. Having translated a small bit myself I know how difficult it is and I've discussed this with an editor in Martial Publications (not for myself but to understand what actually goes into professional publications), and the standard is that what is written is re-written into the new language for maximum sense (according to the author/editor/etc).
I cannot speak for McCarthy's sensei's meanings in what he's written or spoken, I can only offer my own impression. I suggest he has offered great value in his efforts.
BTW the Okinawan's have completed their own Encyclopedia of Okinawan Karate (English translations not on the horizon), and without doubt when it's translation becomes available (by whoever is so honnored to translate it), I expect there will be a lot of everyone's bubbles burst as the Okinawan's give their own answere (and there will be discenting opinions even on Okinawa too).
pleasantly,
