Okinawan karate is practiced like Japanese Karate says Patrick McCarthy

maunakumu said:
I think it just goes to show that certain things ARE just lost. In a way, we all are working form interprettations.



Could you share more about this? I'd be curious to hear some more details.
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For starters, between the time he left Okinawa and wrote his first magazine article he magically gained 2 dan levels (from 4th to 6th I believe). This article was sent back to Okinawa. Secondly I have been told by numerous sources (one who travels to Okinawa once a year and one who teaches in Japan and regularly travels to Okinawa plus a few others) that his masters actually asked him to translate their work into english for them. He translated it, took it and sold it as the Bubishi. I'm given the nature of the texts there were no copyrights on them. Lets just say they are not very welcoming of him or friends of his.

Also if one doesn't know the interpretation one should just say so and not try and flog it off as the real deal. Given this fact who knows if what he writes/says is real or made up. I have probably attended 5 or 6 (maybe more, it was a while ago) McCarthy seminars and for a guy who supposedly has so much knowledge he sure repeats himself a lot.



Cheers
Sam:asian:
 
Here is a link to his website for those that want to read more details of his approach.

http://www.koryu-uchinadi.com/Myth_Busting.htm

Here is another link to Chokyu-gata (which is actually gekisai dai ichi/ni)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XSxBgv1pUeQ&feature=channel_page

A link in which he tells how he came about with chokyu-gata.
http://www.koryu-uchinadi.org/Aragaki_Seisan_&_Chokyu.pdf

It's an interesting theory, but no documentable proof of where the gekisai katas originated from other than the accepted story. I'm not saying that you can't do this, but it seems to be where his material came from. He looks at different sources and then reverse engineers it. But, then claims that it is the "authentic/original' way of doing things. It reminds me of "pankration" and what Arvantis did. He looked at historical documents, but then used modern systems to recreate the ancient lost style of the greeks. McCarthy looks like he has a good product that incorporates modern training with the older approach, I just don't think that it is all 'authentic' like he claims.
 
Mr. McCarthy trained with Richard Kim for several years until apparently they had a falling out or split for some reason. Then he became a student of Hiroshi Kinjo in Japan. He lived in Japan for several years. He traveled extensively studied, took notes, etc. I remember watching him compete in kata many years ago when I was a child and his kata then were very good. His dan certificates are from the Dai Nippon Butokukai. It is a rare thing for a caucasian to have such high dan ranking with the Butokukai. He has done his homework, perhaps embelishing a bit on some of the history, adding a bit to some of the kata. I do enjoy many of his books. I do not hold him as the end all of karate information however.
 
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,
 
Victor Smith said:
He isn't alone in his approach, simply because very few understand the core idea.
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OK, but Victor—what is the core idea you're alluding to? And why do people not understand it? This is something probably anyone reading your post will want to know... don't keep us hanging. :)
 
punisher73 said:
McCarthy looks like he has a good product
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Here is where it lies. It looks like A GOOD PRODUCT. He sells his bunkai and information of the habitual acts of physical violence. They're a product and he needs them to seem legit in order to sell them.

Also he doesn't have that many followers. He works off the same principles as the Kyusho guys. He may have 1 person in Australia, and 1 person in a few other countries so he can say he teaches all over the world when the reality is his reach is far smaller than we are led to believe.

Cheers
Sam:asian:
 
 
Victor Smith said:
Exlie (and I've never gotten used to responding to alias'),

Pressed for time getting ready for work this morning. I'll try and answer this for you this evening.

But for quick reading check out my blog -
http://isshin-concentration.blogspot.com/2008/11/furthering-bubishi-section-1.html
http://isshin-concentration.blogspot.com/2008/11/furthering-bubishi-section-2.html
http://isshin-concentration.blogspot.com/2008/11/furthering-bubishi-section-3.html
http://isshin-concentration.blogspot.com/2008/11/furthering-bubishi-section-4.html
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Thanks, Victor, and I'm very much looking forward to learning your take on that question.
 
dancingalone said:
Do they? My teacher, albeit a goju guy, rarely uses line training. Could you explain on what similarities you have observed?
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I visited a Goju-Ryu school in Kin-cho, Okinawa a few times in November 2006. The instructor's teacher was a student of Chojun Miyagi. I used a translator for the interview as the instructor didn't speak any English. Their school used the line training arrangement. I have the instructor's name and lineage back to Chojun Miyagi in my notes, if you are interested in names.

R. McLain
 
rmclain said:
I visited a Goju-Ryu school in Kin-cho, Okinawa a few times in November 2006. The instructor's teacher was a student of Chojun Miyagi. I used a translator for the interview as the instructor didn't speak any English. Their school used the line training arrangement. I have the instructor's name and lineage back to Chojun Miyagi in my notes, if you are interested in names.

R. McLain
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Sure, I'd be interested if only for idle curiosity. I suppose it depends on the size of the class you are teaching. My own teacher used more of a mentoring system where the class warmed up together, occasionally performing kihon in lines. Most of the session however was spent broken up into pairs or sets of three with Sensei and his senior students spending time with each group making adjustments or corrections.
 
Exile,

Reading what I wrote "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." I can understand your question about it.

I expressed myself less clearly than I would have wished.

I wasn't talking about a secret interpretation of the Bubishi.

I was trying to refer to the fact if the book was a literal translation of one of the original Bubishi texts, very few would see it's possible placement in Okinawan karate history. It would just be an English (or French or Japanese) translation of those notes.

As I see them most of the Bubishi presentations are trying to fill in a lot of gaps, not provide a character by character analysis.

My own observation is that it is literally impossible to have a sustained discussion about the Bubishi, Many have bought it, I assume thumbed through the pages and then placed it on their bookshelf. I've tried for 10 years to open discussion and have reluctantly understood almost nobody really feels willing to do so.

I have made a few very good friends on the issue, but there is no sustaining discussion that will come (and I've tried many times).

Either those who are seriously attempting to study and use it in their training won't discuss that openly, or nobody really does much with it, or even both of the above are possibilities too.

If you get a chance to see the new McCarthy Bubishi edition he goes into detail who he did work with about his translation, and it is a very comprehensive list. It is inaccurate to suggest he didn't do his homework.

But having translated a few books myself, I personally realize how difficult it is (even for a professional translator, and I know only a few in Martial literature as things stand.

The funny thing is this does not appear to be new. Funakoshi Ginchin incorporated specific Bubishi sections (in their original CHinese) his his first 3 books on Shotokan. Mabuni Kenwas incorporated a large section of the Bubishi in his 1934 text on Seipai kata too.

However these works are interpretated, they still remain quiet in the groups that do so.

Hope this helps,
 
OK, I see what you're getting at, at least a bit, Victor.

The problem with translation is that in a sense, you have to know essentially as much about the realities of the world that the work you're translating is located in as the author him/herself, in order to capture the intentions of the original text. Great translations are works of historical anthropology where the translators have immersed themselves completely in the cultural fabric of the material they're translating. Translation is really a kind of cultural commentary—every line involves a commitment to a particular view you have of how the author(s) saw the universe they were depicting—e.g., different views of what archaic Greek society was like will naturally give rise to radically divergent translation of the Iliad, for example.

That means you have to have an independent source of information about the society in which the work was produced, if you want the translation to be faithful. And as I understand it, the amount of contemporary documentation on the particular domain that the Bubishi is devoted to is... well, a closed book, so to speak. Every translation is a hypothesis about what the source text is really saying. And the problem is, there's almost no chance of finding confirming evidence in cases like this. I suppose that's why McCarthy, and all those others you cite, can make of the text what they will....
 
Exile,

I believe you are correct and in that sense a great Bubishi translation is likely impossible. And it may have been so for those older Okinawan instructors too. Especially as copies were handmade and generation after generation likely contained transcription errors.

I believe the more important quest is if we can try and see how the Bubishi influenced Okinawan karate development. It would be interesting to find out if the new Okinawan Karate encyclopedia contains reference.

I know the 'Big Uechi book' contained Bubishi material in it.
I've also received private information about how on group of seniors have been using it over the past 50 or so years, of course that's a contemorary time too.

It is extremely likely the source art(s) for the Bubishi have experienced the tidal flow of time and may no longer exist in that original form.

Interesting speculation.
 
Victor

When you say that having an extended conversation about the bubishi is impossible, are you referring to conversations about how people are incorporating the bubishi into training? What exactly are you trying to discuss about the bubishi?

mahalo

maunukumu
 
maunukumu,

Frankly I'm referring to discussions about the Bubishi in any context.

For over 10 years I've tried numerous times in numerous discussion groups to engage others to discuss the Bubishi, to no avail.

Whether about the mearning Funakoshi had to included Bubishi text in his books and it's import (or lack of) to his developing Shotkan, to discussion about why 1/2 of the Bubishi is focused on an art to heal and preserve life, to discussion about how the Bubishi may have influenced Itosu, Mabuni, Miyagi and other Okinawan Seniors arts, how any are trying to incoroporate the idea of the Bubishi's value into todays training.

It always seemed to me we've been presented with something by Funakoshi and Mabuni's efforts, that influenced McCarthy, Penland, Habsetzer and the Japanese translators to share this work.

But that's about as far as it goes. I've always found that curious too.

I'm not suggesting anyoe should incorporate the Bubishi into their programs, it's just a non-topic to talk about.

Those commentaries I posted on my blog I also shared on numverous discussion groups I've participated on for years. No discussion was the result.

I realize we're all occupied in our own training and/or teaching, but trying to figure out what might have influenced systems development in the past ought to provide some insight to what might influence our systems devleopment in the future.
 
Thank you Victor. Personally, I don't know if people know much about how it was traditionally applied anymore. Or if they do, it's as you say, they aren't going to talk about it. On the other hand, I am surprised that so little discussion has occurred on the topic of how it may be applied in a modern setting. I can see a lot of ways this "book" could be useful in the practice of my karate...including the healing aspects.
 
Fantastic! I'd love to dig into the specifics of curriculum with you. For starters, what caused the Okinawans to change their martial art so much, even among other Okinawans? Are there any extant traditional systems that are purely Okinawan?

Sent from my Eris using Tapatalk
 
 
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