Smithsonian Magazine: History of Karate (and a bonus)

[Bill Mattocks]

Read this article today, found it interesting.

The Centuries-Old Sport of Karate Finally Gets Its Due at the Olympics

With the games set for Japan, the martial art will at last debut at next month's competition

www.smithsonianmag.com

I also found this section very interesting and quite in line with another forum discussion here on MT at the moment:

“Okinawan karate has never been about beating your opponent or winning victory,” says Miguel Da Luz, an official at the Okinawa Karate Information Center, which opened in 2017 to promote the local origins of the art. “It focuses on personal development and improvement of character. This reflects the personality of the Okinawan people. The island mentality has always been about being diplomatic rather than aggressive to resolve disputes.”

How interesting!

 

[isshinryuronin]

Read this article today, found it interesting.

The Centuries-Old Sport of Karate Finally Gets Its Due at the Olympics

With the games set for Japan, the martial art will at last debut at next month's competition

www.smithsonianmag.com

article today, found it interesting.

Pretty thorough and informative for a general audience fluff piece. A couple of things, though, brought a smile to my face. The first was a quote, "Until 1990's, tournaments had virtually no rules." That's news to the many thousands of competitors who fought in the 1960's, 70's and 80's. I fought in the late 60's to mid 70's, and while it was pretty rough on occasion, there were definitely rules like no eyes, throat, or joint strikes. There were also rules about excessive contact, but the meaning of "excessive" seemed to refer to only excessive blood or KO's.

The other humorous statement was, "Okinawan karate has never been about beating your opponent." Now, I understand the piece had the agenda to support the upcominabsolug Olympics and their ideals, and not to offend the readership's tender sensibilities, but this is of course inaccurate. There were moral and ethical principles instilled, but "beating the opponent" was the MAIN idea.

It will be interesting to see the effect Olympic karate has on the MA world and business. To its credit, the article did broach the subject of if Olympic rules will further dilute or sterilize the art in the name of competitive and TV spectator expediency. Time will tell.

 

[Bill Mattocks]

Pretty thorough and informative for a general audience fluff piece. A couple of things, though, brought a smile to my face. The first was a quote, "Until 1990's, tournaments had virtually no rules." That's news to the many thousands of competitors who fought in the 1960's, 70's and 80's. I fought in the late 60's to mid 70's, and while it was pretty rough on occasion, there were definitely rules like no eyes, throat, or joint strikes. There were also rules about excessive contact, but the meaning of "excessive" seemed to refer to only excessive blood or KO's.

I wasn't studying karate at that time, so of course I defer to you on that. I have heard elders in my dojo talk about the full contact tournaments of the 1980s, but I wasn't there, can't say.

The other humorous statement was, "Okinawan karate has never been about beating your opponent." Now, I understand the piece had the agenda to support the upcominabsolug Olympics and their ideals, and not to offend the readership's tender sensibilities, but this is of course inaccurate. There were moral and ethical principles instilled, but "beating the opponent" was the MAIN idea.

I'll parse their language a bit and say that it wasn't about beating the opponent in the sense of competition because original Okinawan karate wasn't about competition; but it certainly was about self-defense, which is basically the same thing. So you are correct again.

I was actually pleased, however, to see the author's comments about karate being for self-development and improvement of character.

I'm not even sure that's true of Okinawan karate as much as it is about Japanese karate when it became a 'do' as in karatedo, but I do not know the history enough to know when this introspective look at the elements of karate began, in Okinawa or in Japan.

I know that there has always been some spirited discussion about karate as jutsu versus karate as do. One might say baseball has no inner life; hit the ball, catch the ball, throw the ball. Everything is what it appears to be on the surface. One might say that meditation has no outer life. Thinking about anything or nothing is a formless activity that cannot be seen from the outside, scored, graded, or otherwise tested. What is karate? Certainly it has an outward purpose, and most of us who train karate train those things. Self defense; hitting, kicking, blocking, etc. And yet, to some of us, there is more to it than just that. This is something the author at least touched on in his article, and I appreciated reading it.

It will be interesting to see the effect Olympic karate has on the MA world and business. To its credit, the article did broach the subject of if Olympic rules will further dilute or sterilize the art in the name of competitive and TV spectator expediency. Time will tell.

Agreed. I find it less interesting to me, probably because I don't really care what the world does with karate, only what I do with karate. I doubt very much that I'll ever find myself changing dojos or schools, etc. If 99% of all karate schools began to teach a sport-based or olympic-style karate for competition, I'm fine with it, since it doesn't affect me. But I do agree that it is interesting to see how the world takes karate post-olympics and during the era of the striking and grappling arts spectacle that is MMA and it's ilk.

 

[punisher73]

Pretty thorough and informative for a general audience fluff piece. A couple of things, though, brought a smile to my face. The first was a quote, "Until 1990's, tournaments had virtually no rules." That's news to the many thousands of competitors who fought in the 1960's, 70's and 80's. I fought in the late 60's to mid 70's, and while it was pretty rough on occasion, there were definitely rules like no eyes, throat, or joint strikes. There were also rules about excessive contact, but the meaning of "excessive" seemed to refer to only excessive blood or KO's.

The other humorous statement was, "Okinawan karate has never been about beating your opponent." Now, I understand the piece had the agenda to support the upcominabsolug Olympics and their ideals, and not to offend the readership's tender sensibilities, but this is of course inaccurate. There were moral and ethical principles instilled, but "beating the opponent" was the MAIN idea.

It will be interesting to see the effect Olympic karate has on the MA world and business. To its credit, the article did broach the subject of if Olympic rules will further dilute or sterilize the art in the name of competitive and TV spectator expediency. Time will tell.

Bill touched on it a little bit, but thought I would elaborate on my feelings. "Beating the opponent" was NOT the main idea of Okinawan karate. This terminology implies competition with a winner and a loser. These again are sports terms. The point of Okinawan karate was based on civilian self-defense (it was not designed for use on the battlefield). The aim was to protect yourself or others and get home safely.

I will give a real life example to illustrate. Former student was at college and in one of the many academic buildings after hours working on stuff. While attempting to leave an assailant (stranger, not an acquaintance) tried to pull her into a bathroom with the intent to rape her. She was able to use her training and get away from the person. She suffered some bruising and a black eye from the struggle. Her goal was to get away, it was not to "beat the opponent", which she did. Even the word "opponent" refers to a sporting contest. I bring this up because there were some people that thought because she got a black eye and "knew karate" that she "lost". They didn't understand the context outside of a sporting context.

I know it sounds like semantics, but the use of the word "opponent" carries with it a certain psychological element that implies a fair contest. Dr. Ron Chapel has an approach that he calls the "Psychology of Conflict", in it the type of attack is looked at to get inside the other person's mind. One of his big things is to always call the other person the "attacker" because that is what they are doing, they are not an opponent.

 

[Flying Crane]

Bill touched on it a little bit, but thought I would elaborate on my feelings. "Beating the opponent" was NOT the main idea of Okinawan karate. This terminology implies competition with a winner and a loser. These again are sports terms. The point of Okinawan karate was based on civilian self-defense (it was not designed for use on the battlefield). The aim was to protect yourself or others and get home safely.

I will give a real life example to illustrate. Former student was at college and in one of the many academic buildings after hours working on stuff. While attempting to leave an assailant (stranger, not an acquaintance) tried to pull her into a bathroom with the intent to rape her. She was able to use her training and get away from the person. She suffered some bruising and a black eye from the struggle. Her goal was to get away, it was not to "beat the opponent", which she did. Even the word "opponent" refers to a sporting contest. I bring this up because there were some people that thought because she got a black eye and "knew karate" that she "lost". They didn't understand the context outside of a sporting context.

I know it sounds like semantics, but the use of the word "opponent" carries with it a certain psychological element that implies a fair contest. Dr. Ron Chapel has an approach that he calls the "Psychology of Conflict", in it the type of attack is looked at to get inside the other person's mind. One of his big things is to always call the other person the "attacker" because that is what they are doing, they are not an opponent.

I like the term “enemy”.

 

[isshinryuronin]

"Beating the opponent" was NOT the main idea of Okinawan karate. This terminology implies competition with a winner and a loser. These again are sports terms.

I know it sounds like semantics, but the use of the word "opponent" carries with it a certain psychological element that implies a fair contest

I apologize for not making myself clear. By my use of "beating the opponent" I was NOT referring to a sporting competition. I was responding to the article's quote, "Okinawan karate has never been about beating the opponent." Sport karate was not really a thing till around 1930. Prior to that, "beating the opponent" meant defeating an actual attacker and was the main idea.

If the quote used the word "currently" instead of "never," I would have phrased my response a little differently. I agree that in the context of altruistic MA training, following the do, "beating the opponent" is not the goal, though much of my training now is geared to jutsu, beating an actual attacker meaning me harm.

Semantically, I was not (and still aren't) aware of the connotation that "opponent" specifically implied competition. Hope this clarifies my post.

 

[TSDTexan]

Bill touched on it a little bit, but thought I would elaborate on my feelings. "Beating the opponent" was NOT the main idea of Okinawan karate. This terminology implies competition with a winner and a loser. These again are sports terms. The point of Okinawan karate was based on civilian self-defense (it was not designed for use on the battlefield). The aim was to protect yourself or others and get home safely.

I will give a real life example to illustrate. Former student was at college and in one of the many academic buildings after hours working on stuff. While attempting to leave an assailant (stranger, not an acquaintance) tried to pull her into a bathroom with the intent to rape her. She was able to use her training and get away from the person. She suffered some bruising and a black eye from the struggle. Her goal was to get away, it was not to "beat the opponent", which she did. Even the word "opponent" refers to a sporting contest. I bring this up because there were some people that thought because she got a black eye and "knew karate" that she "lost". They didn't understand the context outside of a sporting context.

I know it sounds like semantics, but the use of the word "opponent" carries with it a certain psychological element that implies a fair contest. Dr. Ron Chapel has an approach that he calls the "Psychology of Conflict", in it the type of attack is looked at to get inside the other person's mind. One of his big things is to always call the other person the "attacker" because that is what they are doing, they are not an opponent.

This post is so on point. (Insert Chef's kiss)
Mmhh. So-so good.