why Karate (Oriental Martial arts)?

[Xue Sheng]

It seems to me that many countries (ethnicities?) ha a traditional self defense martial art. France has Savate. Here is a link to more List of 180+ Martial Arts Styles - Black Belt Wiki.

It also seems to me that the family of unarmed martial arts that started in India mover to China moved to Okinawa and then Japan and eventually the world which I will collectively refer to as "family of Karate" has spread more widely than most of the others on the above list.

Why has the one group been so successful at expanding world wide, While the others on the list are mostly localized? Or am I way off base on my understanding of the unarmed self defense world?

Thanks.

Not everything you see calling itself Karate, is karate. It is just a label most people understand and gets more people to go to Your school. Same with schools saying kung fu, they all are not King Fu. There is a silat school near me calling itself karate

 

[Same Trick]

I believe that is a big factor in the spread of Asian Martial arts. But we have had troops spread all over the world in many other countries for a long time where other ethnic martial arts exist but has not had the same result.

Jesuit missions to Japan goes back to the 1500’ish, so sure Japan things probably came in fashion early on in Europe
Then also of course came the various european east India companies and made the East even more accessible. So yes plenty of time for the west turning Japanese.
The Karate craze, I believe one big reason was that the JKA early on after the war sending instructors out in the world with mission to set up schools and spread the Karate gospel primarily in Europe but also to the Americas and elsewhere

 

[Gyakuto]

Jesuit missions to Japan goes back to the 1500’ish, so sure Japan things probably came in fashion early on in Europe

That era was more about stealthily bringing back wealth from Japan rather than culture; silk, gold silver, tempura batter and converting the natives to Christianity. I’m reading a great book about this era. It’s very dense with detail but just brilliant; highly recommended. Concurrently I’m reading another book that compliments it perfectly, The Battle of Sekigahara by Chris Glenn. Please do check them out.

The Karate craze, I believe one big reason was that the JKA early on after the war sending instructors out in the world with mission to set up schools and spread the Karate gospel primarily in Europe but also to the Americas and elsewhere

That’s a good point although that was more late 50s/early 60s…quite late.

I know _Simon_ was being humorously flippant with his early comment, but I do wonder if there was a germ of truth in what he said; Karate looked very cool compared to other fighting arts Westerners had come across and that was exotically attractive to them. It took Bruce Lee, well into the latter quarter of the 20th century, to make Chinese arts look even cooler albeit with a hybridisation of many arts including some Western ones.

Just a thought…

 

[skribs]

I think there's a few reasons:

1. Karate and Taekwondo are (or at least were) integrated into the schools in Japan and Korea. This was their PE program. Compare this to say wrestling in America which is an elective sport.
2. I'm not aware of sports like Kung Fu, Karate, or Taekwondo that are heavily forms-based outside of the East Asian martial arts. There's a lot of overlap between American kickboxing and French Savate, so why would Savate catch on? But there isn't anything like Karate from America, so it makes sense it would come here.
3. Expanding on points #1 and #2, East Asian arts tend to include a lot of the Do or the Way of Life in addition to the martial training itself. These arts are popular for parents to enroll their children, because the parents want their children to build self-confidence, discipline, respect, and other positive character traits. These are encouraged through other arts, but not to the degree that they are in Karate or Taekwondo.

For what it's worth, I've formally trained Taekwondo, Hapkido, wrestling, Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, Muay Thai, and MMA. I've coached extensively in TKD, and coached the kids classes in BJJ for over a year now. I've also worked with kids in Muay Thai and taken on the role of the senior student helping the newer students in HKD and MMA.

I've seen the differences in how the Do is applied in traditional arts vs. combat sports. There's a reason I want to open a TKD school instead of a BJJ gym.

 

[Gyakuto]

I think there's a few reasons:

1. Karate and Taekwondo are (or at least were) integrated into the schools in Japan and Korea. This was their PE program. Compare this to say wrestling in America which is an elective sport.

I don’t think Karate was part of the school curriculum in any large part. Kendo, yes, but Karate? Of course that was in Japan not in the West.

1. I'm not aware of sports like Kung Fu, Karate, or Taekwondo that are heavily forms-based outside of the East Asian martial arts. There's a lot of overlap between American kickboxing and French Savate, so why would Savate catch on? But there isn't anything like Karate from America, so it makes sense it would come here.

It seems that Japanese Karate incorporated kicking techniques from Savate

I've seen the differences in how the Do is applied in traditional arts vs. combat sports. There's a reason I want to open a TKD school instead of a BJJ gym.

That’s interesting because I’ve never observed this on a dojo-wide scale. There may be individuals who follow the idea of ‘Do’ but the many Karate dojo I’ve witnessed are about self-defence and sports. In your experience, how does this manifest?