We cannot go back there anymore....

I often wonder about the circumstances that gave rise to the arts that comprise today’s Karate, and I know many others do too. Regardless of how hard we work we can’t go back to those days, the time the place does not exist anymore.

Trying to peer through Hokama’s “Timeline of Karate History” it seems the roots go back well before 1800, though the practitioners in the 1800-1900 time frame worked hard to change their art and draw upon Chinese sources in their efforts too. It will be interesting to find out if the recently published Okinawan Karate and Kobudo Encyclopedia adds more to what is available.

I believe we can make some clear assumptions about those times.

There does not appear to have been a society need for a defensive art. Okinawa seems to have been a quiet place not prone to street violence requiring guardians.

It seems to have been a private practice, perhaps for family members, friends and neighbors.

Those arts didn’t develop an extensive technical vocabulary. There was little need, it may have well have been taught on just a one to one basis as the oral history suggests. The key would be in imprinting performance instructor to student. The practice of applications solely on the direction of the instructor.

Karate was not unknown to the public. Martial festival performances have been recorded in the 1860’s. Funakoshi Ginchin contributed an article on the history of karate to the local newspaper in 1902. It’s just prior to 1905 it was not available for any sort of public consumption.

The students had to live in a walking distance from their instructor. They would have had to be able to walk there and home after training to participate in their family and work lives. Perhaps some resettled but there is nothing mentioned about such personal details.

The instructors and students would have been participating members in a very different society than most of us experience today. Even today you can see some of that by following OkinawaBBTV.com how the Okinawan festivals and traditions still consume a part of Okinawan lives. They would see the Chineese groups pubic performances. There would be the town vs town rope pulling contests, the local sumo competitions and many other social functions.

With no documentation on karate, you would have followed the Oral history shared by your instructor, and perhaps from other acquaintenaces.

We have no real idea why those individuals choose to train in most cases. No idea of how many quit, switched to other instructors, how many were forced out for various reasons, no idea how successful the training was, unless we just consider if those arts were passed along, or more correctly a wave front of those arts passages.

We don’t eat what the Okinawan ate.
We don’t walk in the dark to and from our instructors.
We don’t strip off our outer clothes to train.
On the whole we don’t practice in private locations.
We can not talk about our art because there is no vocabulary to share our studies.

We really cannot go back there, except in our imagination.

But from that unknowable past an incredible future was created and continues on its way.