Just watched the
annual ESPN telecast of the ISKA World Karate Championships.
Once again I saw
nothing resembling the karate I studied and loved.
But the idea of
it takes my mind back to the beginning.
Before Karate
when the art was Ti or some other name.
When the art(s)
incorporated practices no longer studied, develop to meet conditions of their
world. When you could not chose to study Ti, you had to be recommended, be a member of the proper
class of people. As to how young you were, how much you practiced as an adult,
when one became an instructor. All these things are unknown, a distant past.
There was one
rule, for the instructor there were no rules. Their charge to prepare their
students for the current conditions allowed them to alter training and the art
as they saw necessary. And their’s was a small community on a rather
insignificant island after all, so seniors probably shared some ideas at times.
Then one
instructor, Itosu Sensei, pushed a different idea, a portion of Ti, could be
usefully used to train the young in school. Things changed and a result changes
were felt across the karate world, small as it be.
Then more change
and Karate of a sort was exported to Japan (and other locations around the
world) and a new karate took hold. Students were told not to change the kata,
where the instructors changed things as they saw fit.
A great war
happened. Japan lost and Okinawa and Japan were occupied. Some instructors were
able to fimd a living by training foreign students (occupying military) and
the 2nd karate exporia began.
Those short term
students returned home, and no one told them that one needed 20+ years of
training, not knowing better they recast what they understood to become a new
karate tradition.
The rest of the
world noticed and began going to Japan and Okinawa. Karate organizations began
exporting instructors around the world.
New traditions
arose. New groups and new ideas of what karate could be.
Each
organization put their own imprint of what was karate, and as there were no
rules, each of those different imprints often held true.
Japanese karate
got the idea world wide competition would be the future. And worked toward that
end. Other groups around the world, with slightly different ideas followed
suite.
Then some got
the idea to incorporate gymnastics and stunts into their version of the art.
The Chinese
development of modern Wushu competition added another twist. Then even
influenced Koreans in how they presented their own TKD>
Everything fed
off of each other. As well as groups that held to their original training.
Okinawa noticed
everyone else was controlling the picture, so the changed and got many of their
instructors to follow suit. They pushed their own version of World Championships.
And they also
followed world wide change and got their kids into the act. No doubt their own
flavor of what appropriate karate could be. Some aligned with them and their changes.
Some did not.
And today we
have a continual ‘war’ between everyone as to what karate is. Each group
claiming their stake in the outcome.
So ISKA
sponsors, instructors of ISKA karate, announcers proclaiming how traditional
they are, as they flip and stunt their way through group kama or bo forms,
becomes the norm.
And it remains a
brave new world, where the old rule, that there are no rules, continues to
describe reality.
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