Future Shock and Karate

 

It just occurred to me that while we often reflect on karate’s origins on our present efforts there is almost nothing said about what the future might bring.

 

Of course that is reasonable for none of us can see the future.

 

Perhaps looking at what was not seen coming in the past might suggest something about our own futures.

 

Let’s begin way back before the name became karate.

Naming aside, the training was not available to anyone, only those whose position required the training. Likely you lived walking distance from the instructor, or for the very few perhaps horse was an option. The art was whatever the instructor told you it was. Then when you were trained other instruction might have come from those you worked with.  The learning process did not mean books or their equivalents.

 

Then karate came into being, shaped from those earlier arts. School karate and instructors beginning to take students outside of the earlier student body.

 

Everything was done within the structure of Japanese control.

 

Karate began to be exported 1) by ex-Okinawans that moved to communities in many countries for work not existent on Okinawa. 2) to Japan in a drive to show that Okinawa had more to give to Japan.

 

On Okinawa instructors started groups to share with each other.

The focus in Japan was to move it into the universities not so much as just opening schools. Instructors with short training ran those programs, and the students for the most part participated in a four year program, four and out. Of course there were head dojo and that was another Japanese layer.

 

Books to explain karate started being published, not for Okinawa, but likely more to educate the Japanese Martial Establishment about what karate was. This entire process was something new in karate, unanticipated. It obviously had some impact on karate.

 

Gradually karate made accommodations to fit into the Japanese structures.

Also it brought new changes.

 

Where Shimubukuro Zempo once told me  back in 1984 at that time everyone on Okinawa wanted to train with an instructor with 50+ years in their art. I imagine it was no different in the past.

 

But in Japan new styles sprang up. I remember Funakoshi Ginchin writing he saw at gatherings many styles and instructors he never heard of. So one wonders where those new systems and ranks came from, could it mean people were creating their own. And in Okinawa there was no consideration  that a system had to tie back to prior history? It leaves room for speculation what would occur when karate faced its next disporia after WW11, into the world.

 

The Japanization of Okinawan karate continued. Systems became formalized, ranks became the standard (but there was no total standardization , other practices from Japan made their way into the Okinawan art.

 

After WWII various instructors taught American servicemen who then returned o the States and on their own continued to practice and teach their art.  No one on Okinawa would have really thought that possible, but it did occur.

 

Those instructors met other instructors, through the new development of tournaments, shared with each other, got involved with each other via the karate magazine, the internet of those days, found they could teach financially and make a living at it. Of course they also found there were literally no rules to stop them creating their own styles, or adopting new ranks, emulating what Japan had occur decades before.

 

Then karate spread many different ways around the world. Everything became magnified.

 

There were those who returned to Okinawa for further instruction. Groups were formed, split and then formed new groups.

 

First karate kata movies were sold, the technology changed and VHS tapes were sold, then CD’s became the medium and more and more information was shared. Those tapes were very much the Good, the Bad and the Ugly. But the purchaser alone would decide their value for their own training.

 

More modern books began to be published, with Okinawan and Japanese authors, then more and more covering everything imaginable. There was no fact checking of what was being said, and once published became source material for other books, ad infinitum.

 

And again technology advanced and the internet was born. There came karate discussion groups and YouTube. Literally everything was now being shared worldwide and with no filters. Again technology shifted and FaceBook became a main sharing platform.

 

Every possible detail was sought out, often those questions were answered. Worldwide involvement in the ongoing karate wave continued at a more frantic pace.

 

All of this had an impact or karate’s development, the full effect still to be determined.

 

It has been a long trip since one walked to one’s instructor and only knew what you were taught.

 

The impact of all of this yet to be determined, there are many details that  occurred which I have not mentioned. All of them have had further impact.

 

And what this will mean or become as the future hits us in the face, one really does not know.

 

But believe me there will be plenty of  Future Shock.