Adapting to the Locals
In my last article I talked about changing the perception of karate. Today I want to focus on what specific changes can be made to preserve traditional karate while increasing membership and public acceptance. I can’t emphasize enough to those who think the art must remain unchanged and just like their teacher taught it that karate couldn’t gain traction in Japan until it was adapted to the Japanese. While there was a time that karate was popular in the West, that time is coming to an end and modern karate schools commonly pander to children to make sure they can pay their rent.
My List of Keepers
Here is my list of things that are essential. Without these things, it is no longer karate:
- The Ethics of Fighting
- Honor and Character Development
- Realistic Combatives
The Ethics of Fighting
OKI covers these kind of topics regularly in the philosophy section. It is more important to teach students to ask “Why would I want to fight?” than simply a crash course in how to beat someone senseless. This is what separates us from MMA and the older combatives that became karate. Currently many techniques are taught in a watered down form to increase safety. Teachers need to continue teaching the most effective techniques, and as an ethical consideration, discuss escalation of force and identify when certain techniques would be considered excessive. Simply hiding more effective techniques from students is careless and doesn’t teach ethics, but rather shields students from the ability to make unethical decision.
Honor and Character Development
No single quote explains the essence of karate-do better than Funakoshi’s quote, “The ultimate aim of Karate lies not in victory or defeat, but in the perfection of the character of the participant.” If we lose this and make our art primarily about fighting, then we have stopped practicing karate and begun something entirely different. While the name of karate is meaningless, the dedication to perfecting our character is essential to maintaining the art and keeping it alive in our current world.
Realistic Combatives
This is something that is already being lost in karate. If we were to change how we teach karate to help its adoption by local culture, it is paramount that we maintain a dedication to realistic fighting scenarios. This means removing the lunge punch, eliminating point sparring, and training to use karate in life or death scenarios – rather than as a competition art that earns people trophies.
What I Would Remove
In order to adapt karate to my specific area, here is a list of the things I would remove:
- Calling it Karate
- Japanese
- Practicing Forms Alone
- Point Sparring
- Karate Uniforms and Belts
Rationale for Removing Things
Unfortunately you will have to wait for my next article to hear my rationale for why I would remove those things. Many of them have been mentioned before. The idea of removing Japanese goes against a lot of what I used to believe about learning karate, but I will explain the reasoning behind it. In the mean time, please leave your feedback. If the goal was to spread karate to as many people as possible without giving up its roots, how would you adapt karate to your local area what would you do differently? What would you call it? What would you have students wear to class?
This is a great introduction to a rather controversial topic! I suspect I will agree with everything you want to remove with the exception of the Japanese, but that is really only because of a psychological study that showed higher levels of brain activity and focus in people who are forced to remember and use pieces of other languages, which fits under “character development” in my eyes. I can’t wait to read the follow-up article!
Very interesting point on the language effects. Do you think it outweighs the negative effects of people not accepting Japanese martial arts as comparable to Krav Maga and other popular combatives?
I think with younger, still-developing students (I’m thinking teenagers, here) or older students wanting to stay mentally clear into their latest years I can definitely see the value. It depends on what demographics you are trying to reach because I suspect that most people between the ages of 18 and 60 would probably see little benefit from the language challenges. Seeing as how we are part of that 18-60 age group, and it is certainly a very large group, that would probably be the one to focus on. One other thing to consider is the translation problem, though–we don’t have a real translation for “uke” that makes sense, except maybe to call them “reception” or “receiving” techniques, and that doesn’t quite get the point across as to what they are. If we could come up with a good glossary of native language terms to replace the foreign ones, then it wouldn’t be an issue. I simply think that using Japanese is not necessarily bad, in context, but I would agree with you in the general sense that we do not speak Japanese and so there isn’t any real reason to speak it in a martial art.
Pretty excited about this.
I will be more excited if we can get some traction in the community. I would be willing to make December 31st the last time I call what I do karate. (Still need to find a new name though…) To be stuck in the past when karate was some mystical asian killing art is ignorant – most people in the west consider karate a joke, and when we are associated with the McDojo…can we really blame them?
You work with military guys all day. Try offering to teach one “Okinawan Combatives”, never use any Japanese, and see if they figure it out. I bet you get a much better response than trying to argue why karate is just as good as MMA or Krav Maga.
Why not celebrate Karate for what it is instead of trying to market it as something else? Why not strip out all of the parts added when it was brought into the schools, standardized the same way that Judo and Kendo, was commercialized for the Westerners as a way to earn money for a ravaged Okinawa after the war, and teach it with an emphasis on how the Okinawan military class learned it? Not only would it open eyes as to what is really there and the value that it has, it would also go a long way towards removing the stigma that has been brought to the word Karate by bad b-movies and snake-oil selling pseudo-sensei. My feeling is that would be better for Karate as a whole rather than trying to rebrand it into something else. Rebranding still stinks of snake-oil practices – Just think about all the MMA ‘masters’ out there schilling only the most rudimentary techniques that they learned from a few seminars, Youtube, and books. Snake-oil indeed.
Question on removing, “practicing forms alone”. Do you mean to remove solo forms entirely, not practicing your forms alone during personal training, or not spending large quantities of in class time on the ascetics or minutiae and instead working partner drill, etc? However much I believe partner work/drills should be the mainstay I have not been convinced thus far that forms should be entirely trashed.
Looking back at that post – it was very unclear wasn’t it? I was talking about spending large amounts of time in class working on forms instead of benefiting from having partners to practice application with. I have trained in styles who felt that until you reached your shodan, worrying about how to apply the techniques was unnecessary. Kata and Bunkai should be practiced at the same time, rather than memorizing kata for 4 years before ever working on how to use it.