What Practical Karate Gets Wrong and What “Traditional” karate can learn from it!

​First, welcome to 2023 - may your year be one of grace, health and courage. Second, this title is a lie. I apologise; the title was aimed at being clickbait. I see no harm in either practical karate or so-called “traditional” karate - indeed, to each their own, so long as it improves their lives and those around them. But speaking from a historical perspective, practical karate (i.e., called bunkai focused) IMHO runs the risk of reducing karate to a form of violent essentialism.

Okinawan budo (karate and Kobudo were not separate items until approx the 1930s) {itself a problematic term} in its pre-Itotsu era from the details we have, tended to emphasise the mind, body, spirit (loosely connected with notions such as 心技体). Too much of one inevitable was seen as inadequate - see the principles Matsumura left, for example, or the folktale of Uni Ufugushiku (aka Oni Oshiro). Historically speaking, those who practised karate saw it as nothing special - arguably, the mindset continues today in many budoka. For those who do karate, it is a daily routine like brushing their teeth.

For the originators of karate the messgae is consistent: Too much of being a great fighter, your head swells, and you become useless to your community; Too much mind and your body become sick; No connection with something more significant than you, and you are of no use to anyone. You get the idea. 

Okinawan budo was meant to serve as a means of enabling physical violence, cultivating the spirit and enriching the body. These were three interwoven goals, not individual paths. And herein lies the weakness of so-called practical karate. Through an over-emphasis on street application, it risks obfuscating the deeper aspect of karate aimed at self-development, ego-checking and generally just trying to be a decent human being. After all, when you read Funakoshi’s famous “karate ni sen te nashi”, he is essentially stating, “don’t be an ass”. Context matters when translating Japanese into English.

What is often forgotten by most karate factions is its primary emphasis when it moved out from behind its veil of secrecy at the start of the Meiji period was to improve health by making lungs, limbs, joints, tendons etc., all stronger and more healthy. Of course, there is an excellent argument for static poses of the kata helping build a budo-capable body which develops a budo mind - however, that is a whole book in itself. After all, the clientele was no longer the children of a fighting, well-fed ruling class, but was the commoners of Okinawans with no connection to a fighting system or corpus (a bit of a simplified exaggeration here, but it serves a purpose).

If you have never developed the strength to control a horse with inner thigh muscles, sitting in kiba-dachi for 5 minutes may help alleviate that shortcoming!!!

Sadly, many well-meaning but misinformed people within modern karate are unaware of the utter poverty and failing public health system that was the Ryukyu Kingdom circa 1900. Had it not been for Missionaries on Miyako-Jima and then elsewhere publicly calling upon the central government to fight such things as widespread leprosy and illiteracy, many of the mainland developments may never have made it to the Ryukyu. Moreover, when King Sho was moved to the mainland, there was no groundswell of revolt against the Japanese because most Okinawas were not overly interested in a King and his supporters living off the backbraking work of the regular Okinawans. The mass migration of Okinawa during this period and beyond is testament to their main economic option. Again, another story. 

So practical karate, by focusing only on violence, runs the risk of reducing a holistic lifestyle to the goal of self-defence. Again, not taking care of your health or not planning for your retirement could also be considered being actively engaged in a lifestyle that is not self-defence at its core.

So what can traditional karate learn from practical karate? Firstly, what most people refer to as Traditional Karate is modern karate, developed in 1904 in Okinawan elementary systems and then in the mid-1920s when it migrated to elite universities on the mainland. In these settings, so-called karate had more to do with either public health or creating national polity/body and mindsets aligned with fervent nationalism. Such developements meant karate became a competitive sport by the 1930s, with new rules and interpretations.

Practical self-defence was not a primary concern and thus such practices as throwing, ground tecnniques and seizing joints etc., all went by the way-side.

Thankfully the parctical karate movement is re-discovering these tools.

​However, a lot has been written about this elsewhere, so suffice it to say, punching the air may serve a purpose, but not every physical confrontation is resolved by a gyaku-zuki to the sternum. 

​Enjoy your training. May it make you fulfilled!