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Iain Abernethy
Iain Abernethy's picture
How quickly does something become traditional?

Hi All,

Just some thoughts on the notion of what is “traditional” in traditional karate.

Although things are changing, if you were to ask what methods are a legitimate part in traditional karate, I think it would be fair to say that the vast majority would consider Roundhouse kick (mawashigeri) as traditional and as legitimate as it gets. Whereas throwing would largely be seen as “revisionism” or a modern bolt on.

Here’s the thing though, in Funakoshi’s book “Rentan Goshin Karate Jutsu” (1925) he shows a number of throws, and he lists fifteen “leg techniques”. Roundhouse kick is not among those fifteen. We see groin kick, knee to outer thigh, knee to inner thing, crescent kick, returning wave kick … but no roundhouse kick.

Roundhouse kick is still not there in Funakoshi’s 1930s book, “Karate-Do Kyohan”(“The Master Text”) … but it is added in the revised version of the book in the late 1950s.

So roundhouse kick came to karate late (post-1940s) and was not included in print by Funakoshi until 1958 (printed two years after he revised the book in 1956). However, the throws were there in his books from over three decades before. Throwing (and joint locking) has therefore been a documented part of karate for much longer than the “traditional” roundhouse kick.

It occurred to me that the time difference between “throws in print” and “roundhouse kick in print” is larger than the time difference between “roundhouse kick in print” and “Iain enters a dojo for the first time”! (I started training in the 1980s). Roundhouse kick is very NEW! It’s not traditional at all when compared to karate throwing.

Whichever way you cut it, Roundhouse is definitely a non-traditional “traditional” technique. It also shows just how quickly something can be thought of as being a fundamental part of karate.

The first ever UFC was in 1993. So let’s say that a karateka had seen Royce Gracie use BBJ at that time and decided to take some of that into their martial practise. That was 23 years ago. So, if we take roundhouse kick as a rough guide – i.e. not part of karate in 1935 (1st Kyohan) but part of karate in 1956 (revised Kyohan) – then that bit of BBJ should be considered as being as legitimate a part of karate as the roundhouse is within two years from now!

When we look at the assimilation of the roundhouse kick into karate, and see just how quickly it happened, and see just how fundamental and traditional the kick is now thought to be, we are forced to consider how the grappling of the past is much more traditional than some of the common strikes of today.

We also need to consider the assimilation process that has always been part of karate and ask what methods we need to be bringing in now for the “traditional karate” of the next generation.

As I say, just a few thoughts :-)

All the best,

Iain

Philios
Philios's picture

In an anecdote shared to seminar attendees many years ago by Master Yutaka Yaguchi (4th graduate of the infamous JKA Instructor Program back in 1959) which I attended, he talked about how when he started, roundhouse kick wasn't actually a technique in Shotokan karate.  He said that the origin story of the roundhouse kick was that there were a pair of men sparring and one was getting beat pretty bad.  The man who was losing the exchange lost his balance after being charged, and as he was falling backward on one foot, he managed to stick out his raised foot and, by accident, struck his aggressor on the side of the head.  Having never seen such a kick before and thinking he executed the strange looking kick on purpose, the crowd of karateka approached him after the match and asked him what the kick was called, to which he said "uh... it's called.... round... kick".

Of course, this is just a story, and I'm sure there are many origins around the world for this kick, but I found it to be an amusing tale.

Tau
Tau's picture

Evolution is tradition

dsgintx
dsgintx's picture

What I see in the school I study in is a conscious reconsideration of the whole approach to karate where techniques, kata, and teaching methods are reassessed and pressure tested to see both where they fit within an overall self-defense orientation but also how they work in preparing the student for that end.  I would say my own personal experience has been to gradually see less and less value in sport-style sparring because it does not quite fit my own personal goals.  It's not that it has no value but it's flawed and I feel like our school is really examining how we spar in order to get more valuable activities in.  I do it and I try to get value from it, but I don't worry that I need to "get better at it" without first filtering that through my own defense oriented goals.

Sport sparring can be valuable in the sense that it's a good workout, you can try some of the techniques in a non-compliant setting, and you can directly experience getting hit (and realizing that it's unpleasant but survivable).  It's less useful in that you're encouraged to engage (more like a fight than defense) rather than disengage, and the range and duration are not what you would likely encounter in self-defense.  Round kicks are great in sparring because they're a terrific way to bridge to closer range, but that's possibly the opposite of what you'd do in self-defense.  Nonetheless, our teachers came up through a civil self-defense art that then had a lot of sport added to it.  That was their starting point.

So today, for now, we round kick and we spar.  But it is fascinating (glad I am alive to see it happen) to watch as we sort of gradually prune out the sport techniques in favor of more defense-oriented ones.

Ian H
Ian H's picture

Iain Abernethy wrote:

Although things are changing, if you were to ask what methods are a legitimate part in traditional karate, I think it would be fair to say that the vast majority would consider Roundhouse kick (mawashigeri) as traditional and as legitimate as it gets. Whereas throwing would largely be seen as “revisionism” or a modern bolt on.

When we look at the assimilation of the roundhouse kick into karate, and see just how quickly it happened, and see just how fundamental and traditional the kick is now thought to be, we are forced to consider how the grappling of the past is much more traditional than some of the common strikes of today.

We also need to consider the assimilation process that has always been part of karate and ask what methods we need to be bringing in now for the “traditional karate” of the next generation.

Perhaps the key to all this is in the final sentiment ... karate has always been assimilating new techniques and methods (albeit usually very slowly).  Perhaps the better idea is to focus on the "traditional purpose" of karate in civilian self-defence?

Then again, it seems that most people (not just "us") treat the word "traditional" in the karate sense as something to be strived for ... something that makes their karate "better" somehow than the "non-traditional" karate.  The "three K" karate likes their tradition that they have had since the fifties ("We''ve been doing it this way ever since Soandso Sensei first brought Something-ryu Karate-do from Japan to the shores of [name of western country] back in 1948.  He learned it that way from his Sensei in Japan and ... [insert mists of time here].")  Then the 'new wave' of pragmatic karate-ka respond with talk of "that's not how they did it in Okinawa fifty years before ... modern packaging to make karate popular in mainland Japan isn't traditional ... "  The bottom line for most people anywhere in the debate?

"Traditional" = "better".

If you can gain the upper hand in describing your style type of karate as "traditional" (or some such term, like "pure" or "authentic") then yours must be "better" than the "newcomer".  Now, we don't want to re-invent the wheel every generation, we should of course respect those who went before us and developed great skill and expertise that they handed down to us ... but we should not get sidetracked trying to recreate the exact replica of what we think karate was at a given point in the past.  

*****

For what it's worth, in the style of karate I practice, we have (and, as far as I understand, have always had) plenty of techniques which end with your attacker being thrown on the ground in one form of discomfort or another ... and we practice what we call a "traditional roundhouse kick" (not the common "kumite style roundhouse", which we also do for tournaments, but more of a short, sharp kick to the outside of the attacker's knee/thigh, striking with the ball of the foot, and with minimal rotation of hips or "planted" foot, unlike the "kumite" version.)  I cannot ever remember having a discussion about "how old/traditional" this technique is, though.

*****

Also, speaking of kicks, I get the sense that every kick in karate (whether traditional or not, whether traditional kihon/kata kicks or modern kumite kicks) is designed to be delivered with the bare foot.  That makes sense in the Okinawa of however many decades/centuries ago, and that makes sense in a kumite ring where footwear is prohibited, but ... for practical purposes, should we not modify our kicks to function with shoes or boots on?  

MCM180
MCM180's picture

Ian H wrote:

Also, speaking of kicks, I get the sense that every kick in karate (whether traditional or not, whether traditional kihon/kata kicks or modern kumite kicks) is designed to be delivered with the bare foot.  That makes sense in the Okinawa of however many decades/centuries ago, and that makes sense in a kumite ring where footwear is prohibited, but ... for practical purposes, should we not modify our kicks to function with shoes or boots on?  

I've wondered the same since day one. I'm almost never barefoot in real life, even at home. (My kids play with Legos. The floor is hazardous to bare feet!) Only in the dojo, really. 

To be sure, my kicking is very poor even bare-footed in the safe confines of the dojo. But shoes can be pretty heavy. Snapping the foot forward or back with even an extra few ounces can be quite a different experience than barefoot. That's one reason I sort of cheat and don't worry much about ball-of-the-foot technique when I'm kicking in class. (Also because I'm too busy using the proper leg, keeping my balance, not pulling a quad, etc.) 

Those of you who practice applied and practical traditional MA, what advice do you have re: practicing to kick with shoes on vs. bare feet?