Recently, when I was teaching a kid’s Karate class, I have been told some stories from the kids I teach on how other schools go through their curriculum. I am glad to hear that they are well aware of how these businesses are run in a good way or the wrong way. One or two students told me that when they visited a Karate class at the YMCA, there are students from ages in-between 7 and 13 who are junior black belts or black belts to be exact. So for 7 years of my training I knew that this wasn’t right for Instructors to simply hand out black belts on a silver platter. For Head Instructors (Senseis, Sifus) who care only about the belt more about the main goal of building character for their students and never teaching them self-defense against bullies and criminals are teaching their students in the wrong format. In my personal opinion giving out a black belt to a student under the age of 16 is way too soon because most students don’t have the mental maturity to attain that level. The main reason why Head Instructors go through a fast promotion process in most schools that teach sport Karate or Taekwondo is that they care only about the money, thus a dojo will be nothing more than a Black Belt mill or “McDojo.”
For a while I thought that many schools that teach mostly the sport aspect of Karate or Taekwondo don’t teach their students about the History of the Martial Art system they teach. It comes to a point while writing a blog like this would get personal and touchy, but I have respect for those who are talented in any discipline they thrive for. I remember after receiving my Shodan, a friend of mine on youtube who trains in Shotokan Karate wrote to me that he keeps training in many schools because most instructors are not that good to teach. Furthermore, he said that most schools don’t teach their students the History of the art. At another time, it was last fall after I have competed at a tournament; my Sensei told me that he had some sort of feeling that most of the competitors that we have judged don’t know much History of their Martial Art system. I do remember that my Sensei was asking questions to a group of competitors moments before their competition began, and one of the questions he asked them was the origins of the weapons they train with such as the staff, kama (sickle), tonfas, etc. A majority of the competitors have no idea where these weapons originated from. What most dojos in North America teach is only the physical aspect. The pursuit of receiving ranks quickly without really earning it and going town to town winning trophies. Competing in tournaments is a fun event, but I always balance my physical and mental training out as best as I can. Studying the Martial Arts is not about belt rank and going out collecting big trophies, it is about character, maturity, self-confidence, and gaining knowledge of the Martial Arts. That is the mental aspects. I felt that it is right to share my wisdom and knowledge to any Martial Artist no matter what discipline that he or she studies because in my mind, these Martial Artists I have met and interacted on the internet are my extended family.
There had been theories of various Martial Art researchers theorized that two person combative drills came first before prearranged set patterns called Forms (Kata in Japanese), such as Iain Abernethy and Pat McCarthy Sensei. It was last July I have attended a Hanshi McCarthy seminar, I remembered him saying that applications came first before Kata. He also said this in his translation of the Bubishi. Another theory was from Iain Abernethy in his writings on the History of Chinto/Gankaku kata and Kushanku/Kosokun/Kanku kata. Take for example the origin of Chinto kata. The kata Chinto was named after a Chinese sailor. The story was about a sailor called Chinto was shipwrecked on the island of the Ryukyu Kingdom (modern-day Okinawa), he had no food so he began going into villages and went about stealing food. The king of Okinawa heard of this news so he sent in his bodyguard Sokon Matsumura, a great swordsmen and Tode (Karate) master to apprehend the thief. Once Matsumura confronted Chinto in combat, he found out that both of them are evenly matched. Matsumura decided to let him go if Chinto would be willing to teach him his fighting techniques. The bunkai moves that Matsumura learned from him, he recorded these moves into a Form, which he named after his teacher. Another example was a Chinese military attaché named Kushanku sailed over to Shuri, Okinawa to put on a grappling demonstration to the natives there (not kata). The Okinawans learned these grappling techniques from this Martial Arts Master (meijin), and the natives recorded these techniques into a Form (kata) called Kushanku. To read more of this, it is on Iain Abernethy’s website (www.iainabernethy.com then go to articles).
Coming to these conclusions, I have thought that it was naturally innate for man to grapple/wrestle. It is also innate in animals to wrestle. There had been a few occasions that I have visited the pet store at a local mall and I have seen Kittens wrestling each other, also puppies. I remember watching on TV on PBS, cubs, Tigers and Lions wrestling each other. Now if you look at human beings, especially kids, the first Martial Art they want to learn is wrestling, kids love to wrestle each other, against their siblings or against their friends, it is human nature. The oldest Martial Art system was Nubian Wrestling, which the Greeks learned from my ancestors and formed Greek/Hellenic wrestling. The grappling system out of Africa imitate monkey postures and movements, because the Nubians have studied monkeys on how they moved and how they fought each other long before the Chinese and East Indians ever thought of animal imitations. That is something to take note to those that think of the word Karate when we talk about Martial Arts. However, being a thinker and looking deeper into the roots of Martial Arts, you would come up with many theories in order to reveal the truth, and the truth would set you free instead of taking what is learnt because you would never know that what you learn is a fact or a myth.
A few years ago, when I was a green belt (maybe blue belt), I was assisting in a kid’s Grading. When the kid’s were doing Japanese ippon Kumite, the defenders were to do a hooking block (kake-uke), while the aggressors throw a lunge punch. All the defenders had to do was to trap the punch and hook with the other hand, but most of them were having a hard time figuring out how to block the punch. And it frustrated my Sensei pretty much saying “You guys know how to do the block, so it shouldn’t be different when you put somebody in front of you.” Although I didn’t know the root problem, I originally thought that they were thinking too hard, but didn’t know the reason why they were thinking too hard on applying that block. We, the instructors of the Martial Arts are teaching our students wrong. We have to change our teaching structure, especially when people who want to learn Martial Arts…most people want to have a crash course on how to defend themselves against thieves, muggers and killers instead of starting a novice off by simply throwing blocks, punches, and kicks in thin air in repetition for months. The teaching structure was taught in this order:
A) Two-person Drills/Kumite
Flow-drills, grappling/wrestling, Kumite/sparring, applications/analysis
B) Single-person drills
Bag-work, Shadow Boxing/sparring drills, Fundamentals, Forms
I remember back in the black belt magazine forums, a black belt Sensei from the U.S. questioned me if Bunkai came first before kata. I explained my theory in detail and referenced Hanshi McCarthy’s theories on this coming to the conclusion that grappling, flow drills, bunkai sparring preceded exercise drills, Shadow Boxing, dance rituals and Forms. Since Karate was modernized and introduced to Japan after World War I, the Japanese changed the curriculum around, various changes happened such as introducing a uniform and a belt ranking system greatly influenced by Judo pioneer Jigoro Kano. The katas practiced in some of the Japanese Karate styles had the names changed, Kushanku, Wanshu, and Chinto were katas named after Chinese Martial Artist practitioners were changed over to Kanku (dai&sho), Enpi, Gankaku. On top of that the name of the discipline was changed from Tode (China Hand) to Karate (Empty Hand) because the Japanese were racially prejudiced against their Asian brothers. Although I kind of digress from explaining those changes, the major thing that the Japanese changed was the teaching structure by converting the art into a sport and implementing the 3K system. The 3K system of Karate is in this order:
Kihon (basics)
Kata (forms)
Kumite (sparring)
How the Japanese taught in that order was to teach beginners basics and kata and then teach sparring bound by rules. The Japanese didn’t focus much on practical Martial Science to prepare their students for the street or battlefield properly, but instead these teachers taught their students how to win trophies instead. Originally bunkai practice gradually became neglected overtime back the early 1900’s when Anko Itosu began introducing Karate into the elementary school system, he felt that teaching the science of Karate to children can be too dangerous for them, so he invented katas that would be easier for kids utilizing mostly closed hand techniques, thus hiding the deadly techniques, he created the Pinan/Heian katas. Despite Itosu’s intentions of forbidding children to learn bunkai, it eventually swelled into limited knowledge for most instructors. When Karate was introduced to the Western world after World War II, the North Americans focused mostly on teaching Kihon and Kata first in order to have their students pass belt tests and to perform Katas for tournaments, the study of practical applications/analysis were greatly neglected. It has gotten so out of hand, that instructors care more about profit than focusing on teaching the principles of kata to their students. Back in the black belt magazine forums, one poster was complaining on how kata is pointless. With the modernization of Karate we see how much a “classical mess” it is. The word “classical mess” of what Bruce Lees said, can have many interpretations. You can believe it was meant that Martial Artists are married to only one style, being a slave to tradition, not knowing the facts on how past events came to this, how the History books had been altered, or seeing that the Martial Arts world had been more about politics than sharing wisdom to each other. All of these things are interrelated one way or the other. The student who thought that kata was a waste of time and it was pointless is not at fault for disliking it, it is the instructor’s fault for failing to upgrade their learning and seeking knowledge of bunkai self-defense against the Habitual Acts of Physical Violence.
To understand the root of prearranged set patterns, and I explained this to my friend in the Black Belt magazine Forums a couple years ago, is that my theory is that forms has it roots from exercise drills and Shadow boxing armed and unarmed that military men in ancient Egypt practiced, including dance rituals practiced by villagers, these method was eventually passed down to all civilizations in the early centuries of man in order to remember the fighting movements and to hide and deceive the fighting techniques much like Capoeira. Keep in mind that there was much use on the imitation of animal movements. In the spiritual beliefs of my ancestors, the spirits of animals were being transmitted onto the warriors to imitate animal movements that could be more effective when doing hand-to-hand combat. In Ti (which later became Karate) has ritual dance moves to hide fighting techniques. However, the two-person sparring drills preceded single-person drills such as dance rituals, military exercise drills and forms; not the other way around. The reason why many students think about the moves when being attacked is that single-person drills were taught in repetition first before two-person drills. Not because they are insubordinate or have inadequate Martial skills, and when you put them through weeks of Basics and forms first, eventually they would get board, have a short attention span, and begin to dislike kata practice to the point that they want to quit because they don’t have some sort of learning disability, it is the teaching structure being taught wrong. And if it is taught in the wrong order, then 9 times out of 10, the human mind of Martial Combat can psychologically throw an individual off. When being grabbed or seeing a punch coming after you, the moves should come out naturally without thinking, if the teaching structure is taught right in the old, traditional manner. We got to go back to our roots on how Martial Arts were taught. To understand the root meaning behind Martial Art is:
Martial = fighting science, combative system, military strategy
If you take out the tial it would become:
Mars = Roman God of War derived from ancient Greece
Ares = Greek God of War
The word Martial means Roman God of War. The Kemitic tongue is pronounced Montu Arts. Montu is the Kemetic (Egyptian) God of War. The Greeks took that idea from the Kemites and changed the name to Ares. Then the Romans took that idea from the Greeks and changed the deity name to Mars. The Martial Arts were used for military combat originally then it was used for civilian self-defense and sport, all having its roots in Africa. Back in ancient Sparta, children were taken into the Spartan training camps to be trained to serve Ares the God of War, and the Spartans were taught in order physical work outs, grappling, physical work outs, use of weapon combat, physical work outs, and shadow boxing unarmed and armed.
We should always have the balance to develop self-esteem, our health, self-confidence, along with the intellect of understanding the science of combat and history of the Martial Arts. If you gain knowledge of practical analysis and teach the Martial Arts in old fashioned orderly way, Forms would be more lively and vibrant thus giving the student great respect and interest in Form training instead thinking of Forms being a waste of time and energy. Never stop learning because there is so much to learn in a lifetime.
Jonathan
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