so funakoshi, who was famously small, couldn't, at over 60y/o, break out of the grip of a younger high ranking judoka (considering the challenge was only to break out of the judoka's grip), when all that he should have done was to punch him in the nuts, or nakadaka to the floating ribs, or any other manner of things that work regardless of size or physical prowess. to put it into perspective, i'm a five feet tall shodan, and i wouldn't even dream of breaking a judo sankyu's grip, because he would have much more experience gripping than i breaking grips, but otoh i'd likely punch him a lot if the challenge was just "break out of his grip" instead of "grapple with him". bear in mind i'm by no means a funakoshi sympathizer (in fact i'm usually the opposite), but he IS antagonized a lot by the okinawan karate community (and not without reason), and his feud with motobu is infamous, so any story involving both of them, or told by one camp about the other is assured to leave one of them in a very bad light
Yes and he didn’t!! Why? Because he wasn’t good enough to manage his opponent or because he was afraid he will kill him with his ehmm...super power strikes so he prefer to get beat in front of all his students??? Choose the side you believe is the more close to truth and to reality...
Lost?Well many Shotokan practitioners try to hide that incident (bad reputation) but the Nihon Budo Taikei ruin their plans I guess...
maybe he just didn't like punching people? is that so freaking hard to believe? and why do i have to choose a fricking side??? what is this, the fricking inquisition? get a grip, i don't give a flying fornication about what papa shotosmurf was up to fifty years before i was born
Of the many reasons that people admire Mr Funakoshi, I don't think his being an unstoppable fighter is one of them. He performed an important ambassadorial role for karate rather than being a famed duelist, so I don't think that being thrown by a judoka while an elderly man is too much of a knock to his reputation. As for the budo encycolpedia, wasn't it reporting secondary information - i.e. "it is said that... etc", meaning that, yes, in the absence of a primary source, the truth is lost to history.
Honestly, I don't care what Funakoshi did or didn't do. I care about my training in the here and now. It's like saying whoever invented football/rugby/american football was the best player of that sport ever. It's simply not true. No one is perfect, and everyone has their vested interests and political motivations. So why not get on with your training and leave the bickering to other people?
Yeah Actually I really should've realized that sooner - that Funakoshi's inabilty to defeat that Judoka probably was his refusal to use full strength/dangerous techniques as opposed to being incompetent. Funakoshi was one of many great men, and it wouldn't be justice to him (or any other person) if he were judged as easily as this based on one (in this case opposing, and therefore biased) source. And btw, I remember that acer guy talking smack on Funakoshi and promoting Otsuka like this on YouTube vid forums too
seriously, just look at his post count easily 95% of his posts re shotokan bashing, and he was inactive for two years, only to come to this thread to bash shotokan some more. like, what the hell, he guy's got a serious chip on his shoulder
He obviously got beaten by a middling level shoto-ka. Or his legs can't handle the mighty kiba dachi.
I see the truth hurts...The founder and head of Shotokan system couldn’t beat a fly and was beaten easily in front of his entire student how embarrassing for all Shotokan practitioners...
doesn't hurt me at all, considering i'm a ****o-ryu guy. you're just being extremely unreasonable and making fallacious conclusions to troll the shotokan crowd
To prove that statement wrong, I only need to find one shotokan practitioner who is not embarrassed by the tale. I am a shotokan practitioner and I don't find the story to have any impact on my pride in shotokan karate. Therefore, you have been proved wrong.
C'mon guys - who are we kidding here? We're done. We're useless, washed up, failures. Thank God for Acer. This man - THIS MAN - had not only the balls to tell it like it is, but the decency and good will to share this harsh truth with the world. He truly has won the internet, and made all our lives better for it.
Hmmm... Seems to have scurried off back under the bridge. Guess we can carry on with the OP's intended discussion then.
Well I prefer to follow a martial art that has for ''grand master'' a strong fighter and not someone that was beaten in front of his entire students so easily!!!! And if we talking about self defense what will teach you? How to get beat just like he did?
Ah my friend. He's not my grandmaster. In fact he's no one's grandmaster. He didn't even invent shotokan. Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear, how silly you look. And as for self defence, I've used shotokan a few times just fine. And actually, how to get beaten is quite a difficult thing to learn. Gotta have just the right amount of choreography involved, y'know? I found many good pictures to sum up this conversation, but I couldn't decide which one was most suitable - so I'll shove them all in (you may notice a cameo appearance from yours truly in the last pic )
