Oh dear, another one who still believes that romantized mystery about karate being an art of peasants. Karate was developed by okinawan nobles, not peasants and fishermen and most certainly not by samurai. Think about it like this: if you were a peasant, working hard from sun-up to sun-down, when would you have time to practise your fighting skills ? During the night ? When would you sleep then ? Now that I can agree with. Shuhari
What you're saying holds true for e.g. jujutsu, but not for karate (and derivatives thereof), because karate was never a battlefield art. It was developed for personal protection.
Well, that is true in theory but how many dojos do empty hand bunkai application with their weapon kata? Plus there is a lifetimes worth of empty hand curriculum to study/master. Kali/Arnis/Escrima are the only arts that I see honestly teaching, practicing and drilling weapon and empty hand in a parallel study.
I think it helps in other ways though. Controlling a weapon is much more difficult than controlling arms, legs etc in my view. I think that weapons training helps with coordination and conditioning. On top of that you have aspects of self-control and general mindfulness to consider. I think that the purpose of weapons training is down to the student/instructor isn't it? You can use it to enhance empty handed fighting training or you can study it as a system in it's own right. Training, to me, is a tool. How we employ that tool is up to us. I'm not saying that Kali, Escrima etc aren't better, more rounded martial arts. I wouldn't know. Just as a side thing though. At our club we don't refer to weapons training as Karate training. We use the more generic term 'kobudo' for Okinawan weapons and refer to Japanese weapons training by their common names (Iaido, Jodo etc).
DAT, Actually weaponized empty hand kata is not uncommon. In fact Isshinryu has that very thing. Ask Sensei John Dritt to show you Ku San Ku Sai. Master Shimabuku put this kata in the Isshinryu Kubudo curriculum. It is not known if he created the kata, learned it from Shinkin Tiara, or Kyan. It is the kata Ku san ku used with the sai. It is a great kata.
Hmm, I'll have to try that some day. Today we practised Chinto with Sai. Very interesting. Previously we've practised it with Bo and it was anything but simple
Since we are getting into historical discourse... couple points. Contrary to popular belief the entire farming implements as weapons bears little historical truth. Typically it's tied up in the famed "the rulers took their swords away story." The fact is that metal was in scare supply in Okianawa to begin with. As such the majority of the population was too poor to actually have a luxury item like a sword (this is true for peasantry across the globe btw). With the possible exception of the Kama, most if not all Okinwana weapons evolved as weapons. Note that there is evidence to suggest that both the sais and the nunchuckus (a?... darn I can never remembered) did come across from China in a proto form. As much as I'm down the Chinese, attempting to claim that they were the originators of swinging a long stick is a stretch. Especially since there were staff techniques in Ju Jitsu and there is no evidence of Chinese influence in it's development. Plus theres the entire quarterstaff stuff going on half a world away. - Matt
There may have been some Chinese influence on really early jujutsu. At least the legend of Chin Genpin is there. What, if anything, was his influence on jujutsu or other Japanese art is of course open to debate, as there isn't much evidence available
Interesting. I still would say that any influence is negligable at best. Especially considering the art's evolutionary path. There's no way to stop cultural spill over from neighboring territories. But looking at the resulting products we can speak to how much of a presence can be still percieved today. Looking at JJJ there doesn't seem to be any Chinese derived material. - Matt
I have sometimes wondered about tonfa. It might have been, as the popular belief has it, a millstone handle, but then I saw one kung-fu movie (yeah, I know, a really good historical tutor) and there this guy was using what looked to me like a pair of tonfa and they were labeled as some classical weapon of kung-fu.
That's true, although as I understand it, at least one of Bujinkan's 9 schools was originally a chinese style. I don't remember which and when it was brought over to Japan.
If you come across that reference let me know. I'm always up for more scholarly history on the arts (or at least historically rooted folk tale). - Matt
I'm sure there is an element of "tall taling" going on in martial arts history but the lack of forging accessibility and having farming implements on hand kinda makes sense to me. What else was nunchucks/tonfa used for but not for agricultural application?
I seriously doubt that nunchaku were ever used as farming tools. It just doesn't make sense, because they are so short. It has been claimed that they were some sort of rice flails, but you would have to be bent over to use them as such, or the rice would have to be brought up to your chest level
[Oh dear, another one who still believes that romantized mystery about karate being an art of peasants. Karate was developed by okinawan nobles, not peasants and fishermen and most certainly not by samurai. Think about it like this: if you were a peasant, working hard from sun-up to sun-down, when would you have time to practise your fighting skills ? During the night ? When would you sleep then ? ] Well, if I am not mistaken Funakoshi Sensei was the son of a Samurai, who also practiced the Samurai way and he developed our art of Shotokan. Peasents did create Karate to defend themselves, against Samurai, and so the Samurai had a perfound impact upon the development of Karate. Also many Samurai practiced Karate also, indeed to the modern viewer it seems romanticised, but when you look through enough old Okinawan and Chinese manuscripts it becomes clear.
Ok, I checked. The styles that according to Bujinkan tradition are of Chinese origin are Gyokko-ryû Kosshijutsu (translates to something like Jewel tiger schools bone finger technique) and Kotô-ryû Koppôjutsu (translates to something like Tiger knocking down schools bone breaking technique). Both schools, at least based on quick googling, were founded by japanese, but the teachings they are based on came with chinese refugees
[As much as I'm down the Chinese, attempting to claim that they were the originators of swinging a long stick is a stretch. Especially since there were staff techniques in Ju Jitsu and there is no evidence of Chinese influence in it's development. Plus theres the entire quarterstaff stuff going on half a world away. ] Japanese and Okinawan staff techniques are very different, if you look at the Old Okinawan katas they are very Chinese orientated.
Believe what you want, but that is simply not true. Like I said, karate was developed as a personal self-defence art by Okinawan nobles, most certainly not by peasants and fishermen.
You can find quite a bit of evidence of that too. Matsumura was supposed to have been bodyguard and martial arts instructor to the Okinawan royal family (which, from what I've read, is why he went to China in the first place). There are stories, of which some may even be true , of how he quit the job after getting into arguments with them but later returned to the post. You do also hear of training areas in the centres of villages though where teaching is supposed to have occured. If this is true, it may be evidence that it was practiced more widely.
