Karate is More than Kick, Punch

     Karate is more than Kick, Punch.

    Consquently, it is also more than Kick, Punch, Takedown. Karate, as an art, is a number of things with the same name. In the broadest sense, Karate is the name for the conglomerate of weapon, empty hand, and partnered forms with individual techniques and demonstrable and repeatable pricniples associated with them. In the strict sense, karate refers only to the empty-hand fighting techniques, forms, and form-applications that have been handed down in a particular tradition.

     Many take to either one of thee two extremes, simply based on what they believe is the "right way for karate." But, its just a name. It's not what you are calling it, it's what you are doing that is your art. The name is just something for inter-human communication.

     Too often there is a sitting around of instructors and masters, alike, that simply make the assumption that the makers of the art took months of their life just decided on the most accurate and appropriate name for the arts they spawned or inspired. In the end, many names were simple utilitarian for communication. Shotokan for example: Shoto's School. Shoto was Funakoshi's nickname. Goju-ryu Karate: the Hard-Soft School of Karate. The name explained the primary distinction of the art, that there were both hard and soft techniques in this style of karate, and that was important.

     The real importance is the substance being taught. Many people view karate as the eastern form of boxing. But it is much more. Karate, as we know it, employs the techniques and pricniples of the Chinese, the form traditions, interpretations, and rhythms of Okinawa, the one-strike methodology of some Japanese martial arts (like Iaido). Even now, in the Americas and Europe, Karate also employs the dynamic movement of Western Boxing and Wrestling. Karate, itself, is a mixed-martial art, and it is high-time its practicioners realized that fact. Not simply realizing it by acknowledging it, but by accepting and practicing it.

    This is not to say that there is not more for karate-ka to learn. There is something to learn from Tai Chi Ch'uan, Judo, and Freestyle Wrestling, but it is important that karate-ka do not hold what valuable lessons and training they have learned and engaged through karate in contempt.

     Karate is Kick, Punch, Takedown.

    It is also so much more. Stay tuned.

Train hard. Train right.