What is Karate? | ART OF ONE DOJO

what is Kurata well it seems like an easy answer actually has a rather deep and detailed backgrounds but before we get into that let's first establish what karate is not karate is not a single style or individual art now this might seem like a common fact among many of you out there but I do get comments on the occasion that referred to karate as a single art in particular with what kind of karate is in Cobra Kai episode I have a few comments that correct me to say I should name the video what kind of martial art is in Cobra Kai because the building says karate so if the artist courante it also doesn't help that in the 70s and 80s the word karate was often used as a blanket word for most martial arts especially in American media additionally as I mentioned in the previous episode we are going to be adding a lot of more art based content into our episodes of various styles and cultures this video will serve as an overview intro video to the karate series playlist which already includes our three-part episode on kyokushin as we go forward developing this channel we will continue to add to the series with documentaries on individual arts and techniques so for those of you who asked me if I will ever do video on go jutsu Chizuru Shotokan and so on the answer is yes and they will be a part of this growing series so with that being said let's take a few minutes to answer the question of what is karate [Music] now to give a quick answer karate is a classification of martial arts that predominantly uses a balanced regimen of punches kicks elbows knees and a variety of open handed techniques beginning in okinawa and eventually spreading to japan karate is more than just a list of different styles it's rather an interesting study of multiple disciplines that have intertwined and branched off of each other now the study of karate and its origin can be an academic commitment so we're only gonna take a brief introductory look today and kind of check out the history of help again to find the beginning of what we know as karate we first need to look at its Okinawan roots specifically the Ryukyu Kingdom which was around from roughly 1429 to 1879 the Ryukyu Kingdom is a chain of islands in the Pacific just south of Japan even though this kingdom was small it's location gave it an advantage in maritime trade the kings of riku decided to unify in the island of Okinawa and three principalities were established the northern mountains the central mountains and the southern mountains these would be known as the three kingdoms or the three mountains the early roots of karate began to emerge as locally developed fighting systems called tit or hand the Ryukyu Kingdom had established a strong trade relationship with the Ming Dynasty in China and as a result many Chinese fighting arts were also introduced to the islands of Okinawa over the course of many years between Chinese families moving to Okinawa and upper-class Okinawan sent to China to study abroad elements of Chinese fighting particularly Fujian White Crane from the Fujian province began to influence many of the local Okinawan styles now study the fighting arts was not always allowed in the kingdom and in 1477 king Joseon banned the study of martial arts but despite the ban many of them were still taught in secret now over its lifetime three hue system went through different rains starting a tributary States of the Ming and Qing Dynasty and in later taken under Japanese commands in 1609 the Satsuma domain of Japan invaded Okinawa into control and the ban of martial arts remained in place it is believed that this was the beginning of taking farm tools and implementing them into secret weapons practice the practitioners and kanawa began to combine many different fighting styles together locally taking much of the Chinese influence along with other local disciplines and they formed today which means Chinese hands or tang hands now this was also referred to as Okinawan Tay after a while three main styles of tit had begun to develop and their designation came from their cities of origin those cities were the capital city of Shuri the city of Naha which eventually took over cherie when the Ryukyu Kingdom fell and Okinawa became a Prefecture of Japan and also the port city of tamari these three main styles became respectively known as Sherita na hoti and Tamar 8a now there is a long list of practitioners who had great influence on the evolution of karate and they would each be a great deeper study on their own in this video today however I'm only gonna touch on a few just in order to illustrate how karate began to spread and develop we have a man by the name of Ken boon Aichi who took kata that he learned when he went to China and combined it with his own fighting style he created the art of Okinawan way Chiru we also have the prominent figure of children Miyagi who combined his training in Naha Tay and other Chinese art such as Fujian White Crane and established the very well-known art of go jutsu Saku kava conga began teaching art in the city of Shuri that he called 2d Saku Kawa or Sakakawea Chinese hands his most prominent student matsumura SoCon took on his teachings combined Sherita with tomorrow ta added in some Shaolin influences and created the art of Shore Andrew which would later become the foundation of Shotokan his student a man named Ito Sue Ann Coe adapted the art created new standardized Scott says and made a rather impressive push to implement karate into public schools teaching students at a young age and his additions to the art have remained with his cot disappearing across multiple styles of karate and he has sometimes referred to as the grandfather of modern karate so we could spend a lot of time going into more lineage but I hope that that at least gives you a good idea of where the roots were planted and helped again to branch off as the early karate practitioners or got Ithaca made the Arts of their own et funakoshi is largely credited with having a large influence on the spread of Tong Hans into Japan he was invited to teach in the public demonstration in Tokyo in 1917 and again in 1922 Funakoshi teachings provide to be popular in Japan and started to become standard training in schools now at this time Japan was also in the process of invading China so Funakoshi felt that it might be better in their interest to make some name changes so he ended up changing many of the kata names and techniques at the Japanese words and he even decided that maybe we should change the word from tang or Chinese hand into empty hand or karate now funakoshi taught a mixture of the Okinawan arts of shorin-ryu and sherry roux along with kendo that he learned in Japan and he simply referred to as art as karate not giving it an official name he also adopted the use of the karate key and belt ranking system established by judo founder g-girl Cano that we talked about that in great length in the previous video how many belts are in karate so I recommend you check that out so Funakoshi did not give his art a name then where did the term Shotokan come from well Funakoshi was also a poet and he wrote under the pen name of Sholto which means pine waves as in pine trees waving in the wind so when he established his own dojo in 1936 it was called the Shotokan con means hall or house so the name literally translates to the house of pine Wave it was simply meant to be the name of the training hall but that's time went on it stuck and eventually became referred to as name of the art people went to go train at the Shotokan so people trained to Shotokan they Shotokan is one of the largest and influential styles of karate now from there different branches of karate began the splinter merged and evolved into various disciplines Joran grew and share a roo formed the base of Shotokan Shotokan is a foundational art in the korean style of tong pseudo salsa he mastered Tatsu Yama took Shotokan and the Okinawan art of go judo and formed a very powerful and popular art of heal kitchen which still retains a set of contests from both arts now kyoko-chan itself continues to branch off into other offshoots such as kudo which the art of kyo kitchen now infused with a strong grappling curriculum and it doesn't stop there today we have the art of coastal co2 which is derived from Shotokan and guru we have ition roux derived from guru Shorin root and Kabuto then there is Chi thorugh the art practice by legendary karate master Fumio de Moura which is derived from Sheree ta and na hoti and we also have tong sudo a korean art that is sometimes referred to as perry and karate now there's a little bit of a gray area here some people consider the center of the form of karate and some don't it's kind of up in the air it didn't originate in Japan or Okinawa however it does have a lot of similar influences as well as having Shotokan as a strong base plus the name itself literally translates to way of the Tang hand we're just pretty much the same as karate or or karate Edo way of the empty hand so as you can see this is a rather easy rabbit hole to go down and we could spend hours examining all of it just a really fascinating study of history really now before we close out this episode there's one other aspect I'd like to touch upon the term karate doh-doh means path or way so to say that you study karate Edo it means that you follow the path of the empty hand it's a philosophical reference and it denotes a particular mindset and lifestyle of the practitioner now this is in contrast to the term karate jutsu which in which Jitsu means method or technique and in this context it usually refers to the context of combat so in a very very simplified way you can say that one is a mindset of the state of being and the other is a method of fighting and it's not just a distinction of karate dough and karate jutsu you can find similar relationships between Aikido jujitsu judo jujitsu kendo candid sue and so on now there is a major divide in the martial arts community many martial arts they feel that the only point of the art is to fight and that only the basics and simple combat elements are relevant I mean how many times have you heard the phrase or somebody referred to karate saying that it's totally useless Coty's are garbage and it should be completely thrown away I don't know about you but I hear it on almost a daily basis but I also hear from people that find great value in kata and find the interest the part of the art really handy and valuable so what it really comes down to is why you train some people want the martial arts to be a way of life a method of psychological balance health focus strength others want to engage in sport or competition therefore focusing on the tactical and combat side of the arts but there is also another way to look at it a philosophy that I like very much in simple terms pure karate dough is about strengthening your character the focus is not on fighting but rather finding your weaknesses strengthening your focus and finding peace in conflict resolution pure karate Jitsu is all about the ability to fight pure skill in combat but the truth is can you really have one without the other and still be a fully balanced martial artist if you only focus on the philosophy well then how can you better your character or find your weaknesses without that pressure testing of the intensity and realize that real-life situations and vice-versa if all you learned is punching and kicking if all you care about is the fighting aspect then what keeps your character in check sure you can fight but do you grow as a person without the introspective part of the training what do you have so I feel there's definitely a balance to find and it really comes down to you again what you yourself are personally looking for in the martial arts so you've got two sides of the coin that work well together there is a quote that was written by Funakoshi that I really like it reads one whose spirit and mental strength have been strengthened by sparring with a never-say-die attitude should find no challenge too great the handle one who has undergone long years of physical pain and mental agony to learn one punch one kick should be able to face any task no matter how difficult and carry it through to the end a person like this can truly be said to have learned karate thank you for watching I really hope that you enjoyed this episode as an introduction to what we will continue to grow as our across a series I would love to hear from any of you out there who practice any of these arts and also the vote on which arts you'd like to see covered so if you've got any recommendations please send them our way also please subscribe share join us on patreon so that we can keep making more our history documentaries thank you you [Music]