Kyokushin or MMA?

Honor is different for everybody, I won't presume to tell you what your code of honor should be.

 

I agree 100%,

 

So how can you say your art is honourable then? Again it is down to arbitrary and personal definitions

It seems like I am picking on you and I really am not - but you casually mentioned "honor" and "true kareteka" an in reality there is no such thing outside of what YOU choose it to mean.

To me if you cannot fight you aren't doing a martial art - a polemic and single minded view admittedly, but logically consistent with the origin of the arts.

"Making you a better person" really isn't consistent with said origin

And as for Samurai - if beheading someone for touching your sword is honourable then I will choose to be a rogue

 

I have nothing to say about the samurai, as karate and the samurai have basically noting to do with each other. And I believe that a martial art has to include fighting, that's their main body, but they also can't forget the rest.

As for subjective honor, we can all agree on basics of honor. Don't pick fights, don't abuse your power, protect what matters, and be a good person.

 

I agree, the importance of style is overplayed in my opinion, it comes down to the person more than the style in the end. As my sensei says, it's not what you know, it's who you are.

 

Except that large portions of Japan's military history revolve around Samaria caste and ignoring the theft of "te" from Okinawa much of Japanese martial arts -karate included- draw on samurai aesthetic.

Saying we agree that honour is about vague things like "don't abuse your power", "be a good person" and "protecting what matters" doesn't tell us much as that description of honour is an inch away from tautology and is so vague. It's like saying "Well the basic principle of morality is to be a good person"

The fact that we agree that honour is about "being a good person"; only tells us that we all have an understanding of the connotations of honour. However, as Hannibal is pointing out, the fact that we all know what honour generally refers to in a loose sense doesn't tell us about any agreeable definition of honour outside of the self-declared importance slung around by martial artists.

 

Honour = Be a good person?


Honour killings??


Honour comes down to society, social groups, how one's worth is perceived within those groups and how we behave.

Back in the day it may well have been about winning and taking heads without too much concern for how you did it.


Personally I tend to cringe when people start gibbering on about honour let alone when MAists start on about it, most of the time they start spewing overly romanticised notions that belong more on TV than in the study of the arts.

To me honour is less about acting proper, though that is of course a part, and more about how you deal with the fall out when you haven't acted in a proper manner.

 

Honor is an ambiguous thing. That's why the things we can agree on are vague.

 

I can agree with that to an extent, but I believe a huge part of honor is to ovoid hurting those around you whenever possible.

 

If honour is so ambiguous then it can be skipped in its entirety to allow us to focus on the important things that aren't ambiguous. Like kindness and humble spirit.

If a definition of honour can't be clearly articulated without being shot down, it's probably not worth having.

 

Samurai would disagree, as would Jihadists, Knights of Yore and any other number of people who lived and breathed a nebulous "honor" system

Being a "good" person is not the same as being honorable, although there is crossover depending upon your viewpoint

Easy to get cyclic in these discussions isnt it?

 

WOW...I didnt think my thread would get this much attention lol, I wake up and see this much action I have missed...and it seems I may have ****ed some people off due to my choice of words..Let me try and clear somethings up for many of you who had questions for me. Umm but first let me read everything because this is awesome stuff and remember I take nothing personal...To me this is like being in a class..and learning from my fellow students, It may have been stupid or ignorant to post my thread...Fine see it that way but I do not...its a valid question and it has a lot of peoples attention which thats what I wanted...I wanted to see what everyone thought good or bad...I posted this thread here because who better than to help me understand? My fellow fighters and Martial artist. = )

 

Really Quick, I know seldom about the Samurai and the style of martial arts that I have been practicing has nothing to do with them. However....My Shihan spoke about them because a lot...Why? well thier wisdom and how they went about things...everything was respect and honor with a Samurai was it not? ok ok ok now back all the way in the day, I have been told...that they were ruthless fighters "savages" at that..so maybe I am wrong...maybe i have been watching the "Last Samurai" to often lololol...Dont take what I say so personal Friendly chit chat here...Bashing your head against a brick wall over anything I may say is no good...your only hurting yourself..I am only seeking to Learn and understand...thats it.

 

I learned a new word: "tautology". Thanks Geicoma

 

Again a romantic viewpoint with no real basis in pragmatic analysis

I always fall back to the decapitation of a peasant for touching a Samurais sword - if you consider that honorable we have nothing more to discuss

 

isn't it funny how so many people doing what get called the "traditional" arts get all gooy over the romanticized version of Japanese history and its dubious warrior class and take from it this mental state that it some how is more eloquent and enlightened to arts with western origins and yet no one regurgitates western stuff as much as the Japanese, BJJ, Wrestling and MMA all have allot of history with native japanese as practitioners within the country its self.

 

The term "warrior class" says it all really!

It's ok to decapitate people as long as you call out your name and clan first and there's lots of bowing after...that makes it honourable.

 

there's a side of me that just straight up respects people who are good at violence, for there influnce on tactical thinking, the legend of there exploits, aesthetically and just general bad assiry yeah love me some samurai. But looking to them as this band of moral warriors who lived by a code of honour as a way of living your own life is a nonsense, it was the same as Chivalry in Europe, an idea to keep the rich and powerful exactly that rich and powerful.

 

Sigged!