We at JKA are very concerned about Karate becoming an Olympic sport. On one level competition is fun and a good moral building activity. But as we have seen with TKD and Judo people are becoming obsessed with competition. The same is true to the build up to the Beijing Olympics in 2008, people forget that while competition is fun it is not true Karate; as it is limited and full of techniques that will not do the job. Karate-ka should be able to finish a fight situation if one should arise in less than 10 seconds. JKA competition uses no weight classifications as in a defensive situation you are more likely to fight someone smaller or bigger than you. JKA do not fight to who scores 3 points but whoever scores the first point. We must keep hold of traditional Karate upto and after 2008 or we will lose the true art. However no matter what the time JKAE and JKA will preserve Karate in England in its pure form. Just as Funakoshi Sensei would want. "Follow the Way with honor, and be like the nature of water"
If karate would become an olympic sport, I also think, that it is really important that we recognize the difference between sportskarate and budokarate. If we dont make the difference we are likely to loose the essence of karate. By this I mean we all start training for competition and stop training for application.
? JKA is no contact competition karate pure and simple. And it is also a business. As nakayama said he was never given nor interested in bunkai ie the street fighting applications of karate. so how can it be a martial art? Look at the techniques they use all long range and the criteria for judging their sensei its whether they won no cantact competitions. Nakayama NEVER had a street fight in his life, the same as most of his instructors, and graded himself to 10th dan and he only had 2 years instruction from the elderly funakoshi. You cant call yourself a fighter without ever having a fight you cant learn to defend yourself from someone whos never had a fight or who only trains in no contact competition karate? Get real JKA is taebo MF
Surely that should read, as long as the JKA is around, Shotokan Karate as promoted by the JKA will survive? The JKA in no way represents Karate as practised by the majority of the world's Karateka. This is a laugh. madfrank is bang on the money when he says Shotokan was created as a sport style. So to suddenly have Shotokan practitioners getting on their high horse about Olympic Karate is very amusing. Would we, I wonder, be getting the same wailing and gnashing of teeth if the IOC was considering including JKA style kumite as an Olympic event? We? Are you a representative of the JKA leadership?
Yeah, in fact I heard that Shotokan was created by Osama Bin Laden to train toddlers how to play volleyball. In fact, I've heard that in Shotokan competitions, the competitors aren't allowed within 10 feet of each other and can only attack each other by throwing sponges... :bang: >sigh< Now there's a suprise.. a thread on the merits of Karate in the Olympics turns into yet another "Shotokan karate is rubbish because it isn't just brawling" thread.
Wrong. I actually practice Shotokan Karate and am under no illusions as to it's history, popularity and practice.
Olympic What is the Obession I really dont understaid the obession in trying to get MA styles in the Olympic games. Surely it would be better for the MA organisation to come together and promot their own games. We see that once a combat art gets into the Olympic games it ends of getting perverted in order to make it comply with sporting needs and to make it more attractive to the spectators. We have seen this with TKD and Judo. After all a footballer would rather have the World Cup as opposed to an Olympic Gold in football. The World Cup is seen as a footballers highest award of achievement. So come organisations get together and show how the MA should be fought. MA is the perfection of combat without gunpowder not sport.
The fact that Nakayama never got involved in a street fight is absolutely no indication of his ability, it is however a indication of the mans character, no true Martial Artist ever engages in combat unless it is necessary, so you criticise the man for never finding it necessary to fight, thats pretty pathetic and a good indication of your character.
True in some respects, we should be able to guage danger and avoid confrontations, but someone that interested in karate who has no interest in bunkai must be a moron. Karate is bunkai. It's all about application whether to a competitive fight or a streetfight. Without bunkai, karate is so useless and becomes a form of dance. IMO
Can I be honest? The only karate I'd ever consider going back to is sport karate, for the reasons that; they spar a lot more they enter into competitions they train more realistically they don't shy away from adopting more modern/effective exercise methods.
While I believe that JKA Shotokan is way ahead of many of the other so called "karate schools" out there as far as maintaining traditional training, I do believe that Nakayama is most responsible for taking Funakoshi's karate and turning it into sport. JKA very much standardizes their karate and makes changes in the name of aesthetics and competition. Tommy
The insistance on two kiai per kata, at specific points, and of starting and stopping on the same spot (taken to the extreme of adding backward bunny hops), the first ever karate tournament. The, spectacular jumps in kata, all originated with the JKA. This was told to me by one of the fellows featured in the Best Karate books.
If someone wants to learn tournament karate vs traditional karate, more power to them. At least their not in the street causing trouble.
Good point! (or should I say "ippon!") In all seriousness, JKA karate is no worse than any other governing body's style - it has its pros and cons just as every single martial art (yes, even Krav Maga etc etc) does. And karate clubs (in Britain at least) are notoriously naff at marketing, so you can hardly assume that JKA is so popular because of underhand, hard sell marketing. People go to the classes, enjoy it, and stay. Fair play to 'em!
Right. I'm sure that the JKA is worried about karate becoming an Olympic sport. More likely, they're worried that they won't be in charge of it. Nishiyama himself tried to get karate into the Olympics back in the late 70's to early 80's, but was turned down by the IOC because the team he was going to enter, the American team, would be fighting under the name of the Japan Karate Association. So he changed his organization in the US to the AAKA, the All-American Karate Association. The IOC again turned him down, because he insisted that only members of schools affiliated with the JKA be eligible to compete. So then Nishiyama became affiliated with the AAU, hoping to gain credibility as an American sports program, but they, the AAU, also insisted that he allow other American schools to compete for a place on the team representing America. He agreed, knowing that he would be the one to determine who would go and who wouldn't, but again he was stymied, when non-JKA people like Tonny Tulleners and John Gresham thrashed most of their competition in the tryouts, while under the eye of AAU representatives. His attempt to make karate an Olympic event eventually fell through, but it wasn't from a lack of his trying. As a side note, this is about the same time period when the now infamous Frank Smith affair took place, a good insight into Nishiyama's sense of fair play. Smith was unquestionably the US's top JKA fighter, a long time student of Nishiyama. Just prior to the upcoming Tokyo Championships, the Japanese team came to the US to do some tune-up matches with the American team. During the course of this session, Smith beat the hell out of one of Japan's top undefeated fighters, and did so in an impressive fashion. Immediatley after the session, Nishiyama called Smith into his office and informed him that he no longer needed to compete, thereby assuring the Japanese team would win the upcoming event. As far as doing what Funakoshi would have wanted, the JKA hasn't done that since the founder passed away. Funakoshi was strongly opposed to the practice of free-sparring, and was adamantly against organized competition. The JKA under Nakayama abandoned traditional karate for the more ballistic techniques used in tournament sparring today, and put the emphasis of their efforts into creating a sporting, competitive form of the art. It's notable that the first JKA All-Japan Championship tournament was held just after the masters passing away, because Nakayama did not want to offend him. And while I agree that the Olympic form of TKD has made it almost laughable, and I firmly believe that the JKA could do a much better job at regulating the quality and type of competition than the TKD people have, there would have to be some way of evening out the playing field so all styles of karate could compete equally.
' Yes he may have ben a nice guy. But as someone who used to bounce i wouldnt let someone with no fighting axperience teach me how to fight would you? Why? would you also let someone who's never been in the water teach you to swim if you had to go into the sea? You cannot teach a Martial (Fighting) art to someone if you've never had a fight. you cant teach people to swim if you've never been in the water MF
