Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Aug 6, 2013 4:03:48 GMT -5
Is Shotokan Karate inferior to Okinawan styles of Karate?
There is a particular individual on YA's who keeps saying that Shotokan Karate is inferior to the Okinawan styles of Karate. He says it is watered down for the Japanese and the kata/bunkai is weak.
Is this true?
Or did Shotokan Karate evole in Japan differently and is as good as the Okinawan styles?
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odee
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Kyokushin 10 years - Brazilian Jujitsu 3 years - Muay Thai 2 years.
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Post by odee on Aug 6, 2013 7:46:23 GMT -5
There are actually a few of them on Yahoo. Japanese Karate Association is a body that has a lot of sway over Shotokan Karate. I've heard people talk (well, read it on forums) about the JKA trying to prevent Karate from overtaking Judo and Jujutsu as the preferred art by stiffling it. I've never bothered to look into it because a lot of the things that they claim the JKA does aren't found in Kyokushin, even though Oyama was Korean by birth Kyokushin is actually considered Japanese and is under the sway of the JKA just like Shotokan so I find it hard to believe that the organisation actually did these things, on the other hand Shotokan as Shotokan came into existance a good fourty years before Oyama made Kyokushin so it's possible that the hands had retracted by then or Oyama was just a strong enough leader that they never got a real grip. For the most part I don't believe in watered down technique or watered down bunkai. I think the biggest issue with Shotokan in the western world is watered down training methods, to bust it right down Bullshido and McDojoism has hurt Shotokan almost as badly as it has Taekwondo. Goju-ryu was slower getting to the west and only copped the end of the 'Karate-Fu' craze. People who claim stronger Bunkai are idiots. People who claim stronger Kata are just as stupid. Frankly a person who has been taught to fight well could use tap dancing and kick the ass of a person who has no fighting experience but knows all these 'best kata'. I know that's taking an example to the extreme but you get the idea. Shotokan evolved differently before it even got to Japan. I can't remember the details or where I found them but they came from different areas of Okinawa and evolved seperately to begin with, Shotokan was more straight-line while Goju-ryu is more circular because of the different wushu styles that influenced them, I also think it's because Shotokan only had limited contact with the Samurai and by extention Jujutsu.
I do believe circular styles are the more efficient methods of fighting but they also require greater skill differences than straight-line methods. If I got in a fight with someone on the street and they turned out to be all bark with no skillful bite I'd use circular concepts, brush them aside with minimal fuss and make them feel a bit stupid for trying my patience in the first place, it would work because I'm better at fighting and more skillful than the other guy. Against another fighter circular concepts don't work so well. You don't 'brush off' other fighters. Skillful fighters understand the concepts of balance and commitment themselves. That's why you rarely if ever see fancy throws in the UFC, it's not because they don't work it's because the other fighters just don't give them anything to work with. Circular concepts require you to use your opponent's momentum against them, if a fighter is weary of me as a skilled martial artist he isn't going to commit until he knows he has me dead to rights or he's truly desperate. I'm not going to get a big, reckless haymaker to work with I'm going to get a flurry of jabs with no body momentum behind them until I've slowed down enough to be cleaned up. Even if I can catch one of those jabs I'm going to have to bodily haul my opponent into a throw or lock. That's where straight-line concepts thrive.
Straight-line concepts continue to work when the skill-level is equal or even stacked against you, it's where the term 'puncher's chance' becomes literal rather than figurative. Straight-line concepts and techniques work so well because they're so simple that they're hard to screw up.
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KyKarateka
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Post by KyKarateka on Aug 6, 2013 14:42:56 GMT -5
Odee nailed it, JKA does influence a large amount of Shotokan Dojos but there are ones that are not associated with JKA as well. As Odee mentioned, Shotokan has been hit really hard by McDojos and such which in my opinion takes away from the reputation of the art as a whole. However, despite the fact that it is hit hard by McDojos it doesn't make it any less than any other martial art, same goes for Taekwondo.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Aug 9, 2013 1:07:05 GMT -5
OK JKA aside, what do people think of SKIF Shotokan?
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odee
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Post by odee on Aug 9, 2013 5:58:02 GMT -5
Dunno. Never had the opportunity to train with any of them so I've never really bothered to form an opinion.
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