chrispillertkd
Senior Master
Perhaps not, but I certainly haven't said that a majority of the people in the Ryukyu Islands practiced Te. I'm sure it was an activity sought after by a small segment of the population...
I don't completely follow what you are saying here, but I can say my teacher from that same culture taught me umpteen ways to break joints, smash bones, and generally cause pain and other physical trauma. I'm fairly confident that was the purpose of karate before the 1910s or so when the "Do" aspects began to be emphasized.
I was under the impression that the majority of martial arts were not "marketed" for popular consumption until rather recently. I have not heard that the Okinawans did so until somewhat recently when karate was introduced into the physical education curriculum in schools. Do you have any idea of the relationship between the introduction of the "Do" aspect of things and the trend to popularize training?
Also, do you know of any karate ryu that didn't "sign on" to the idea of karate becoming karate-do?
From my experience in CMA it seems that a greater emphasis is placed on students being virtuous to be accepted for training rather than training making one a better person (though this idea isn't completely absent). In Taekwon-Do there is a much greater emphasis on developing certain character traits through the training itself than I experienced in Kung-Fu. I'd be interested in hearing your thought on how Okinawan karate addresses this.
Pax,
Chris