Book : Shotokan's secret.

[Danjo]

I just finished this book, and am going over it for a second time...
It is an interesting read, however there's something about some of Mr. Clayton's suppositions that is nagging at me...Something's just not right, and I don't know what it is, that's why I'm re-reading it...
Boomer! Have you read this book? What do you think?

I think it has do do with something I noticed while reading this book. It seems that the author is using the 1950's model of Shotokan as his example. When he talks about the ultra low stances etc. being for use in a hall fighting through crowds of people were not present in Funaki=oshi's original Karate. If you look at Funakoshi's first book "Karate Jutsu" his stances are high and shallow compared to what he was doing later on. This would throw the theory of the author out pretty conclusively. It's as though the author was looking at modern Shotokan and trying to explain why it looked so different than the other Okinawan styles in terms of how deep the stances etc. were and came up with this explanation. If he'd have looked at Funakoshi's original works, he might not have drawn the same conclusions.

 

[exile]

I think it has do do with something I noticed while reading this book. It seems that the author is using the 1950's model of Shotokan as his example. When he talks about the ultra low stances etc. being for use in a hall fighting through crowds of people were not present in Funaki=oshi's original Karate. If you look at Funakoshi's first book "Karate Jutsu" his stances are high and shallow compared to what he was doing later on. This would throw the theory of the author out pretty conclusively. It's as though the author was looking at modern Shotokan and trying to explain why it looked so different than the other Okinawan styles in terms of how deep the stances etc. were and came up with this explanation. If he'd have looked at Funakoshi's original works, he might not have drawn the same conclusions.

Nice point, Danjo. It's quite funny, in a way, that the low stances are regarded as somehow more traditional (I've fallen into that error myself), whereas the higher walking stances of, e.g., the modern WTF TKD forms are just an adaptation to point-fighting tactics. But the higher stances that actually were used in the Okinawan `root' of the different karate varieties contradict that. What the Okinawans were after in coming up with their MA was always practicality and usefulness, never `prettiness'. If high stances give you greater mobility, that's what you go with...

 

[Danjo]

Nice point, Danjo. It's quite funny, in a way, that the low stances are regarded as somehow more traditional (I've fallen into that error myself), whereas the higher walking stances of, e.g., the modern WTF TKD forms are just an adaptation to point-fighting tactics. But the higher stances that actually were used in the Okinawan `root' of the different karate varieties contradict that. What the Okinawans were after in coming up with their MA was always practicality and usefulness, never `prettiness'. If high stances give you greater mobility, that's what you go with...

Yeah, I remember constantly having to adjust my stances up when free sparring. So did everyone else. Also, why would Motobu have been so critical of Funakoshi's style? He said it was garbage and not useful for self defense. He never made those same criticism's of other Okinawan's who were teaching in Japan at the time, so I don't think it was competition or anything. I think he truly hated to see Karate go from a fighting system to what amounted to a sport along the lines of Judo. Kano had encountered the same thing from the old Jujutsu-ka when he created Judo. They felt that making it into a sport was wrong and gave him a lot of grief over it. It is very clear that Funakoshi fashioned himself after Kano when creating his Karate-Do out of the old Karate-Jutsu that he had learned in Okinawa.

 

[exile]

Yeah, I remember constantly having to adjust my stances up when free sparring. So did everyone else. Also, why would Motobu have been so critical of Funakoshi's style? He said it was garbage and not useful for self defense. He never made those same criticism's of other Okinawan's who were teaching in Japan at the time, so I don't think it was competition or anything. I think he truly hated to see Karate go from a fighting system to what amounted to a sport along the lines of Judo.

We're in serious agreement about this! :wink1:---I think Motobu, the ultimate practical kareteka and man of action, felt that GF was `stylizing' karate too much, as well as `dumbing down' the technical content. I don't know that GF himself thought that that's what he was doing. But in a sense, GF was just continuing the `domestication' of karate that had begun with Itosu. It was an early lesson that if you want your art to sell well enough for you to make a living at it, you better turn down the volume on the really nasty stuff that you do with it---a lesson that hasn't been lost on the modern NAmerical MA scene (though there are honorable exceptions for sure, some of them right here on MT)...

Kano had encountered the same thing from the old Jujutsu-ka when he created Judo. They felt that making it into a sport was wrong and gave him a lot of grief over it. It is very clear that Funakoshi fashioned himself after Kano when creating his Karate-Do out of the old Karate-Jutsu that he had learned in Okinawa.

Didn't GF get the whole colored belt progression format from Kano?

It's interesting that so many karateka these days, many of them in the UK, make it clear that they're interested in restoring the jutsu perspective on karate technique. The model here would be more Matsumura than Funakoshi... which takes us back to those higher, authentic-original Okinawan stances, eh?

 

[Danjo]

We're in serious agreement about this! :wink1:---I think Motobu, the ultimate practical kareteka and man of action, felt that GF was `stylizing' karate too much, as well as `dumbing down' the technical content. I don't know that GF himself thought that that's what he was doing. But in a sense, GF was just continuing the `domestication' of karate that had begun with Itosu. It was an early lesson that if you want your art to sell well enough for you to make a living at it, you better turn down the volume on the really nasty stuff that you do with it---a lesson that hasn't been lost on the modern NAmerical MA scene (though there are honorable exceptions for sure, some of them right here on MT)...




Didn't GF get the whole colored belt progression format from Kano?

It's interesting that so many karateka these days, many of them in the UK, make it clear that they're interested in restoring the jutsu perspective on karate technique. The model here would be more Matsumura than Funakoshi... which takes us back to those higher, authentic-original Okinawan stances, eh?

I think that popularizing Karate was what Itosu and Funakoshi wanted more than anything else. They wanted to bring it to the school system and out of the back yards where it had been relagated for so long. One-on-one and small-group instruction had been the method of passing on the art (Jutsu) since it's beginning days, and they wanted to make it something able to be taught to the masses. To do that, it had to be "watered down" or at least "Broken down" into digestable chunks. To teach broad groups of people, you have to teach broad things. Details and subtleties are foregone as a result.

The rank system did come to Funakoshi via Kano's adapting it for Judo. The idea itself is older than Judo. In Japan, you can have a "black belt" in gardening or sculpture for instance. The kyu/dan system is one that is used to grade expertise many different things there. I don't have an issue with that so much as it's just another way for someone to keep track of things in their organization. It was, in fact, very necessary once karate etc. started being taught to the masses. If, in your lifetime, you only had fifty students, you likely wouldn't need a belt rank system to keep track of them.

 

[exile]

I think that popularizing Karate was what Itosu and Funakoshi wanted more than anything else. They wanted to bring it to the school system and out of the back yards where it had been relagated for so long. One-on-one and small-group instruction had been the method of passing on the art (Jutsu) since it's beginning days, and they wanted to make it something able to be taught to the masses. To do that, it had to be "watered down" or at least "Broken down" into digestable chunks. To teach broad groups of people, you have to teach broad things. Details and subtleties are foregone as a result.

Yup. That says it all, pretty much...

The rank system did come to Funakoshi via Kano's adapting it for Judo. The idea itself is older than Judo. In Japan, you can have a "black belt" in gardening or sculpture for instance. The kyu/dan system is one that is used to grade expertise many different things there. I don't have an issue with that so much as it's just another way for someone to keep track of things in their organization.

That's my understanding of the term `kata'. The notion of pattern, of a formal template of abstract perfection that you strive to emulate, is a core notion of Japanese aesthetics and applies to flower arrangements, the tea ceremony, and almost every other domain of what we might loosely call `craftsmanship' that you can think of, including MA.

It was, in fact, very necessary once karate etc. started being taught to the masses. If, in your lifetime, you only had fifty students, you likely wouldn't need a belt rank system to keep track of them.

Right. Everything changed once karate `went public'. A lot of the turmoil and angst in our various threads comes from trying to reconcile the ideal of the small-scale notion of the MAs, family- or village-based, from 19th c. Okinawa and Japan (and later on in early 20th c. Korea) to the realities of the MA industry in early 21st c. N. America, where people will pay ten year's worth of the annual wealth production of an Okinawan village in the 1890s for a single full-page ad in Black Belt selling gis, stretching machines or what-have-you.

 

[stone_dragone]

I am reading thsi book right now (borrowing it off of my father-in-law's instructor) and it is possibly one of the best books regarding martial arts that I've read in a long time. My favorite is still "Living the MArtial Way," but "Shotokan's Secret" is creeping up there pretty close.

It seems that every few years, I find a book or instructor or post on MT that asks just the right question to keep me rolling for a long time...this book is full of them!

While, from a completely academic point of view, I do find that the book makes some broad leaps to certian conclusions, the information given is very much logical and makes sense. In those places where the author is about to make such a leap, he does give warning that it is coming instead of outright declaring something as a fact.

Even so, the leaps are in such a logical direction and supported by other verifiable information that one forgets to look down and notice that he's no longer on estabished ground, but on a new bridge being buit as the reader lands from his academic jump.

I'm still reading it, but it's defnately a must read for Nidans and above in okinawan karate-based arts. I would not recommend it to anyone of less experience in their arts due to the fact that the information presented could very easily conflict with the accepted information being presented to the student.

FInally, to all potential readers: Beware, your point of view could be drastically altered. Enjoy!