Is Kyokushin Traditional??

[Nicholas82555]

I don't know whether last night's thread got through but.....

Considering Kyokushin Karate, the founder and his philosophy on What is and This is Karate. Would Kyokushin fall into the "traditional" category???

If it's considered so, then can the effectiveness be that the Japanese are more attentive, serious, dedicate and train harder in Japanese than others....

When you mention Karate, usually you'll get the mainstream styles from Japan and Okinawa with KK pulling up the rear.

Yes it does come down to the individual but overall, it's something to think about.

 

[searcher]

Depends on what you define as traditional. Most of the karate styles are less than 100 years old and come from similar sources.

 

[punisher73]

Depends on what you define as traditional. Most of the karate styles are less than 100 years old and come from similar sources.

Everything that we consider "traditional" was new at some point and made up by somebody. How far do you go back until something is traditional? Is traditional only reserved for an art created by an asian person?

For example, could American Kenpo or Kajukenbo ever be considered traditional another 50 years from now?

Is it traditional because somebody says it is? Aikido came from Aikijujitsu and is less than 100 years old. Is it traditional? Are the offshoots (Koichi Tohei's version or Seidokan Aikido)?

Shotokan is now considered traditional, but at the beginning it was a new art that was changed and modified by Funakoshi for his Japanese students. At what point did it become traditional?

About the only real thing that all of the "traditional arts" share is that at some point they were a new creation by someone taking other arts and techniques that they learned and put them together and started to share it.

 

[Aiki Lee]

I don't know if I would consider them traditional, but they certainly have traditions that extend way past the birth of some of these newer arts and organizations.

 

[dancingalone]

I would argue that 'traditional' styles of karate use kata and kata exercises as the primary means of transmitting their system's concepts and techniques.

Even though kyokushin has kata, my belief is that sparring drills are far more important comparatively to most kyokushin people. Thus, if you buy into my criterion, no, it is not traditional.

 

[Tez3]

Does it work? can you fight/defend yourself because you train it? If the answer is yes does it matter whether it's 'traditional' or not? If the answers no, it doesn't matter whether it's traditional or not you should be looking for a new instructor who can teach you properly in that style or another, it doesn't honestly matter as long as it gets the job done.
Too much worrying over history and tradition, just train.

 

[Aiki Lee]

That would depend on whether or not he is into martial arts for self-defense or combat training or if he is more interested in the culture or tradition

 

[Tez3]

That would depend on whether or not he is into martial arts for self-defense or combat training or if he is more interested in the culture or tradition

Seems also to depend on whether we want long long threads of argument or threads of interest! Perhaps he can post up his interest and we can have one thread on MT about martial arts 'history' that doesn't descend into arguing, pretty please!

 

[seasoned]

I personally feel that if I started a more modern style, considering my personal makeup, I may well feel the the old traditional arts may be antiquated. Now considering I chose my current art many years ago, I feel that this is the best way for me. What it boils down to is personal choice. There have been many discussions about which arts is better or more traditional in teams of combat efficiency, but bottom line is how you make it work for you. I think punisher73 had some good points.

 

[searcher]

Everything that we consider "traditional" was new at some point and made up by somebody. How far do you go back until something is traditional? Is traditional only reserved for an art created by an asian person?

For example, could American Kenpo or Kajukenbo ever be considered traditional another 50 years from now?

Is it traditional because somebody says it is? Aikido came from Aikijujitsu and is less than 100 years old. Is it traditional? Are the offshoots (Koichi Tohei's version or Seidokan Aikido)?

Shotokan is now considered traditional, but at the beginning it was a new art that was changed and modified by Funakoshi for his Japanese students. At what point did it become traditional?

About the only real thing that all of the "traditional arts" share is that at some point they were a new creation by someone taking other arts and techniques that they learned and put them together and started to share it.

I love this post. Superb points. You stated all the question I wanted to ask.

 

[Tez3]

I love this post. Superb points. You stated all the question I wanted to ask.

Agreed. it depends on how old you are too and how close you are to when your art started lol!

If Aikido is less than 100 years old to a youngster it's 'very' old, to me that means it was founded in my father's life time. The founders of Shotokan,Wado Ryu and Aikido were comtemporaries of my grandparents. To a teenager this would seem almost like the dark ages and certainly very traditional but many people my age remember their grandparents so it seems less 'traditional'.

 

[Bruno@MT]

In Japanese systems, there is a pretty solid definition: it is traditional if it as founded before 1867, hich marks the date Japan transitioned from a feudal to a modern society. Systems form before that date always follow the original ryuha structure of transmission. Systems from after that typically follow the kyu / dan structure.

One of the reasons this difference can be observes is that the feudal systems ere developed and transmitted for the purpose of life or death situations. Only the modern arts have concepts like rules, or specificity. With the latter I mean things like: judo has virtually no atemi and few locks, karate has virtually no throws, aikido has virtually no atemi, kendo has only 4 valid targets ...

I don't mean that they are less valuable etc. It is a conceptual difference. Old style jujutsu usually has a range of everything: locks, strikes, kicks, throws, ... and there are no rules and all body parts are targets.

As I said, the date is a pretty good definition for Japanese systems.
There are a couple of post-1867 systems that have the same intent as the old systems, but they are not numerous. And the ones I know of also follow the kyu / dan system.

 

[K-man]

In Japanese systems, there is a pretty solid definition: it is traditional if it as founded before 1867, hich marks the date Japan transitioned from a feudal to a modern society. Systems form before that date always follow the original ryuha structure of transmission. Systems from after that typically follow the kyu / dan structure.

One of the reasons this difference can be observes is that the feudal systems ere developed and transmitted for the purpose of life or death situations. Only the modern arts have concepts like rules, or specificity. With the latter I mean things like: judo has virtually no atemi and few locks, karate has virtually no throws, aikido has virtually no atemi, kendo has only 4 valid targets ...

I don't mean that they are less valuable etc. It is a conceptual difference. Old style jujutsu usually has a range of everything: locks, strikes, kicks, throws, ... and there are no rules and all body parts are targets.

As I said, the date is a pretty good definition for Japanese systems.
There are a couple of post-1867 systems that have the same intent as the old systems, but they are not numerous. And the ones I know of also follow the kyu / dan system.

In this case, using the definition of only arts in existence prior to 1867 can be traditional, no karate can be traditional because there was none until the early 1900s. That takes us back to 'Te'. Te is traditional but when the Okinawans such as Kanryo Higaonna, Kosaku Matsumora and Sokon Mutsumura learned the Chinese forms and blended them with Te we had the beginings of Kara-Te. So is karate traditional?

Aikido still has provision for atemi and I practise that twice a week. Karate has all the locks and throws and I teach that twice a week. The others I have no first hand experience of. Is what I train traditional? Not by the 1867 definition because what all of us train is more recent. :asian:

 

[Bruno@MT]

Aikido still has provision for atemi and I practise that twice a week. Karate has all the locks and throws and I teach that twice a week. The others I have no first hand experience of.

Aikido still has provision for atemi, but it is not practiced seriously in too many dojo. Same with Judo. Karate still has locks and throws but honestly, they are not practiced seriously in any karate dojo I know of. Even a layman will not walk into a karate dojo and think it is judo. Or mistake aikido for karate

If those systems were really 'general', then there would not be such big differences, people wouldn't cross train for the purpose of adding judo throws to their karate, and modern jujutsu systems would not be created by combining karate, aikido and judo.

Now as to whether those arts are traditional or not... that depends on your definition of traditional. The koryu - gendai definition is only one, but a good one to determine is an art was feudal or modern.

 

[K-man]

Aikido still has provision for atemi, but it is not practiced seriously in too many dojo. Same with Judo. Karate still has locks and throws but honestly, they are not practiced seriously in any karate dojo I know of. Even a layman will not walk into a karate dojo and think it is judo. Or mistake aikido for karate

If those systems were really 'general', then there would not be such big differences, people wouldn't cross train for the purpose of adding judo throws to their karate, and modern jujutsu systems would not be created by combining karate, aikido and judo.

Now as to whether those arts are traditional or not... that depends on your definition of traditional. The koryu - gendai definition is only one, but a good one to determine is an art was feudal or modern.

I like to think that my karate students have no need to cross train now. We train locks, holds and throws every session and we practise them seriously. We also train to gauge the eyes and crush the nuts.

I believe this is in line with the original Naha-te as we train much closer and more with open hands than the modern sport based karate. This is in line with the Jundokan training in Okinawa.

If anything my students might like to go BJJ for a bit more grappling, because that is not my scene, but our system is now pretty broad.

I train Aikido for the 'ki' not for the ordinary aikido techniques. However, if I didn't have karate as my first string, I would have no hesitation in staying just with the aikido I train because, unlike much I have seen, we do train to strike with hands, knees and elbows. True, you would not mistake it for karate but you might be surprised at how much the two have in common. :asian:

 

[TimoS]

I would argue that 'traditional' styles of karate use kata and kata exercises as the primary means of transmitting their system's concepts and techniques.

I agree, it is really the only reliable criteria IMO to defining whether a karate style is traditional or not. Traditional doesn't (automatically) equal better, it just means in this case that the kata have a real purpose, and they're not just, as a friend puts it, "ugly dances".

 

[Martin h]

Kyokushin as a style was formally founded 1957 (the developement started a few years earlier and the international organization was formally founded 1964).
Shotokan (the original Funakoshj dojo) was founded 1939. Gojuryu (the arguably oldest formal style) was founded in the late 20ies/early 30ies. Sure, both of these styles started developing earlier, before the formal founding of the style, but so did kyokushin.

Basically, Kyokushin is about 20 years newer than the so called "traditional" karate styles.
That is not all that much anymore!

 

[K-man]

Kyokushin as a style was formally founded 1957 (the developement started a few years earlier and the international organization was formally founded 1964).
Shotokan (the original Funakoshj dojo) was founded 1939. Gojuryu (the arguably oldest formal style) was founded in the late 20ies/early 30ies. Sure, both of these styles started developing earlier, before the formal founding of the style, but so did kyokushin.

Basically, Kyokushin is about 20 years newer than the so called "traditional" karate styles.
That is not all that much anymore!

Not quite right regarding Goju. Goju didn't change a lot from Kanro Higaonna's Naha-te that he developed after returning from China ib the 1880s. Goju was called Goju by Miyagi to differentiate his school from other similar schools in about 1930. As practised in Okinawa Goju is still similar to the original style. Yamaguchi's Goju Kai is similar to Shotokan, different animal to make it more polpular and suitable for school children. Also these have developed for competition whereas the originals didn't. :asian:

 

[Noah_Legel]

If you are including Okinawan arts when you talk about Japanese arts then I have to agree with the use of kata as a blueprint for the style as being the primary consideration. If you are sticking with just Japan then yes, going by the transition from feudal to modern would be the turning point. I would not personally consider Kyokushin traditional by either definition simply because it was developed in the mid-20th century and, from what I have seen, kata is not considered the core of the art--sparring is. That said, I do not train Kyokushin and have only worked out with a few Kyokushin practitioners, so my opinion is a bit biased simply because I don't know any different.

 

[Brandon Fisher]

"Whether or not the kata have real purpose?" EXCELLENT!! That is what makes karate traditional or not. The Rengokai in Okinawa says 50 years of consistentcy makes a style traditional. I believe Kyokushin has 50 years in exsistence.