Weapons in Karate???

[Jimi]

Ugh... I've seen this as well.

The town in which I train / teach, held a vendors' exhibition weekend, for the various businesses in town to show their wares. They allowed us to hold a demo each day, and we did incorporate some traditional kobudo work.

Unfortunately, there was also another martial arts school putting on a demonstration. While they claimed to teach authentic Okinawan Karate, one of their yudansha performed a kata using a katana, and ended up doing several 360 degree jumping spinning kicks, and at one time, even ended up lodging his sword blade into the ground when he lost control.

Thankfully, nobody got hurt, but I did get rather irritated when I saw this fellow trying to play it off as if it were part of his kata. After seeing the look in his eyes (yes, the one where he knew he messed up by letting the sword hit the ground), he didn't pick up his sword, instead performing some breathing excercises, and trying to fudge a few empty hand moves until he abruptly ended the kata.

Worst of all, some of the folks attending the exhibition thought he was from our school...

Rest assured, if someone jumps, spins, kicks, and flips in a weapons kata, it's not traditional Kobudo!!

LORD HAVE MERCY!

 

[JPH]

Ugh... I've seen this as well.

Rest assured, if someone jumps, spins, kicks, and flips in a weapons kata, it's not traditional Kobudo!!

Ahmen, Grenadier!

 

[Hand Sword]

I would agree, strongly! Acrobatics has no place in the Traditional Karate Styles.

 

[Brandon Fisher]

Weapons training in Japanese systems are typically called Kobudo however they are used in conjunction with the empty hand training also many times.

 

[thescottishdude]

I did karate for 5 years and I know that 99% of it was weaponless. the instructor did know hot to use a staff and a sword but I don't know if he learne dthem through karate.

 

[TimoS]

I did karate for 5 years and I know that 99% of it was weaponless.

You've had bad luck then. With us, karate and kobudo are integrated into one, meaning that the empty hand moves and the weapons work look almost identical. This means that we often practise our empty hand sets (and sometimes the kata also) with weapons

 

[Jimi]

You've had bad luck then. With us, karate and kobudo are integrated into one, meaning that the empty hand moves and the weapons work look almost identical. This means that we often practise our empty hand sets (and sometimes the kata also) with weapons

I agree with you here, I was taught that the weapons of Okinawan systems were based on emptyhanded defense. The farm tools were weapons at hand for Okinawan farmers/fishermen, then later intergrated into their systems. Once a good base of emptyhand was set, adding weapons increased its potential. Heian Nidan is bone breaking with a set of Tonfa. Just my opinion.

 

[mantis]

Hello.
Is it weapons in Karate???

weapons in "empty hand"?

.. im sure lots of comments had that somewhere, just wanted to rub it in again haha

 

[TimoS]

The farm tools were weapons at hand for Okinawan farmers/fishermen, then later intergrated into their systems.

Well, karate never was a farmers/fishermens art. Think about it: you work hard day on the field/sea to scratch a living for your family, would you then have the energy to practise karate? I know I wouldn't! It was e.g. the royal bodyguards and nobles who practised karate, they had the possibility of doing so. The "farmer art" is just a legend. Granted, some of the weapons you see in ryukyu kobujutsu are either farm tools or derived from them (such as tonfa, sai and most likely eiku, the oar). The origin of nunchaku is debatable, where as sai has been a weapon in other far-eastern cultures also

 

[Jimi]

Are you saying peasant Okinawans had almost no access to emptyhand training? Kobudo is all weapons at hand? The Japanese did not adopt Karate untill around 1926 or so, or am I grossly misinformed?

 

[TimoS]

Are you saying peasant Okinawans had almost no access to emptyhand training?

Dunno about that, but I would imagine that on the whole they didn't have time nor the energy for serious karate training

The Japanese did not adopt Karate untill around 1926 or so, or am I grossly misinformed?

Hmm, around that time it started to grow, little by little. I don't have the source material with me and I'm too lazy to check it out right now, but according to wikipedia, Funakoshi introduced karate in 1921 and built Shotokan dojo in 1936

 

[Jimi]

I was told that many Okinawans trained in the evening as not to draw attention to their training. Even after a hard days work, I would , as I imagine Okinawans would train to safeguard their families from Samurai testing their blades and taking what they wanted. Never thought Karate was an art of Okinawan Royalbodyguards or Nobles. Just my opinion. PEACE

 

[TimoS]

Okinawans would train to safeguard their families from Samurai testing their blades and taking what they wanted

Well, the conquest of Okinawa by japanese was, to exaggerate a bit, more like Japanese: "nice land, it's ours now!" Okinawans: "fine!"

Never thought Karate was an art of Okinawan Royalbodyguards or Nobles.

Trust me, it was

 

[Brandon Fisher]

You've had bad luck then. With us, karate and kobudo are integrated into one, meaning that the empty hand moves and the weapons work look almost identical. This means that we often practise our empty hand sets (and sometimes the kata also) with weapons

Thats what I am doing in a large part with my weapons ciriculum.

 

[Andrew Green]

Couple things:

Kobudo = "Old Martial Way", what is being discussed here is specific to Okinawan Kobudo, ie. weapons. In Japan proper Kobudo / Koryu refers to arts, empty hand or weapons, which trace back to before the Meiji Restoration.

Are you saying peasant Okinawans had almost no access to emptyhand training? Kobudo is all weapons at hand? The Japanese did not adopt Karate untill around 1926 or so, or am I grossly misinformed?

Okinawan martial arts where different for different groups in my understanding. Peasant practices would have been different then people with money, where it would likely have been more formalized into kata and such.

An example of this is the weapons used by the Peichin (sp?) class, essentially policing class, where the Bo and the Sai, for which there are tons of kata dating quite a ways back.

Weapons considered "peasant" weapons, like the nunchaku, tekko, kama, etc. Have very few kata, and the ones that are there tend to be fairly recently created.

 

[Jimi]

I guess my understanding of Okinawan Weapons training and history must be off the mark. Never imagined that Royalbodyguards or Nobles would so quicky resort to tools as weaons i.e. Tonfa (well crank handles), Sai (pitch forks) NunChaku (rice thrashers) Kama (stalk reapers). I will gladly review more info provided by posters here to better my understanding. I simply believed weapons such as these were more of a peasants arsenal rather than that of Nobles. My old instructor may have misslead me. No disrespect, just trying to see it differently. Live and learn. PEACE

 

[Andrew Green]

Sai where not pitchforks, they where a weapon and a status symbol.

The policies class, one of the lowest of the "upper" class used Bo and sai, Sai for the higher ranking ones.

Some of the other weapons where peasant weapons, in modern times it's all been squished together though.

 

[Jimi]

Sai where not pitchforks, they where a weapon and a status symbol.

The policies class, one of the lowest of the "upper" class used Bo and sai, Sai for the higher ranking ones.

Some of the other weapons where peasant weapons, in modern times it's all been squished together though.

I did not know that. Cool, more than just a Ninja Turtle Toy. Thanks for the insight. Sure colleages of my old instructor should have known that. PEACE

 

[Brandon Fisher]

That is true the sai by my understanding was devoloped outside of Okinawa as a weapon and it was never used as a farming implament.

 

[Jimi]

That is true the sai by my understanding was devoloped outside of Okinawa as a weapon and it was never used as a farming implament.

Would you agree that the Sai is a classic counter Katana weapon as used in the Okinawan Systems?