Talk:Karate

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Contents

[edit] Orthographic Error?

In the following paragraph, in the History of Karate section:

In 1806, "Tode" Sakukawa (1782-1838), who had studied pugilism and staff (bo) fighting in China (according to one legend, under the guidance of Koshokun, originator of kusanku kata), started teaching a fighting art in the city of Shuri that he called "Karate-no-Sakukawa" (at that time meaning "China hand of Sakakawa"). This was the first known recorded reference to the art of karate (written as 唐手).

¿The (at that time meaning "China hand of Sakakawa") shouldn't say "China hand of Sakukawa"?

[edit] Styles

I removed them all. It made the article too long, and really added nothing to it. Of course there are styles. There are styles of teaching, and football and everything else. I kept the list here in case someone wants to make a new article

[edit] Styles

Within karate there are presently a multitude of different styles or schools. These include:
(A-Z)

Many organizations offer hybrids of karate styles. RogueNinja 05:16, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] oss

no reference to oss? ...well?

Isn't it there under The History of Karate in Japan as 'osu'?. It's a curiousity--I don't object to it being there but I don't feel it's necessary. JJL 19:36, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

Swimming, soccer, ballet, obo, last but not least, KARATEEE!!!! --Yancyfry jr 03:51, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Way Too Long

Come on, guys. This opening paragraph is way too long. The Taekwondo article reads beautifully and this article is dissapointing by comparison. I'd recommend some serious trimming/condensing to make it read more fluently.

The "air hand" discussion could be entirely dropped, to my mind. JJL 17:15, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Semi-protection

Anyone want to submit a request for semi-protection?

[edit] Changes (Transliteration, Manual of Style, and a few others)

I've made the following changes.
1. Consistently writing karate in all lower case letters (except for use in proper names of karate organizations, e.g. World Karate Federation).
2. Consistent use of italics for Japanese non-loanwords and non proper names. See Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style_(Japan-related_articles).
3. Proper use of revised Hebon-shiki system of Japanese to English transliteration of Japanese non-loanwords.
4. Corrected a couple of spelling and grammar errors.
5. Removed the sentence "Probably, many so called barefooters and foot fetishism people enjoy practicing Karate for the reason that they are barefoot when in many sports you aren´t." because, frankly, that's just creepy. If someone can cite something for that statement, then put it back in, but otherwise, please spare us.
6. Decapitalized a lot of other non-proper name Japanese words, including the names of kata. I debated doing this, and honestly, I think it should be discussed whether the kata names should go back to being capitalized.

In conclusion, I agree with whoever wrote the comment under the heading "Way Too Long," above. But rather than trimming, necessarily, it is the organization of the article that really needs fixing. A great deal of the material is repeated in more than one section, and the article overall has history, modern practice, technique, and other subjects mixed amongst each other without a logical order. Further, many of the paragraphs should be rewritten with better grammar and sentence structure. I suspect some of the article sections were written by a non-native english writer, which is great - I appreciate their contribution, but the next step needs to be taken where someone refines the ideas expressed. I'm considering doing it myself shortly - any objections?
Bradford44 15:13, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Elvis?

I think this article should contain a small notice about Elvis's karate.

Any information about Elvis' karate training belongs on the Elvis page, and/or a page for a list of famous people who practiced karate. Unless Elvis founded his own school of karate that somehow had an effect on the development or propogation of karate as a whole, it doesn't really belong here. I'm sure you can imagine what the page would look like if every famous person that practiced karate had a blurb about them on the karate page. I don't mean to sound harsh, and I encourage your further participation on this page, but every martial arts style page has had to go through its phase of random famous people who practiced that style getting added to it one at a time. You should have seen the reverts of the aikido page with Steven Seagal going on and off it constantly :P Bradford44 18:28, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Massive Reorganization

I reorganized the page from scratch, due to its repetitive and confusing presentation. However, I altered very little of what I moved around, and tried to preserve as much information as possible. Despite this, there were a few tidbits of information here and there that didn't fit (and maybe were surplusage to the article in the first place), and a few paragraphs I added to tie certain sections together and fill in missing information. Although I greatly wanted to, I refrained from removing the ever-increasing list of karate styles. Unless there is an objection, I am going to remove it in five days or so. Second, a section on self-defense still needs to be written. As it is, the article is far from perfect, but I hope that what I've changed is an improvement that will spur people to refine the information present, now that it is presented in a much less disorganized manner.Bradford44 18:21, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Anon User's deletions

It looks like an anon user removed huge amounts of text, and reordered the page. I don't necessarily mind, but I don't think such a drastic change should have been done unilaterally, nor do I think all of the deletion is justified without some prior discussion. It looks like the following sections have been deleted:

  • Section on Zen philosophy incorporated into the use of "empty" in karate
  • Section on weapons practice as it relates to the use of the word karate to refer to empty handed combat arts
  • Several paragraphs that in some way reference the fact that Japan had a nationalistic political climate, and a racist, ethnocentric social climate, during the early part of the twentieth century when karate was developing into its modern form. The references should remain, because they are relevant to karate's development (at least linguistically), and their removal strikes me as being a NPOV desire to revise an ugly part of history. Obviously the Japanese had very ethnocentric attitudes immediately prior to WWII, just as the Allies produced disgusting, racist propoganda vilifying the Japanese and Germans during the war.

If there are no objections in five days, I'm going to revert to RogueNinja's edit from about fourteen hours ago. Bradford44 15:09, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

The article is already too long, and everyone who came along was just added links to their own personal styles and dojos. The list of styles adds nothing to one's knowledge about karate. RogueNinja 07:19, 14 October 2006 (UTC)

I'm sorry, I think I was unclear. I 100% agreed with removing the list of styles. I plan to revert to RogueNinja's edit that removed them, not before RogueNinja's edit. That is, to the edit where the list is removed, but before all of the stuff the anon user removed. I could not agree more with removing the list of styles, and I'm glad someone finally did. I only disagree with what was removed by the next user after that.Bradford44 18:56, 14 October 2006 (UTC)


Oh, go right ahead thenRogueNinja 14:00, 15 October 2006 (UTC)


[edit] What Karate Means to Me

When I first started taking karate seven years ago, I wouldn’t even count out loud in class. Also the first time I was asked to stand up in front of the class to do kata, I wouldn’t do it, instead I just sat there and had tried to hold a pushup position for as long as I could, or until the other students had gone through and done their kata witch ever came first. Last weekend I stood up on my own and did four kata in front of an audience of complete strangers and once I got going I didn’t give it a second thought. I would say that karate has given me self confidence. Along with giving me confidence, karate has taught me respect for myself, people and things in general. Through karate I have met and gotten to now five people that I will never forget, Sensei Pete McHenry, Greg Broadwell, Mike Gerard and Steve Seltzer. All of these people have helped to teach me. Although I may have left class in tears once or twice, every one of them has always been nice, caring and very supportive of me. -- 63.249.86.213 05:33, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] The NKF? WKF?

The JKA is the original organization of Karate, but where does the WKF Come from? Is it an offshoot of the JKA. Also, the USA's committee NKF is recognized by the WKF, what are the origins for NKF?

It's a lot more complicated than that. The JKA was one of the early shotokan organisation founded by students of Gichin Funakoshi. But even that didn't last long in its original form (the shoto-kai for example, who were another branch of Funakoshi's students, have never been part of the JKA). The WKF is a sporting organisation designed to regulate sport karate and officiate over sport karate matches. It has no governance over individual classes or styles. It accepts all styles willing to compete under its particular ruleset. It has nothing to do with the JKA and competes under a completely different ruleset to the JKA. Shinji nishizono 16:01, 17 November 2006 (UTC)
(Original Questioner) TY Shinji, but So what would be the governance over the styles? I guess I'm still confused due to the political conflicts within each style/organization. Also, then did Gichin Funakoshi's organization JKA rise to become the organization for karate?
Hi! There is no organisation that governs all karate. There are many different bodies that govern within the shotokan-ryu another several that govern kyokushin-ryu etc etc. Karate is a pretty "catch all" kind of term to describe all descendants of Okinawan fistfighting. The JKA is probably the oldest of the karate associations, but it is only one of many associations. It has no more power than any other karate organisation (aside from the respect it has earned through being a long-lasting and traditional organisation). Gichin Funakoshi is the man usually credited with bringing "the way of chinese hands" "kara te do" from Okinawa to Japan, so he is usually revered as the father of Japanese karate. Although (I believe) he died before the JKA was formed, his son's students were involved in the making of the organisation, so they can claim direct decendance from the father of Japanese karate. In fact, the Shoto-kai probably have just as much claim (and many say that shoto kai karate is closer to what Gichin Funakoshi practiced, whereas shoto kan karate is more like the athletic karate of his son Yoshitaka Funakoshi). You will probably find that students of other karate styles such as Wado Ryu, Shito Ryu, Kyokushinkai ryu, Goju Ryu etc give no more than passing repect, if that, to the JKA. It certainly has no control over the way their schools are run. Hop this helps, happy to try and answer any more questions.
(Original Questioner) Thanks, I guess my question was worded oddly, is what would be the governance over each style? For example Wado-ryu is governed by blank, Shotokan is Governed by blank, so on and so forth. Also what would be other organizations of karate? I've only learned of the ones accepted by the International Olympic committee (WKF). I've been studying mainly Shotokan so I understand more about that, but thanks to contributions, I understand it better. But besides that fact, from what I've read, it was Gichin Funakoshi who was largely influencing into bringing Karate, an Okinawa sport, into Japan.
Ah, ok, sorry I did misunderestand your question. There are far too many governing bodies to list. It probably numbers into the hundreds. There is no single governing body for each style of karate. There are dozens for each style.
(Original Questioner)Ahhh, politics again, ok, thank you very much

Karate is highly political and there are multiple organizations for each style. RogueNinja 08:19, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

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