As far as the hands being called husband and wife my understanding is that both hands are working together. A good example is the hikite which I'm sure you are familiar with since you mentioned Iain Abernathy. Since karate goes back to Okinawa and Okinawan karate was originally taught as an in your face martial art with low line kicks, strikes, joint locks, and throws. With the hikite when the punch goes out the hikite (hand drawn back to the hip) is being used to grab the opponents clothing, hair, arm, or any part of the body to control and also increase the destructive power of the strike. Another great example is when both hands are brought together to the hip followed by a back fist or horizontal hammer fist and side kick. The hands are being used to pull the arm of the opponent to unbalance him while originally the kick was a low line kick often attacking a joint or nerve while striking the face with the.hand. I also realized that blocks that used to not make sense to me did when you use them in a close up position. The chamber for the block was often the block and what we think of being the block are actually strikes. In Shorin Ryu the block can be a block but the chamber is very tight not like it is being taught now in Shotokan or TSD. When I trained many years at a boxing gym I learned a few very important lessons. One was that it is always better to move out of the way if possible which makes your opponent miss and takes away his energy. Next would be to parry or block. The parries and blocks in boxing are the same as karate but much tighter. Boxing teaches to keep everything tight from the beginning where karate often starts to teach everything big and wide at first and then later teaches to tighten everything up. Boxing also teaches the importance of footwork. When learning that the hikite has a purpose it makes you think differently of what and why you are using it. Another important lesson from boxing is to keep your hands up. Although hikite has a purpose when a karateka has practiced many years drawing his or her hand to the hip it teaches the bad habit of dropping our hands and leaving ourselves vulnerable to being hit. As to the free sparring in Okinawa I believe that it was more closer to being a grappling type situation with some strikes added based on stories I have heard in the past. Think of the scene in Enter the Dragon with Bruce Lee and Bob Wall crossing hands each feeling there strength and weakness but with more grappling. Sorry so long, just thoughts from an old man that does more sitting and thinking than training these days. Good luck and God bless. You are going down the right rabbit hole BTW.
Interesting. It's possible there was only a format with a few guidelines, in lieu of free sparring. Being a capoeira practitioner, it makes me think about how the roda(circle) has etiquette that shapes the "game" being played. There aren't rules per se yet the roda is technically not free sparring. However just like in real life, most people follow the etiquette but some break and bend it and it's up to the players to navigate that when it happens. That's probably the most confusing and difficult thing to convey to someone... It's why you can see games that just look like two people dancing -- all the way to straight up fights in the same space. Anyway, I'm rambling now but I think there are many parallels.
What inspired this was the Shorin Ryu version of sparring called Yasoku Kumite or Promised Sparring and In Goju Ryu it's called Ippon Kumite or One Point Sparring.
Karate core kata that still have variants in China are in the styles of White Crane Kung Fu, Whooping Crane, Tiger Reverence/Respect Boxing, Five Ancestors, Southern Mantis, and Incense Shop Boxing. The kata that have southern Chinese kung fu analogs: Sanchin, Tensho, Seisan,Nipaipo, Niseishi, Papuren, Shisochin, Sanseiryu, Suparinpei (108 hands). French Boxing style military drills were introduced to Okinawa & Japan by military drill instructors. The native combat sports of Okinawa are Tegumi and Shima, which are wrestling styles. Shima is a fixed grip form of belt wrestling. While Tegumi is closer to Sumo. For a reference to white crane curriculum look at Yang Jwing Ming video on Shaolin White Crane Kung Fu especially his Chin Na videos. Then compare those to Kakie drill and self-defense videos of Goju Ryu.
@@DenshaOtoko2 I’m not sure about smaller competitions but the first all Japan championship was held in October of 1957. Funakoshi died in April of the same year, I don’t think this was a coincidence. He was opposed to karate being a sport.
As far as the hands being called husband and wife my understanding is that both hands are working together. A good example is the hikite which I'm sure you are familiar with since you mentioned Iain Abernathy. Since karate goes back to Okinawa and Okinawan karate was originally taught as an in your face martial art with low line kicks, strikes, joint locks, and throws. With the hikite when the punch goes out the hikite (hand drawn back to the hip) is being used to grab the opponents clothing, hair, arm, or any part of the body to control and also increase the destructive power of the strike. Another great example is when both hands are brought together to the hip followed by a back fist or horizontal hammer fist and side kick. The hands are being used to pull the arm of the opponent to unbalance him while originally the kick was a low line kick often attacking a joint or nerve while striking the face with the.hand. I also realized that blocks that used to not make sense to me did when you use them in a close up position. The chamber for the block was often the block and what we think of being the block are actually strikes. In Shorin Ryu the block can be a block but the chamber is very tight not like it is being taught now in Shotokan or TSD. When I trained many years at a boxing gym I learned a few very important lessons. One was that it is always better to move out of the way if possible which makes your opponent miss and takes away his energy. Next would be to parry or block. The parries and blocks in boxing are the same as karate but much tighter. Boxing teaches to keep everything tight from the beginning where karate often starts to teach everything big and wide at first and then later teaches to tighten everything up. Boxing also teaches the importance of footwork. When learning that the hikite has a purpose it makes you think differently of what and why you are using it. Another important lesson from boxing is to keep your hands up. Although hikite has a purpose when a karateka has practiced many years drawing his or her hand to the hip it teaches the bad habit of dropping our hands and leaving ourselves vulnerable to being hit. As to the free sparring in Okinawa I believe that it was more closer to being a grappling type situation with some strikes added based on stories I have heard in the past. Think of the scene in Enter the Dragon with Bruce Lee and Bob Wall crossing hands each feeling there strength and weakness but with more grappling. Sorry so long, just thoughts from an old man that does more sitting and thinking than training these days. Good luck and God bless. You are going down the right rabbit hole BTW.
Interesting. It's possible there was only a format with a few guidelines, in lieu of free sparring. Being a capoeira practitioner, it makes me think about how the roda(circle) has etiquette that shapes the "game" being played. There aren't rules per se yet the roda is technically not free sparring. However just like in real life, most people follow the etiquette but some break and bend it and it's up to the players to navigate that when it happens. That's probably the most confusing and difficult thing to convey to someone... It's why you can see games that just look like two people dancing -- all the way to straight up fights in the same space. Anyway, I'm rambling now but I think there are many parallels.
I was told by my Goju Sensei that he didn't want to teach Sparring for safety reasons.
What inspired this was the Shorin Ryu version of sparring called Yasoku Kumite or Promised Sparring and In Goju Ryu it's called Ippon Kumite or One Point Sparring.
Karate core kata that still have variants in China are in the styles of White Crane Kung Fu, Whooping Crane, Tiger Reverence/Respect Boxing, Five Ancestors, Southern Mantis, and Incense Shop Boxing. The kata that have southern Chinese kung fu analogs: Sanchin, Tensho, Seisan,Nipaipo, Niseishi, Papuren, Shisochin, Sanseiryu, Suparinpei (108 hands). French Boxing style military drills were introduced to Okinawa & Japan by military drill instructors. The native combat sports of Okinawa are Tegumi and Shima, which are wrestling styles. Shima is a fixed grip form of belt wrestling. While Tegumi is closer to Sumo. For a reference to white crane curriculum look at Yang Jwing Ming video on Shaolin White Crane Kung Fu especially his Chin Na videos. Then compare those to Kakie drill and self-defense videos of Goju Ryu.
That inspired Japanese Kickboxing and Dutch kickboxing after Kyokushin went to Thailand to challenge Muay Thai.
There were JKA tournaments from 1940 to 1990 I think. Then there is Karate Combat starting in 2017.
@@DenshaOtoko2 I’m not sure about smaller competitions but the first all Japan championship was held in October of 1957. Funakoshi died in April of the same year, I don’t think this was a coincidence. He was opposed to karate being a sport.
another Grand mystery of Karate is Channan
Karate started happening in 1940 in Tokyo when Gichin Funakoshi started the Shotokan and called it Jiyu Kumite or Free Sparring in Tokyo University.
@@DenshaOtoko2 Funakoshi didn’t teach sparring and was actually opposed to it when his students started doing it themselves.
Luckily they taught me and their offspring.
Kyokushin and Ashihara and Kudo call it Knock Down Karate.