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What is karate?
Karate is an oriental method of unarmed combat. There are people who claim to be able to trace the origins of karate back to the early days of Buddhism, or even to ancient Greece. While remnants of ancient pottery have been found that appear to depict karate-like fighting, there are also ancient depictions of people running, and no-one credits the Greeks with the invention of running. There are only a certain number of ways of hitting and kicking someone, after all.In reality all the karate styles that are now widespread have a much shorter pedigree. Karate as we recognise it probably developed on the island of Okinawa from earlier, Chinese martial arts. It is debatable whether karate is an Okinawan interpretation of a Chinese martial art, or the result of Chinese influence on an existing Okinawan fighting system. What we can be reasonably certain of is that modern karate was brought to Japan in the 1930s by a number of influential Okinawan practitioners. Most notably of these is Gichin Funakoshi, whose nickname `Shoto' is the origin of the word shotokan, a style of karate very widely practised throughout the world. Other styles widely practised include shito ryu, wado ryu, and goju ryu. These styles all developed between 1930 and 1950, and have more elements in common than they have significant differences, Although it isn't often remarked upon, the similarity between all these karate styles and the Korean martial art of taekwondo is also quite striking.
It is from Japan, not from Okinawa or China, that we get the modern `karate culture' -- white suits, belts of rank, bowing, etc (of which, more later). Much of this culture was borrowed from the Japanese art of judo, and employed to increase the acceptability of karate in the rather nationalistic Japan of the day.
Unlike other fighting methods, karate works by the delivery of
a small number of forceful, knockdown blows. This is very different from
boxing, for example, where the objective is to wear down one's opponent
with a barrage of quick, sharp punches. Unlike the impression you may
have from television, most boxing matches at club level do not end
with a knockout, but with an advantage on points. In karate
tournaments, generally there are no points for anything except a blow
that would maim or kill the opponent in one strike. As a result, a lot
of karate training focuses on single defensive strikes followed by
single decisive counter-attacks.
Karate has a certain `purity' compared to other oriental martial arts.
The repertoire of technique it employs is comparatively small:
kicks, and rudimentary defences. There are no throws, locks, or
grappling techniques. Karate rarely involves the use of weapons,
either in defence or offence. A reasonably fit person can learn
to do the basic moves in a few days. The purpose of training is
to do them over and over again, until one can do them very well.
Over the years karate has picked up a certain amount of philosophical and social baggage. Of particular interest is the connection, for better or worse, with Zen Buddhism. Oddly this is much more prevalent in the West than in Japan. There are karate clubs in the UK that make the practice of zazen (seated meditation) part of their training regime. Conceivably the practice of karate helps zen practitioners clear their minds of everyday concerns. It seems unlikely that studying or practising zen improves the skill of the karate practitioner, although generations of movie makers have sought to convince us otherwise. The connection between karate and zen is, as I say, a fascinating one, but beyond the scope of this article. There is also a body of opinion that karate is not about kicking and punching, but becoming a better person. This also can be argued either way, but not here.
Why do karate?
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This is all very well, but potential Bruce Lees need to be aware that joining a karate club is, for the most part, not at all like joining, say, a tennis club. Karate has a culture all of its own, and a number of unwritten rules that take a while to figure out. Under the rhetoric of perfection of character and zen-like tranquillity are bitter political punch-ups that make the actual practice of karate look tame. To be fair, politics does not really affect an ordinary karate player on a day-to-day basis, but its echos do permeate the practice of the sport in subtle ways.
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I took up karate in middle age, after more than ten years of total slobby idleness. To be fair, I should point out that I was a very enthusiastic martial artist in my youth, so I wasn't completely surprised by what I experienced. All the same, starting karate in your 40s is a different proposition to starting in your 20s.
Doing karate
This section describes what goes on in and around a typical British karate club.A typical training session
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At the start of the class, students generally line up in rows, in order of experience. In the shotokan style, it is typical to line up from right to left, with the most experienced students on the right, while in other styles front-to-back is more common. Front-to-back probably makes more sense, as the more inexperienced students at the back get to watch the more experienced students more of the time. However, if your club does it the other way, you probably won't be able to change it. It's one of those tradition things.
Training usually begins with a short series of formalities -- bows and whatnot, which I'll say more about later. Then there will typically be a warm-up session led by an instructor. If you skimp on the warm up, you'll pay the price the next day. Sports physiologists recommend that a warm-up of twenty minutes is required before karate-like exercise. In reality, few sessions are long enough for this length of warm-up as part of the training, and you'd do well to warm up before starting.
Then the training will consist of some elements of kihon (basic technique), kumite (fighting), and kata (patterns) in varying proportions. Some clubs do each of these in every session, while others prefer to devote whole sessions to one or another.
Kihon
Karate enthusiasts vary in their relative liking for kumite and kata, some preferring one and some the other, but everybody hates kihon. Because it is so despised, it is usually done parade-ground fashion, marching up and down in rows. This ensures that you can't skive off. In addition, if you don't move briskly enough, the person behind you will crash into your back, which provides an additional incentive to work. Kihon mostly consists of steps, punches, kicks, and defences, often delivered in combination. The trick for successful kihon is to repeat the moves over and over again; there is no other way to become good at them. Although everyone hates kihon, no-one is in any doubt as to its importance, and most clubs devote more than half of the total training time to kihon drills.Kumite
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In practice, most clubs strive for non-contact sparring, but accept that
occasional bumps and bruises are inevitable. In most karate tournaments
you would be disqualified if you hurt your opponent, and in some tournaments
even a slight contact would disqualify. Beginners typically start off
doing `three-step' sparring, where the opponents take turns to attack
and defend. The same attack and defence is repeated three times, hence
the name, followed by some sort of counter-attack. It is also customary,
in the early stages of training, for the person in the attacker role to
tell the defender what attack he proposes to use, or at least what part
of the body he will be attacking. As training progresses, sparring becomes
increasingly fluid.
The club which I currently attend discourages vigorous and aggressive sparring,
but even then we do get the occasional bruise or black eye. However,
the only time I received a really nasty injury in martial arts
training was when I was hit in the head by the elbow of someone who
was actually fighting someone else at the time. I never even found out
whose elbow it was.
Kata
Kata are sequences of prearranged moves -- blows, defences, or steps. Each of the main karate styles has its own canon of kata, some of which are of great antiquity. Doing kata properly is exhausting, particularly with the more dynamic examples. There is a leap off the ground in Heian Godan that I doubt I will ever be able to do properly. Most kata have between twenty and a hundred moves, and take one to two minutes to perform. As you might expect, beginners are expected to learn relatively simple kata, involving only punches, blocks, and steps; as students progress the kata become increasingly difficult and may involve kicks, leaps, and inexplicable movements. The origin of the many inexplicable movements in kata has been the subject of much speculation; they may, for example, be stylised representations of certain moves that it is unsafe to do other than in extremis. In fact, the whole field of kata interpretation is hotly debated. Many of the moves have no obvious application as offences or defences, and their significance is lost in the mists of time. Enthusiasts argue incessantly about the exact way to do a particular move. Some kata are extremely dull, others are very challenging. Almost all karate clubs treat the standard kata with more reverence than they deserve, and are loathe to allow even the slightest deviation from the prescribed format. In fact, although some kata have been handed down across the centuries, others are relatively modern. My club, for example, still expects students to learn taikyoku shodan, a kata devised in the 1950s for schoolchildren. All kata, however, are an opportunity for hard exercise.Gradings
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Young karate practitioners are often wholly terrified of gradings, just like children are of any sort of examination. They are often confused about the process, and what is expected of them. But adults are not immune to grading anxiety, and some are so apprehensive that they are unable to do the necessary on the day. A particular worry is that instructions may be given in Japanese, so the grading candidate won't know what to do. If my biggest problem in karate was mastering a couple of dozen words of Japanese, I'd be happy. I'm more concerned about falling on my head during a high kick. This level of anxiety is a shame really, because kyu (non-black belt) gradings are usually cursory to the point of rudeness, and failures are very rare, even in the toughest clubs. There are a number of reasons for this. First, most people who train regularly will make progress to the extent required. Second, clubs are aware that failing a kyu grading will generally be the last thing a person does in karate. Very few clubs can afford to turn away members at the rate that would be occasioned by expecting everyone to perform like the Karate Kid at gradings. Middle-aged and older karate enthusiasts will tell you how much more difficult gradings were in their day, but everyone knows that everything was more difficult in the past, so this shouldn't carry too much weight.
In most clubs, the worst that can happen in a grading is to be awarded a `provisional' grade. This is recognised as allowing the candidate to wear the belt, and to train with people of the same nominal grade, but one is barred from taking the next grading `to allow suitable progress to be made'. This is actually a neat trick. It saves grading candidates from the stigma and annoyance of a real failure, but prevents progress through the ranks more rapid than if one had really failed. A provisional grade is, in a sense, a polite way of failing someone.
If your karate club is affiliated to some wider governing body, then it will probably have to adhere to the grading standards of that body. If it is not, then the instructors will apply whatever grading criteria they see fit. Your club may invite representatives of the governing body to conduct gradings, rather than having them done by the local instructors. This has advantages and disadvantages. On the positive side, it encourages an unbiased assessment, as the examiner is unlikely to know the candidates personally. Being relieved of grading responsibilities is helpful to the local instructors, who are spared the risk of having to fail a person who they see every week and may have come to respect. Gradings carried out by a national body also give practitioners the confidence that their grades will be broadly comparable to those awarded by other clubs. The disadvantage, and it should not be underestimated, is that gradings carried out this way will be relatively infrequent, and will attract a great many candidates. This means that until you reach a high level of skill, your grading examination will last no more than a couple of minutes. The examiner will see wave upon wave of candidates, all doing the same thing. Unless you are particular good, or particularly bad, the examiner will have little to say about your performance.
In reality, kyu gradings are seen by many instructors as formalities. You keep your head down for a few months, then take the grading, the outcome of which is largely a foregone conclusion. In that three month period, some practitioners will train about a dozen times, some six times that many. If they are at the same grading stage, both will be assessed in about two minutes among hundreds of other candidates. Most likely, both will pass. As a result, even in the same club there can be a huge disparity in ability between practitioners of nominally the same grade. This is most prevalent in the middle-kyu grades, in which are usually to be found about 60% of the members of most clubs. This can be dispiriting to candidates who train really hard, and see people far less accomplished than themselves being awarded exactly the same grade.
Of course, your instructor will stress the importance and seriousness of gradings, and the need to train hard to achieve a pass. He or she knows perfectly well that most people need the visible sign of progress that gradings represent. Instructors also know that people put in their best training efforts the few weeks before a grading, and hard work never did anyone any harm.
Aches, pains, and injuries
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Karate is not really an aerobic activity, like running or swimming. It requires short, explosive bursts of activity, punctuated by periods of comparative idleness. It puts a great deal more stress on the joints, particularly the knees and lower back, than any other sport I have tried. In addition, karate is typically practised in village halls and schools, not purpose-built, well-ventilated sports facilities. Despite the violent image of karate, I have no doubt that far more injuries are caused by dehydration, slipping on sweat-soaked floors, and bumping into people and furniture, than by kicks and punches. Because of the regimented nature of karate training, it is annoying and inconvenient for people to leave and rejoin the class while it is running. As a result, people are discouraged - not always by the instructor, but by their own sense of propriety - from drinking water, or taking a rest, during class. It isn't all that unusual for people to flake out in hot weather and have to be carried out. It's certainly happened to me in the past.
Unlike the debilitating effects of exhaustion and dehydration, acute injuries are quite unusual in sensibly-run karate clubs. They mostly affect young men who enter into sparring too enthusiastically. A particular hazard in uncontrolled sparring is the notorious `mutual groin kick'. This happens when both contestants attempt a roundhouse kick at each other's ribs, both using the same leg. Because the kick tends to cause the person delivering it to lean back slightly, it puts his groin and ribs closer to the same height than is the case when standing upright. Because both contestants are leaning back, neither is able to use his arms to deflect the other's leg, and because both are on one leg, it is difficult to move out of the way. As a result, very often both contestants kick their opponents' groins at the same time. It's funny to watch, but not very nice to experience. Another relatively common injury is a fractured collar bone, caused by falling hard onto your outstretched hand.
Apart from acute, immediate problems - thankfully rare in well-conducted karate classes - karate practitioners are prone to a number of chronic irritations. Stamping about barefoot with lots of other people who are stamping about barefoot does carry a significant risk of skin infection (athlete's foot, veruca, etc). Constant stress on the joints can lead to stiffness and immobility. And although it is only irritating rather than debilitating, wearing coarse, heavy, sweaty clothing irritates the nipples.
Expense
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You will also probably be expected to contribute to the cost of your club's personal injury insurance; this cost might be wrapped up inside `licence fees' or something of that nature. Expect about £20 per year.
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In fact, much of the expense in karate training will be in the grading fees. Most clubs charge £20 or more per grading, and you will probably want to attend four or so every year. If you pass, you'll need a new belt, so allow £5 for that. If your club is affiliated to a national governing body like the KUGB, a large proportion of the grading fee goes to that body, not to the club. This is a cause of irritation to many instructors, because the high grading fees give the impression that the club is trying to exploit its members, when in fact it is the governing bodies that are exploiting the clubs.
All in all, unless you buy a heap of specialist training equipment, karate training shouldn't cost more than a a few hundred pounds per year.
Children in karate
Many karate clubs will take children from about the age of five, although five-year-olds vary in their ability to cope with the rigours of training. Clubs vary enormously in their ability to mix serious training and entertainment, as do individual instructors. It almost goes without saying that today's karate champions are people who started training from a very young age. That way, when they reach the peak of athletic prowess, they have already mastered the techniques through many years of practice. If you start training in your 20s, you will probably never become a champion, because by the time you have trained enough to master the techniques, you will be too old to hold your own athletically. I suspect this does not apply to women to the same extent it does to men. Anyway, if you want to be a champ, you have to start at the age of five.Even in the best-run clubs, karate has the potential to be dangerous. Children seem to have a better time in clubs where they run around shouting and fighting, than in those where they do the same drills as adults. However, as a parent I feel more comfortable with the idea of children being kept under strict discipline when doing karate.
Karate culture
Doing karate means getting involved, to a certain extent, in the culture of the sport. This is true of any sport, of course, but particularly so of martial arts.Ritual and formality
Karate as we understand it is largely a Japanese development, and Japanese people are renowned (rightly or wrongly) for their formality and precise etiquette. Unsurprisingly, therefore, UK karate clubs that follow the Japanese tradition (that is, most of them) are correspondingly formal and ritualistic. In fact, from conversations I have had with people from outside the UK, it appears that UK clubs are more punctilious in their observation of karate etiquette than those in most other parts of the world, even Japan. Many people, including myself, find the constant bowing and chanting rather peculiar, although probably harmless.
Karate practitioners are typically expected to bow on entering and
leaving the training hall (dojo, in karate jargon), bow at
the start and end of training, bow before and after sparring, bow
to the instructor, and so on, and on. Japanese people do not bow
like this, so it is not obvious where the tradition has come from.
Many karate instructors like to be addressed as sensei, a
Japanese word meaning `teacher', a practice which, again, is not
common in Japan. While one person might address another as `sensei'
in Japan, it
would be a breach of etiquette to ask other people to call you
`sensei', or introduce yourself to another person as `sensei Fred'.
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However, apart from the initial and closing formalities, most clubs are
relatively relaxed and friendly during the actual training. Some, of course,
are full of would-be samurai warriors who spend the entire session
scowling like Klingons, but this is quite unusual. However, the atmosphere
in almost all karate clubs, even the most relaxed, is more formal
than in almost any other sport. There are people who argue that
this is appropriate, in an activity that involves potentially lethal blows
pulled just short of contact. While there is some truth in this, other
martial arts are not carried on the same way, and I've not seen any
evidence to suggest that there are more injuries.
It is my belief that most British karate clubs fervently and honestly
believe that they are carrying on a tradition that originated in Japan.
In reality, the customs and culture of British clubs are a pastiche
of a culture that Japanese clubs have largely dropped. Is this a bad
thing? It is probably harmless, and many people do enjoy the feeling
of taking part in something exotic and foreign. If you are a person
who is offended by cultural inauthenticity, you will have to grit your
teeth.
Jargon
Whether or not there are benefits to using Japanese jargon in karate (and it can be argued either way), most British karate clubs use at least some Japanese jargon. In fact, perhaps `Anglo-Japanese' might be a better word, as on the whole the pronunciation of these words would be unrecognisable to a Japanese person. Oddly, there is quite a lot of consistency in the way that British clubs pronounce karate words. For example, most pronounce the word uke (which loosely translates as `block' or `deflection') as `ookee', even though this is not how Japanese people say it. It isn't clear, therefore, where the British way of pronouncing Japanese words has come from -- certainly not from Japan.In fact, the need to master a handful of poorly-pronounced Japanese words should not deter anyone from the pursuit of karate. After all, you'll hear them so often that they'll become second nature after a few weeks.
The most contentious and divisive piece of Anglo-Japanese jargon
is the word osu, which British karate enthusiasts shout at each
other all the time. The traditional British pronunciation of this
word (`ooss') sounds like the Japanese word for a millstone (uwausu), but
Japanese people are too polite to say so. British karate practitioners
have got into the habit of saying osu as a greeting and an affirmation,
and they do it all the time. In fact, Japanese adults rarely use this word,
and consider it rather vulgar. Japanese children sometimes use it in the
same sense that a British child might say `hey!' However, it is not
true to claim that because Japanese people never say osu
socially, they don't say it in karate. Yoshinobu Ohta, chief
instructor of the English branch of the Japan Karate Association,
certainly uses the word in training. In general, karate instructors
tell their students (somewhat misleadingly) that osu is
Japanese for `yes', and they were probably told that by their own
instructors. In fact, even in Japan the origin of the word is not
clear, but it appears to be a greeting, not an affirmation. To his
credit, Mr Ohta has been known to object to British people using
osu as a synonym for `yes'. For all that, osu is one of
the bonding rituals of karate clubs, rather like the secret handshake
of the Freemasons.
To be fair, karate is not the only sport to have its own jargon,
nor is the practice limited to oriental martial arts, or even martial
arts in general.
For example, fencers tend to use a number of old French terms.
Even the scoring system in tennis uses a corruption of a French
word: when we say `15-love', the word `love' is derived from the
French l'oeuf (the egg, the shape of zero!)
Belts and rank
Most British karate clubs set great store by the hierarchy of grading ranks; that is, they expect people to recognise who is `senior' to whom, and conduct themselves accordingly. Generally seniority is signalled by belt colour, usually with white as the most junior and black as the most senior. In between these colours is a veritable rainbow: some organisations recognise ten or more ranks between white and black. It follows from this that an individual cannot compare himself to another from a different club by comparing their respective belt colours. ``I'm a green belt'' is only a meaningful statement within a particular karate organisation. In the UK, clubs which are affiliated to the Karate Union of Great Britain or the Japan Karate Association (which tend to be those following the shotokan style) have a uniform system of belt colour, which goes like this: white, orange, red, yellow, green, purple, brown, brown with stripe, brown with two stripes, black. However, there are other clubs that have as few as three belt colours or (oh, bliss) none at all. Some clubs are quite strict about junior practitioners deferring to more senior ones, even at the level of, say, white belt and orange belt. However, most clubs now consider this practice to be more honoured in the breach that the observance, and therefore honour it in the breach.The requirements for the award of grades beyond the first black belt (1st dan, or shodan) are even less well-defined than for kyu grades. This is because once you get beyond about 3rd dan you run out of people who are competent to test you. The situation is analogous to that of awarding academic qualifications beyond PhD level. You can think of 1st dan as a bachelors' degree, 2nd as a masters' and 3rd as a PhD - after all, the times required to complete these qualifications are about the same. Once you get to PhD level, your advancement in the academic hierarchy will depend on recognition by your peers and your contribution to scholarship, not on your technical skill. At that level, there will be no-one qualified to judge your technical skill anyway. I don't know of any university that awards professorships on the basis of competitive examination. The same is true in karate - beyond 3rd dan it is impossible to say even what technical skills are required, much less how they should be assessed. So, although there are people around who claim 8th dan or the like, it is not really obvious what that means. If the instructor at your club has, say, a 3rd dan recognised by a body like the KUGB, he or she is likely to be as technically proficient in karate as anyone on earth.
Karate students are expected to take gradings and advance through
the belt hierarchy. It seems to cause a degree of confusion and upset
within karate clubs if they don't. To be fair, in a large club, the
instructors can't be expected to keep track of the relative ability of
all the different students, and rely on belt colours when assigning
exercises to different groups of people. This can be very
inconvenient if you have difficulty attending gradings because of,
for example, work or family commitments. If your belt does not change
colour, you will find yourself doing the same things over and over
again. There is an argument that says that this is not a bad thing -
generally the more you practice something the better you'll get.
On the other hand, when you learn a new technique you'll improve in
its execution most rapidly in the first couple of weeks.
After that, you will get better at a decreasing rate. There are,
to be sure,
stories of ancient karate masters practising gyaku tzuki
(a basic punch) on their death-beds and complaining that they still
haven't mastered it. In reality your ability to improve at this
technique, and any other, is eventually limited by your physique and athletic
prowess. If you can't do it as well as your instructor after a year of
practice, you probably aren't ever going to.
What all this means is that it is very difficult to train in karate
without going through the rigmarole of gradings.
A reasonably fit person should be able to advance
by one rank every three months or so, although many clubs insist on
longer periods of training between the higher grades. If you miss
a grading, but carry on training regularly, you ought to be able to
skip the grading for the rank you missed, and just take the next one.
It is very rare for clubs to allow this, particularly if they are
affiliated to a national body. Cynically, one could conclude that this
is because grading fees are a large part of the income of such bodies,
so they want people to take lots of gradings. Some clubs will even
insist that if a person joins from another club, he or she ought to
restart the grading process again from white belt. However, most KUGB
clubs recognise each other's grades.
Head honcho
One notable feature that distinguishes karate clubs from many other sports clubs is that they tend to be formed by enthusiastic instructors rather than enthusiastic students. Typically a karate practitioner who wants to form a club will appoint himself instructor and then start recruiting students. This is not, in itself, a bad thing; but it does mean that karate clubs are dominated by the personalities of their instructors. A well-balanced, decent instructor will usually engender a well-run, moderate club. An arrogant, bullying instructor will give rise to a harsh, unpleasant club. For a student in such a club, the choice is to put up with it or walk. Happily, there is no shortage of karate clubs in the UK these days, so it shouldn't be too difficult to find a decent one unless you live in the isolated village of East Dogpatch.Contrast this with, for example, a local football or tennis club. Typically these clubs will be run by their members, who will appoint or hire coaches as required. Very few karate clubs are run this way. Partly this is because most clubs could not afford to hire an instructor: a karate instructor may be prepared to work for a pittance to run his own club, but generally won't want to do so as an employee. This is just human nature -- the owner and manager of a small business may cheerfully spend the day doing menial tasks that would be beneath the dignity of the humblest employee of a large corporation. In general, people are happier to do tiresome and low-paid jobs for themselves than they are for someone else.
Conclusion
There are some very good karate clubs around, but even the best of them have some features that a thinking person will find peculiar. The esoteric nature of karate disguises what is basically the practice of hard punches and kicks, repeated until they achieve devastating effectiveness. Almost all practitioners swallow the story that karate is not just punching and kicking, but a particular way of life, uncritically. At the end of each training session, many clubs recite an oath that begins `seek perfection of character'. Whether this is a valid goal or not, it is hard to imagine boxers or fencers claiming that their sports are about striving for self-realisation.
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In the end, doing karate will probably improve your fitness, and may even give you increased self-defence skills. It may improve your confidence and your concentration. It will, however, require that you accept as dogma a number of practises and beliefs that are of dubious authenticity and value, or at least that you don't try to stop other people accepting them.
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