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A Giant Game of “Telephone”: 3 Reasons Why Your Martial Arts Style is ‘Wrong’

Eric Balough

“That’s not how it is done.”

“That isn’t how I was taught.”

“In my style, we do it like this.”

Intro

We all know the children’s game “Telephone”. The teacher says a phrase: “There’s a bad moon on the rise.” Someone else repeats it as, “There’s a bathroom on the right.” It finishes as something like, “Clean the bathroom and turn off the light.”

If you are an American and you are familiar with the 1969 Creedence Clear Water Revival hit, “Bad Moon Rising”, you probably know the funny alternate verse to one of the most popular refrains. Otherwise, the context and humor is probably lost on you.

Now imagine if you are on a small island and you don’t speak the native language, and you try to play this “telephone” game. Imagine the creative interpretations that you can have because you lack several basic items to translate the phrase correctly. You don’t know the language, the culture or specific turns of phrase that may be used in conversation.

In fact, I just learned the other day that my pronunciation of the Japanese work for “kick” (geri) is not pronounced as it is written in English! The word geri in Japanese is, in fact, diarrhea in English. So, while flinging poo may be a self defense strategy (monkeys do it after all), it is a bit messy, and martial arts teachers probably don’t want to have to clean that up. So perhaps we’ll stick with chudan maegeri (‘choo-dan my-Keri’) instead.

As we previously discussed, kata are a physical form of language that expresses the focus and philosophies of the people that taught them. And different teachers have different things that they focus on, even when they are all teaching from the same lesson plan. Of course, being good students, we like to follow our sensei’s lead as closely as possible.

But here are three reasons why copying exactly what our sensei does still leads to our martial art style being “wrong”.

Lost in translation

One of the simplest explanations of differences between styles is the variations in language. A well-documented example of this is the change of the pinan-series of kata to heian when Funakoshi Sensei imported his karate to Japan. The kanji for pinan and heian is the same… which means that the pronunciation and meaning of the words is different.

The Karate Nerd has a wonderful article on the history of the heian-series kata and how the name evolved to fit the circumstances in Japan.

So, if the naming convention of certain kata can be changed by simple variations of language across cultures within the same region, imagine how those differences are magnified when we begin to cross oceans.

Sensei got older

A theme that is emerging with a number of karate researchers is the idea of changing the karate to fit your own body. A person who is 6’3″ and 235 pounds will train very differently from someone who is 5’4″ and 140 pounds. And of course, the adversary has a say too.

The way someone teaches karate in their 30s will be different than in their 40s or 50s. Plus memory fades and things change as both our understanding evolves and our memories distort.

The video above is a brief explanation of the history of American Kenpo. (pronounced kem-po… why? because translation!) When the founder of American Kenpo, Ed Parker, passed away suddenly, there was a leadership vacuum and many of his former students rushed to fill the leadership void. Stylistic differences within the same style and with the same founder exist based upon when someone studied with Sensei Parker!

Of course, this issue is not unique to American Kenpo. It is prevalent in nearly every martial art system that has ever existed.

Different strokes

Let’s go back to the differences in size really quickly. Say you are a 5’2″ Okinawan karate master teaching young U.S. Marines your moves. They average about 6’0″.

Where are your hands when you are demonstrating blocking techniques to someone 8-inches taller than you?

Now… what happens when those Marines go home and begin teaching their own students? When they demonstrate a technique, their hands are higher than in other styles!

What to do…

As martial artists we have to come to terms and accept two very opposite ideas: the drive for standardization (or is it standardisation) and the need to customize our art to ourselves.

The standardization is our way of paying homage to the ones who came before us in life and preserving some of their memory in our very muscle and bone.

But standardization still needs to be put in its proper context, and the arts that our forbearers gave us must adapt to our times, places, circumstances and bodies.

What does this mean?

It means that your style is wrong because it is not an exact copy of what your sensei originally learned, or his sensei before him, or her sensei before her. Nor should it be.

Living things adapt… or they die.

Martial arts are often spoken of in terms of lineage, and this idea of sharing ideas, concepts, kata, and even cultural principles, is the same as the passing of DNA from one generation to the next.

Embracing the two opposite ideas of standardization and customization means to understand the principles of the philosophy and movement that your art is trying to convey (the general standards) and figure out how it best fits your body (customization). If you are fortunate enough to teach your art, try to pass along the general meanings of the art to teach your student why something is done in a particular way so that they may understand how it may be applied by them.

The goal of the Shindokai Kobujutsu Research Society is to join the efforts to restore information that was lost about the traditional Okinawan martial arts and elevate their status legitimate self defense systems that are applicable to our times. In some cases, we can piece together bits of information that is scattered around the world like a bunch of forensic historians. In other cases, we just have to experiment with concepts, just like the forbearers of karate did, and figure out what works (and then ditch the rest).

What is Kata?

Eric Balough

Kata is vocabulary.

The end.

…

…

Okay… I guess I’ll explain!

Many military organizations throughout the world use a concept called “doctrine” to impart specific ways of approaching common situations and showing ways to deal with them. Doctrine is often a distillation of important lessons learned throughout that military’s history and experience. Military leaders spend hundreds of hours studying doctrine and learning how to apply the precepts in real-world situations.

The situations described in doctrinal scenarios can only approximate real world situations. When militaries operate, they use doctrine as a starting point for understanding a situation and the range of potential solutions for that situation. But since doctrinal solutions are tailored to doctrinal scenarios, the solutions in doctrine have to modified to fit the situation at hand. While anyone could work out a similar solution to a given problem, doctrine helps arrive at good solutions more quickly by because the trial and error involved to identify those solutions has already been worked out.

Kata is martial arts doctrine

Many martial arts historians view Okinawa as a crucible of eastern martial arts. It was positioned as a crossroads of several civilizations with their own martial arts and self-defense traditions. From the 1400 to 1800s, Okinawans learned these different traditions and began melding them together to help them deal with the dangers they face.

There are two catalysts for the development: the prohibition of carrying weapons by King Sho Hashi in the 1400s and the occupation of Okinawan by the Satsuma samurai starting in the 1600s. The Okinawans had to develop ways to protect themselves and resist foreign occupation, but doing so was dangerous and punishable by execution. So, the deposed Okinawan nobility developed their fighting styles in secret.

The early self defense methods and concepts couldn’t be written down for two reasons. First, the risk of discovery was too great. Second, literacy during this time period was not wide spread. So how could Okinawans transmit important self defense concepts and techniques in secret without writing them down?

It is important to remember that the Okinawans did not “invent” kata. They adapted a number of older, more ancient forms from Chinese kung fu. As they stripped down kung fu, combined it with their own manner of grappling and other arts from the Philippines and Japan, Okinawan teachers began creating their own forms to reflect the hard lessons that they learned over time.

In short, kata became the physical embodiment of self defense doctrine for Okinawans.

The “Aha” Moment

On the surface, kata looks goofy. Seriously.

For example, I learned the Isshinryu kata, Wansu, about three months ago, and my initial impression was that it is strange and disjointed. The “surface”, also called “omote”, explanations of kata simply don’t contribute this initial impression. But after researching some of the less apparent explanations, the kata began to make more sense. Interestingly enough, I quite enjoy the kata now.

In my time of studying martial arts, I’ve learned close to 30 kata and some of them still remain as mysterious to me as the day that I learned them.

About a week ago, we were going through various wrist locks with Sensei Rob. He showed us a block and flow drill to a wrist lock/arm bar.

AHA!

We had just done the “high x-block” to “down block” movement in Pinan/Heian Godan, a kata that I learned when I was 10. Thirty-some years later, I now have an understanding as to what it actually means.

As this moment of clarity popped into my mind, I blurted out, “Just like in ‘Pinan Godan”, right?” And everyone standing there, who has also spent countless hours practicing this same kata, knew exactly what I meant and needed no further explanation.

Just as military planners and leaders are able to communicate specific concepts with doctrinal terminology, we used the language and concepts imbedded in kata to communicate about solutions to a specific situation. It was a pretty cool moment.

The problem with kata and karate

Reread the paragraph where I said that the four of us working on the techniques had “countless hours” in studying a specific kata. Collectively, the four of us probably have about 125 years of experience in martial arts.

The challenge is of course, that those moments in discussing particular applications of kata are years (bordering on a lifetime) in the making. It doesn’t satisfy the American urge for instant gratification.

Why spend years practicing a kata when you can jump into a brand new ex-Navy Seal/CIA/Mossad/Special Forces/MMA champion “system” that teaches you all of the same stuff in five minutes? (That’s part of the marketing shtick, by the way.)

The cold and simple answer is that “you don’t”. But…

Remember how we said that kata are already a distillation of techniques that help deal with certain self defense situations? And remember how we also said those techniques were honed in some pretty scary conditions over 400 years?

Well, you can study 400 years of very painfully learned lessons, or you can go for slick marketing.

The difference in kata is that you can do it anywhere and teach your body its language of self defense. Just make sure that those who you learn the kata from can go beyond the funky foot placement and waving hands. They need to know what those things are intended to do.

That is why we’re here. We don’t feel the need to tear down what others are doing in order to add to our own understanding of self defense and martial arts. But we do have a great deal of myths and distractions to dispel about karate in general and kata in particular.

The goal of the Shindokai Kobujutsu Research Society is to join the efforts to restore information that was lost about the traditional Okinawan martial arts and elevate their status legitimate self defense systems that are applicable to our times. In some cases, we can piece together bits of information that is scattered around the world like a bunch of forensic historians. In other cases, we just have to experiment with concepts, just like the forbearers of karate did, and figure out what works (and then ditch the rest).

Float Like a Butterfly…

Eric Balough

One of the benefactors and proponents of the modernization of karate was a man named Konishi Yasuhiro. He served as a sounding board to many of the masters who would go on to found the first major formalized branches of karate in Japan. In his one of letters, “Kenyaku no Shikatsu” (“The difference between life and death lies with your fists and legs”) he warns against some of tendencies of training in karate that modern day critics still observe.

What is at the core of this criticism you ask? Kata. (E.g. the karate version of one-person drills.)

You’re doing it wrong…

Konishi’s main point in his letter was about the importance of speed and timing in a fight. He calls the awareness of distance between you and your opponent ma-ai. In his words, good practitioners of karate would keep this principles in mind while they train and even “while they dream”.

Even in the early days of the popularization of karate, Konishi observed that “[he] noticed practitioners spend unnecessary energy on pointless movements which, in the end, only draws laughs from experts at their wasted efforts.” He goes on to say that there is an over-emphasis on physical fitness and how an individual performs a technique at the expense of training ma-ai.

Central to this criticism is the way kata is trained where the tendency is to treat kata as “immovable forms” or dance competitions trying to put on “gorgeous displays“.

Instead, he says, “[kata] are intended to behave like water being swirled about in a bowl, something that is capable of a multitude of changes and limitless ability to adapt to what is around it.”

Sting like a bee

So how does Konishi suggest that one train? And how does a karateka make use of the tools and drills, including kata, to train for a self-defense situation?

He says, “the way you utilize the distance between you and your opponent is far more important than the effectiveness [of the actual strikes] you apply. It follows that other details of the encounter… could be thought of as an after effect of reaching your ideal distance.” In other words, good techniques applied with poor timing or at the wrong distance are essentially meaningless, and worse can be dangerous because they leave you exposed.

Boxers, wrestlers, Brazilian jiu jistu practitioners all have their own versions of solo drills

So how does kata factor into all of this?

Based on what the forbearers of karate said, kata should be used to practice speed, timing, distance, power and transferring of weight.

But as we’ve seen from Konishi’s writings, kata is simply not enough. For kata to be effective, it must be paired with two-person drills that use kata as a template, or lesson plan, for specific self-defense applications. The drills must increase in terms of speed, resistance and chaos so that they can closely replicate a real self-defense scenario.

Whether these new self-defense schools realize it or not, they rely on the same format used by good dojos (karate schools) minus the kata. Boxers, wrestlers, Brazilian jiu jistu practitioners all have their own versions of solo drills intended for the same purpose. The main difference between kata and these other one-person drills is that they usually don’t have a prearranged pattern to them. (Definitely don’t tell them that they are doing a version of their styles’ kata!)

So, kata is not useless… as long as it is not the only thing being trained.

If kata is the sole focus, and it is not being paired with additional training that focuses on speed, distance, timing, resistance and violence of action, then, as Konishi says, you’re just getting ready for fancy dance competitions.

The takeaways

So to wrap this up, karate, like any other self-defense system or martial art, requires an understanding of your spatial relationship to an attacker. Defending yourself means that you close (or increase) the distance to a where you feel that you can gain a position of advantage, and then apply whatever technique is best suited to the situation. 

The goal of the Shindokai Kobujutsu Research Society is to join the efforts to restore information that was lost about the traditional Okinawan martial arts and elevate their status legitimate self defense systems that are applicable to our times. In some cases, we can piece together bits of information that is scattered around the world like a bunch of forensic historians. In other cases, we just have to experiment with concepts, just like the forbearers of karate did, and figure out what works (and then ditch the rest).

Source: Karate Kenpo by Mabuni Kenwa, translated by Eric Shahan, 2020

“Karate doesn’t work”

Eric Balough
Photo from Motobu Choki’s book “My Art and Skill of Karate”

“Karate doesn’t work.” – Every martial arts “expert” on the internet

You know what? They are probably right. (gasp!)

Let me explain.

The mean streets

In the infamous “street fight”, the experts have this vision in their head of a street brawler and a gi-clad karateka (karate practioner) facing off in mortal combat (you 80s and 90s kids just had a theme song pop in your heads… you’re welcome). The karateka bows, gets in a ready position and then gets in his fighting position with his rear hand drawn on his hip (i.e. nowhere near guarding his face). The brawler flies in with a wild haymaker and the karateka responds with a move from one of the many kata he’s learned and then crumples in a heap as the brawler connects his fist to the karateka‘s face. The fight is over and karate is defeated by the “streets”.

And yes, this tends to be the argument. While this may be a completely inaccurate description of karate, it might not be far off from how many karateka might respond in a such a scenario.

Fancy war dancing

Before we get into the numerous terrible assumptions about the above scenario, we need to understand one of the signature features of karate: kata.

There is an idea that kata involves facing down a horde of brittle boned ninjas. Do a funky block this way, the ninja robot explodes. Turn another way throw your fist through another ninja and then change directions again… finish and bow to all of the dead imaginary ninjas…

To non-karate practioners, kata is about as silly as the description above. They don’t see the utility. Worse, most karateka don’t know the utility of kata beyond “facing eight enemies” and the apparent explanation of the kata.

So we have a problem. The pundits claim that karate is useless, and kata teaches nothing but dangerous and stupid techniques. And most karateka lack the understanding of karate to set them straight.

At the moment, we’re left with the explanation that kata is just a fancy war dance.

So what *is* karate?

The long explanation is probably the subject of another post (or series of posts). So in short, we’ll just say that it is a complete fighting and self-defense system developed in Okinawa under a very particular set of circumstances.

So let’s come back to kata and the infamous hand on the hip.

First off, in most karate schools, students learn kata and they learn kumite (fighting), and they are separated. Depending on the style of karate, they may not know why this is the case. I certainly didn’t know learn this when I was studying karate as a kid.

The popular explanation for this outside of Okinawa is that you learn kumite to protect yourself “in the streets” and kata to maintain the traditions of the martial arts. This is completely false.

Popular YouTuber, and self-proclaimed Karate Nerd, Jesse Enkamp categorizes self defense scenarios into consensual fighting and non-consensual self defense. The scenario we outlined at the start of this post is an example of “consensual fighting”.

Kata is not designed for consensual fighting. It is designed as a lesson plan and one-person drills for specific self defense applications.

And that silly hand on the hip? That is actually doing something important.

Lost to history

So why are karateka so bad at explaining their own systems? Many times, they don’t know what they don’t know because some of those explanations, which were transmitted from person to person, were lost in a kind of diaspora to history.

Thanks to the internet, karateka across the world are able to piece together scattered bits of information that were isolated for 70 or 80 years.

It is the goal of the Shindokai Kobujutsu Research Society to join in the efforts to restore information that was lost about the traditional Okinawan martial arts and elevate their status legitimate self defense systems that are applicable to our times. In some cases, we can piece together bits of information that is scattered around the world like a bunch of forensic historians. In other cases, we just have to experiment with concepts, just like the forbearers of karate did, and figure out what actually works (and ditch the rest).