What's next, return to Karate's real origins!

old sambon kumite
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2caRZLXuW0U

Nice pants.

Do you know who that is Victor and when it was filmed?

What isn't on youtube! I liked this video but where do all these "old school" videos keep popping up from?

you can have it. change the film to color, put a gi on them, put them in a dojo, and there would be nothing noteworthy of the video whatsoever - it's dead practice. ....or were you posting tounge-in-cheek ?

Ed,

In fact I've been looking too much into the older idea of karate. If you put a gi on it and do it inside, you weren't doing karate at all.

Spent the last few weeks looking hard at some 1938 applications, and the more I look backwards the more I wonder.

The real reason I posted this when I found it was to really go back to that time before the gi and most of the traditional aspects so borrowed from Japan.

All practice becomes dead when you stop living it. Most of what I see today in karate, especially on the international competition level with all their precise movements are smilarily dead to my way of thinking.

The more I see the more I wonder, but then again the 'secret' black belt manual I got long ago actually has nothing but blank pages in it, leaving me to fill in the blanks.

pleasantly,

Ed,

I think it's more 'basic' than 'dead'. Basic moving up and down is what I occasionally make beginners perform for simple coordination and stance work - sometimes conditioning (I used to do it a lot more in years gone by - I haven't done it much in the last decade).

However as a combat drill it is largely functionless imho.

looking at old footage/published material etc, I really have wondered...what's all the fuss with the 'old' stuff? We see films of Funakoshi, 1st generation top students of Nagamine, pre-war picture books from Mabuni, and so on...

it's easy/convienent to assume they were hiding the good stuff and just showing the basics. but the only things they all chose to document was movement without much substance. beyond the lore and tales, there is nothing really to sink into. for instance, the style founders might have documented why they chose some kata over others to build their curriculum - or how about their training method theories of how a student progresses from one-step kumite to smooth reactive and instinctive responses....and how that theory is perhaps better than say, a non-kata based learning method such as in the boxing or wrestling of their time. Instead they document stop-frames of solo kata, impractical applications, and head shot photo's of past masters.

The old footage I've seen only delivers the same promise: keep doing this and you'll progress to bigger and better stuff - yet they don't detail what that is exactly according to their theory or proven method.

The question is, do you/we perpetuate a promise and just do things because thats how they were handed down, or just let the traditional go and concentrate on what actually works - irregardless of the implied promise.

The drills shown in that video you post, has about as much developmental value as line dancing. some coordination built, some distancing, some timing, etc...nothing that couldn't be drill in a much better way even on day one of training. I'm thinking, you could do those drills for 100 years and still be no closer to building reaction skills that translate into something useful in an unscripted encounter.....assuming that is the goal, and the goal isn't to simply get better at the drills themselves.

where's the beef in the fabled 'old' systems? just in the stories?

just playing devil's advocate here - not meant as bashing or cornering.

One thing is "Old Stuff" sells. If someone puts Secrets, Forbidden, or Old School in the title of their book/DVD they will sell copies.

I like seeing the old videos just as much as seeing any good Karate video. I would like to see more old sparring mainly because I wonder what the rules and equipment were like. I am really into different types of sparring.