Tokyo Olympics

KBslittlesis said:

What on earth is that karate with an imaginary opponent all about? 😳

Seriously?

I'll try and answer this as a karate practitioner and leap to its defence (with lots of waffling). Kata, the collection of movements being demonstrated, has always been an integral part of karate practice. Several of these forms exist as a recording of information through physical movement, and were predominately created to record the fighting methods of a given individual (whose name is usually given to the name of the kata). They are a physical solo template, consisting of combative motions, created to record the key principles of a given fighting system so that those principles can be passed on to subsequent generations.

As an example (using a variant of the form I think both competitors used in the final earlier), there is a kata called Kushanku. There was a Chinese official who went by the title of Kushanku and one of his students was a man called Sakugawa, who created the kata of the same name. Kushanku kata records the fighting system that Kushanku (the man) taught to Sakugawa, which Sakugawa used to practice Kushaku’s teachings when training on his own. The kata records techniques that illustrate the key principles of Kushaku’s teachings and through the practise of these techniques a student could identify these key principles and therefore practise a wide variety  of methods that expressed those principles. 

As for how we've ended up in this position with people jumping and spinning about to win medals. In the mid 1930's karate was introduced to mainland Japan in an attempt to gain national recognition from Japan's leading martial arts association. Karate was granted national recognition on a few conditions. The Japanese insisted that karate develop a unified teaching curriculum, adopt a standard training uniform (which they borrowed from Judo), introduce a ranking system (which they borrowed from Judo), develop a system of competition and reduce the amount of violence in the methods the practitioners used. The introduction of a competition element and of the grading system eventually resulted in many students caring more how their kata looked in order to win competitions and pass gradings (the kumite part of karate in the Olympics is a whole other monster).

This "fighting an imaginary opponent" description seems to have creeped in somewhere, not helped by the BBC using that as a description when presenting it. That's not what it is about at all. The changes karate went through (which, in fairness, were vital for the survival and spread of karate) have resulted in the combative applications of the kata being obscured and for many completely forgotten about.

ValleyGary said:

KBslittlesis said:

What on earth is that karate with an imaginary opponent all about? 😳

Seriously?

Wow I can’t believe what I’ve just seen. It’s like when your little 4 year old niece says “uncle Gary, uncle Gary, uncle Gary….watch this” and then does a shitty little spinning jump. 

Can only think they’ve let that in cos it’s in Japan. A one and only appearance I hope.