Karate – How do we explain what we do?

Musings on how martial arts people struggle to justify what they do.

As things go in and out of fashion the lenses of society shift their focus.
To the martial arts people out there; don’t you just dread it; having to explain yourself to somebody who has only limited reference to what you are talking about?

A typical conversation at a social event.

“So you do Karate eh? Does that mean…”

·       You can kick me in the head?

·       You chop boards in half?

·       You can kill me with a single blow?

·       You roll around the floor getting sweaty with other guys and tie them in knots? (No, that’s judo or BJJ)?

Sorry, couldn’t resist that. And to supply some balance, even though I have referenced this before, here’s Jim Carrey

Seriously, and in all honesty, that kind of conversation is not as tough as the next line in the conversation;

“What kind of karate?”

The answer to that depends on what the questioner’s level of knowledge might be.

Instagram – TikTok.

Instagram and social media ‘reels’ are a total curse to me. The bottomless scrolling, endless tiny videos of stupid things. I honestly wouldn’t mind if it was just ‘cats do amazing things and will eventually take over the world’, but the hidden algorithm seems to have picked up that I am inclined to linger on martial arts themed videos, and so it pumps them at me relentlessly. I could fill the whole of this post up with descriptions of the martial arts stupidity I have seen. Thank God for Master Ken! Ken bursts the bubble on Martial Arts Bull***t, but there are just too many bubbles still left to burst (Just like the ‘Hurticane’).

But, to my shame, I look at these mini Instagram videos and, in my head, two questions seem to constantly crop up:

1.       Do people look at these and say, ‘THIS IS KARATE’?

2.       How can something be so dumb and still have people buy into it?

To return to the original conversation…

When asked, “What kind of karate?”

Admittedly, you don’t have to engage with the question, except perhaps in the most cursory way; but maybe the questioner deserves a better answer, something more meaningful than just a glib brushoff.

But, what are their reference points?

An example from the visual arts.

Many years ago, as an art student, I attended a lecture given by the most engaging and challenging speaker I have ever had the pleasure of listening to. It was so long ago I can’t remember his name; he was a retired headteacher and his wisdom was astounding.

One thing he did was to put up a slide of a painting of a racehorse by George Stubbs, the 18^th century artist. We were asked to examine the painting and figure out what information we could glean from it. Pretty much everyone in the room struggled; we were all art students, what did we know about racehorses?

‘Hambletonian, Rubbing Down’ (1800) George Stubbs.

He then put up a series of statements people had written about the painting and what it said to them, and they were remarkably detailed with real specialist observations.

He had statements by:

·       A veterinarian whose specialism was horses and ponies.

·       A jockey.

·       A horse breeder.

·       A French butcher who knew all about the conversion of horse meat from carcass to plate.

Each person’s specialism and experience gave them a unique perspective. Of course there is a bigger psychological question here, about perception, bias and even personal baggage.

But, the image of ‘karate’, the word ‘karate’ conjures up what exactly?

Let me run that conversation again:

“So you do karate do you”?

“Yes, that’s right… but not THAT ‘karate’”.

“So what style then?”

“Wado karate”.

“What’s that then?”

“It’s a mixture of karate and jujutsu… but not THAT ‘jujutsu’”.

Once you get into that area, the conversation could then spiral out of control, and you would find yourself wondering why you even bothered.

But, does it matter anyway?

Personally, I don’t feel any compulsion to be some kind of evangelist.

In truth, maybe I am just tired of being misrepresented.

But there is another part of me that would accuse the karate world of hiding its light under a bushel. We seldom put any real effort into explaining ourselves, we just fall into the same tired cliches that have been prescribed for us. Perhaps we start to believe in our own mythologies, too smug and complacent to take a step back and look at what we really have to offer for the modern age.

BJJ photo; by Timothy Eberly on Unsplash

Header image, Tim Shaw, via AI.