Venn Diagrams.

Three sets of venn diagrams relating to; Wado karate, the three ‘K’s and ‘Budo/Jutsu’.

I thought it would be fun to present a set of venn diagrams to perhaps spark a little discussion.

Although they look mathematical, these diagrams are less than scientific, they are more conjectural than written in hard figures.

Obviously, these are personal interpretations. My ideas on these change all the time; but the current patterns look like this:

The three K’s of karate.

I think this one has been trotted out so many times that most people seem to accept it. We would all like to believe in the convenience of a neatly balanced ratio of Kihon, Kata and Kumite, but, for whatever reason this can be really difficult to achieve. The usual problems are; time, inclination, pressures to achieve, or even just culture.

And what of ‘Kumite’? I suspect it can mean many things, but the current direction and approach to sports karate as ‘kumite’ is a bit of a wild rover. A bunch of metaphors come to mind; Is it a case of ‘the tail wagging the dog’, or the ‘genie out of the bottle’ (unable to be put back in)? Have we perhaps willingly, ‘sold our soul to the devil’? Or is it perhaps the ‘new saviour of karate in the 21^st century’? It depends on your position.

Budo, Bujutsu (‘Do/Jutsu’)?

This to me underlines that wonderful characteristic of Japanese language, culture, history and understanding that is inclined to be so mercurial. The further you dig the more muddled the story gets. Wado founder Otsuka Hironori was very dismissive about the distinction between Budo and Bujutsu in his book.

A helpful way of looking at this might be to ditch the word ‘art’ in ‘martial art’ and replace it with an ungainly mash-up of ‘skill’, ‘craft’, ‘science’ etc. and then you might arrive at something that equates to how ‘jutsu’ might be used in this context.

The Old School model of ‘jutsu’ might not be as appealing as it sounds to a particular audience. It might be said to have the taint of crudities from an earlier, less sophisticated or enlightened age. The differences between ‘Do’ and ‘Jutsu’ blurred and blended over a very long time. Contemporary martial artists, particularly in the West seized upon this convenient set of labels; it made life easy for them.

Just what is Wado karate?

The first diagram shows a mixture of what other karate people think we in Wado are all about and what the accepted group-think within generic Wado assumes.

The second diagram was a risky venture on my part, as information on this is very fluid and conjectural. Also, all we have is opinion, and we know how difficult that can be.

It is impossible to pin down the actual content of all those cross-overs, and goes way beyond just trying to climb into Otsuka Sensei’s head. I am convinced that there are other elements missing and maybe I have overplayed those I have included.

What I hope comes from that is the identification that Wado is (a) a complex entity, and (b) it is clearly in the field of Japanese Budo with only a very tiny, but not insignificant, Okinawan influence. Also, the Shotokan/Wado overlap is much smaller than is generally accepted.

As I said at the beginning, this is not a precise science; it’s part observation, part conjecture, part opinion and a large part guesswork. Others might think differently and I am pretty sure that my own opinion will change over time; but you gotta start somewhere.

Photo by Dan Cristian Pădureț on Unsplash