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Introduction

Since the end of the Second World War there has been an increasing involvement on the part of Westerners in the study of the traditional Japanese martial arts of judo, kendo, aikido, and karate. The great increase in the practice of these arts has led to a significant interest in the culture of the country that generated them. Along with this interest has come a plethora of self-appointed experts who claim to have great insights into the nature of the warrior class in Japanese society. Using their "knowledge," they have passed themselves off as masters in the various combative arts and have led others to believe that they are subscribers to and propagators of some grand warrior ethos. Their actions have been significant, since they have quantitatively, if not qualitatively, given to the Occidental world a glimpse of the martial traditions of Japan. For the most part, these presentations have been incorrect, leading many Westerners to view martial arts practitioners as fakes. On the other hand, many who have little knowledge of Japan accept the assertions of these "experts" as correct and thus assist in the propagation of misconceptions. The end result is that there exists within the Western world today a considerable misunderstanding of Japanese martial arts and related aspects of Japanese society.

Misconceptions of foreign cultures are by no means unusual. Japanese have perceived Westerners incorrectly, and Westerners in turn have failed to understand the Japanese, Chinese, and Koreans. This problem, common throughout the history of man, is in large part attributable to a fascination for the unusual. Recently, those aspects of Japanese culture that have had the greatest appeal to Westerners have been those with the most exotic practices and philosophies. Karate, aikido, and Zen, for example, have proved of interest, not so much because of their intrinsic worth as for their value as curios. In many cases, the Westerners attracted to such exotic interests have in all likelihood been atypical representatives of their own cultures.

The beginnings of the distortions of the Japanese martial arts ethos came in the aftermath of World War II. At that time, many Americans were stationed in the Far East and came into contact with teachers of various combative systems. For many, the exposure was limited, and the brevity of their relationships left only a superficial impression of the true traditions of those arts. In other cases, individuals trained for a time with Japanese instructors who prostituted their art by selling black belt grades in order to make money. Some of these Americans left Japan with only a scant knowledge of the arts they were supposed to spread, and the resultant misunderstandings fostered by them are legion. Men with a year's training returned to the United States holding several grades of black belt rank with the permission of their Japanese instructors to represent them. Although the skill of these men was limited and their understanding of the philosophy of the art nonexistent, they were pressured by their former teachers and new students to teach a way of life that they had not mastered. In return for their allegiance, they were allowed to issue black belt grades sanctioned by the instructor in Japan or Okinawa, providing him with profitable registration and diploma fees. The new American "master" now had a vested interest, and even if philosophically his actions could not be condoned, they could certainly be justified from a monetary standpoint. In some cases the American instructor deluded himself, thereby giving rise to the worst kind of misrepresentation. As a true believer in his own philosophy of the martial arts, he was able to appear sincere and lead others down the same benighted path to misunderstanding. The student who encountered such an instructor could not help but be impressed by his manner, if not his technique. After all, the movements demonstrated by the American instructor were, if nothing else, exotic. His Japanese vocabulary, albeit limited, contained phrases and words that were designed to inspire the imagination and excite interest. Vast numbers of Americans searching for the unusual settled upon karate as a fulfilling endeavor, capable of providing the combination of physical and mental discipline that they sought.

At about the same time that these American instructors returned to the United States, the first Japanese instructors who had a full command of the martial arts also began to arrive. Some Americans who had trained in authentic schools in Japan sought out these Japanese instructors, resumed their training, and founded small clubs. This contingent became the core of true karate practitioners in the United States, those who followed the authentic teachings of the Japanese schools. The severity of the training and rigid discipline insured that their numbers were kept small, just as in Japan, where many train but few become high ranking belts. Even so, students of these new clubs found themselves training under the Japanese karate missionaries, such masters as Tsutomu Oshima, Hidetaka Nishiyama, Gosei Yamaguchi, Teruyuki Okazaki, Takayuki Mikami, Yoshiaki Ajari, and Fumio Demura.

By comparison, those schools run by the unqualified American instructors proliferated because of their exotic appearance and their appeal to the unusual. Training in them in many cases was inferior, and many of the students promoted to black belt would not have achieved such a rank in authentic karate clubs. The graduates of these schools in turn opened their own clubs and promoted students. Eventually, organizations were founded and had large numbers of people under their influence.

At first, the "pseudo-karate" practitioners wished to learn from those with real knowledge and were permitted to enter their tournaments. When they fared poorly, they attributed their losses to unfair judging and rejected any attempts to be indoctrinated into the correct practices. The classical schools continued to keep their standards and slowly grew, but their numbers, of course, were still not comparable to those of the less qualified. By the late 1960s many of the schools founded by the unqualified instructors had grown quite large and organized. They vied with the classical groups for Amateur Athletic Union recognition, considered then to be a forerunner to eventual Olympic competition. Whenever possible, they attempted to get further exposure through the media by showing the spectacular elements of the arts. Demonstrations of breaking ice and bricks, cutting an object placed upon a person's throat or stomach, and similar skills became quite popular, and the American public began to regard karate as something of a circus sideshow.

By the late 1970s the situation had reached the absurd. Men no older than twenty-five or thirty were appearing on televised sports shows and billing themselves as tenth-degree grand masters. Demonstrations of their alleged skill included catching bullets in their teeth and other acts probably never seen in Japan. The American public readily accepted their claims to black belt ranks, ranks in systems that they themselves had originated.

At about the same time, two of the most famous Japanese masters of the current century, Gogen Yamaguchi, the head of the Japanese Goju system, and Masatoshi Nakayama, the head of the prestigious Japan Karate Association, attained their tenth and ninth degree rankings, respectively, after lifetimes devoted to the study and propagation of true karate. Both of these men were in their sixties at the time of their achievements. In the United States, veteran instructors Nishiyama and Okazaki, men with over thirty years experience, finally earned eighth degrees. Although their efforts had produced many practitioners of authentic karate and their organizations were strong, they had not been truly appreciated by the public. The unqualified instructors had made their mark on the American audiences.

All the foregoing may seem to be rather pointless and the importance attached to the distinction made between the two groups of karate practitioners called into question. However, it must be remembered that the proliferation of those less-than-qualified instructors had led to misconceptions of Japanese martial arts by many Americans and, by extension, to great misunderstandings about Japanese culture. These distortions have been almost impossible for the classical combative groups to overcome. As a result, the author has long felt that some discussion of the traditions of the Japanese people and how those traditions are expressed in contemporary martial arts is necessary. Accordingly, the task at hand has several facets. First of all, it will be useful to survey the history of karate. In addition, an overview of the history of Japan during its military period will help to clarify the traditions that sprang from that time. The changes in these traditions and the adoption of these changes by the nation as a whole will also be discussed, including the influences that such mass adoption had on the practice of karate in Japan. A basic problem to be addressed here, however, is the difference between that which truly belongs to the past, the traditional, and that which mimics it, the "traditionalistic"; the modern-day karate-ka (karate practioner) who demonstrates his skill on the gymnasium floor is not the same as the Okinawan peasant who faced the Japanese samurai in the seventeenth century. Similarities in form exist, to be sure, but an examination of the history of these arts and the society that produced them may help to distinguish the traditional mode of thought from the contemporary traditionalistic trend.

Finally, a practical section including chapters on karate etiquette, kumite (training drills), and kata (set sequences of moves) is included.