The path in Martial Arts (2)

The master Gichin Funakoshi was absolutely against the competition and his son was for the competition. All of this is going on during and after the second world war. It is useless to remind that the Japanese have lost the war. They don’t have the right to open a dojo without having at least one American student in the school. But you have to know that after Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and the emperor of Japan that is not anymore a god, the Japanese people hate the Americans . In consequence, they are never going to teach correct techniques of Karate to their opponents. So they will develop a fake karate, close to the real karate, taught to the American enemies, and after their lesson open to Americans, there was an extra lesson only for the Japanese people.

After the war, Yoshitaka Funakoshi worked in an American nuclear power centre and he died from radiations. So, believe me, the master Gichin Funakoshi was even less open to the American population and the fake karate went on even harder.

Yoshitaka Funakoshi was the first one to practice the Shotokai form, even if at the same time he believed in competition. Technically we can divide in two the school of Gichin Funakoshi. We had as a name of poetry “Shoto” that meant “the undulation of the pins in the wind”. Then was the name “Shotokan” which means the school of Shoto and “Shotokai”, the house of Shoto. Shotokan is with competition, Shotokai is without competition. It is not a specific physical form. It is more a spirit with or without competition.

Gichin Funakoshi Sensei had one kid Yoshitaka Funakoshi, who was a genius in Karate. It was even him who, in karate, invented “yoko geri” in the way that it is practiced today. In the past was only practiced the “mae yoko geri” that you still find in Wado-Ryu. You have to understand the evolution of the Japanese population through the events of this century. Yoshitaka Funakoshi was the close friend of Shigeru Egami, who was my master. They used to challenge each other and to practice a lot.

It was exactly the same protocol with the Japanese in the past. When Gichin Funakoshi was in Japan, he was helped a lot by Jigoro Kano Sensei, founder of Judo. The situation was not like today where everybody tries to fuck everybody. These two masters even learned from each other. But they did it in an open way, without hiding, without pretending. When Jigoro Kano Sensei saw the katas from Karate, he invented some katas practiced with a partner. Therefore several katas of Judo are inspired from katas of Karate that Jigoro Kano Sensei saw in the practice of Gichin Funakoshi Sensei. In addition Jigoro Kano used his own knowledge to recreate similar technical aspects in Judo. Then, the master Gichin Funakoshi saw the fantastic word of the master Jigoro Kano and he created the katas “ ten no kata omote” and “ten no kata ura”. This means that these masters were respecting each other and learning from each other.

First example: the master Gichin Funakoshi, disciple of the master Ankô Itosu. He arrived in Japan to introduce the Okinawa-Te. But you have to know that Okinawa was an island that had been invaded by Japan. Therefore for the Japanese, Okinawa was a pitiful island conquered a long time ago, and they refused categorically the name Okinawa-Te (the hand of Okinawa). Instead, this discipline was given a name that is between respect and insult, which is typically Japanese. It was called Kara, which means emptiness. Emptiness instead of Okinawa was the insult. Emptiness as “fighting with empty hands” was the respect. Still, for those who really know the practice of karate they will confirm that the Bô is part of the practice of karate as the Jôdo is part of the practice of aikido. Therefore the word Karate is indeed not logical as 20% of this practice was with the Bô.

Once the Japanese possessed completely the Karate-do, karate became a name of pride as the origin of Okinawa was completely forgotten as even denied. When the Japanese people introduced the Karate-do in America and in Europe, they all said “It’s a Japanese practice”, which is a complete lie. Likewise today we could say that karate is a European practice as we have now in Europe some experts with an 8^th or 10^th dan.

In the last half century I saw a lot of stuff happening. I was even sometimes in, but for a short while before going out. Directly from my masters, I heard many stories about what happened even before, and I could see that what happened a long time ago and what happened in the last century were exactly the same. Power, manipulation, sex and money.

I will write some articles about some people, some associations, and I’m afraid that most of you are going to be very disappointed if you mixed the kimono or the karate gi with the suit of Batman or Superman. If the super powers of Superman can be destroyed by kryptonite, the mae geri or oi tsuki of the super karatekas were often destroyed by power, manipulation, sex and money. Today I will give you two quick examples and I will answer questions to anyone who has the courage to discover the truth about the past or the present.