One of the big disappointments to people who’ve trained and dedicated their lives to martial arts is to read books that get Karate completely wrong. The first one I read was a Start Trek novel where Spock was apparently a black belt in Judo, and used a series of chopping blows like meat cleavers, mostly from the 4th kata.
Everyone who’s had any real martial arts training just did a double take, because that sentence didn’t make sense at all.
Judo is a grappling art, and Karate is a striking art. Now, that’s kind of over simplifying, but in essence, Spock would have used a strike to distract or disorient his opponent, then grabbed him and slung him to the ground – or perhaps choked him out.
Okay, let’s change that to Karate. Spock conceivably could have used sword hand strikes to bring his opponent down – but in reality Spock would have hit the guy twice and stepped back so the guy didn’t fall on him.
In Karate, the 4th Kata is Heian Yondan, and it has three sword hand strikes. There’s a lot more hammer fist and punches in that kata.
I guess the author of that Star Trek novel assumed that Katas are kind of like levels of preset attacks and defenses – like Ikkyo or yonkyo in Aikido.
Any way you slice it, it betrayed a complete ignorance of martial arts.
The Ninja serials. Those were terribly bad. The writing was bad (but in a gritty style, so if you liked the Dirty Harry serials, you’d have tolerated the Ninja ones). And it was apparent to me that if the author knew any martial arts, it was mostly Tae Kwan Do or Tang Soo Do, and not Ninpo.
So, really, the first thing that you’d need to know to write a novel featuring a protagonist who does Karate is some basic knowledge before you write it.
I recommend three months in a Japanese or Okinawan style, minimum – but it’s possible to get videos that explain a lot. Try the Shotokan Sensei’s videos of Kata with commentary. To know how to apply Kata, get any of the Didier Lupo videos. You can Youtube all of these!
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What is Kata?
Kata are pre-arranged forms to aid in learning the art. In Okinawa, one originally did not learn basics – you started right away learning a kata. Once you’d spent a year on that, you learned the next one. You’d practice the basics as done in the kata. Once you’d learned all of the kata, you’d know all of the basics.
Now we learn a lot of basics up front, and then start adding in kata. Shotokan is one of the most popular forms of Karate in the world – no surprise, because it was the first style brought to Japan from Okinawa. Shotokan is a blend of Shorin and Shorei Ryu Karate – one fast, the other powerful. Shotokan has fifteen required Kata, and another eleven optional. However, once you’re going up for any higher than second degree black belt, you find how “optional” those katas are! My documentation shows that Nijushiho testable for 2nd Degree (I did Bassai Dai and I think it was Tekki Nidan?).
By contrast, Uechi Ryu has only eight Kata, all very similar.
Every style of Karate has it’s own kata for the most part, although there are several that can be found in multiple styles of Karate. If you research the history of Karate, you’ll see why. There are different ryu (styles) of Okinawan Karate. Two of them were combined and brought to Japan in the 1930’s. By the end of WWII, the first splinter style of Japanese Karate (Wado Ryu) had occurred when Wado Ryu’s Grandmaster decided to start his own school of Karate (when only a second or third degree Black Belt). So, Wado Ryu has shared kata with Shotokan, plus some of their own.
Shito Ryu Karate comes from the same two styles of Karate as Shotokan, so has many of the same kata, but other kata that belonged to the other Naha-te styles of Karate also came over. Shito Ryu is not for the forgetful or hasty – they’ve got around 90 Kata. If your style has a Kata, they’ve got it too, it seems.
Philosophy
There’s different philosophies for each style of Karate – by this I mean there’s a particular mindset behind the core syllabus.
Shotokan likes big movements, fast and powerful techniques. Compared to other styles of Karate, you can immediately spot the Shotokan stylist because they’re trying to make the walls shake with each technique. Shotokan classes look very Samurai – there’s phrases that are repeated in Japanese by the entire class, kneeling bows, and the classes seem very ritualized. If you want your protagonist to be the archetypical soft spoken, relaxed type of person who when trouble threatens can stop an attack with a single strike- Shotokan is your route. One of the unique things about Shotokan is the combination of linear attacks and circular motions within the techniques. And Shotokan does a lot of waist twisting. The entire class seems to be an exercise of “can you sink your weight into your Hara” – the space in the center of your pelvic girdle. It’s so effective a Shotokan practitioner can bring someone to the ground just by grabbing someone and lowering their weight into their hara (doesn’t sound impressive? I’ve done it – yanked someone off his feet to the ground by lowering my mass and falling to the floor). Shotokan is big into 45 degree angles – to the point you’re constantly practicing hanmi (a slightly off center torso position). Why’s that important? Get into hanmi, step and straighten as you punch. WHACK! The opponent is now through the wall into the chiropractor’s shop next door! Someone I know described Shotokan as “don’t climb the mountain – break it into pieces”. Really, no central kata that defines the style, but rather the end result of learning the 26.
Uechi Ryu is very – how shall I say – birdlike. Not surprising, considering it’s almost completely identical to White Crane Kung Fu as of the 1930’s. One knuckle punches dominate the style, and there are fast hand jabs that look like the wing of a bird. Central to the style is the “circle Block”, which one does with thumbs pointed outward. It doesn’t look all that impressive to an outsider who’s never seen Karate, until you see how these guys train. Uechi Ryu has the well deserved reputation as the most brutal form of Karate to learn – you’re going to be doing SERIOUS body conditioning in this style. I remember seeing pictures of a high ranking belt in this style banging his shins with a sledgehammer. You may not understand what you’re seeing in Uechi Ryu until you fight one of them – once someone wakes you up. Then, as you try to get back up on your feet, you’ll be SERIOUSLY impressed by the style. So will your doctor, as he sets your jaw back in place. The delicate, fast, circular motions of Uechi Ryu must be like being beaten with steel rods, because the average black belt in Uechi Ryu has pounded their bone tissues into a substance that feels like metal. Rapid turns, slow circular movements, fingertip jabs and one knuckle punches are the hallmark of this style. If you’re going to use Uechi Ryu (pronounced weh-chi ryoo) as the style for our protagonist, you need to throw the name George Mattson in there somewhere. Thanks to very effective publicity and constantly writing books on Karate, George Mattson (one of the earliest teachers of Uechi in the US) has build up the entire style here. If you go to a Uechi Ryu dojo, very probably your sensei was trained by George Mattson or one of his early students. Central kata is Sanchin.
Soryu-Kan is a little known style of Karate, but I’ve trained in it. The blocks are really strange – you bring your fist to the opposing armpit, then LASH the block out. The toughness of the training is not quite at the Uechi Ryu level, but be prepared to do knuckle pushups in gravel paths outside the dojo. Be prepared to have your legs kicked out from under you every time you get your stance wrong. If you want the dramatic scenes of a karate student constantly getting pushed, shoved, feet swept by the Sensei during training – Soryu-Kan may be it. You end up far more afraid of your Sensei than any attacker, and by the time you have to use Karate in defense of your life or someone else’s you’re completely relaxed, because they’re not as tough as Sensei. Central kata is Kusanku.
Isshin Ryu has higher stances, and they do the Kung Fu “sunfist” punch instead of the standard Karate rotating punch. Isshin Ryu doesn’t call the punch any other name than the standard oi-zuki name. Don’t sneak up behind an Isshin Ryu black belt – they’re so used to snapping their foot backwards and upwards, you’re pretty much going to catch it in the crotch from them. I didn’t take Isshin Ryu very seriously years ago, because their grandmaster looked just like a goofy beighbor of mine, and it took years for me to stop thinking of Angi Uezu as anything but him! Then one day I was watching video of Sensei Uezu, and I noticed that – hey, that jerky motion he has in his punches? It’s because he’s WAILING those punches in the air! MAN! When Uezu hit, it must have felt like getting pounded by an 18-wheeler! The hallmark of Isshin Ryu is the straight up-and-down fist strike. Isshin Ryu hits fast. Oh, and they’re the source of the weapons katas that are done in almost every Karate dojo. So now I feel really bad about my thinking uninformed nonsense about Isshin Ryu. Isshin Ryu can hit you five times for every Tae Kwan Do kick you try to throw. I don’t know which kata they consider central.
Gojo Ryu is known as the Hard-soft style. I don’t know where the soft part comes in – in all the video I see of them, I don’t see the soft part. So I joke with a Goju sensei I know that his Karate is really Go Ryu. Similar to Shotokan but not. Goju is best known for the most bizarre way of doing Sanchin I’ve ever seen. Instead of slow tension and gentle exhaling, they FORCE the inhaling and exhaling in a loud, hissing breath. And while they do that, the Sensei is walking around hitting and kicking everyone to make sure they’re doing Sanchin right. The biggest impression on me from Goju is of course Morei Higaonna, who in the seventies was a tough looking, very serious man. Today, he is always smiling and laughing. And yes, he can thoroughly kick your butt. Look at Higaonna’s hands sometime. Yikes! Similar moves to Uechi Ryu in some katas. Central kata is Sanchin (they have two versions of it, the Goju, and Higaonna’s Sanchin) early on, then Suparinpei after you’ve gotten above 2nd degree.
Kyokushin-Kai has the most aggressive name in all of Karate – and it’s probably where they got the name “Cobra Kai”. They don’t chant “Strike first strike hard no mercy sir!” but you think they would. Kyokushin-Kai is one of the only styles where they do “full contact”. The punches are short jabs, and lack the power of Shotokan (a full contact Shotokan tournament would leave winners and the dead – no other category), but you better believe these guys are really used to being hit and kicked. Their founder was a Korean man who learned Shotokan and modified it. To prove his Karate, he did empty handed bullfighting. Mas Oyama really did several matches against bulls in the 1950’s. the Kyokushin Honbu used to have the skull of a bull on their wall, with a hole in it – that was from Oyama. If you’ve ever been there, is the skull still there? Slightly higher stances than Shotokan. The early days of kickboxing was dominated by Kyokushin-Kai, and it’s probable that all the Kyokushin senseis have to have big dojos just to display all the trophies these guys have. Not as much emphasis on Kata at the Honbun, unless things have changed since the 80’s.
Tomorrow I’ll explain a lot of the techniques.
