What has happened to the martial arts?
In this modern society, how many people out of the 12 billion we have on this planet would really want to go threw pain and hard work to achieve something, and in there eyes probally only get a belt, but in reality the belt only symbolizes rank. But to me the belt means so much more, to me anyway it shows that you have accomplished something. But i believe in our modern world that Karate has been watered down so that the "public" would actually be interested in it. I mean in the past the Masters would train in harsh weather, and most dojo's were outdoors, now honestly, who would want to train in the snow these days? I probally couldnt even count them on my own two hands. I for one Like the pain and the hard work because i know what i am working for. Most people would ask? why do you do this anyway, what happens if you never get into a fight ever in your whole life.. When people ask my this I laugh. Because in reality almost all people do Karate to be able to kick there bullies butt, or to tell people "yah, i do Karate". IT means so much more than that to me, and I hope everyone else in this forum. I like to train in the snow or in the hot summers outdoors. In my dojo we train 2-3 times a week for one hour and thirty minutes per session and on occasion there is weekend training. Now if any old master were still alive today, they would be astonished. 4 hours and a half a week they would say? they did more than that in one day. Also there training probally did not only consist of 10 minutes of warm up, a kick hear and there some kata, some bunkai and thats it. Sometimes they would spend 5-6 hours on one Kata. Honestly do you think that anyone these days would want to do that? I dont think so. It has just hit me so hard how my generation is so lazy ( This coming from a 16 year old). I am trying to get rid of that stereo type. I for one love to train. I train about 5 times as much out of the Dojo than i do in the Dojo. Then when i go to Karate class I see my Sensei and of course they are better than me, cause i know them personaly and I know they do train more than I do. But then when I see some fellow Karate-Ka I have better technique than a black belt. My sensei wonder why, and I tell them how much I train and they are quite suprised at how much a 16 year old in these times and days how dedicated I am to my Martial Art. For one reason I am happy that the grandmasters are not alive today to see what the Karate society has become. Now i know most people say that we have to make the Karate this way so that people can do it. The masters of the past would have just been ashamed that just because our standards are so low that we have to water down their art. I do not believe we have passed it down the right way. I am just glad that from talking in these forums that there are some people that know what they are talking about. I am just disapointed. I would just like to leave all of this "modern" nonsence behind and set the standards to what they were 100 years ago, now i know many of you will say this is not 100 years ago, well i still dont see the point at why we have to lower our standards so that people can get there belts faster just so a dojo can make some money. Why cant we jsut earn something the good old fashion way. Through a little bit of pain and some hard work. Why not just try it for a while. I think it would do some good to "my" lazy generation. I could go on for much longer talking about this topic, but at some point it just must end. Some things are just better left unsaid.

Just my thoughts
(I wrote this in another forum before under the name kyokushin555, I would have used the name for this forum but it was taken)

I agree with You Goju and you have Posted a Fantastic and Fabuolus Post According to me you are right and I dont know about Other Karate kaz's
I Think a lot of karate kaz's Will Also Agree with you.
Its Great to have you on this forum and I think you have answered a lot of questions and solved many problems.
Keep Up the Good Spirit we need Experienced karate kaz's like you on this forum.
Thanks.

Well said Goju,
I am 46 years old and it amazes me watching others in training, not only from your generation, taking the easy road. For example taking short cuts, not completing stamina work etc. When the time comes for them to experience actual full contact they are unable to sustain it. They are the ones who are suffering in the long run. The true spirit of martial arts is only brought out in the karateka when they give more than they ever thought posible. My wife for example, who had never done any form of martial arts, trained for 6 years in kyokushin and ended up winning several full contact tournaments. She never thought that she had it in her but through hard training and effort she became a very competant fighter. Even I, at 46, am able to out train most of the younger guys in my club just because I am prepared to do more than most, always doing an extra 20 sit ups or push ups or leg raises.
Some one said to me once that Mas Oyama created Kyokushin out of a frustration he felt about karate becomeing westernised that is "soft".
I would be happy if we returned to the old ways of 2 belts "white and Black" no others are needed really you are a white belt until your instructor says you may try for your shodan. We westerners are the ones who need to have incremental belts to show how far we have progressed. Body and mental conditioning should be part and parcel of our daily training, (yes I mean daily) we need to always take oportunities to train, whether we are at home, in the back yard or at work on a break to push the heart rate up. Even when relaxing at home, you can stretch your legs, do something, anything to help keep you at a level of fitness and flexability that allows you to push that much harder in training.

Sorry I am rambling

Cheers
Tetsui

Nice Post Tetsui you are Welcome on Forum Its Great to have you on this Forum and you have talked very Clearly I like your Passion and you are a good Karate kaz I really Appreciate your Thoughts.

Yes, it is sad to see that by todays standards we have had to water down karate to meet societies needs. But yet, there is still hope in the "true Karateka" that are still around like you and the others who are willing to go that extra mile and willing to put in the last breath. Kyokushin is not a soft art, I have a video tape of Sosai talking about a lecture on Kyokushin and it is far from soft. He said you must train your mind body and spirit to become steel, and only through rigorous training can we achieve such a goal. We traditional Karateka who follow the days of the old must strive to keep the tradition alive and encourage others to do so aswell!
This is a subject that has always been in my thoughts, I can write much much more, but as I said in the other post, some things are better left unsaid.

Osu!

It's great to see such old fashioned enthusiasm for training in a modern young person, there are a few of you around and it's always good to hear, reminds me of my own younger days when I wanted to eat, sleep and breathe training, mae geri-ing everything in sight! I think the problem is partly the westernised soceities we live in, the world is becoming more western and as martial arts have become more widespread, it's inevitable they will be watered down to appeal to the lowest common denominator. When I began training as a boy, there were no junior clubs as such, we mixed in and trained with the adults, and it was a real buzz, tough but it was almost like a rites of passage, learning to be a man in a way. Now we have 'Little Ninjas' clubs all over the place, even the names of the clubs and styles are dumbed down to appeal to the masses. We had a visitor at my dojo the other day who was a student of a very successful modern 'martial arts' school, he had lots of certificates and plenty more chat. It became clear within about ten minutes of the session beginning that he had never done a session of real training in his entire life, his face was aghast, to us it was a fairly mild session. Not his fault obviously and we did our best to accommodate him and help him, but he really thought he was good, because he's been convinced that he is. Classes are now packed with small kids many of whom enjoy it as an after-school activity but may have no real enthusiasm to be there or to learn anything about karate or budo. I'd be very happy to see clubs perhaps decreasing in size but concentratiing the quality of what they do, and holding firm to the principles of traditional Kyokushin and karate training, I believe things will turn around for these styles, people seem to be wising up to alot of the watered down styles, in a way I think we have alot to thank the recent popularity of things like ultimate fighting that seem to have renewed peoples enthusiasm to do something 'real', and people may debate the realism of all the rules in knockdown etc, it's still up there with the toughest of them. Osu.

Yes, Yet another traditional being. It is very true what you say, I am glad to hear that there are people that think the same way as me in this forum.

Osu!