Uniting wado groups

[Chiefobrien]

Hi everyone!

I've been thinking lately about the different wado organisations and reasons for their existence.
Of course I don't know the complete facts, but it's not important.

What do you think, will the wado style be practiced only in one main organisation someday in the future? As opposed to the three main groups.

-Chiefobrien (from the USS Enterprise)

[Gary]

We all do Wado, just maybe in different schools or branches.

As I understand it "Ryu", as well as meaning school= stream/flow - ie what is passed down from teacher to student to help define and propagate the group/art.

Streams will naturally take their path, but as long as the core of the art remains intact, the stream will continue to grow and expand.

Perhaps Wado is where it should be - on the organic scale of things. Probably we are doing a lot better than many other styles but, in answer to your immediate question, I think no, there is unlikely to be another single Wado group.

Gary

[oneya]

, I think no, there is unlikely to be another single Wado group.

Gary

...and perhaps rightly so Gary. anchoring groups within the freedom of the human spirit is infinitely preferable to anchoring the human spirit within the constraints of a single group surely..??

oneya

[Tim49]

A flight of fantasy perhaps, but part of me sees the late Ohtsuka Hironori as a kind of Victor Frankenstein. In his boldness and his genius he created a new life form and then further down the line the poor creature ran amok, was misunderstood and maligned, forced to do things it didn’t want to do and the rest is history.

Or maybe after the master creator’s passing the creature’s body parts disassembled themselves and then all ran off in different directions to try and exist on their own?

Does anyone out there want to own up to having the heart?

And please don’t ask where its genitals went.

Tim

[Aslan]

Hi everyone!

I've been thinking lately about the different wado organisations and reasons for their existence.
Of course I don't know the complete facts, but it's not important.

What do you think, will the wado style be practiced only in one main organisation someday in the future? As opposed to the three main groups.

-Chiefobrien (from the USS Enterprise)

Do you mean the creation of another group, or consolidation of existing?

[Gusei21]

A flight of fantasy perhaps, but part of me sees the late Ohtsuka Hironori as a kind of Victor Frankenstein. In his boldness and his genius he created a new life form and then further down the line the poor creature ran amok, was misunderstood and maligned, forced to do things it didn’t want to do and the rest is history.

I don't know. A part of me is still in denial perhaps that there ever was a split because just yesterday we were all one...

Having said that I am not sure about the Dr Frankenstein analogy unless you are passing the blame onto Dr Frankenstein himself.
After all everything was fine until Otsuka Sensei pooped on the carpet so to speak and was forced to leave the room.

I'm not sure how you folks in Europe saw it but that is how it looked like in Japan. It's just that in Japan we have this weird loyalty system that complicates things. Right and wrong doesn't seem to matter at times. You do what your seniors tell you to do and at times it feels like you slipped into the rabbit hole from Alice in Wonderland. Even to this day the Wadokai has to follow certain guidelines when a senior Wadoryu person decides to rejoin the fold because of specific stipulations in the 'divorce' (out of court settlement) agreement.

[Gusei21]

Read what I just wrote and I want to elaborate.

Whether he pooped on the carpet or not, I don't think it changed anything in the long term. When we were still one there were always people like Shintani already out there doing garbage. In fact he did it in full view of Otsuka Sensei.
I am sure there were one off weirdos doing stuff in Europe pretending to do Wado when we were still one group.

And in my opinion when you look at the so called big 3...whether it be Wadoryu with Jiro/Shiomitsu or WIKF with Suzuki Sensei or the Wadokai, they are all doing what they do and I feel they would be doing the same thing had we still been one. I know for a fact that Suzuki Sensei always did what he felt was correct since day one. His karate did not change just because there was a split. We all do Wado. People may want to try to nit pick and differentiate us but junzuki is still junzuki, the kata, the kihon kumite are still the same. Yes there are minor differences but EVEN in the Wadokai itself there are minor differences. It is not a organizational difference. It is an instructor difference I think. I would hope my karate is closer to Shiomitsu Sensei's karate than some other Wadokai instructors I know....and I prefer Shiomitsu Sensei's Wado to some of the Wadokai instructors I have encountered. Same goes for my feeling about Suzuki Sensei. I love a lot of his stuff. It is great. All three groups have great instructors in my opinion. Wadokai is fortunate to have Arakawa/Hakoishi/Takagi.

I think the main problem with Wado is that it is too difficult to convey. Otsuka Sensei was a technical genius but something like this is just too difficult I think to transmit. It is one thing to say that 'technique is endless like the universe'..but that is not very helpful. And because what we do is so complex I think it tends to lend itself to the propagation of weird one off stuff..

[Chiefobrien]

Do you mean the creation of another group, or consolidation of existing?

I mean that the existing ones would join together.

Gusei: Yes, I think I'm seeing this from a different perspective than you. I wasn't even born yet when the first split occurred.
... I was planning to write some more, but I need to re-read your posts and do some thinking. My head doesn't seem to work very well at the moment :)
Thanks for your replys so far!

[Gusei21]

Further thoughts

Part of my delusional nature perhaps but as I stated earlier many times when I am practicing alone I forget that we split up.
Having said that I think for some of us like Oneya or Tim or myself, we are not so much rallying behind a group as much as we are just following our teacher.
If my teacher quit the Wadokai tomorrow then I would follow him in a heartbeat. It isn't a question of loyalty. I don't really like that word. I have surrendered myself to the will of my teacher long ago.
In my eyes he is a great man in all ways beyond karate and I feel I still have much to learn from him. He is the one who is my guiding light and leads me thru this martial madness.
If I didn't think he was a great man I would have never surrendered myself to him.
So it doesn't matter to me if we are 1 group or 10 groups. There are only a few people I respect in the world of Wado and those people are not bound by one group - they encompass all three groups.
And some of them have left the big 3 and I hold them in high regard.
So....
1 group? 10 groups? Doesn't matter to me. I know my path. The only issue is that our teachers are aging or have passed away. So what do we do?
Many of the first and second generation had to confront that same issue when Otsuka Sensei passed away and some forged their own path.
As my dear friend just said to me the other day, 'my loyalty was to my Sensei, not to the group'.

But groups are important too, especially if you aren't lucky enough to find a Master.
Ultimately I don't care as long as we get to practice together with whomever we want without being bound by ridiculous rules based in fear which seems to be the norm in certain circles these days.

[Mark]

The more I think about it, the more I tend to think it doesn't really matter. The idea of large organisations with many clubs belonging to them seems to me to be a relatively new thing in the history of martial arts. I may be wrong, but historically, my understanding is that it would have been just masters teaching students, some of whom would go on to open their own schools and teach their new students, sometimes in the style of their own master or sometimes changing things along the way. There didn't seem to be any need for overarching organisations.

Nowadays of course times are different, and it is much easier to run a club if it is part of some organisation to provide support, lend an air of respectability, organise courses etc. But as Gusei21 said, many people even now, like in the old days, simply follow their instructor without worrying about what organisation he belongs to.

I belong to a club which is not part of any of the big three wado groups. It belongs to an independent, all-styles organisation (that is, the organisation accepts clubs from different styles, not that the clubs themselves are multi-style). Sometimes we get together for courses and share ideas, and maybe learn something from instructors from a different style, and sometimes those of the member clubs that practice wado organise wado-only courses. My sensei has been at this for a good few decades, and like many of the older karate men, doesn't appreciate being told what to do. He keeps teaching wado the way it was taught to him by his sensei, with the occasional new thing of his own thrown in. Even if we were to join the Wadokai, he would still keep doing exactly as he does now. Nothing would really change. The only difference really would be that the Wadokai may try (and would probably fail) to get him to standardise some kata, where no doubt there are slight differences, or terminology or grading syllabuses. But basically, we would still be practicing the same thing every week that we do now.