Karate in the Olympics

[blackcat]

Picking this up as a new topic...

I would say this is not quite as awful a scenario as we might fear. It probably even fits with the aspirations of some of the founding fathers of Japanese karate who wanted a system in which everyone could participate in - that was why they replaced kokan geiko with the competition system. Of course, along the way we may well loose some of the finer aspects of the individual styles, but there are bound to be people within the wider population of karate participants who would maintain an interest in the style specific features.

Judo is often cited as having suffered from becoming an Olympic sport. However, there are many outstanding judoka who have come up through the ranks as a result of it being an Olympic sport. There are also groups within judo who keep away from the competitive style and just train it as traditional Budo system. That is what I would hope would happen with karate too.

Just about every Taekwondo class I've seen in recent years has been full of adults. I am sure that is because it is an Olympic sport.

On balance, I do feel it would be a positive step for karate.

Ben

[Tim49]

Picking this up as a new topic...

I would say this is not quite as awful a scenario as we might fear. It probably even fits with the aspirations of some of the founding fathers of Japanese karate who wanted a system in which everyone could participate in - that was why they replaced kokan geiko with the competition system. Of course, along the way we may well loose some of the finer aspects of the individual styles, but there are bound to be people within the wider population of karate participants who would maintain an interest in the style specific features.

Judo is often cited as having suffered from becoming an Olympic sport. However, there are many outstanding judoka who have come up through the ranks as a result of it being an Olympic sport. There are also groups within judo who keep away from the competitive style and just train it as traditional Budo system. That is what I would hope would happen with karate too.

Just about every Taekwondo class I've seen in recent years has been full of adults. I am sure that is because it is an Olympic sport.

On balance, I do feel it would be a positive step for karate.

Ben

Here’s my take on it.

The danger is that you may find that further down the line karate will polarise in to the sporting side and what will be seen as the anachronistic ‘traditionalists’ – I don’t include those people who get themselves all aroused with talk of ‘combat’ and ‘RBSD’ and try to double-think what Master ‘Itosuu’ was practicing at the end of the 19th c.

Judo is an interesting case. I think Kano had his own ideas based upon what he saw as an Olympic ideal but from a definite Japanese perspective. I don’t think he saw anything incompatible between De Coubertin’s ideas and Japanese Budo. But what happened was the Japanese ideal of sportsmanship did not match with what we now see as modern sportsmanship, ironically it (Kano’s vision) may have been closer to a level of ‘sportsmanship’ and gentlemanly behaviour that we knew in the UK about 100 years ago, with that I am thinking about what was referred to as the Corinthian spirit, this died a long time ago, killed off by professional sportsmanship.

Trevor Leggett tells a story about an early Judo competition he engaged in while in Japan. In the finals Leggett’s opponent was awarded a point in error which resulted in his loss, Leggett was annoyed and petulant, he knew he’d been hard done to, his Japanese opponent went through to win a medal, but in the changing rooms after the award ceremony he went to Leggett and gave him the medal because he knew he did not deserve it. You wouldn’t see that today.

In the UK despite having Olympic status since the 60’s Judo is a minority sport. In the rest of Europe it is properly promoted and financed but it has pretty much sold its soul.

Back to karate…
I know of people in my area who have gone heart and soul down the competition route; what I see is soulless karate, karate with no heart, even their kata competitors are little more than dancers, very good dancers, but dancers nevertheless.

I don’t think that karate in the Olympics while retaining its heart and soul is an impossibility; but it is a very long shot. Besides, I reckon that Hacky Sack and Extreme Ironing http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extreme_ironing or even Dwarf Tossing http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dwarf_tossing will get there first.

Must go, I’m off to toast crumpets at a burnt out Currys Digital shop before the flames die down.

Is Manchester still standing Ben?

Tim

[blackcat]

[quote="Tim49

Is Manchester still standing Ben?

Tim[/quote]

Just......who'd have thought we'd ever see looters riding bmx's for a getaway though?

[claas]

Hi Tim,

Trevor Leggett tells a story about an early Judo competition he engaged in while in Japan. In the finals Leggett’s opponent was awarded a point in error which resulted in his loss, Leggett was annoyed and petulant, he knew he’d been hard done to, his Japanese opponent went through to win a medal, but in the changing rooms after the award ceremony he went to Leggett and gave him the medal because he knew he did not deserve it. You wouldn’t see that today.

Is this a different story than the one with a competitor who came up to the finals by winning three draws in a row against one who won three times in a row with ippons? Then the result was draw again but the "lucky competitor" gave up? That is also something you may not see today. Modern sports lack sportsmanship (to a high degree even though there's a little left) and budo spirit. Not a bad thing, but of course a shame from the viewpoint of budo or sportsmanship.