My thoughts on Karate in the Tokyo 2020 Olympics were mixed. I was delighted that the Olympics had been a great promotional opportunity for Karate. I was happy and excited to see so many Karate practitioners displaying excellence in techniques and performance. I learnt a lot by watching them and they made my blood pumping.
On the other hand, its appearance in this Olympics might have accelerated the transition of focus and purpose in modern Karate training from being a martial art to a sport. As a sport, Karate is fun, promotes fitness and continuous improvement. As a martial art, however, Karate preserves traditional culture, builds one’s character and allows a life time learning.
In order to compete, Karate practitioners must adapt their training to fit the rules of the competition organisers. Sometimes the competitors might have to exaggerate their expression and performance to sell their winning moves to the judges, as we could see in both Kata and Kumite competitions.
Traditionally, Kats trainings were like shadow sparring with self defence applications. Kumite trainings were to improve each other’s combating skills in actual fighting. There weren’t no gloves nor protective gears. Each part of the body is to be conditioned continuously to be able to effectively damage others without hurting oneself as well as confidently receiving blows from others. That is why UKE (受け) actually means to receive rather than to block.
Of course, we are not in the Samurai age where we needed to always fight for our life. We are living in a peaceful society where everyone seeks a better livelihood and health. It makes total sense why many traditional martial arts like Karate are becoming more popular as sports rather than as martial arts. In the future, we might be renaming martial arts to martial sports. Osu!
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This channel is created to share the martial art knowledge, skills and experience acquired throughout my journey. Having studied martial arts for more than two decades, I realise how strongly martial arts have shaped my life and I believe martial arts if trained correctly would help us achieving a healthy and successful lifestyle. My martial art journey so far has given me many valuable friendships, travelling and cultural exchange opportunities. I’d love to share with you what I’ve learnt, seen and experienced. Continuing with my journey, I’m going to document and share with you where my martial art journey is further leading me to. I’m committed to create valuable contents for you to get informed, possibly be entertained and hopefully learn something useful from. Please follow my blog and social media if you’re interested in martial art contents, daily life applications and asian cultures.
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JP2021.COM - Tokyo Olympics 2020.