Ambivalence in Karate

In my view there are many points that link our martial art to what it means to be modern. Sociology is a complex and diverse subject but to put it simply its aim is to understand our social surroundings. Yes sociologists use big words and complex sentences, often boring you to death – but hidden in the poetry of jargon lies some very good theories of how different people have viewed society. I’m going to introduce a bit of a sociological concept here, as I believe it has a strong relevance to karate. However please remember I’m using karate as an example, not as an explanation. If you want to read more on this subject please let me know and I’ll recommend some decent and non-boring text.

Ambivalence is the coexistence, in one person, of opposing emotions or attitudes. It’s kind of an individual preference between to opposites, good and evil for example. Imagine one group of people; they see an action or something as being a method of being good. Then you have another group that see the same action as something evil. One of the best examples I could give would be the Holocaust, to the Nazi the extermination of the Jews was a ‘good’ method as it helped to make Europe better fit for German people and was a method to deal with their social problem. Whereas the opposing nations to the Nazi saw the Holocaust as an act of evil, as they did not see the rational reasoning for killing Jewish people as the reasoning for the act was not in their social manifesto.  

Modern karate-do has ambivalence, it has become very diverse and extremely wide-spread, new styles have been created brining different techniques and different methods of ‘doing’ karate. For this to happen their must have been a pinning point in the evolution of karate, their must have been an ambivalent moment that took a new path of technique. At one point someone must have said “no I disagree, it should be like this.” and from this it’s spiralled of into something completely new. We can now look into two different styles and see completely different methods of technique. Kyokushin for example use momentum and swinging to create power, whereas in Shotokan we use hip rotation and snap for our source.

Staying with Shotokan, its history has been greatly affected ambivalent decisions, Shotokan was developed from a mixture of two other forms of Okinawa-Te – Naha-te and Shuri-te- in which Funakoshi Shihan picked and mixed elements from both into his karate. It was then his ambivalence that helped to establish a grading system, to say what is right and what is wrong. It was ambivalence that helped to create the famous Heian kata, and what other kata we see in the standard Shotokan format. Each point of great decision that Funakoshi Shihan and his predecessors have made about the method of karate has been guided my some level of ambivalent view.

We can go to an all style karate competition and see another karateka from a different style performing in kumite or kata, and to your own thoughts it looks bizarre and you pick up on the things that you think are wrong. We see things only in our own style, a kind of ethnocentrism of karate schools (we only see from our styles point of view). Whereas someone could watch you perform a kata or kumite and think things about our karate, as they again have their own view. Similarly the Nazi saw it good to exterminate Jewish people, the UK didn’t.

Another strong point in which ambivalence peaks into our karate life is with each individual. At some point in our karate path we find what works for us and what doesn’t, kumite and kata are two good examples of this. We find in kumite that certain techniques and ‘naturalness’ are expressed, this is the karate that is ours and has been born from the natural ambivalence of our subconscious. Kata is another prime example and instead of me explaining there was recently a post by another JKS England karateka who explains this exactly.

 http://bunbudojo.blogspot.com/2011/08/sochin-study-part-one-initial-thoughts.html

There are many more examples in which this can happen in karate, it’s a concept that also applies to the much wider society as well. It’s difficult to understand how society has such a strong affect in our dojos. It’s often said that as soon as you put on your Dogi and tie your belt everyone becomes equal and that the world outside stays outside. However it can be said that the world outside the dojo still has a profound affect upon how we act and progress. Karate cannot be something outside society; it is deeply embedded in society and its forces. Osu. 

Again feel free to comment and also check out some of the other blogs and websites in the 'link' section at the top of the page. 

The Evolution of the Dojo

Karate has and always will be a dangerous martial art to take part in, with this safety can never been 100% guaranteed. Injuries happen as karate develops skills that if used can be extremely dangerous and even fatal. However the environment that we practise these skills is where we see the greatest progression of a karate dojo.

Karate-do training habits a unique environment, with each dojo having a different atmosphere; it is these atmospheres that people have to learn. It is this atmosphere that if not accepting to someone ends or flourishes a karateka. If a dojo atmosphere is tough, dangerous and violent, where people are regularly bleeding and hit it will take a certain sort of person to perceiver to accept the danger and learn from one’s own mistakes. It’s that sort of thought that if you get hit you must block faster, if not you will get hit again. This type of atmosphere is often seen in what has become to be known as a ‘tough dojo’, true to its word it does produce ‘tough’ karateka, with fearless attributes when entering into kumite fighting.

However the relationship between karate and society has changed, the reasons for people starting karate have changed. Karate has entered into the social realm of commodity, in other words people can no longer live a life of just karate without involving some level of revenue. We do see many people that run karate groups like a charity, where they volunteer their time and all them income generated goes back into the group so that it can still run efficiently. As karate acting like a commodity it does have an affect; firstly by gaining revenue and income karate associations and organisations can work more to expand and introduce karate into more societies and areas across the globe. Secondly it can sometimes have an affect upon the way karate is taught, with regards to how students are treated and also the atmosphere in the dojo.  The description above is a very generalised and stereotypical view of what is normally seen as a tough dojo, and to be honest I’ve never personally trained at a dojo that could fit that description.

So where has dojo atmosphere changed?

Well the best way to describe how a dojo now works is to relate it to a school class room. The aim is the same for everyone, to progress and develop knowledge; but the method of how a person does this is down to the teacher’s ability of various teaching techniques. We often see in school these tests that apparently can tell what type of learner a person is, normally resulting in audio based, visual based, or motion based. It’s highly unlikely that you will get one class full of students with the same learning type, so different methods have to be used to explain the same concept, so that everyone from a learning category has on opportunity to learn in their style.

The same can be said for karate, obviously not in the same way but could be said to work with dojo atmosphere. Some people may be in tune to a rough and often dangerous way of learning karate, where if they don’t block or move they get hit hard. Others however may learn more from a seminar type of lesson, others from more relaxed and friendly atmosphere, and others may learn faster when with a partner or with one on one tuition. It is these different methods that karate sensei have to think about when planning a lesson. Can everyone learn from this? Is there another way of putting the point across? What sort of atmosphere do I need to create during the lesson?

However this is the pinning point for any dojo. If they have only one way of doing something, then they will only attract one ‘type’ of person and they will see many students starting then leaving. Therefore we have to look at student a little more like customers, in that we need to work for them so that they can learn properly. Also with this attitude we see many more people starting and achieving great things in karate as they way that we now teach progression is elastic and diverse, giving instructors limitless amounts of ways of teaching karate.

In my eyes, this change in our evolution is only going to benefit karate. Firstly it opens the dojo door to many more people that would not be able to survive learning in certain dojo atmospheres, but that can now have variety and work to their advantages. Secondly it opens the door to a lot more variety of exercise, senseis have to think deeper about what they want to teach and have free choice over the method of doing so. 

If you have any thoughts please leave a comment. Osu