Recently I posted on traditional/classical martial arts with specificity toward Okinawan karate. I stated I would contact to authoritative sources who have recently used the terms to describe systems as traditional and/or classical. One was a major authority on Okinawa.
I have not to date received even a reply saying they are looking into the question or even trying to gather data on what is the criteria used to determine if a system or branch of a system is "traditional and/or classical" karate.
Before I provide my opinion on the question and the why no answer I want to say that I can believe that this question may be so low on their priority list they are not going to get to it for a while. It may be that no one has ever asked this question straight out to get an idea, a opinion or an exact list of criteria so it may be something they cannot answer.
I believe each organization, group, tribe, clan, dojo, Sensei and practitioner uses "arbitrary criteria" that comes from their perspective, cultural influences and belief systems to say what is traditional and what is not traditional. I don't expect to get an answer from anyone or any organization that is considered an authority so it will, apparently and for the time being, remain an arbitrary set of criteria dependent solely on who is giving the title out at any particular time.
I suspect that it is also driven by commercialism, profit and politics. I believe no one truly knows what is considered traditional and not. I do believe that one segment of the martial art community can and does define what they understand to be traditional/classical fighting arts and they fall under the heading of "koryu." Although within that community their is a bit of disparity in the definition but overall and fundamentally they know what it takes to be classified in those categories.
Not so in the western martial art community and not so in the Okinawan martial art, karate, communities. It may be such a subject of contention that no one person, group or authoritative body will tackle the question for it would set off a flame war of gargantuan proportions.
So, this question may never receive definitive answers but then again there are in all probability far more important topics that need discussion and validation before this one reaches the top of the queue.
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