Blog Article/Post Caveat (Read First Please: Click the Link)
Although these two concepts seem new and modern they are in truth ancient and historically relevant to modern times. The difference is in how they are presented and explained. Modern times and modern studies especially with the advent of the Internet has provided an unpresedented ability to articulate, verbally and by written word let along through video media, the terms and concepts that in the past were convey through the spoken and written words of great men but from words created to the times and to the materials such as books used but afforded only by those with means to purchase and study, the upper classes.
As time passed and progress achieved changes were created, synthesized, from an analysis of what had passed before, much like sensei holding knowledge from perceptions and experiences, that didn’t actually change those ancient beliefs and knowledge, they just changed the way they were written and spoken so that greater clarity could achieve greater results. It came down to literally teaching through new by connecting that to the old and paying honor and tribute to those who came before by adding to the clarity of their teachings for the future making their teachings timeless much like the modern translations of the ancient classics like Sun Tzu’s Art of War.
Example: Indirectly the mechanized use of tanks gained acceptance when it was connected to and heir to the armored horsemen of ancient times and is a natural means of reviving the decisive role the calvary played in past ages. This technique was used to connect the Huey Helicopter to the Army’s Calvary by connecting the new ride into battle with the old time honored ride into battle on horseback, the Huey the new horse to take them into battle.
Principles and methodologies have always existed and have always been an intricate part of learning martial arts and karate for defense/offense, protection, combatives and in training, the contests between practitioners. It isn’t anything new, often many of them were taught through demonstrative teachings rather than the spoken word, this from the cultural belief systems of Asian sensei. It is now a matter of bringing those ancient some what secret teaching methods out into the light so that modern practitioners can better understand and therefore better analyze and create, synthesize, their unique perspective and practice of the ancient disciplines of karate, in ancient times called Ti or Toudi in Okinawa, and martial arts of Japan.
Because the teaching methods of those times involved kata, kata became the articulation of methodologies and principles such as the form taken, kamae, where sensei would touch, strike and create resistance so that he could check things like structure, alignment, balance and other physiokinetic sub-principles but by the demonstration and inherent understanding that the mind perceives unconsciously vs. the conscious understanding we in modern times and western cultural belief systems rely on to learn, study and understand.
It is not about right or wrong, ether the ancient teachings or the modern. It is about understanding the indirect methods of teaching and understanding the teaching methods that are from another culture vastly different from our own. In our culture we strive to understand but from more of he senses than the eyes and the actions of the body. We need to see, to hear, to touch and to experience as a whole so that our minds understand so that our bodies more readily achieve progress in a way conducive to our learning and applying the knowledge to real-life situations be they normal or that of violent conflict.
When the teachings use such terms as physiokinetics or multiple methodologies it is to expose the hidden foundation of the techniques, drills, kata, and tactics taught that are what we see as the cover of a book but to expose the more depth and breadth that comes from reading between the books cover.
Liken it to reading the art of war where the Chinese characters are strange and undecipherable to our culture and mode of communications, to have experts “Translate the material” so that it is understandable to our communications model, our culture and our belief systems.
If you cannot fathom the old then you cannot make use of them for the new because the new is not new since nothing under the sun is new. It is about taking the old, analyzing it by breading it down into its parts and then creating something seemingly new from the old when put together in a way that makes sense to our culture and way thus synthesizing what seems new but is rather a more relevant old-new way to reach goals and to win and so on.
For those who practice karate, remember that before karate it was Toudi and before Toudi it was simply Ti and now due to analysis and synthesis, terms never used before but the same as how they manifested new for their times, we have a plethora of systems and styles all derived from that one, wholehearted, system called Ti. The only way to pass on the old is to create a new-from-old that is not truly new, just another way of looking at the old and making the old work for the new - modern man and modern times.
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