The term I want to define is, ‘karate’. We always get a plethora of definitions and most are based on a personal perception and belief. We all succumb to the human trait of ‘confirmation bias’ when we define something that is often so very close to our hearts and beliefs. Here is where I remove myself, hopefully, from that bias to define karate finally, completely and forever.
Karate must be defined from its historical beginnings by using the very characters and ideograms from the sources where karate began. The issue today is that karate itself began on Okinawa so one would assume that their language would be used but that is actually not true. Karate is a modern term created somewhere in the late 1800s and/or early 1900s and the characters/ideograms used were, ‘[空手 · 唐手]’.
Those very characters translated into English, per just one of many sources, means, “Karate; empty hand.” The first character of the first pair is translated as, “empty; sky; void; vacant; vacuum.” The first character of the second pair is translated as, “T’ang; China.” Since we are concerned only for the more modern translation the second set of characters are moot, they are of historical significance only.
So, the actual definition of karate [空手] is, wait for it … ‘empty hand’! Nothing more and nothing less and to assign any other meaning is not a translation and factual meaning but those theories, beliefs, philosophies and biases of individuals and their associations and groups toward some sort of understanding that supports their particular belief system such as saying karate is ‘a way of life’ or ‘a competitive, now olympic, sport’ and so on. This definition also does not mean that karate is or is not a form of budo or self-fense system but just symbolic way of saying ‘empty hand’.
All those things that many add on in attempts to give meaning to the term and make it more exciting, dramatic and symbolic of some other more warrior like combative discipline is simply a form of what is called, “Confirmation Bias.” We want our efforts to have meaning to us and to support our values and beliefs both in the practice as well as other aspects of our egoistic human lifestyles especially for the male gender since we work so hard to find ways to express our very aggressive human violent natures as hunters-gatherers.
Karate is not a way of life, it is not about self-fense, not a philosophy and not some mystic Asian system like Zen or Taoism, it is simply a means to express the use of empty hands for something. That something is then assigned by the cultural belief system of some individual and is then accepted and believed by the group and all of it still falls back on human survival necessities of human nature. Every thing else depends on who, what, where, when and how the individual and group feel and believe it should mean to gratify, support and validate that belief definition.
Karate, to me, is about something involving my body and mind without anything other than my body and mind, i.e., why I refer to it as practicing physical effort with empty hands as a symbol that I use nothing other than my body. Even that is more than the definition actually means. Empty hands is not actually true and accurate because in apply such principles and methodologies along with types of force whether by hands or feet, etc., takes the literal definition of empty and hands truly out of the realm of realistic definition. Once I apply some principled based method of some level of force my hands are no longer empty, they are manipulating some natural phenomena of our world, our universe, to accomplish some goal. In this case I may be using an adversary’s body and clothing to manipulate them into a position where nature, call it gravity in this case, takes over and does enough damage that I return to a state of security and safety.
In truth, karate as a term has to become a symbol and it is that symbolic nature that leads us to describe it toward a belief that suits and fills our needs as either an individual and as a group dynamic toward group/individual survival be it in conflict or especially in violent conflict.
So, in closing, the one true and definitive definition of karate is, ‘empty hand’. All else are human efforts to make the term fit our agenda’s and overall everything humans do, they do for their very survival. Karate itself is not all that big a deal. Add in the human and their needs, wants and desires; add in their natural instincts of survival and you have something else and herein lies the lessons and hear-in lies the ongoing conflict of attaching meaning under the biases of many different and unique individuals and groups (call them styles, systems, associations and dojo’s).
Bibliography (Click the link)
“In order for any life to matter, we all have to matter.” - Marcus Luttrell, Navy Seal (ret)
No comments:
Post a Comment