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I find this to be a mix of perceptions, perspectives, theories, ideas and not necessarily facts either todays or from a historical source. Truthfully, no one really knows regardless of the advertisements presented even from the island of Okinawa. I have asked myself the question so many times unable to find a definitive answer.
Yet, my mindless meanderings speaks to me on occasion and what I feel now is that my perception is, “Okinawan karate is NOT based on self-defense.” At least as it is practiced and taught in the last four or more decades and from the historical perspective of Okinawan karate what was practiced late 1800s through the mid 1900s Okinawan karate was based on the watered-down educational version taught in the Okinawan school systems.
Just because our military adopted Okinawan karate and then gave it a meaning of self-defense and combative as to its origins and nature does not make it so. I feel the military, because of the nature of that military, assumed its practice as being defensive and combative in its study, training and practice.
Personally, I feel Okinawan and/or American karate, as well as the Japanese karate, are all simply tools to teach us how to manifest physical violence properly through the application of principled based multiple methodologies along with appropriate force levels rather than being limited to a inappropriate and unrealistic label of a self-defense karate.
Never once in the last forth plus years have I experienced, observed or witnessed anyone actually taking Okinawan karate kata taught techniques and made use of them in sparring, competitive sparring, full-contact karate fighting or, and especially critically important, in both social/asocial street-referenced fighting or self-fense (self-defense, defense through offensive and defensive tactics).
I suspect these and many other reasons are why Okinawan, as well as other forms from other cultures, karate was quickly and easily migrated from a self-defense/combative/fighting model to a “Way of Life/Philosophical” model, i.e., karate-do (doah; way, path, road, etc.). It has become a means to train our bodies and minds in a dance like training and practice that provides fundamental principles, methods to synthesize techniques and applications as force level multiple methods that are used in fense/combatives/fighting, etc. but never the actual practiced forms, moves and stick-like mechanical manifestations that are present and presented in kata performances.
It is that transitional way that helps folks move from the mechanical tools to actual realistic body applications with the mind toward chaotic, non-patterned forms of fighting in fense of self and others. It was not even meant to do anymore in a historical sense on the island to do any more than prepare one for military like weapons training and practice for Okinawan combat on ships of commerce and on the island itself.
In my mind I conclude that Okinawan karate, no matter how much we want it to fit our beliefs, is not a self-defense based discipline. In truth, in times earlier than the 1800s and as far back as the 1600s the term or phrase of ‘self-defense’ may not have existed or may not have been used by either the royalty, royalty security services or the military security forces for the island and its ships of commerce.
Note: Karate is the bridge between the dojo and the reality of the street where the journey requires morphing karate into something effective and realistic to the environment of conflict and violence resulting in grave harm prevention and death prevention let alone more subtle aspects of modern self-defense. Karate is only a very small and somewhat insignificant part of the whole world of self-defense both historically and in modern times.
p.s. I am NOT saying karate does not have training in self-defense and yet I AM SAYING that the self-defense training found in karate dojo are separate and distinctly different that what is taught in karate. It is like another course in a group of courses one takes at University to earn their degrees.
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“In order for any life to matter, we all have to matter.” - Marcus Luttrell, Navy Seal (ret)
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