What is a karate “style” and does it matter?

When karate was being developed on Okinawa there weren’t formal styles and the teaching and transmission was much more individualized. People usually learned from a specific person in a variety of formal and informal situations, like in back yards or above shops.

Over time the first differences in karate on the island were geographic. You started to get differentiation between “Naha-Te”, “Shuri-Te”, and “Tomari-Te” in the city of Naha, Shuri, and Tomari, respectively. (Here the “Te” means “hand”, the same as in Karate, which means “empty hand”.)

When the Okinawans began promoting karate in Japan around 100-150 years ago, the different styles began to be named, developed, and promoted, to be more in line with Japanese martial arts like kendo and judo. (The karate ranking system was taken from Judo for the same reason, to make karate more palatable to the Tokyo crowd.) Oftentimes the name of a dojo or association in Japan would be taken as the name of the style, such as in today’s popular Japanese karate styles of Shotokan and Kyokushin.

The style that I study, Goju-ryu, was only given a name when the founder’s senior student was asked for a name after demonstrating the art in Japan. He responded “half-hard, half-soft” style and Miyagi formalized this a Goju-ryu (hard-soft school) afterwards.

Alright so styles are a modern invention, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t actual differences between styles to be aware of.

The first key distinction I would make is between styles of Japanese karate and styles of Okinawan karate. Okinawa is part of Japan, but it has a unique history compared to the rest of the country and therefore a unique culture. (A parallel for the US would be the Hawaiian Islands – part of the country, but clearly a unique culture.)

• Karate was introduced to Japan before the Second World War and was adopted and promoted by Japanese universities as a way to develop strong, obedient soldiers for the Empire. Japanese karate tends to be more discipline-focused and militaristic (martial would be good word) with a heavy emphasis on drilling, conformity in technique, and discipline. There is a heavy emphasis on forging the spirit and, in my opinion, a deep and powerful philosophical connection to Zen and the old samurai tradition.
• In contrast, Okinawan styles of karate tend not to have such military bearing in the training. There is some of this, for sure, especially since most of these styles were brought to the US by US military personnel, but even then I’ve found a heavier emphasis on individual training over group drilling. The techniques are also slightly different, with Okinawan styles focused on getting closer to an opponent and using more grabbing techniques and strikes with more than just the knuckles. Okinawan karate styles also tend to practice bunkai, the analysis of kata movements, much more and oftentimes will incorporate Okinawan weapons training (kobudo).

In more recent times, Okinawan karate has begun to be described as a civilian self-protection art instead of a martial art. This really resonates with me and I think it better reflects the history as we know it. Okinawan karate was never used by a military force, instead it was developed at a time when a civilian (farmer, fisherman, etc.) may need to protect themselves from an attacker (a bandit, a pirate, etc.) in a way that would end the threat while minimizing injury to the defender. It is a very different mindset and situation than a soldier would find themselves in.*

For all the Okinawan styles – Goju-ryu, Shorin-ryu, Uechi-ryu, Isshin-Ryu – I believe they are much more closely related to each other than any Okinawa-Japan connection. Again stemming from the history of how each art was developed and what the founders of the style were trying to create.

Does it matter what style you choose? In my opinion, not really. The variety between styles is dwarfed by the variety within dojo of the same style. As a student, you really need to answer three questions

1. Is this a place I can get to often enough?
2. Is this type of training something I want to do?
3. Is this a place I can learn?

A good Sensei at a close dojo will trump style any day.

 

*A competing interpretation is that many of the martial arts on Okinawa, particularly the weapons, instead come from Palace Guards for the Ryukyuan King in the time when Okinawa was an independent kingdom. There’s probably truth here, although I haven’t looked into it closely. For the purpose of this article, I think the point still stands. Bodyguards are very different from soldiers on the battlefield.