As it pertains to Martial Arts, define 'Tradition'.

HI

tradition....is the only thing that divine martial arts from regular sports


in my opinion

My take on it is this:

Tradition - Skills, ideologies, theories and rituals passed down through generations in a Martial Art.

Obviously traditions can be bent over time however the base of these remains the same.

Well, I guess it is the foundations of the art that are repeated through the years. Which I suppose could also be described or interpreted as the patterns or katas. These would be repeated generation after generation and on the whole, do not change; whereas no sparring match is going to be the same.

Traditions don't change, applications will.

Here are a few examples of what I would call tradition in the martial art I study - Taekwondo.

A bow on entering and leaving the training hall out of courtesy for my fellow students and instructor. I think the tradition was to bow to a Korean flag but we dont have one of those.

Before class we stand to attention and bow to the instructor before going into ready stance.

Before we spar (or perform set sparring) we face the opponent, bow and go into fighting stance.

These type of things I would call tradition in the martial arts.

With regards skill learning I would call this transmission and adaptation.

I think the original ethos and principles are the main tradition. The rituals and techniques are reflections of the traditional values and if they don't reflect them, they're not really traditional.

Piotr wrote:
HI

tradition....is the only thing that divine martial arts from regular sports


in my opinion

While it is an opinon there are a great many sports that have traditions to them, Golf and baseball are 2 that come to my mind.

In the martial arts tradition are the honoring of practices and/or principles that have a purpose that goes long back and has history to it. Whether that practice/principle is still practical today is something that can be debated. Here is a side question can you have a Traditional martial art with modern practices? Can you have a modern martial arts that honors traditions?

Just a thought

Keeping a style traditional is one of the more important aspects when looking at some martial arts.

It is vital to keep a system alive and true to its roots, otherwise it will just become some basterdised sport.

The kungfu and taichi styles I study are quite rare and therefore MUST be kept tarditional and original otherwise they will gets lost over time.

Of course cetrain things may change slightly to fit in with today's society but the base/core system will NEVER change.

Rooting of your stance and the mechanics or certain movements will never changed but the applications and where they are used may difer, but not completely change.

You have to remember that most of these martial arts are infact arts, I think that sometimes that gets forgotten.

Going onto what Pete said, yes bowing and showing your instructors and martial arts brothers and sisters is a diffeent type of tradition that will never change. We hope!

I think the original ethos and principles are the main tradition. The rituals and techniques are reflections of the traditional values and if they don't reflect them, they're not really traditional.

So Steve, are you essentially saying here there are levels of tradition in the martial arts?

Or are you saying martial arts practice whether its conduct in the dojo, technqiue practice all stem from tradition?

They stem from the culture at the root of the art. Remember tradition means taking what you do back to it's start point. If you started a RBSD club now that involved swearing and shouting and 'staring each other down' if the club keeps going, that would be your 'tradition' and stem from the ethos of the violence you taught.

Many martial arts taught today stem from an ethos of buddhist or taoist cultural origins and teach a personal alchemy of developing inner strength and negating violence through hard work, patience, tolerance and the development of peacekeeping skills. The politeness, the development of and then the restraint and control of power are reflected in the dojo rules, etiquette and techniques.

That makes alot of sense Steve. Great post.

I personally think that tradition in martial arts is in most areas very diluted. The further you get away from the source, the more the traditions are misinterpreted, mistranslated and misused.

Let me speak about karate at the moment as I have a lot of experience in "traditional art" of Go-Kan-Ryu karate (3-kyu) and the traditional art of Wado Ryu Karate (2-kyu acquired in Japan).

1. Name:

Wado translates in Japanese as "Road/way of peace" in Japanese. There is also the fact that the kanji used for "wa" in wado is often used to mean Japanese. "Washoku" is Japanese food, "waeijishou" is English-Japanese dictionary. This name is very close to the homeland and the ethos.

Go-Kan-Ryu is a martial art born in Australia. When you mix up the letters it becomes Kan-Go-Ryu karate as a ..."joke," which is close to its homeland but may as well have as stupid a name as "hizagerijutsu" (the art of kneeing someone in the face).

2. Style lineage

The Wado Ryu I practice is 3rd/4th generation. The supreme master taught my master (who recently died) who taught my current master. The techniques of the 10th dan supreme master are very pure in my dojo (it seems).

The Go-Kan-Ryu dojo's I trained at had instructors that were sometimes nowhere near black belt, never mind anywhere near the self awarded 7th dan black belt founder of the style. The lowest grade I ever saw that was a teacher was an orange belt. I acted as a "sempai" for a while ago but in Japanese, "sempai" means someone who is above your own position in age or rank (or both) so having a "sempai" assistant instructor title was kind of strange.

3. Language

It goes without saying that the techniques in my dojo have correct language, it being in Japan.

In go-kan-ryu, the lessons almost seem to be devoid or real research into the real language of the art to make it traditional. A good example is the opening of a class with "mokuso" (interpreted incorrectly as close your eyes by the style) and "mokuso yame" (open your eyes again interpreted incorrectly). "Mokuso" in Japanese has the nuance of contemplation so Mokuso when said in a Japanese dojo is "contemplate the actions in the training you will now undergo/have undergone" followed by "kaikoku" (which has a kind of nuance of coming back to reality). Not "contemplate" and "stop contemplating."

In my opinion (if you excuse me for paraphrasing from zero punctuation), the traditions of some martial arts, especially ones that enforce them strongly with phrases like "don't drink water in the dojo. It is not traditional to drink water in the dojo" (complete lie) is as far removed from the actual traditions of the art as my arse is from the dark side of Europa.

There is tradition and "tradition", in the end it is what is in our hearts as martial artists that is the important thing, not the set rules of a style that may have had Chinese whispers syndrome for the past however many generations they have been practiced.

I am sorry if I offended any go-kan-ryu practitioners with my comparisons but it is not the individuals I am attacking, it is the flimsy style I am. I have had some great go-kan-ryu instructors who taught me a lot, however, no single one of the has ever trained in go-kan-ryu alone.