Styles and karate

The World Karate Federation has indicated that styles are not necessary because they control all karate worldwide. Now we all know that everyone started karate through styles and through styles they get to be nternational organizations only for competition purposes. The majority of Karaté practitioners are in styles and clubs and a majority of these people don’t take part in competitions, so styles a eee still a vital part of the karate structure in the world. Besides, those that want to learn and continue their karate study, they have to belong to an organization that espouses the true meaning of the art of karate. We have publish over the last two blogs the debate of Karatedo or Karate Jutsu? And if one reads this continuing debate one understands that karate-ka , in the majority, especially mature practitioners, are more interested in the art than the sport. Don’t get me wrong the sport aspects is aspect is important especially for the younger karate-ka. Now that Karaté is an Olympic sport it is good both for the arts and sport, similar to the Bruce Lee phenomenon of the 1970’s. there is a greater awareness and enthusiasm with many wanting to join the sport. All of us first looked at the sporting aspect and once we trained and researched karate more we got interested in the art more. Look at how many practitioners first started with Japanese karate and saw this as the be all and end all of karate, but with experience they started to travel to OKINAWA and it only th that they started to understand Bunkai and the “true” essence of karate. This is the benefit of styles not sport as the traditional dojos on OKINAWA are more interested in the training and development of the practitioners instead of the medals. So styles are a very important part of karate’s existence and longevity and we at the United World Karate Fédération fully support all styles and all karate competition formats. It was when we where in thee World Karate Fédération that Bunkai was introduced for a better understanding of kata and Karatedo. As Izumikawa Kanki Sensei, and student of Higa Seiko Sensei emphasized ” Karate is Kata and Kata is karate” we at the United World Karatedo Fédération are determined to preserve this traditional as we believe this is true karate. We learn from the Old ways to improve the New.