AWARDS
FINALIST-Sports, Best Book Awards, 2023
Genuine Okinawan Karate was developed as a fighting tool.
Non-Okinawan Karate are for other purposes.
Karate practitioners, scholars, and everyone caring about Asian martial arts and its culture will enthusiastically appreciate this eye-opening work.
Dr. Bayer substantiates further how the art Karate was used to prepare a nation (Japan) for total war, how it was deliberately industrialized into a worldwide Japanized Karate-Do inflation, and how its following transformation into athletic showmanship destroyed the art's unity and distinctiveness.
The author endorses Karate-Jutsu as a genuine Okinawan martial art even as foreign knowledge and skills from India (speculated) and from China (proven) were integrated― and he explains the imitative social mechanism used to turn this local fighting art into a symbol of national identity.
Since martial arts were initially understood as a moral code-neutral tool, like a weapon, this happens to contradict the modern understanding of Karate being a peaceful art with inherent non-violent values. In truth, moral codes or guidelines on how to use this tool were developed separately, not within the art.
A new "back to the roots" Karate-Jutsu movement gains importance and establishes a counterculture to Karate-Do's industrialization, helping to integrate some neglected reminiscences of Karate-Jutsu back into Karate-Do. Such a development brings Japanized Karate-Do versions closer to their martial origins, whereas pure Karate-Jutsu will be preserved as a point of reference by a group of dedicated curators.
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