(Approx 1 minute 45 second read)

Recently, I wrote an article about how a single movement in karate can serve multiple purposes – beyond the common terminology labels we give them. I used a simple example: the movement many call ‘jodan uke’. I shared a picture of two of my students demonstrating it as a neck crank and strike, with the movement shown broken down in an adjacent image.
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Simple, practical, and nothing groundbreaking – just a reminder that karate techniques are more than what we’re often told.
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An Okinawan ‘master’ saw the article. He didn’t comment, didn’t reach out. Instead, he shared it on his page, and ridiculed it.
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Now, this isn’t about hurt feelings, it’s not about me. I’ve been around long enough to know how this goes. But it does bring up a problem in the martial arts world – this idea that questioning or looking deeper into movements somehow disrespects tradition.
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Personally, I think this is one of the things that is wrong with karate today. Many people follow, just like sheep, never question, never look beyond the surface, never look beyond what you are being told because a ‘master’ told you so.
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While tradition is important, blindly following it, I’m not so sure. Which tradition is it? Whose tradition is it? Are they right about it?
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Much of what is practiced today, even by the so-called ‘master’, is school karate. How do we know this? History tells us – it’s written in black and white. Itosu, Funakoshi, and many others wrote about karate’s change from a pragmatic art to something more structured for education, for fitness, and for group practice.
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But going back to my interpretation. Isn’t that exactly what the old founding masters did? They explored, adapted, and made their karate work.
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If you only see movements as a ‘one trick pony’ – what they’re called instead of what they do – then karate stops being a functional martial art and turns into a museum exhibit.
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I don’t know about you, but that’s not what I signed up for. I never expect everyone to agree with me – in fact, I welcome others’ ideas because it makes us all better. But dismissing something outright without even engaging?
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If you keep doing what you’ve been doing then you’ll keep getting what you’ve been getting. Personally, I don’t care what you do, but don’t criticize others for daring to look beneath the surface – perhaps as a ‘master’, you should be looking too.
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Karate should never be just a cage. It should come with a key.
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Written by Adam Carter