It’ll Never Work in the Street: Contemporary Karate’s Identity Crisis

This paper will examine the concept of self-defence within the context of contemporary UK based karate practitioners.
Attention will be paid to the transition of contemporary Karate from a semi secretive Okinawan form of civil defence to a globally recognised and multi-faceted activity. To facilitate this, an historical overview of Budō will be provided post the Meiji Restoration (1868) with particular attention given to the Taishō (1912-1926) and early Shōwa periods (1926-1989).
Karate praxis has undergone significant changes since being assimilated within Japanese Budō culture. This paper proposes that the resultant globalisation and commodification of karate has led to a concurrent disconnect between what contemporary, western practitioners believe karate to be and how karate was practiced when introduced to the West during the mid-1960s.
Specifically, this paper will consider the influence of western military practices and Japanese militarism in relation to teaching methods extant in contemporary Karate. The impact of these andrological methods in relation to techniques pertaining to self-defence will be examined.
The theory of Cognitive Dissonance as proposed by Festinger (1957) will be used as a framework to discuss the contemporary trend of “practical” karate. Attention will be given to the perceived need for legitimisation and rationalisation of karate by its practitioners. The friction present between those who identify their practice as Karate-Jutsu (skill or technique) as opposed to Karate-dō (path or way, with connotations of spiritual development) will form a central element of this discourse.