Why Martial Arts in Japan Are DYING... 

My chief instructor was from Japan but was very open minded, he felt if he taught in a Japanese way in the US, he would have no students. So he taught “American style” he encouraged the students to ask questions, he gave detailed answers, we would have seminars from different Sensei to show us all kinds of different techniques. I’m so lucky for that.

In Kenpo we teach students to think for themselves, it's a thought provoking art. We have our own specific intelligent terminology so we can ask students a specific question and get a specific answer. In my experience the whole just do it and don't ask questions was because the Sensei didn't have the answer. This also explains why we see the ridiculous bunkai being taught by Japanese Sensei which unfortunately gets regurgitated in all other countries @Karate Dojo waKu

Here in the UK it's literally all over the place, from some huge bloke dressed like a nineteen eighties P.E teacher blowing a whistle and shouting at you to "PICK UP THE PACE!" to the most softly spoken Aikido Sensai talking about peace and harmony, and everything in-between!

I think that’s the huge difference between Japan (you’ll get taught that eventually) and the West (we want it all now and aren’t prepared to wait) *but* the now generation are losing something in the translation, the nuance’s and finesse of the style or techniques however you want to say it. There does need to be a happy medium and some schools/sensei do adopt that here in the U.K. I would much prefer the Japanese method but a with a bit more oomph

USA here, I think it runs along a scale from Johnny Lawrence to Master Ken!

Of course, as we know, things are constantly changing, right? I believe that the 'trick' is to ensure instructors spot the trend and ensure that the Product, in this case karate-do, remains of a high standard as well as something that the public will want to participate in.

The problem is Asian morals are evil, they don't want young people to think logically. They want to enslave the younger generation mentally. That's why we call it Western civilization. Japanese culture is great only in Asian( better than China at least) but it can not be compared to western culture.

Agreed. Also that book, Karate Stupid. How some normal people describe people who eat sleep and drink Karate (all the way through school and college) as Karate Baka 🤔 I've a distant cousin who only went through Wushu Academy his whole.life. probably can't even add 1+1 and he is now painted into a corner as Wushu coach or security guard. Not much else he can do as a 25 year old now semi-retired from competition. I would almost call him a Wushu-stupid 🤔

But is karate really more popular in the USA than Japan? Right now (at this point in time), my guess would be that many Western countries are high in numbers of people claiming to be doing karate. But I wonder what the truth is. My instinct, plus listening to fellow traditional karate teachers, is that many western dojo are far from practicing traditional Japanese karate. They are more likely to be a mix of various forms of 'entertainment'. By this I mean some kobudo weapons, perhaps some MMA techniques, some Jujitsu tossed in for good measure and 'fitness' sparring. My guess is that the 'entertainment dojo' and their numbers, far outweigh the traditional karate schools, where hard work (blood, sweat & tears) was/is the normal. I'm not saying that there aren't good traditional karate schools still operating. It's just a lot easier & more profitable to 'play games'.

​@@BelloBudo007 I can't say for sure if it's more popular or not, it's something that you'd have to really break down. California alone has roughly the same population as Japan.. So the U.S will have a numbers advantage just from population. So it starts to get murky with a term like "popular" But I think it's highly likely that the U.S has more people practicing karate than Japan does. Even traditional japanese styles. But i can't say i know that for sure. On another note. You bring up "entertainment dojos'. It's been a long time since i was in karate, but during this time, i saw very few entertainment dojos but to your point, i did see very few traditional dojos. And even less traditional Japanese ones. A lot of the other dojos i saw as a kid were very Americanized or it was Taekwondo. (for some reason Taekwondo seemed most popular) The Americanized ones cut out a lot of the spiritual/mental side to traditional Japanese styles and training. Come to think of it, I saw Americanized Karate to be a lot like Cobra Kai. But again i must confess, this was about 15-18 years ago. Also, my dojo never had a shortage of students. A lot of them didn't last, but we never had a shortage. But to be fair, we never had any major surges of people either. And i forgot to mention, my dojo was traditonal. They even forced us to speak basic Japanese while in the dojo, but very basic. Thankfully they didn't force us to write in Japanese, lol. But It was my first real taste of the Japanese culture. But i'm a sample of 1 in a very large country, with a lot of states. Each with their own idenitity.

i think one of the reason for this is that there is more Mcdojos in US than in Japan.

and here I thought such McDojo only existed in western countries.. as a fellow instructor I feel your pain, Sir. the more "modern" the community is, the more they tend to think classical martial art skills are outdated.. I think some of them are only using the martial arts class as a way to meet people and/or leaving their children for a few hours (rather than finding a proper child care or nanny) these 2 phrases comes to mind just now: - all things must come to an end - hard times create strong men (and women), strong men create good times, good times create weak men, and weak men create hard time.. maybe we're currently in the [good times] era

This story makes me sad 😔

I always wanted to learn tsd or Hapkido since I got my bb in tkd. TSD seems impossible to find. Hapkido isn't much better

@@slimkillah76 yeah, a lot of TSD was absorbed into TKD in the 60s. You can still find schools that teach the old TSD way but call themselves TKD. Look for Moo Duk Kwan and Chung Do Kwan (specifically Duk Sung Son lineage) lineage TKD and a lot of them still teach the old way. Or just learn Shotokan, since TSD was just Koreanified Shotokan.

Holy moly. So the "McDojo" is actually an ASIAN invention?!

Back when I was in Karate, we got a new student who was a brown belt in a different but related style. The Sensei gave him a little mini test to see if he knew what he was talking about, and he was able to join our Dojo and keep his rank. If you still know all your kata, maybe you can do that.

It's happening everywhere around the world.

I'm minded of something I heard about Enoeda Sensei... his criteria for choosing who to groom to become the first champions was 'good punch, good heart'... his idea was that it would damage karate in its early stages to have a superb technician be champion who might get beaten up on a night out, better to have a less technical hard nut.

Yes Cj I'm glad your martial arts are staying strong😀

A lot of what you say is absolutely correct. I would however point out that even within JKA HQ (the old Ebisu honbu dojo), it was the same story of teaching children. One difference was that, from memory anyway, they allocated special class times for children. That was then followed by classes for other members of the public. But I take your point that if we're not careful, karate will turn into a child minding service. Instructors need to be mindful of what they want & how they will achieve their goals. I don't believe that catering for children and allowing them to run riot is good for anyone.

@@BelloBudo007 I think the child minding dojo service is more an American thing. After school care and daycare here has become so expensive that sending them to a dojo has become much less expensive. Also, many of the dojo here market themselves as a better after school care alternative. Again, many of the instructors in those schools are not qualified or screened in amy way. They are not even required to know CPR or basic first aid like many daycare are mandated to be certified for. All it takes to open a dojo here is a basic business license, your name printed on a certificate from some alleged organization/master and a convincing background story by the "instructor". That is why there are so many fake dojo here. But sadly, over the last 15 years or so, I have seen many karate seminars (mostly outside of Japan) taught by high ranking karate sensei where the seminar is predominantly children 9-13 years old.