A great write-up by Hermann Bayer, Ph.d comparing the different approaches to karate in Okinawan and Japan. Dr. Bayer has been a karateka since the 1980’s, with experience in Japanese Shudokan and Okinawan Shorin-Ryu Karate styles.
Okinawan Karate Prioritizes Outcome over Form: Japanese Karate-do Does the Opposite
The two contrasting philosophies of Okinawan karate-jutsu and Japanese karate-do profoundly impact the role of kata and of overall karate practice.
Published May 19, 2025
6 Min Read
Interesting excerpts:
This Okinawan concept of protection as a universal principle of life that impacts all aspects of fending off harm contrasts with the tighter concept in Japanese karate-do of defending (only) oneself, and of fending off (only) physical threats—left aside the general contrast of “jutsu” and “do” between the two karate philosophies.
The goal in Okinawan karate-jutsu is not necessarily to eliminate the threat, but to ensure one’s own safety and that of others. These two sound quite similar, but they are not. In Okinawa, the only outcome that counts is that you and others are safe, not whether someone else is hurt.
In the words of self-defense expert Rory Miller, you are to “think less about stopping the bad guy and more about getting to safety . . . do not lock-in, as many martial artists do, on the thought that stopping the threat is the best way of achieving safety.”
Awareness, avoidance, and de-escalation are at least as important as physical fighting skills. Referring to physical altercations, the Okinawan concept changes the role of causing damage to others too, because damaging others is not a relevant objective; it is not a priority, it is rather a possible consequence of pursuing the superior goal of being safe.
In Japan, culture is transmitted and learned through form, whereas Okinawan minds focus on the outcome, on the result of an effort, and not so much on the form itself in which the effort is shaped. In Japanese culture the form is prioritized over the outcome, whereas in Okinawa the outcome is prioritized over the form. For instance, the Japanese tea ceremony exactly defines the way to prepare tea, the way to serve it, the way to hold the cup, the way to drink, etc.—and it thus prioritizes the ceremony over the tea’s taste, while Okinawans prioritize the result, a well-tasting tea, over the form to get there.
These two unalike perspectives, Okinawan karate-jutsu’s focus on outcome versus Japanese karate-do’s focus on form, profoundly impact not only how kata is performed but how karate is performed in general. In Okinawan karate-jutsu, the task at hand is determined by an attacker who creates unique circumstances in a unique situation. Training must prepare you to spontaneously accept an unpredictable task as it is thrown at you. The moves/techniques to spontaneously deal with that (waza) are taught first in Okinawan karate; then later, comes kata to sum up moves as a “textbook” for students. In Okinawan karate tradition, kata remains unchanged—kata is the textbook and waza is application of techniques—where the latter can be adjusted to the unique circumstances of an attack, but the kata, the textbook, remains unchanged.
In contrast, Japanese karate-do assumes that a task is pre-determined and that the way of carrying out this task has been identified, which leads to formal techniques and to scenario-based, predictable sequences of moves. The execution of these predetermined tasks that are put together in kata are to be perfected, and kata turns from a “neutral textbook,” as it is the case in Okinawan karate, into carrying out predetermined assignments. Kata now includes different scenario-based fighting situations and therefore is no longer just a textbook but includes applications. So, in Japanese karate-do kata may be altered, perhaps even needs to be altered, as a result of individual circumstances. That way, the “never changing kata” principle of Okinawan karate-jutsu turns obsolete in Japanese karate-do.
Read the whole article here: https://ymaa.com/articles/2025/05/okinawan-karate-prioritizes-outcome-over-form-japanese-karate-do-does-opposite
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