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"Linking The Legacy"

by Mark Groenewold

I think a lot about the future. I am someone who is prone to daydream, to imagine, to just let my brain go soft and drift away. But before the image of me sitting in lotus position on a lily pad floating away while my mind drifts cloud-like away in Zen repose begins to grow in your thoughts, let me say that I am nothing like that at all. For the most part, I think that I am quite critical of many things, bordering on judgmental. That might be part of a harsh Calvinist upbringing, and I am still ``in recovery'', but that is a matter for another article (at some distant future date). I like to dream, but I am often pragmatic to a fault, preferring what I know will work to trying to cook up something new and creative every time I have to get a job done.

I think about the future of karate. I worry a little about it too. Since the creation of this site, and the public declaration that I have written a book about doing karate in Japan, I have had the unique and privileged opportunity to meet some of the greatest thinkers and modern karate teachers on the planet.

It has been a tremendous honor for me and I do not want to take it lightly. I get a lot of great karate teachers and leaders sending me material to proof-read, to check for errors, and to give feedback on. I have wonderful new friends and contacts who send me books, their black belt dissertations, training schedules, handbooks, periodicals, news stories, and biographies. I have no idea what I did to earn this. All I ever wanted to do with this project was to introduce the great karate I get to see here to the Western world, to share some experiences, and invite others to do the same. But now I get to draw on many different wells for information, camaraderie, friendship, and great insights into martial arts training. It has been a great privilege and honor for me to meet these men and I am enriched by their willingness to share and teach me.

When I get all this material, all the books and writings, all the email and letters, I also start to think about the lineage of karate. I have written elsewhere in this site about how I find it interesting and curious how karate men and women make declarations of their lineage to validate themselves and to seek credibility in the eyes of others. I understand the psychology behind it all and do not mean to ridicule it. In fact, I applaud it in some cases. There is a desire, even a stated one, that what has been taught to someone is to be continued to the next ``generation'' of karate-ka.

That is what much of that declaration is all about. It is an expressed, yet un-articulated desire to continue the legacy of karate training. It is the acknowledgement of the mortality of man, and the need to pass karate onto the next link in a long chain of karate teachers. But when I see some of the lineage charts that frequent many karate documents and web sites I feel a sense of dissatisfaction. There seems to be an implied message that Teacher A, having had a direct link to Sensei X has been imparted the whole of karate in its entirety. You can be sure that this is true because the line between Sensei X and Teacher A is a thick black line that links them together. There is only one line that dictates the flow of knowledge, and only one recipient that is heir to the sacred chalice of knowledge.

I am not convinced that such diagrams really draw a decent picture of what karate training and karate knowledge is all about. Consider your own training carefully. It doesn't matter what rank you are really. But look around the dojo next time you train, and think about anyone that you have met or talked to about karate.

Karate is not a single chain, one link attached to another. Karate is not a linear construction. It is not a line. You cannot say that there is a direct sequence of links between you, your teacher, his teacher, his teacher's teacher, to Gichin Funakoshi, the father of karate. And then you cannot turn to your peers and say that you are in fact doing the exact karate of Gichin Funakoshi because you are a link in a chain.

It is time to look a little differently at these things.

Think again about your teacher. Think about the other instructors in the dojo. Think about your karate colleagues and guests to your dojo. Think about people you meet and train with at seminars, compete against in competitions, discuss issues and philosophical ideas that relate to karate. Think about fellow students. Think about the authors of books you have read about karate, the web sites you have investigated for more information. They all help you, serve you, and contribute positively towards your own karate.

Karate is not a chain. Karate is chainmail. Just as a coat of mail protects the knight, karate men and women are linked to one another in more ways than a line upwards from them to their teachers and up again to Gichin Funakoshi. Karate has much more depth to it than a mere line on a piece of paper. We are inextricably linked to one another in the craft of karate, and affected by one another much more so than we are often willing to admit. As a whole we guard and defend the whole of karate. We shelter karate. We keep it whole through the links that bind us to one another.

Of course there are links in more prominent places than others, but each link is also necessary to support the others, no matter where they are. Students naturally need teachers, but the reverse is also true. Students need other students and teachers need other teachers. Even the masters need one another to discuss, debate, experiment, and argue.

Some links may seem out of place, they offend or challenge. I would argue that they too provide an important service to the whole of karate chainmail. They ferret out our weak spots, temper our mettle, and bring into sharp focus the deadly seriousness of our art.

I find myself in a unique position at this time in my karate life. I get to see the various pieces of karate chainmail work independently of one another, but still in some kind of larger synchronicity. It is a marvelous thing to behold. My own weakness, however, is to focus too much on a larger picture. Details get lost or forgotten, and I have been accused by more than one person of being feeble-minded. I forget that there are karate teachers and researchers who do an incredible amount of detailed work - whether it be in science, translation, history, or physics. These are the men who hold the links together. They need to be respected and honored for their powerful contributions. They see the trees for the forest.

So the next time you hear something about you getting a specific kind of karate knowledge, borne to you of a specific karate heritage, open your mind and daydream. There are karate men and women above and beneath you, and also far away from you, all linked to the same piece of chainmail, helping you to stay in place and part of a beautiful piece of armor, brilliant and fearsome.

Mark Groenewold
Kanazawa, Japan
March, 2003.