Newsgroups: rec.martial-arts
From: bburgar@cix.compulink.co.uk (Bill Burgar)
Subject: Shotokan and Shotokai
Reply-To: bburgar@cix.compulink.co.uk
Date: Wed, 26 Aug 1992 08:30:52 +0000



Tommy Kelly writes:
>Does anyone know the current relationship between the style Shotokan
>and the style Shotokai?


They are two separate styles that split in the mid fifties. Followers
of Funakoshi Gichin split to form the two  styles, one branch
creating
the JKA (Nakayama+) and the other the Shotokai (Egami+).


>I am training in the latter, although I have also done a little
Shotokan.
>I recently bought a book by Shigeru Egami "The Art of Karate-do" 
(formerly
>called "The Way of Karate Beyond Technique) - which mentions *The*
Shotokai.


The Heart of Karate-do, I think - Good book.




>Also, in Funakoshi's "Karate-Do Nyumon", he mentions "the Japan
Karate-Do
>Shotokai".
>So now I'm confused.
I seem to remember reading/hearing somewhere that Karate-do Nyumon
was
ghost written by Egami in Funakoshi's name. Possibly out of respect
for
Funakoshi or possibly to gain credibility for the direction he was
going
in. However, Funakoshi remained totally impartial right up until his
death, giving equal time to all of the splintered groups.


>What is the Karate style "Shotokai", as taught by Sensei Harada?
I beleive that Harada studied with Egami and teaches pretty much what
he learned in that period. Harada was featured on the Budo Sai TV
series recently - I was very impressed with him.


>Is the Shotokai the name of the club in Japan?
Kai means group/meeting/association.


>I thought that "Shoto" was Funakoshi's pen-name, and that "kan" was
"place.
>
>Hence Shotokan = Shoto's Place = Funakoshi's Dojo.
>
>So what then is "kai"?
>
>tommy


>From: anderson@fermi.phys.ualberta.ca (Warren G. Anderson)
>In article <42235@skye.dcs.ed.ac.uk> tk@dcs.ed.ac.uk (Tommy Kelly)
writes:
>> Does anyone know the current relationship between the style
Shotokan
>> and the style Shotokai?
>
>From David Mitchell's "Official Karate" :
>
>"The Shotokai broke away from the Shotokan in 1956. They considered
that, by
>involving itself with commercialism and competition, the Shotokan
was no
>longer practising true karatedo as expounded by the founder
(Warren's note:
>that would be Funakoshi, who "was not in favour of competition or
sparring
>and regarded kata as the ultimate expression of Shotokan").They
therefore
>set up their own organization and returned to more traditional
methods."
That's the generally recognised shape of events. However just looking 
at the
pictures in Egami's books tells another story. He often compares the
old
form and the new form. The old form looks much more like todays JKA
shotokan
and the new form is Shotokai. Egami changed a great deal, he was
constantly
researching new methods.


>As a casual aside, how does Mitchell's book rate as far as the
accuracy of
>historical and factual information. I notice that our club uses
different
>names for many techniques.
Mitchell's dislike of Shotokan is reasonably well known so read what
he
writes on the subject with a pinch of salt. Having said that his
books are
usually reasonably accurate especially the non Shotokan bits :-)


>I am also interested in this. The style I study is Wado Kai, which
apparently
>broke away from Wado Ryu when Sensei Shintani (Wado Kai) had some
>disagreement with the founder Otsuka's son over who should take
control of
>the ryu after Otsuka's death. Thus, it seems to me that Kai is used
to indicate
>a piece of the ryu that has split off, but I'm not sure.


Note also that there is a Goju-Kai as opposed to Goju-Ryu. I don't
know 
enough about the styles to give any accurate idea of the differences. 
I
trained with Leo Lepinski (sp?) recently (Goju-Kai) and was very
impressed.
He actually trained with Egami in Japan in the late fifties/early
60's
(don't these threads all tie together nicely :-) ) I'm hoping to get
an
interview with him soon for the magazine, I'll post details when I
get
them.


There is an open course with Harada Sensei in the near future. There
was
an advert in one of the mags. I'll dig out details if anyone is
interested.


Bill Burgar