Personal Katas

[Bruise* Lee]

Living in Kansas City I studied with Seiyu Oyata for a short period of time - like 6 months or so. Actually it was with one of his students, Greg Lindquist.

Anyway, he said it was not that long ago that all the various "ryu" of Karate really were not seperate entities. This came more about the time the car went into production (1920's or so) and mimicked the Japanese ryu.

Prior to that at most it was basically Nahate, Shurite and Tomarite. He described the difference as this : "You ask someone from Tomari how to get somewhere and they give you short succint directions, you ask someone from Shuri and they tell you the most scenic enjoyable way to go. You ask someone from Naha how to get somewhere and they say : Oh yeah buddy....why do you want to know? (said in a confrontational manner)". I relate this knowing that Uechi is a Nahate.

Also speaking to many of the old school Tai Chi people, I have been told the many divisions of Tai Chi (Yang Style, Sun style etc) are fairly recent inventions.

[Stryke]

it was not that long ago that all the various "ryu" of Karate really were not seperate entities

Funakoshi himself thought the idea of styles to be divisive and detrimental . it`s no wonder many lessons have been lost