Not framed that way. Quantity of content overwhelms quality of process and critical thinking development in today's western education models. School districts that have stream-lined (reduced) their content and improved their instruction of critical thinking strategies have seen greater success in student academic achievement. One such district is CCSD 15 in Palatine, IL. Information about their process improvement model is available here:Could top universities expect to bolster respect in academia by proclaiming that they were going to do away with three quarters of the core curriculum in favor of students exploring and studying what they want, how they want, when they want..?
http://www.ccsd15.net/Baldrige/Index.html
And their US Dept. of Commerce Baldridge award application can be downloaded here:
http://www.ccsd15.net/Baldrige/HTML/Bal ... ation.html
I think that many martial arts systems would also benefit from such a detailed process improvement study. Too much was left to anecdotal experience in the past that can be quantified today...and at the same time I still don't think you need to teach a student every class 3 joint lock on the planet if you teach them a class 3 lever. Less can be more if chosen wisely. Do you want your students to memorize techniques or principles? With only a few principles you can apply thousands of techniques. The principles are there in Uechi. But how they are transmitted was learned and developed by Okinawan minds not western/North American minds. Now that western minds have been chewing on them for a couple of generations some of the approaches to teaching the principles is changing. As long as the same principles are transmitted, all is well. When the principles are unknown...chaos ensues.
No. And the point of my argument is that in the Okinawan karate tradition they were not looking for efficiency in the sense of transmitting a quantity of material as quickly as possible. Yes - a father would want to teach his son all he knows, but not in a week or even a year. Mr. Tomoyose is quoted as saying that he has started teaching his grandson karate. He taught him sanchin stepping for one year. After one year, he taught him how to turn around.Would an army preparing troops for hand to hand combat elect to leave the last three quarters of training time for the students to explore on their own?
I have no question at all that many of today's combat experts could teach combative arts more quickly than the traditional Okinawan methods. My understanding is that the Okinawans are not interested in making Uechi-Ryu a modern system of combat defense. They are interested in preserving the "old ways" of their culture and heritage. This makes sense as so much of their history was burned by WWII and so many traditions lost through devastating casualties coupled with Japanese, then US occupation of their small lands.
So today's western Uechi practitioners have a choice and a challenge. Should they too seek to preserve the old ways, should they seek - as Kanei Uechi did - to preserve the old ways while joining into the sports movement, or should they seek to develop from Uechi-Ryu a structured system that deals with contemporary self defense/combat situations beyond ancient habitual acts of empty-handed physical violence?
Some are in denial and will simply not choose. Some are already exploring outside sources of information and seeing how they mesh (or don't mesh) with what they know of Uechi-Ryu.
According to anecdotal history - Kanbun Uechi did not teach sport. He taught self improvement and self-defense. Kanei Uechi moved closer to a combination of self-improvement and sport. Today's practitioners must also choose where they will focus their training, their learning, and their teaching.
Some will choose self-improvement -
Some will choose sport -
Some will choose combat -
Some will choose some or all of the above-
For those who choose combat alone I offer only the following caution again:
"Karate without virtue is only violence."
