My Art of Karate
Author: Choki Motobu | Published: 1926 (Japanese) | Language: Japanese (translated)
Summary
My Art of Karate (Watashi no Karate-jutsu) is the first major book written by one of the most celebrated and controversial figures in Okinawan karate history—Choki Motobu (1870–1944), who was known throughout Okinawa as a street fighter of extraordinary effectiveness and a practitioner of a direct, pragmatic fighting art. Motobu came from Okinawan nobility (his family name indicates descent from the Ryukyuan royal family) but was excluded from formal instruction in aristocratic karate as the younger son; he developed his art largely through intensive training on the makiwara (striking post), observation, and real fighting. The book is both a technical manual and a philosophical statement about what karate is for.
Motobu’s approach to karate was notably different from the formal system being developed by Gichin Funakoshi (who was contemporaneously introducing karate to mainland Japan): Motobu was skeptical of the kata-focused pedagogical tradition, emphasizing kumite (sparring) and the direct application of techniques to actual fighting over formal sequence practice. He was famously dismissive of Funakoshi, whom he considered too academic and too disconnected from the realities of martial application. The rivalry between Motobu’s pragmatic, fighting-focused approach and Funakoshi’s educational, character-development approach defined a fundamental tension in 20th-century karate that has never been fully resolved.
The book’s photographs—Motobu demonstrating techniques, often in traditional Okinawan clothing—are among the most significant historical documents in karate history. Motobu was in his 50s when the photographs were taken and was reportedly still formidable; accounts of his challenge matches against Western boxers and judo practitioners in Japan in the 1920s (he reportedly knocked out a Western boxing champion) gave him a legendary reputation that the book helped document. The text is philosophically spare—Motobu was not a theorist—but technically specific in ways that illuminate classical Okinawan fighting principles.
Critical Takeaways
- Pragmatic vs. formal tradition: Motobu represents the pragmatic, fighting-focused strand of Okinawan karate against the formal, educational strand represented by Funakoshi; the tension between them reflects a genuine disagreement about what karate is and what it should be.
- Kumite emphasis: Motobu’s emphasis on sparring and direct application, rather than kata practice, anticipates the mixed martial arts philosophy by 70 years; his criticism of kata as potentially disconnected from actual fighting effectiveness is a serious argument, not merely traditionalist vs. modernist posturing.
- Historical documentation: The photographs in the book are primary historical sources for classical Okinawan fighting techniques; they show applications of principles that were transmitted orally and through practice rather than through text.
- Makiwara training: Motobu’s emphasis on intensive makiwara training—conditioning the striking surfaces and developing power through thousands of daily repetitions—is consistent across all classical Okinawan karate traditions and connects to the broader Japanese budo emphasis on shugyo (austere training).
- Street fighting legend: Motobu’s reputation as a street fighter of legendary effectiveness—reportedly testing his skills throughout his life in actual confrontations—gives his technical observations a practical authority that classroom-only practitioners lack.
My Takeaways
- The tension between Motobu (fighting effectiveness) and Funakoshi (character development) is a genuine philosophical dispute about what martial arts are for: a better fighter or a better person. Both goals are real; the training methods they require are partially in conflict.
- Motobu’s skepticism about kata practice—his insistence that sparring and actual application are necessary to validate formal sequence training—is a useful corrective to the tendency to treat kata as sufficient in themselves.
- The makiwara sections gave me a model for a particular kind of training: simple, direct, daily, oriented toward building specific physical capacity through thousands of repetitions rather than through technique variation.
- Reading Motobu alongside Nagamine (Essence of Okinawan Karate-Do) and Bruce Lee (Tao of Jeet Kune Do) reveals a consistent theme across traditions: the gap between formal practice and actual application, and the need for training methods that bridge them.