For many years now the Okinawan martial arts community has really emphasized how karate and kobudo promote the long and healthy lifespan the island is known for. This has been coupled with showing how physically powerful many of the “old masters” are today. In many ways this emphasis on the advanced age of many of the senior teachers and their competence, physical ability, and importance falls right into place with the Confucian ethos inherent in the island’s culture. This veneration of the elder members of the community is a strong point in the culture, at least as far as I am concerned.

However, there are always two sides to any coin. This central locus of the elders has a large impact on both the practice and its expression in the community. First, it can create an emphasis on the elements of practice that are more accessible to aging bodies (no matter how fit those bodies are). For example, with 70+ year olds held up as the epitome of what the art is, it is unlikely that epitome will emphasize jumping height. I’m not saying it should, I’m just saying what you measure is important. It determines what “best” is, and if the older members must be the best the presentation of the art may wind up emphasizing the things the elder members do well, while simultaneously de-emphasizing the things they don’t.

Second, it can also act as a conservative force on the community of practice as a whole. The only way to get knowledge (and rank, let’s not ignore that) is by gaining the support of your seniors. If you stray from the path they approve of that support is unlikely to be given. In many ways that is good- there are a lot of ways to stray from the path of our practice, and a major role of our seniors is to guide us away from the mistakes they made and help us keep true to the art.

But at the same time the power that comes with seniority and its social capital can also work to stifle progress and limit experimentation. It is hard for some people, and some groups, to create space for experimentation while also maintaining their dedication to their existing practice. It is also hard for some folks, or groups, to maintain authority while allowing room for experiment. I have seen cases of it being either/or- either you keep doing what we have been doing or you are breaking with the group and are no longer one of “us”. That can be traumatic if you have both a desire to grow your practice and a deep and abiding love of the existing practice and the seniors who have helped you grow into it.

When I look at the past masters of our practice though, one thing stands out to me. Today we are used to thinking of the senior members of the community as being quite old. These days dojo and style heads are often in their 70s, 80s, or older, as are many of the senior practitioners. But was that always the case? A cursory look at some of the folks who founded the systems or dojo that are around today shows something a little different.

As a partial list, here are the ages of a number of people when they founded their organization or dojo:

Taking another data point, at the well known 1936 “meeting of the masters” the masters called to the meeting were not so old:

These people were invited to a public meeting about changing the name of the art, and/or were respected enough to start a dojo or system that was accepted in the larger community. What I see here is that at least in the early 20^th century it was considered normal for someone to found a dojo or a “system” in their 30s. They could be considered a “master” by their 40s. In other words, one didn’t need 30 or 40 years of training under an older teacher, or need to be well past middle age, to run a dojo or school, or to be a luminary in the community. (As a corollary, it was also unusual for someone to start a dojo in their 20s. Clearly at least a decade or more training under a good teacher seemed necessary.)

I have a deep respect for my elders in the art, and their abilities. I also have a recognition that as I get well into my 50s my body has changed some. I should be training harder to keep my ability up, but even with intense focus no one is as physically capable in their 70s as they were in their 30s. For people teaching and passing on karate some recognition of this is important. We don’t want to pass on ‘old man’s’ karate. By this I mean we don’t want the art to overbalance in favor of the types of practice (or movement) that are easier to maintain, or more important for health and well being, as we age. I’ll let you think about what those types of practice might be, but I don’t only mean this in a physical way.

It can also have an impact developmentally. To gain the experience needed to have high level skills as one ages, and so to be able to pass that knowledge on, one has to go through various types of training over time. If this “life cycle” of training isn’t fully maintained, for example by training in your 20s or 30s like the seniors in their 70s, the next generation of seniors is going to be lacking in certain experiences and skills. These may be physical. They may also be social or conceptual. For example, Musashi became a hermit, focused on strategic thinking and personal development. in his final years. But to have the insight and gravitas to do that and be listened to he first had to establish himself, gaining a reputation as a hot headed killer in his youth, and then temper himself, taking on organizational and teaching responsibilities as he aged. He didn’t just start out as a highly skilled wise old man. And his training didn’t have that as a goal, that’s just where he ended up.

Starting a training group in your 30s probably means you are excited about growing and planning your own training, and sharing that with others. It may mean that you have a vision for your practice or are experimenting and wanting space to train a little differently than your elders; if you don’t want to do anything differently why would you start something new? I think this type of experimentation and growth is essential to the art, on both a personal and systemic level. It seems to me, based on the ages of people who were opening their dojo in the early-mid 20^th century, and the relationships they maintained (for example, even though he broke away at age 25 Shinjo Masanobu maintained relationships with his teacher Toguchi Seikichi, and his teacher’s teacher Higa Seiko) that at least at that time this was recognized and accepted. Encouraged even.

Don’t get me wrong. I don’t think being young and excited about your training is enough, you need good instruction and well developed skills. That younger members of the community founded dojo and were accepted by their peers and teachers tells me they didn’t just say “hey, I’m awesome, I’ll start a dojo!” but were considered good enough to do so by their seniors and peers. They were considered ready. And then that combination of skill and drive was not boxed in by them not being “old enough”, instead the community encouraged and supported it. Including the old masters. Remember this was a small and tight knit community. Everyone knew everyone else, regardless of style or teacher, so if you were not considered good enough word was going to spread fast. And the relationships they maintained left a forum for feedback both from seniors and from the community as a whole. When I look at it through that lens it seems possible that the old masters wanted to encourage the next generation, give them room to grow their arts, and take on leadership for the future.

It seems possible that while the importance of the elder members of the community hasn’t changed much the narrative around it has. That in the past the Okinawan martial arts were led more by those who were pushing forward in the art as opposed to those who were in it the longest or had the best established groups or organizations.[ii] That the gatekeeping was done differently. I don’t know if this is true. But there is a difference between “being the best” and being in the appropriate role at the appropriate time. I do know that without my seniors and teachers, some of whom have been both quite physically adept and quite advanced in age, I would not have had the learning opportunities I have in the arts. And at the same time, without the younger folks I trained with, my sempai, kohai, and doshi, I would not have most of the meager skills I do have. You need both. Fighting is a young man’s game. Teaching, and tempering, those young folks is more often an older person’s challenge.

So while the “old masters” are essential, they are only one wheel of the cart, to borrow an oft-used phrase, and I think the Okinawan martial arts community might be well advised to pay more attention to that. When I visit Okinawa now I mostly see a cadre of older teachers, groups of kids, and only a few Okinawan men and women, often family members or friends of the teachers, in the 20-40 age range.[iii] But if the art can’t nurture, support, and inspire people in the prime of their physical lives the way it used to it isn’t likely to thrive over time, at least in its native context. And that would be a real loss.

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[i] If I have any of these ages off by a year or so my apologies. I did a quick look for any I didn’t know and any mistakes are entirely mine.

[ii] The absence of the organizations we have now may also be one reason founding a dojo was treated differently then. There was less organizational inertia, and no market share was threatened by a new dojo or system. There were also no ranks, which may have made it easier to judge skill and leadership ability while not offending “higher ranked” members of the community.

[iii] The same is true here, with far fewer people in their physical prime doing “traditional” arts like karate than doing things like MMA or Thai boxing these days. However, it seems even more pronounced in Okinawa in my experience. And even in Okinawa a good many of the people in this age range are foreigners- servicemen and women or people who have come to the island specifically to train- as opposed to native Okinawans.