Sensei Kase interview
(Tampere, Finland 2002)
© Interviewer:
Jarmo Niiranen
What has been the most memorable thing during your remarkable
karate journey?
It is the love towards karate which has lasted
almost six decades. I cannot name only one thing because
so much has happened. Sometimes I ask myself - why do I continue
training? I must continue because karate gives me so much
- karate is my life. I have been training and teaching karate
all over the world for over half a century.
What is the purpose of your training?
Main purpose is the
continuous development. Even though I am 73 years old - I
still feel that I am developing all the time. When I decide
that I am standing after the fight - I will. This is the
original budo spirit - the training should also be done this
way. Budo - karate takes about 20-30 years of basic work.
Only after this period one can start to understand karate
more deeply and see things more clear. The development is
a continuous process - continuous training gives basics for
that.
Who were your teachers when you started to practice - could
you tell their the main characteristics?
Gichin Funakoshi
was my first teacher - he was the one who established Shotokan
ryu school. His karate was more like Okinawan. Stances were
short and kicking techniques were only few. The second teacher
was his son Yoshitaka Funakoshi - who developed karate tremendously.
He created more dynamic moving patterns - lower stances came
along and kicking quantity and quality expanded. Karate as
a whole became more versatile. Yoshitaka created fudo-dachi
stance - which enabled one to move towards multiple directions
more strongly and more naturally than old zenkutsu-dachi
does. Fudo-dachi is the basic stance of the Shotokan ryu
Kase ha. My third important teacher was Motonobu Hironishi
who teached me during my six Senshu university years in Tokio.
Hironishi sensei was a very important person in Shotokai
school after he left shotokan.
Could you tell us some more about Motonobu Hironishi sensei?
He
started to practice karate in 1931 when he was 19 years old.
He was a student of Gichin and Yoshitaka Funakoshi and he
teached karate in Japanese universities. Hironishi did not
like competitions and he was always saying that karate should
be trained as budo - not as a sport. He said that karate
is not real in competition situation. As I told you before
Hironishi changed to Shotokai and the main reason was that
there is no competition element in Shotokai.
It has been said that Tadao Okuyama sensei reached higher
level in karate that Yoshitaka Funakoshi did - is this true?
In
my opinion Yoshitaka reached higher level than Okuyama. When
Yoshitaka passed away in 1945 - Okuyama naturally continued
his own development - but still he did not reached Yoshitakas
skill level. To me Yoshitaka is always number one. In fact
these two cannot even be compared because their karate was
different. Yoshitaka was more physical karateka and Okuyama
caught his energy from somewhere else - strange isn't it.
When was the last time that you met with sensei Okuyama?
We
have not met in a few years. We call each other time to time.
Usually we discuss about training and change opinions. He
is over 80 years old and training and living in Japan. Our
friendship has lasted from 1940`s - university years.
What is your opinion about training attitude nowadays compared
the spirit during the Yoshitakas times - are there any problems?
Problems,
not necessarily. The training of course was quite different
during the war compared to nowadays. The difference is in
controlling the technique. Atobaya was very common in wartime
training - there was no control. Killing with one blow was
the basis of the training. Nowadays some people are training
for competition - why is that?
How do you see the future of karate - in which direction
you would like it to develop?
Budo is not competition. Budo
is fighting. Karate is protection / defence - yourself, other
people, your and others property. The traditional karate
does not include competition - if somebody claims otherwise
then he is wrong. Believe it - I have seen the whole development
of modern karate. The rules of competition were developed
during 1950`s. There is no points for effective uke-waza.
Budo is realistic fighting based on samurai tradition - this
tradition also includes traditional karate. The realistic
fighting is very far from competition karate. The rules and
narrow technique selection does not give real picture of
karate. The technique becomes unilateral and karate changes
to point scoring sport as dancing - this is not the case
with true budo.
Karate should be trained more seriously. Why do people
practice kata only to learn the form? It is like dancing.
The realistic kata bunkai training helps people to understand
katas thru totally different way. A strong block(ukeuchi)
hurts your opponent - there is no need for attack necessarily.
There is no needless movements in karate. These are the things
I wish to be remembered while training karate. Karate ni
sente nashi - block always first.(There is no first attack
in karate.)
" Why always wander the flat course, when there
is the possibility to climb higher level and see more wide
and more far!"
- Sensei Taiji Kase in Finland -
