Karate: Is it a Sport or an Art?

There has been much debate over the years about what constitutes "real" karate and it has usually involved the camps supporting Sport Karate and Classical Karate-do. This is my opinion on the matter.

If I were to take an orange and show it to you, and ask you what it was, a common response would be that it was in fact an orange that I was holding.

If I took that same orange and proceeded to peel the skin off of it so that I held the peel in one hand and the unpeeled orange in the other and I asked you the same question about each hand, what would the response be then?

First, the hand with the peel in it. What am I holding? A peel, no doubt!

Next, the hand with the peeled orange in it. What am I holding? An orange! A peeled orange, but it is still an orange (some may argue).

An orange without the peel is still an orange, but a peel is just a peel.

Karate is like that orange. Classical Karate-do is still Karate even without sport karate, and it has been so for hundreds of years. Sport Karate recontents nothing but peel, when you remove it from the orange.

This is just one Karate-ka's opinion.

By Hanshi Gary Legacy