Originally Posted by
One student
I have to say, sir, you've done a lot better than that in your critiques before. You act like you've discovered some big secret. Sin The's school was called "Sin The Karate School," and even "Shaolin Karate-Do", starting back in the 60's. Back then I suspect if he called it "kung fu" no one would have known what he was talking about, but "karate" was not unheard of. I would also suspect back then more people, when they heard the word "karate," thought of Asian martial arts in general, and didn't know karate from judo. Although I wasn't there and have no authority for this, I've always theorized that GMT's school in Indonesia didn't get all hung up on what they called their "style," i.e. "kung fu" or anything else, and so when he started his classes in Lexington, Kentucky in the mid 60's, he just picked a name (or more accurately a "word") that back then was synonymous with "martial arts" in general, and he didn't care (or more likely didn't think about) people complaining, 50 years later, that it's not really "karate" in the sense of coming from Japan or Okinawa. Or maybe, with all the other Japanese traditions observed (uniforms like gi's, belts, "dan" ranking, "kata," etc.), the word "karate" was used in Indonesia, too.
And not knowing the difference was not just Kentucky. Here's soem trivia: read "Goldfinger," first published in the 50's, Ian Fleming talks about Oddjob's mastery of Karate like no one had ever heard of it, comparing it to judo "like a Howitzer is to a flyswatter," or something like that. (Fleming did the same thing in introducing Ninjitsu in "You Only Live Twice" a few years later; I think maybe the first Western mention of it in literature?).
But just saying "karate" on a sign or label doesn't mean it has its origins in Japanese or Okinawan arts. Of course you and many others have complained that using the word "Shaolin" in the same sign and label is bogus. If there is some karate elements in it, or it just looks that way to some people from some examples of its practitioners, that is one thing, but a word picked 50 years ago does not make it so.