Re: Karate pedagogy

virtanen (hvirtane who-is-at cc.jyu.fi)
Tue, 6 Feb 1996 13:57:01 +0200 (EET)

On Mon, 5 Feb 1996, Mike Cole wrote:

>
> Dear Xmca-ites--
>
> I have a student who teaches Karate to children. She is writing a paper
> on this topic and I am wondering what literature is out that that would
> help us to understand how the pedagogical strategy used in Karate
> classes is theorized. She is also interested in gender issues, so any
> info relating gender to karate pedagogy would be especially appreciated.
>
> mike cole
>

This book, which I suggest to read, is not especially about Karate. But
thinking about the idea behind that kind of training, I would like to
suggest reading at least the old classic: E. Herrigel: 'Zen in the art of
Archery' (many printings, for example New York: McGraw-Hill 1964)

The old tradition in the far-east holds, that all the kind of 'sports'
like 'Judo', 'Karate', 'Aikido', 'Taek-Won-Do', 'Kempo', 'Kendo' and so
on have their origin in the same monastery of Shao-lin in China. The
tradition connects this monastery with Bodhidharma, the legendary founder
of Chan-buddhism (in Japanese Zen-buddhism) in China. Herrigel's book is a
well respected report by a German scholar of studying the art of archery
using traditional Japanese training methods, which are more or less common
to all the of the mentioned 'arts' or 'sports'. (The traditional flower
arrangement, Ikebana and Teaseremony, Chanoyu are also belonging to the
other end on the line.)

virtanen
hvirtane who-is-at tukki.jyu.fi