空手 KARATE
Dan-Examinations
28.06.2025 D 49808 Lingen (Ems)
12.07.2025 D 77704 Oberkirch
07.02.2026 D 77704 Oberkirch
Training management
Manfred Zink, 8. Dan
Karate since 1980
Manfred Zink has been studying martial arts for over four decades. Starting with karate, judo and kung fu, his current activities in karate primarily include the tasks of instructor, trainer and examiner, as well as extensive work as the author of numerous neutral publications on the subject. He is a licensed A-trainer for popular and competitive sports, a qualified karate instructor, a qualified health trainer and much more.
The origins of karate (Japanese for “empty hand”) lie in Okinawa. There it was formerly known as Tode and had significant Chinese influences. It was not until the beginning of the last century that it came to Japan and was renamed karate.
Nowadays, karate is largely practiced as a popular sport. The traditional variant of realistic self-defence has faded into the background or is proclaimed, but only implemented superficially due to modern priorities.
The so-called kata are even closer to the original idea of martial arts. These are highly standardized forms of practice for simulating a fight without a real opponent being available for training the kata itself.
The historical background of many kata is no longer fully comprehensible. None of the masters who developed these standardized forms of practice are still alive today, so it is no longer possible to ask them. Furthermore, there are virtually no written explanations from these masters about the basic meaning of a particular kata or even individual details of this form of exercise.
In the Shotokan style, there are several books by the author Funakoshi Gichin, but most of them were not written by him. Although individual applications can be recognized from the existing film sources from the 1920s and 1930s, most kata remain completely unexplained in terms of effective application.
Between 1984 and 1987, the Japan Karate Association (JKA) released a video series with a total of 11 tapes under the direction of its chief instructor at the time, Nakayama Masatoshi. In the underlying recordings from the 50s and 60s, 16
Shotokan kata are shown in the sequence according to the Enbusen
aspects are changed / developed
and supposedly improved. In today’s active, at least 4th generation after Funakoshi, you can be sure that you have distanced yourself from the external form of the kata. The deeper meaning has almost completely fallen by the wayside in the absence of simple transmission.
If you follow the history of Shotokan karate and its kata, you quickly realize that the majority of the kata grouped together today under the Shotokan style were compiled by the style founder Funakoshi himself and his heirs from other karate styles and were not the core content of his own studies.
However, with the aim of spreading karate to a large number of people interested in the sport all over the world, it was not possible to limit oneself to just a handful of kata.
Even at that time, with an undoubtedly different basic attitude towards martial arts and also in view of the Japanese mentality, which was even more different from that of the West, this would have quickly led to a noticeable decline in interest in karate and counteracted this endeavor.
However, training a large number of kata means that only a limited amount of time remains for the individual kata themselves. For the “normal” amateur karateka, who spends between 1 and 3 hours a week in training, it is not possible to study even the outer form of all the kata of his style satisfactorily. A well-known motto in karate is “hito kata sannen”, which translates as “3 years for one kata”, although this is not based on the aforementioned training effort of 1 to 3 hours per week.
We turn to this task.
and in application against several opponents. The explanations of the kata contained in the videos are limited to a very superficial approach.
Unfortunately, this is hardly improved in the works that have followed up to the present day. This tendency could simply be explained by the fact that working with the kata and rediscovering the original variety of meaning is very laborious and certainly requires a great deal of experience in this field. Furthermore, in our fast-moving times, the masses tend to strive for easy-to-consume light meals and not for physical and mental development over decades.
In this sense, the saying “we practice traditional karate/study traditional kata” unfortunately comes too easily to many. In practice, “tradition” in the sense of passing on or handing down often means nothing more than copying, usually without reflection, what one is shown by teachers, teachers who in turn copy other teachers. Over time, more and more
SEMINARS D OBERKIRCH
KARATE intensiv
Manfred Zink
12.07.2025 D 77704 Oberkirch
KARATE intensiv
Manfred Zink
18.10.2025 D 77704 Oberkirch
free
places
0
free
places
6
early registration deadline 25. June 2025 12 am
Registration deadline 15. October 2025 12 am
REGISTRATION
After receipt of the registration and acceptance by the WMAO, an invoice for the participation fees will be issued and sent to the e-mail address provided.
Please transfer the participation fee by the specified date at the latest, only then will the registration be binding and the seminar can be planned.