How would you interpret this quote: "you can't learn karate, karate learns you."?

Question

explain.

Answer 1

I interpret it as a silly question because its coming from a girl that likes to ask silly questions

Answer 2

Karate is different for everyone.  Everyone has their own style, even though they learn the same basics.

Answer 3

It's kinda like the old Yakov Smirnoff jokes... in Soviet Russia joke tells you...

Answer 4

you have to learn it by doing it and understanding your phycial abilities

Answer 5

"Someone needs to lay off the sake."

In all honesty, I don't know about karate specifically. I was fed a bunch of USSD stuff that I was told was Karate but turned out to be American Kempo, which turned out to not be the greatest stuff for me. Everything that I've seen taught though through classes and friends who've taken karate (and most martial arts, really) is that karate is an additive art. It doesn't fix what you do, but rather teaches you completely new things. As such, I would take that  quote as invalid.

If you were to say something more like, "You can't learn the martial arts; the martial arts learn you," then I might take this in a general sense, consider my training in Taijutsu, and agree with this explanation:

You can't simply learn techniques and use them as supplementary material to your habits. Your habits have become bad. Instead, you must get rid of those habits, return to a more natural state, and, in doing so, introduce yourself to martial arts. Only then will those skills be there to assist you.

Answer 6

I wouldn't see it as specific to karate, but rather as a blanket term for all martial arts. As far as interpretation, it means that you don't learn if you're looking to learn a set sequence. Rather, you learn by taking it in and gaining understanding from it.

Kind of like saying "you don't drive the car, the car drives you" can mean that you're driving, but what would you be without the car? Driving still?

You are using karate, but what would you be using without the karate?

Or you could interpret it as you don't learn Karate in the purest sense, but rather you learn and adapt it to yourself, so saying that karate has learned to exist within you as opposed to you learning to exist within karate, but that is contradictive - they're both true when you reach a certain point in martial arts..

In fact, I don't think I've ever really heard anything that was trying to be Zen to the point that this is. It's either someone trying to be poignent, or someone waxing poetic. Either way, I don't really find the philosophy in it. Obviously you can learn karate - there are thousands of skilled karateka that can attest to that. The only semi philosophical reasoning I can find for a statement like this is that it's mutual - you learn to exist within the form of karate so that you can learn to use it without form, and therefor have the karate learn to adapt to your movements.

Still seems somewhat bloated to me... But who knows?

Maybe simply it just means that you shouldn't expect to learn 'karate', but should instead expect to be taught by the style.

Answer 7

its as easy as " when chuck norris jumos into the ocean he doesn't get wet, the ocean gets chuck norris "

Answer 8

Dumb karate is respect and you must have respect to get respect.