Lineage Worship Is Holding Karate Back - By Sensei Liam Musiak

One of the biggest problems in karate — and traditional martial arts as a whole — is lineage worship.

Not respect.

Not history.

Worship.

You hear it constantly:

• “This is how it’s always been done.”

• “This is how the founder intended it.”

• “You can’t change it — it’s traditional.”

These phrases are treated like holy scripture. They are rarely questioned, rarely tested, and almost never challenged honestly. And that blind obedience is exactly why karate has largely failed to move forward.

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Tradition has become a shield, not a tool

Tradition was meant to preserve what works, not freeze progress forever.

Instead, many systems treat founders as infallible — as if men training in the early to mid-1900s, in completely different social conditions, somehow solved violence for all future generations.

That’s not respect.

That’s mythology.

Blind loyalty to systems invented decades and decades ago, without serious revision, pressure-testing, or adaptation, is the reason karate has struggled to remain relevant outside of dojos.

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“This is how it’s always been done” is not an argument

It’s an excuse.

If “this is how it’s always been done” was a valid defence, then:

• Medicine wouldn’t evolve

• Policing wouldn’t change

• Military tactics would still be stuck in the 1940s

• Sports science wouldn’t exist

Yet in martial arts, saying “this is how my lineage does it” is often treated as the end of the conversation.

That is not wisdom — it’s intellectual stagnation.

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Blind obedience does not equal depth

Many traditional environments actively discourage:

• Questioning

• Cross-training

• Criticism

• Testing ideas under pressure

Students are taught that challenging the system is “ego”, “disrespect”, or “impatience”.

In reality, it’s often fear — fear that honest testing would expose gaps.

A system that cannot be questioned cannot grow.

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Enjoyment vs effectiveness — let’s be honest

Here’s the part many people miss — or ignore on purpose:

If you enjoy traditional karate:

• The kata

• The rituals

• The structure

• The history

That’s perfectly fine.

Go and enjoy it. Train hard. Respect your instructors. There is nothing wrong with that.

But don’t cross the line into denial.

Claiming that most traditional karate systems — unchanged, untested, and insulated from criticism — are effective modern self-defence systems in 2026 is simply dishonest.

Especially in countries like Great Britain, Australia, Canada, and the United States of America.

The legal landscape is different.

The nature of violence is different.

The environments are different.

The consequences are different.

Pretending otherwise doesn’t make it true.

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Why karate hasn’t moved forward

Karate didn’t stall because it lacked potential.

It stalled because:

• Lineage became more important than outcomes

• Obedience became more important than understanding

• Waiting became more important than readiness

• Tradition became untouchable

When preservation turns into worship, progress dies.

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Respect the past — don’t live in it

Founders were human beings.

They worked with what they knew, where they were, at that time.

Honouring them does not mean freezing karate in place forever.

Real respect is:

• Testing what still works

• Discarding what doesn’t

• Updating what needs updating

• And being honest about reality

Karate should be alive, not embalmed.

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Final truth

If you love traditional karate for what it is — enjoy it fully.

But if you claim it is fully effective, modern, pressure-tested self-defence without adapting it to today’s world, you are not defending tradition.

You are defending comfort.

And comfort has never prepared anyone for real violence.