Kyokushin...Traditional, Classical or Modern?

how do you define the three, traditional and classical is not separated by much.

all martial arts evolve. and the gi is not that old, traditional they practiced in there underwear so the gi can be considered more modern.

the saying goes Gichin Funakoshi is the father of modern karate. i dont hear anyone say he is the father of traditional karate.

it comes down to how the owner defines there dojo. and the way they present there class. there is no right or wrong answer.

I have seen that go both ways. Any style of karate or any martial art is as "traditional" or "modern", (what ever that means??) as the teacher. Some guys have you bowing every ten seconds and some hardly bow at all. All within a style. I have seen really good kyokushin practitioners, and others, well, not so much. Again like all karate styles. It could also be considered "classical" by some, in some schools. In other words, I don't think there is an answer to this written in stone. Just train, the more the better, if you have good teacher(s).

I don't think of Kyokushin as traditional or classical. I think of it as more of a mixed Karate style. I highly doubt it's an evolved art. You can't just splice two things together and call it evolution, if so then mermaids/mermen would be called an evolved man-fish.

No disrespect to Kyokushin, but I don't see what's so special about what they've done. I've heard people call Kyokushin the better version of Goju Ryu, which I find insulting. The only argument I get with Kyokushin is that they spar full contact. News flash: so do all other classical styles in the history of martial arts. That's nothing, they just offer it to newer students with very little experience which find a big mistake for newbies to do without much knowledge yet.

Kyokushin uses Goju Ryu as a bas. If you want Goju Ryu, then study Goju Ryu. If you want something "eclectic", then I say do it yourself and find out what you like instead of what someone else liked instead.

A far as classifying it goes, I say it's a an eclectic style using classical arts. I wouldn't call it modern.

I'm not sure what the correct classification is.

The same question applies to Kajukenbo. It has gi's, belts, formalities, respect, katas, etc. But it has a reckless attitude and dangerous training methods. The traditional schools, not the McDojos. Kajukenbo McDojos have to make everything as safe as possible to make sure students do not quit.

I think there are less Kyokushin McDojos than Kajukenbo McDojos.

Maybe certain arts do not easily fit into neat categories.

Personally I think its between classical and modern. It was based of more traditional karate styles and now has a lot of competition that is popular in the modern world. Like you said its still evolving nowadays.

The training methods are classical like the other karate but with more emphasis on kumite. Nowadays a lot kyoukushin people train in gyms. So even the training method is still evolving.

Traditional .

Sort of all of the above. Traditional like you said because of the formalities, classical because of the styles it's made up of, and modern because of it's focus on breeding fighters.

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