Talk:Genseiryū Karate-do International Federation

Regarding the Neutral Point of View of the article

Please, write only facts, in a NEUTRAL way, not opions. Write in an encyclopedic way.
To prevent a new edit war: People of WGKF are kindly requested to write any contradicting information in the article about WGKF. People from GKIF are requested not to touch that article and people from WGKF are requested not to touch this article about GKIF to prevent another EDIT WAR and keep the whole story as neutral and honest as possible. Also a link to the main article Genseiryu should be kept in both articles at all times, since they are a continuation of that article... Thank you for your co-operation! -- MarioR 21:42, 24 July 2005 (UTC)

About the article

Comment by the president of G.K.I.F. in Denmark/Europe:
(Please note, that this article is NOT a continuation of the so-called main article Genseiryu). All other articles at Wikipedia (a.o. sites) that are supposed to be about Genseiryu, actually contains so much diliberate misinformation and lies, that we at the Genseiryu Karate-do International Federation (Denmark/Europe), have decided to make an effort in keeping THIS article clean with proper and correct information in contrast to the misinformation of the other articles. If, after reading this article, you might still doubt what you have read (everyone can edit this article if they so pleases), then please discard the information from Wikipedia completely, and find the researched history of Genseiryu at the below mentioned sites. All information at these particular sites, is written solely by people with the proper authority to do so. Thanks. Peter Lee 22:24, 18 July 2005 (UTC)

To this comment by "a president" of some club I have to write the following: it's probably needless to say, but claiming to be a president of anything, doesn't mean automatically you are right about everything you say! Besides, your comment "we at the GKIF have decided to make an effort in keeping..." is extremely exaggerated, since it is only YOUR decision and does not follow any central meeting inside the organization.

All the information written in the article Genseiryu is written according to a Neutral Point of View, highlighting the fact that there are two organizations that are telling contradictory information. Then from that article I created a link to WGKF and one to GKIF so that the story of both parties can be told from their point of view. I let you write your story even though it contradicts totally with the one of WGKF. I never touched that story! You on the other hand had to vandalize the article WGKF over and over again, writing the story of GKIF in that article, even though it doesn't belong there.

It is wrong to say that any of this information is deliberate misinformation or lies. This only shows that you do not want to contribute to the neutrality of Wikipedia. I urge anybody to read the information on Genseiryu and compare it to information that can be found elsewhere on Internet (e.g. [1], [2]) and also read the information on the article about the World Genseiryu Karatedo Federation. Thank you! -- MarioR 16:39, 24 July 2005 (UTC)

Orphan?

Jmcw37 claims that this article is an orphan. Wikipedia:Orphan#Criteria says the following:

Criteria

An article is orphaned if fewer than three other articles link to it. However, this is a strict definition of the term and there is still discussion regarding whether to have a more relaxed definition in order to clear the backlog of orphans. Currently our priority is to focus on orphans with NO incoming links at all, and it is recommended to only place the {{orphan}} tag if the article has ZERO incoming links from other articles. One or two incoming links may be sufficient as long as they're relevant.

So, since there is a link from Genseiryū, this article is not really an orphan. I suggest that the {{orphan}} tag be removed. --MarioR 22:03, 14 December 2009 (UTC)

Agreed. --NeilN ^{talk to me} 22:31, 14 December 2009 (UTC)

Note that Wikipedia:Orphan#Criteria evolves [3]. jmcw (talk) 11:28, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

Removed some sentences

I took it upon me to remove some sentences in the article. Here an explanation. First I removed "A short history of each kata can also be read at the before mentioned site. These are translations from the book and are of course copyrighted material and should be treated as such at all times." The link was already removed in a previous edit, because it was an external site with no info about the claim made. So the reference was not valid. The fact that a book is "copyrighted material" is of course logical and unnecessary to mention in an article. Sounds kind of threatening ("do not copy this, or else...")...

Furthermore I removed "Any other versions or interpretations of these kata are not to be considered as Genseiryū.". This is a claim made by Peter Lee. The organization of the original Genseiryū claims otherwise and in various documents and books other kata that Seiken Shukumine (founder of Genseiryū) taught are mentioned... MarioR 22:49, 14 December 2009 (UTC)

This is not true, Mario Roering, and you know that VERY well. I have presented you with the evidence, the links etc. the documents from the Japan Karate-do Federation are official and is a third party reference. The way you keep putting this issue on my shoulders is manipulative and incorrect. The claim is a valid one, as has been explained, shown etc. according to the evidence. If you dispute the reference, fine, but then please present another reference. Your aim in this or any other article in regard to Genseiryu is not a noble one. Your aim here is to manipulate your way in and to delete and confuse everybody. You should be stopped from editing, period. Stop vandalizing and sabotaging the articles here. Peter Lee (talk) 00:12, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

The quote Mario took out needs a source before it can be put back in and perhaps should be followed by "according to the Japan Karate-do Federation" (or re-worked into the previous sentence). --NeilN ^{talk to me} 01:06, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

I see, but that evidence has been provided numerously on so many occasions that I can no longer remember how many times I have put it here. So here it is again, just for Mario Roering, once again. Official Documents from the Japan Karate-do Federation in Japanese with English translations. Peter Lee (talk) 01:28, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

Even IF it would be true, that the JKF acknowledged the mentioned kata (for now, I will leave in the middle what is true or not about that), just even IF it is true, then the sentence Peter Lee wants in the article is "Any other versions or interpretations of these kata are not to be considered as Genseiryū". That holds no ground with the reference, for even if the kata trained by WGKF Genseiryū (e.i. Ten-i, Chi-i and Jin-i no kata) are not excepted by the JKF, it can not be said that it is NOT Genseiryū! Especially since they ARE excepted in for example in Holland, by the Dutch Karate Federation (KBN). Saying that these kata are not considered Genseiryū is, to say it softly, humbug! To Peter: STOP removing my edits and call it "vandalism" in the summaries! Check Wikipedia:Vandalism to see what is really considered vandalism! Then you will see that what YOU are doing comes much closer to that definition! You have called me a vandal one time too often now! I do not accept it any longer!!! MarioR 11:20, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

I have reverted Peter Lee's "edits" to my last input in the article, because of this. My edits were thoroughly explained above and even agreed by NeilN. Peter reverted my edits anyway... MarioR 11:25, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

Another edit I made recently, but didn't explain yet, was to rewrite the sentence about Tosa's book "Genseiryu Karatedo Kyohan 2" as being the "first book ever on Genseiryu". This is not true. Several other books on Genseiryu have been written before this one. The first book ever written on Genseiryu was in 1964 by the founder himself [4][5][6]. He called the book "Shin karatedo kyohan" (translates into something like "the new method of teaching karate"). The book shows that Genseiryu is based on a combination of the 'old school' (koryū) or classique karate (with the kata Naifanchi, Bassai and Kusanku (or Koshokun (Dai)) with new techniques and the typical Genseiryu kata Ten-i no Kata, Chi-i no Kata, Jin-i no Kata and Sansai.[7] The fact that Shukumine didn't mention the name "Genseiryū" does not mean that it's not Genseiryū. Karate books were/are often written in a "general" way, talking about "karatedo". Gichin Funakoshi (founder of Shotokan) did the exact same thing. NOBODY today disputes that his book is about Shotokan, although it's not mentioned... I have explained all this already several times! Like here for example.

The sentence "The Genseiryū Karate-do International Federation is the only officially recognized organization of Genseiryū[6] in Japan" holds no ground and the mentioned reference does not say anything about that claim made by Peter Lee (it only mentions something about kata). As a matter of fact, there is clear proof that Genseiryū (the WGKF style) is indeed also recognized by the JKF: Genseiryū is a member of the organization Nippon Karatedo Rengoukai (日本空手道連合会) (it's in Japanese, but 加盟団体 means members and in the list you can find 玄制流空手道 or Genseiryū Karatedō, meaning this is the original Genseiryū, not the Butokukai style!)[8]. Since Nippon Karatedo Rengoukai is a member of JKF [9], it means that automatically all the members of this organization, including Genseiryū, are member of JKF. It can not be disputed that Genseiryū is not a part of JKF... I will remove the sentence! -- MarioR 13:23, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

Interwiki links

Peter, I clicked on the first three interwiki links you added and none of the articles exist. Why are you adding links to non-existent articles? --NeilN ^{talk to me} 02:04, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

Sorry, that was a mistake. A simple copy and paste error from my original file. I have corrected the matter. Peter Lee (talk) 04:25, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

Thank you. --NeilN ^{talk to me} 04:26, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

P.S. From Help:Interlanguage_links#Links_to_pages_that_do_not_exist: "If you find blank interlanguage links on the English Wikipedia, they may be deleted as having no content or you can comment them out. It is strongly recommended that you create at least a stub page before adding interlanguage links to it. Later, interested people can translate the rest of the page content from the original language to the new one for which the link was made." --NeilN ^{talk to me} 02:12, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the input. Peter Lee (talk) 04:25, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

Edit War December 2009

User:Mario_Roering and User_talk:Peter_Lee are reverting each other at Genseiryū_Karate-do_International_Federation. This could be interpeted as Edit warring. Could I invite you both to a friendly discussion on the talk page to attempt to resolve the two views? jmcw (talk) 11:35, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

Maybe a good place to start would be to make an inventory of the reliable, third-party sources this article has. Could you each make a small comment on each source ( one line )? jmcw (talk) 12:39, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

• <ref name="Student">[http://www.genseiryu.jp/eng/genri/e-genri.html Kunihiko Tosa was a senior student of Seiken Shukumine even before Genseiryū was established]</ref>
  • jmcw: does not look like a third-party source
  • Mario: first party source, belongs to GKIF (Genseiryu-Butokukai)! However, it was never disputed that Tosa was a senior student of Seiken Shukumine. But, in the claim it's said that Shukumine excepted Tosa as his (first?) student in 1952. As a fact (I have proof of that) Genseiryū was established already in 1950, only the name Genseiryū was first used in 1953, because Shukumine didn't really want to name "his" karate style... The claim could therefore be slightly rewritten, but in general I have nothing against it.
  • Neil:
  • Peter:

• <ref name="FirstMeeting">Gekkan Karate-do (Japanese Karate Magazine, published Monthly), 1997, October issue</ref>
  • jmcw: does not look like a third-party source
  • Mario: I have no idea if this is a good 3rd party source. I would say 2nd and not so trustworthy maybe. It's a magazine, it's in Japanese. I know how Japanese media work, they are worse than the European. Lot of the facts are twisted or simply wrong. They wanna put down a nice story or simply attract attention... Hey, isn't media the same everywhere? I am working on getting a copy and to get it translated. Might take a while. The reference is used for 3 cases: the story (ref. 2a) sounds like an anecdote to me and could be disputed. Not that it wasn't in that magazine, magazines just love these kind of anecdotes! Ref 2b is about accepting Tosa as the (first?) student of Shukumine in 1952. Difficult to check for I am still working on that reference, but I will let it go (for now)... The third claim (ref 3c) is: "Seiken Shukumine and Kunihiko Tosa among others worked together on establishing the Genseiryū organization". Don't see any reason to believe they did NOT work together, at the time...
  • Neil:
  • Peter:

• <ref name="Dojo">[http://www.genseiryu.jp/kakusibu/shibu.html Genseiryū Japan/Intl.][http://www.indiangenseiryu.com/branches/maharashtra.htm Indian Genseiryū], to name a few. Just start counting.</ref>
  • jmcw: first is in Japanese; second does not exist
  • Mario: the home page is www.genseiryu.jp and belongs to Genseiryu-Butokukai and GKIF. Definitely a first party source. The claim made with this ref is "The Genseiryū Karate-do International Federation has at least 150 dojos worldwide". Hey, I didn't count them, but the claim looks plausible. However, to this I want to add that MOST of these dojo are in Japan... Sri Lanka and Brazil are also well presented, but still, Japan has the far most dojo of Genseiryu-Butokukai. I am fine with the claim though...
  • Neil:
  • Peter:

• <ref name="Tosa9thdan">[http://www.genseiryu.jp/eng/news/index.html Kunihiko Tosa, Genseiryū, 9th dan]</ref>
  • jmcw: does not look like a third-party source
  • Mario: same source as above: belongs to GKIF, therefore a first party source. But, I will not dispute that Kunihiko Tosa received the 9th dan, especially since it is mentioned also that he was awarded this rank by the GKIF themselves, not by the JKF...
  • Neil:
  • Peter:

• <ref name="Shukumine8thdan">[http://homepage2.nifty.com/gensei-ryu1/sub4.gensei-ryu.gensei-ryu.html Seiken Shukumine, Dai Nippon Butokukai, 8th dan, 1956]</ref>
  • jmcw: looks like a blog in japanese
  • Mario: No no no. This is not a blog. Have a Japanese speaking (and reading) person look at it. This site　belongs to the original Genseiryu branch and all the copyrights can be found (in Japanese) on the home page. The site is approved and monitored by the Shukumine family. The whole Genseiryu structure can found there, as well as many pictures of the Shukumine family, teachers of Genseiryū (not of GKIF though). I do not dispute the fact that Shukumine was awarded the 8th dan by the Dai Nippon Butokukai in 1956.　However, the claim brought here sounds a bit negative towards Shukumine. I would like to see it rephrased, for since he was involved mainly with Taidō since 1965, he could not really get further in karate... So, writing that "not even the founder was awarded such a high dan" is somewhat misplaced...
  • Neil:
  • Peter:

• <ref name="OnlyOrgRecognized">[http://www.genseiryu.jp/news/2009_11_09/index.html Original Documents] from the Japan Karate-do Federation stating, that only the kata of the GKIF are recognized. Both Japanese and English documents.</ref>
  • jmcw: in japanese
  • Mario: Again a reference to the Genseiryu-Butokukai site, so 1st party. The documents are difficult to read, the English "translations" could be an "interpretation" (with mistakes, sentences that don't "run smoothly"), the Japanese I can't read. so the value of them is not high at all. I am not impressed by these at all. Furthermore, it says something about kata, not about the recognition of (GKIF) Genseiryu-Butokukai. The ref name "OnlyOrgRecognized" is misplaced and should be changed, if this reference will be used further in the future.
  • Neil:
  • Peter:

• <ref>[http://www.svensk-taido.se/Historia/Reines%20historia.htm Taido's Position in the History of Budo] (also mentions books on Genseiryu)</ref>
  • jmcw: does not look like a third-party source
  • Mario: I would say it's a second party source, at least. Taidō is a different martial art, although it was derived from Genseiryu karate. They have no interest in telling the story about Genseiryu karate any different from the truth. Why should they? I am not saying that whatever they write is true, I have seen Taidō forums with contradicting stories, but I am saying that they have nothing to gain or loose by changing the facts...
  • Neil:
  • Peter:

Remark: thanks jmcw, for doing this. This might actually work... MarioR 08:51, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

Quality of Sources

I am a bit uncomfortable with the quality of these references. Primary sources and foreign-languages web sites are not a good basis for a wiki article- particularly when things are in dispute. Could you find some magazine articles or other third-party sources? jmcw (talk) 14:42, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

I hear you. I am also very uncomfortable with Japanese sources. At my age it takes a life time to learn all the Japanese characters. Problem is that it's a Japanese sport (budō), so it's logical that most of the info found about it is in Japanese or is translated from Japanese (if you are even that lucky to find a translation!). Even if I could get some magazine articles, also that would probably be in Japanese. I will keep searching and will of course share any new information I can find here on Wikipedia, so that anybody interested in Genseiryu can benefit from it. For now, thumbs up and... patience... Btw, you can translate Japanese texts with this online translator (copy-and-paste Japanese text to the left box, select 日->英　and then push the button below it. Far from a perfect translation, but good enough to get a grasp of what is going on.) --MarioR 18:40, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

Google also has decent translation tool [10] jmcw (talk) 11:07, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

Just tried it. Works better than the one I used so far! Thanks! MarioR 16:18, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

I would like to add that some of the first party sources used here, are used to "confirm" a claim that is not really disputed. For example: nobody is disputing that Tosa received the 9th dan from GKIF. That the GKIF has about 150 dojos around the world, well, I didn't count them, but I guess it will be something close to that, so also that is not disputed. In those cases I don't object at all against the use of the 1st party source mentioned (the site of Genseiryu-Butokukai or GKIF). There are still some (minor) mistakes on the website, but I don't see it as obvious mis-information or lies, just typos or maybe the webmaster is holding wrong information himself... The only thing I put a big question mark at, are the documents that Peter keeps referring to. I want to get a proper translation of the Japanese versions though, before saying anything about it. For now, I will leave it alone as it is... It doesn't seem that important anyway, since it's just about some Genseiryu-Butokukai kata and it plays only a role in Japan itself... MarioR 18:54, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

Please keep in mind that a strict interpretation of wp:v would demand deletion of an article built on primary sources (because someone could build a hoax quite easily, for example.) I use a common sense rule of thumb for primary source citations: "If I walked into any dojo, would I be able to verify this fact?"

So the statement about belt colors, I would not challenge. The statement about 150 dojo in the world, I would want a third-party source.

Due to Wikipedia:Systemic_bias, foreign language articles suffer. Translations of foreign language sources are acceptable. As a strong editor of this article, could you look for Japanese third-party sources? I realize this is hard work but it would add great strength to the article. jmcw (talk) 11:19, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

To your common sense rule of thumb ("If I walked into any dojo, would I be able to verify this fact?"): You are welcome any time in Holland in one of our dojos in Amstelveen, Anna Paulowna, Den Helder or Schagen... Also, you are welcome in several dojos in Denmark, Finland, Spain, Japan and I don't know where else. I am sure Peter Lee will also welcome you in his dojo and you will be welcome in any other dojo belonging to either GKIF or WGKF... Bottom line is: yes, it's verifiable by walking into a dojo...

I can see you want a 3rd party source for the statement about the 150 dojo (GKIF) in the world. This is mentioned on the website of Genseiryu-Butokukai (GKIF). Because it belongs to GKIF, it's a 1st party reference. However, since most dojos are mentioned with address and phone number, theoretically you could contact every one of them to verify their existence, right? So, why would this not be trustworthy information? I found on Wikipedia:NOR the following: "Without a secondary source, a primary source may be used only to make descriptive claims, the accuracy of which is verifiable by a reasonable, educated person without specialist knowledge." In theory, the accuracy is verifiable (contacting the dojos), so I think this primary source may be used to make the "descriptive claim" that GKIF runs about 150 dojos worldwide. Mind also that I am now defending one of the claims that Peter Lee made, not one that I made! Not that I want to do him a favour or that I care much about that sentence, but I just want to point out that in a case like this, it sometimes should be acceptable to use primary sources, if no secondary/tertiary sources are available... Also, that this article is NOT a hoax is already clear from the fact that at least FOUR wikipedians from inside the Genseiryu world have been contributing to it (not counting anonymous ip edits): Peter Lee, Thoar Varenkamp, TenChiJin and myself... --MarioR 13:28, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

Grading

I think that the part about the grading system should be removed. Not that I care much about it, but the system of ranking in karate is different from country to country. If it is left in the article, then it should at least be clearly mentioned where this system is used (Japan, USA, Denmark?). For example in Holland there is a different system, also for GKIF (Peter, correct me if I am wrong (and I will accept!), 'coz I don't walk into Mr. Varenkamp's school that often): white (8th kyu, sometimes also 9th kyu), yellow (7th kyu), orange (6th kyu), green (5th kyu), blue (4th kyu), brown 1 (3rd kyu), brown 2 (2nd kyu), brown 3 (1st kyu), black (1st to 10th dan). -- MarioR 19:03, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

(as a reaction to jmcw comment above here in the thread "Quality of Sources", where he says (quote)"the statement about belt colors, I would not challenge"(unquote):) Why wouldn't you challenge the statement about belt colors? That shows me you are/have never been involved in a budō sport. Am I right? (No offence!!) I clarified down here that the belt system differs from country to country. I am not saying that the belt system in the article is incorrect, it's just not complete. It only goes for Japan, maybe for Denmark and USA also, but not for Holland, Germany, France, etc.... Need references as proof? Okay, here you go: Kyū, de:Kyū#Karate, nl:Kyu, fr:Kyū, [11], [12], [13] --MarioR 13:28, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

<G> If I walked into a dojo, I would see people with different colored belts. But that different colors are used in other countries, I could not see in a dojo. (Note that this is not an official wiki standard<g>). It would be much better with a reliable source for each country. Reliable sources eliminate grounds for arguing. jmcw (talk) 14:33, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

But yes, on a more serious note, removing un-clear, un-referenced material improves an article. jmcw (talk) 14:36, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

If you walk in a dojo, you see different colored belts, yes. But a BLUE belt in Holland is a different level as the same coloured belt in the USA or Denmark. In Holland you will also find orange and yellow belts, where you won't see those colors in the USA, Japan or Denmark, or they are of a different level. Over there on the other hand, you might see purple belts or red belts, belt colours that are not found in Holland... That is why martial artists don't ask each other about their "belt color", they ask about which kyū (or dan) they have. Saying you have the "3rd kyū" says much more than saying you have the "blue belt"... Anyway, I don't see why the grading system should be mentioned in the article in the first place. It's about GKIF, not about ranking. Thereby, there is already enough said about ranking systems on kyū and dan. So... Shall I remove it, or will you? MarioR 15:17, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

I would like to invite you to make the changes - I will be away (training aikido) for a few days. Seasons Greetings to everyone working on this article! jmcw (talk) 09:32, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

Ow, you do train in a budō? But as far as I know, the belt system in Aikido is totally different from e.g. karate and judo (which was what I meant). Wasn't it just white and black, nothing in between? I love Aikido, it is beautiful, a very nice martial art to watch! Are you at a high level? I still don't really know what to do with that grading system in the article. It seems that lots of schools of GKIF do use that system (Japan, India, Denmark), but I now know that the (only) GKIF school in Holland doesn't use that system. In that dojo I see also people with yellow and orange belts for example... So, I think, unless there will be a good reference shown very soon, that will show that GKIF prescribes the use of that particular system throughout the world (which would then mean that the Dutch school is going into GKIF regulations or they are not attached to GKIF any longer), I will remove that part... Have a good training and happy holidays! --MarioR 22:16, 19 December 2009 (UTC)