 Today I want to do something a little bit different. Now normally when we do a retro dojo episode It has been in the context of you know reviewing an old martial arts video game from the 80s in today's context I want to use retro in regards and in context of the actual martial arts and in terms of old martial arts footage and There's some really cool stuff out there and that's been one of the Unexpected benefits of doing research for this channel is over the past couple of years whenever we're researching the topic You know most likely in our usually historical videos We come across a lot of old footage and some of it is fascinating for various reasons And that's what I want to do today is kind of go over the appreciation of these clips and talk about what benefit Can we draw from them and what reservations should we have about them? The first thing is what I think is fascinating is it's an Absolute window into history. I mean we're talking about footage that existed before most of us were even born and It's like open up a window and just seen right back in time what things were like in early days of martial arts One cool thing is we can see the cultural impacts a lot of martial arts are the way they are because of either political Situations or religious situations or just the way arts developed So when we see these clips, we're seeing things from a more traditional times So a lot of times we'll see a lot more cultural aspects in them Which I think is fascinating now I know a lot of you out there might not like the idea of romanticizing the old arts or glorifying these old Arts because I know there's always a debate about what's better traditional and modern whatever that's a little relevant in this case But I have to admit and we all have to admit there is kind of a Mystique to see in some of this footage Especially when you consider that when this technology came out, you know the technology of moving pictures came out was at Or near the beginning of a lot of popular martial arts karate was fairly new Taekwondo was new or not even around yet when some of this technology came out You know Brazilian jiu-jitsu was just getting going judo wasn't that old So we're seeing the origins or early versions of a lot of prominent martial arts today And sometimes we were lucky enough to catch a last glimpse of the masters that we hold in such high regard today as well And it's also really fascinating just to see how arts have progressed. There was a cool Comparison I saw about a year or so ago Involving dogs there are pictures of popular dog breeds today and they juxtapose them with pictures of the same breed a hundred years ago And what's weird is though, you don't think there'd be much difference But there really was you know, you know legs were longer snouts were longer if you look at the hundred year difference in dogs You can actually see a progression a difference and it's the same thing when you look at this footage the martial arts I look at it and this is like wow so much has changed while you can see the roots are there But you can definitely see how things have progressed especially when you consider that fighting itself does change You know street fights that happen today don't look anything like the street fights that happened a hundred years ago You know tactics are different Moralities different environments are different clothing is different and fighting styles of education were different and you can see that in this Footage but to be fair and to issue some caution is what these clips should not be used for when you look at old archive footage like this You shouldn't look at them You be like a hot look that's how it's supposed to be done That's the only way that's the true lineage that is hands down black and white the way it should be done That black and white see what I did there no But the thing though is because things change, you know a lot of martial arts at the time We're still formulating in their arts You know teaching funicoshi and muscle Yama and you know They were still putting their arts together or they were fairly new and you had little more contemporary artists like Ed Parker with American Kempo who was always adapting and changing and modifying the art and in fact Ed Parker used to say that if people were still Practicing Kempo the exact same way in 30 years then something went wrong because it should always change because you know What's popular changes, you know, Brazilian jiu-jitsu grappling is very very popular now But you go back 50 years and it wasn't so it's just important to understand that Just because it's on film and it's old and ancient doesn't mean it's the way it has to be done today Things change and I think that's one of the most important lessons to take for the martial arts is it's all it's organic The arts are organic and they always have to adapt and grow with us and one of the things that jumps out to me And this was just kind of an observation on my part that I found kind of fascinating Is that if you look at these clips, you know, some of these some of these clips are 100 years old, you know But like 80 90 years old look how fluid and detailed some of these motions are now Compare that to a lot of the movies immediately that we grew up with at least here in America back in the 50s and 60s and 70s You know, you did not see movies do martial arts to this complexity and it kind of shows you the difference in audiences So to be fair anybody watching these old clips back in the day, you wouldn't have come across it on TV They didn't air the stuff and YouTube certainly wasn't around so unless you were in the martial arts You didn't really encounter these clips. So those who saw these knew what they were looking at and they understood techniques They understood the complexity they understood, you know, the meaning behind a lot of the moves whereas The movie going audiences at least in America and the audience on TV. They didn't have that understanding So it's interesting to see that the martial arts of the 50s and 60s and 70s on TV shows and the films were very simple You know basic kicks basic ground kicks basic punches, you know The fight choreography was much much simpler and rudimentary compared to what we have today You know now movie fight scenes are almost like hyper realistic You know the stuff they do it's far more complex than what's realistic But yeah, if you go back to the 50s, the average American didn't even know what karate was But yet here is this footage of showing it alive and well now just to be fair to When I talk about it's impressive to see how fluid some of these motions are and how quickly these masters moved or martial artists move Just to keep in mind martial arts look faster on film Generally speaking than they actually do in real life. One reason is especially if it's 80 years old or around that time It was shot at a lower frame rate So what we're seeing a lower frame rate played back at our current frame rates It speeds up and that is and was a common movie trick for martial arts films Is you shoot at a slightly lower frame rate like a 22 frames per second It's so when it plays back at 24 It has a speed up and it makes the action look a little bit You know faster and flow a little bit better and also to Unless you're shooting with a high shutter rate You're gonna get a lot of motion blurs and you're not gonna pick up a lot of the speed and motion blurs also make things psychologically look faster, so Some of these customers like oh, wow, they're just like flying and that must be a blur in real life They might have been but there's also just take that with a grain of salt that sometimes old footage Appears faster than it really was. So why am I doing this topic today? Well, basically like I said I wanted to do an homage and show an appreciation to history of the martial arts since we talked so much about history It's nice when we can actually physically look at history because there's way too many arguments that happen about who is better at what they do Which art is better what works or what doesn't work and you know, it's on video It's not a video there's always debates But sometimes it's good to stop and just take a look at how it was done and regardless of what art you train or what you think System is better than not. There's a lot of archive footage of popular art today And that's including Muay Thai and Taekwondo and even Brazilian jiu-jitsu in its early days And you can see a lot of stuff has changed, but I think regardless of what art you train in I think it's worth stopping from on it and taking a look and appreciating the past because The more we understand about where we came from and what our martial arts are today from where it started The more we can understand where it's going because it's organic fighting styles change different things are popular Like I said, you know grappling is super popular now. It wasn't 50 years ago Who knows what's gonna be popular in 15 20 30 years? Maybe tricking is gonna be the way to fight We don't know but I think it's kind of interesting to think about since we have all this technology now the kind of footage That we're gathering these days. I can only imagine what they're gonna be looking at a hundred years from now I'll be like, oh wow find an old YouTube clip from 2021 whatever be like wow That's how they used to use that technique so weird So I think it's worth stopping and taking a look and appreciating our history Taking a peek to a literal window of time and seeing the grandmasters at work and seeing how people train and seeing the cultural Impact and just seeing the discipline and just understanding our past. I think enriches the martial arts So much even if it's just for a few minutes just to take an appreciation So thank you guys so much for watching today. I would love to know what your favorite clips are There's a ton of them out there if you go on YouTube and I've you know the ones I've showed you today I've got a list below in the description, but you could spend hours finding clips There's a ton of them and I think they're worth looking at just again for depreciation So let me know what your favorite clips are Let me know your thoughts below what changes have surprised you or what changes are you looking forward to seeing and Be sure to like this video subscribe and we will see you next week. Thank you so much