Agree, the stagnation of karate over the last 30 years or so has been a huge problem. I see hope though, and the YT channel karate culture is what initially sparked that hope for me. While it seems their YT channel went defunct 7 months ago, they still have good stuff.
but between them, and meeting other like minded karateka online and seeing karate combat become fairly popular in the karate community, I think karate will soon be at a tipping point. Where either karate like mine, and karate combat end up being disowned by karate in a sense and becoming its own thing (like KB) or karate like mine and KC are able to coexist with better karate becoming more popular (the shitty karate will likely never die because it is great for kids after all the modern training methods were specifically designed for use in the public school system)
I stand corrected, you are right in that sense. Maybe 100 years was an overreach Lol I have been involved with karate in some form or fashion for over 30 years. I have met and trained with various Okinawan "masters" and they teach the way they were taught. Most of which is very heavily kata based training (not saying there's anything wrong with that). That "type" of training is what, I believe anyways, is keeping karate from progressing. My opinion
The problem isn't karate. The problem is expectations.
People want combat sports, which is fine. But karate wasn't meant to be a combat sport. So the training isn't efficient/effective for that goal. MMA, MT, BJJ are far better combat sport teachers than karate. Karate is a great martial art but to train it for combat sports means training more like a kickboxer.
I'm at the stage where I'm teaching my son karate and that distinction has never been more obvious than in that context. I didn't put him in a karate class because I wanted to teach him proper, effective hard nosed karate from the ground up. I wanted him to spar full power. I didn't want to water it down just because the student is a child and we don't want kids hitting each other in the neck with shutos, lol. But the more I train him, the more I find myself having to say "This is the proper application for this technique...but don't do it in school." The old "it's too deadly" comment. It's not too deadly but it's hard to teach certain techniques effectively when you can't be sure the student can restrain themselves. And if you can't teach the techniques properly then you end up watering down the techniques to account for that.
The other thing is that neither kata nor kihon are based on actual combat sport principles. Principles where you know where the opponent is, you've got time to figure out distance, a limited fighting arena, etc. Every time I put him in a fighting stance, we have to start altering the kihon, particularly the hikite, and the kata to reflect the new stance. But when I'm teaching self-defense applications, like someone pushing him or grabbing his arm, the applications flow more naturally.
And this makes sense - karate isn't trying to teach anyone to win a sporting fight. People want to use karate to win a sporting fight. It's like hammering a nail with your screwdriver. Sure, you'll eventually get there but you'd get there faster with something else.
So, I always tell my son - we're training this for self-defense, to make sure no one can bully you or some stranger can't grab you off the street. If you want to go fight in the UFC or something like that, we need to sign up for MMA or something else. Because while I trust that you can dislocate someone's shoulder, break their wrist, knee, etc. defend a punch/kick and take them down if they touch you, you'd be a better fighter much faster if your training was exclusively focused on winning those fights instead of splitting time between self-defense and fighting.
And maybe that's the issue right there -- time. A lot of the time spent in karate isn't time spent on things that matter in combat sports.
