The depressing state of karate

[SandisLL]

It can only be explained so many ways before it becomes obvious that people don't really want the most effective training, they just want the illusion of it. They want to dress up in gis and get colored belts while avoiding the most effective training available. All so that they can say "I train karate" when they really don't want karate, they want kickboxing.

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I think kickboxing is far from karate and actually did not had made from karate or MT: it is rule set lika MMA etc.
Like this stuff we see in semi contact karate torunaments: it isn't karate ideology, like also stuff we see in KK kumite is not KK, cos they does knows more than is allowed to use under these rules.
Like kick light KB I think might be horrible for self defense.

Why?
Yeah, technically it is good stuff.
While, the same stuff about street?
One is some simple laborer and had pushed his opponent with full power. This lad maybe even will rethink to engage further.
If someone will do stuff like : okey, evaded first punch or kick and had maybe even ate something and hit his attacker with this semi contact punch or kick? Especially if too weak in the face?
This might make aggressor even more confident and more angry, more aggressive to engage further.
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I had saw different ppl from these semi contact arts: one was almost useless, another ( from the same gym and with the same instructor ) just normally continued to fight with 100% : ate punch, evaded kick and delivered some 2 punches and a kick in row with 100%.

 

[updowniri]

Karate is a fighting style, not a ruleset. In theory you should be able to enter a kickboxing or mma competition and fight in it with distinctively karate moves.

 

[SandisLL]

Karate is a fighting style, not a ruleset.

From theory.
Because fighter should be automatized and this usually is done according to rules for competition.
Move you had done 100 times will be less automatized for you than move you had done 100000 times.

In theory you should be able to enter a kickboxing or mma competition and fight in it with distinctively karate moves.

Well, on paper yeah, while I didn't had saw such specimens with 0 cross training.
Of course karate ppl loves more to claim, that everything does come only from karate.
Everyone loves his art and thinks, that this is only one alone the best.

 

[SandisLL]

While I had saw the same former TMA guys previously trained in other gyms, before they competed in the same KB. KB is set of rules and they too are different.

TMA guys usually are telling, that such and such fighter does have karate / tkd base.
Okey.
I had saw such fighters previously cross trained.

Ofc, TMA trained properly, might work well, but there is very big difference due to rules.
Stuff we see in karate or TKD tournaments, does not ha open hands stuff etc. Stuff we call dirty wrestle, boxe etc isn't stuff we see in fights.
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Between semi contact and full conatct, there ir damn big gap in automatization flowchart:
1. you stop punch/ kick before contact 2. you stop on contact surface 3. you continue to punch/ kick after 1-3 inches when kick/ punch already had landed 4. you go " trough "target.

There was one gentleman, Budo Noah, who had these 2 examples: semi contact and full contact kick on target. I once had posted link to his video.

 

[SandisLL]

I think this was one from examples.
Mawashi-Geri Penetration Drill - YouTube

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So, I think if you want to kick hard your opponent, better is at least to use heavy bag as training target, not air.
In order at least to see power and possible effect from a kick.

 

[shinkyoku]

__________.
Like this stuff we see in semi contact karate torunaments: it isn't karate ideology,

Define "karate ideology"

like also stuff we see in KK kumite is not KK, cos they does knows more than is allowed to use under these rules.
Lik

You are aware that karate rules is a limit on which part of karate are allowed in sports? You are SUPPOSED to know more than the sport rules allow.
You are aware that even the grading basics are just that, only the bare bone basics? If you only know the basics, you are a poor practitioner.

 

[j123]

I think you've hit the nail on the head. People like the aesthetic of karate but want the practicality of kickboxing. But, as you note, if you're focusing on the practicality of it all then all that other stuff goes out the window - which then makes some people feel less "special" or something.

I've been posting on here a while and my engagement with karate has gone from training and sparring for personal benefit to teaching my son. And I teach him at home, without a gi (just whatever we're wearing), without belts, etc. but still with kata and kihon and kumite. And the #1 question he keeps asking me is "Dad, what belt would I be?"

I train him with full power on his side (obviously not on mine). All the techniques as he would get them as a blackbelt, not as a 7 year old while belt. He learns and applies kata application from day one (punches, kicks, locks, throws, etc.), free spars from day one. And yet he wants to have a colored belt. No matter how much I try to explain to him that getting a colored belt doesn't mean that he can fight or defend himself and that what I'm teaching him is stuff he can use right now. We're not marching up and down the room kicking and punching air for 45 minutes. If his punch lacks power, I can feel it in my ribs. If his blocks are slow/weak, he can feel it. If he's not moving his feet or his head, the feedback is immediate. He can fight, he can defend himself, he can escape a grab, etc....

...But he still wants a belt.

And I think that's exactly what you're pointing to - that desire for the imagery of being an "expert", of some kind of visual reward for training. But that sort of thing loses importance when people/arts switch to a focus on combat practicality, as in arts like kickboxing, boxing, etc. Kickboxing with belts would be wildly popular and eventually people would chase belt colors instead of effective fighting skills.

This actually happened at my old MMA gym, we were a predominantly no-gi school until about a year before I left, and what I found funny was the number of people who badmouthed traditional styles, belting systems, etc. early on.

Yet about 2 years down the line, the same folks were all trying to jump on any program that was a gym affiliate who offered what they could "transfer their assets" (skills) and be credited as a legit blue, purple, etc. it didn't bother me, because first and foremost I only care for pragmatism and really don't have any attachment to martial culture (who the hell knows, maybe I'll end up like them down the line, but for the time being its of no interest to me). But somehow the idea itched away at my former teammates to be "validated" so much where they were jumping at these opportunities, taking multiple seminars to be in good standing to be ranked.

Two of them did it for the reasons that they forsaw themselves the end of the line as competitors and eventually would look to open their own school. A more reasonable reason I think; For them, being someone belted would be alot easier to pitch to newer customers that walk through the door than as Dave or John who were studs from years of experience and competition, but aren't ranked through the "legit" system making it a bit iffy to those who look for authenticity, and in an age and location where mcdojoism and bullshido has basically ruined the image of combat sports.

 

[JohnPJones]

Wish I could be at their seminar.
A lot of the stuff I’ve been saying they’re saying.

 

[SandisLL]

Define "karate ideology"

I will not engage in empy decades long conversation.

You are aware that karate rules is a limit on which part of karate are allowed in sports? You are SUPPOSED to know more than the sport rules allow.

I had posted this long time, more than year ago and exactly in this forum subsection.

You are aware that even the grading basics are just that, only the bare bone basics? If you only know the basics, you are a poor practitioner.

I never had defined myself as karate practitioner.
I'm not a belt or something like this.

There are big things called real life: if you have time, good health condition and shape + opportunities and $, you train what you want.
If no, what is available and you are able to afford.

Now I'm doing business ( not combat sport or SD related ) and sometimes I had helped some pro boxers. Not with training, there some advise in matchmaking and sometimes ( rarely ) to get fights.

 

[panamaican]

Wish I could be at their seminar.
A lot of the stuff I’ve been saying they’re saying.

They're not saying what you're saying, they're saying what everyone has been saying for 20 years. People have to free spar with contact. They have to move away from the obsession with low, long stances which are for beginners and transition into more natural postures for fighters.

Train your kihon and your kata then you apply it in a natural fashion, in jiyu kumite. But once you get away from McDojos, every practitioner worth his/her salt has been saying this since UFC 1, since the 1960s, since Kyokushin. The problem isn't that karate needs to evolve, the problem is the huge number of dojos that never teach their students how to apply karate in a natural way, they obsess over the outward form of karate and their students suffer for it.

The Machida's didn't evolve karate, they took it back to the practical roots. They say as much in your video -- that you have to take karate back to its roots, as an art of self-defense, and that means realizing that applying techniques requires live opponents and who move and hit back and that every technique isn't going to be identical to the imagery in the kata and kihon. But, and I say this again, everyone with decent instruction knew this. No one with a good teacher was doing big wind up blocks. Plenty of people with bad instructors were. And there were way more bad instructors than good ones.

 

[JohnPJones]

They're not saying what you're saying, they're saying what everyone has been saying for 20 years. People have to free spar with contact. They have to move away from the obsession with low, long stances which are for beginners and transition into more natural postures for fighters.

Train your kihon and your kata then you apply it in a natural fashion, in jiyu kumite. But once you get away from McDojos, every practitioner worth his/her salt has been saying this since UFC 1, since the 1960s, since Kyokushin. The problem isn't that karate needs to evolve, the problem is the huge number of dojos that never teach their students how to apply karate in a natural way, they obsess over the outward form of karate and their students suffer for it.

The Machida's didn't evolve karate, they took it back to the practical roots. They say as much in your video -- that you have to take karate back to its roots, as an art of self-defense, and that means realizing that applying techniques requires live opponents and who move and hit back and that every technique isn't going to be identical to the imagery in the kata and kihon. But, and I say this again, everyone with decent instruction knew this. No one with a good teacher was doing big wind up blocks. Plenty of people with bad instructors were. And there were way more bad instructors than good ones.

Lmao, so karate has been teaching uselessly for 70+ years as a whole, but changing things to be useful isn’t an evolution…ok

 

[Sweeptheleg7]

They're not saying what you're saying, they're saying what everyone has been saying for 20 years. People have to free spar with contact. They have to move away from the obsession with low, long stances which are for beginners and transition into more natural postures for fighters.

Train your kihon and your kata then you apply it in a natural fashion, in jiyu kumite. But once you get away from McDojos, every practitioner worth his/her salt has been saying this since UFC 1, since the 1960s, since Kyokushin. The problem isn't that karate needs to evolve, the problem is the huge number of dojos that never teach their students how to apply karate in a natural way, they obsess over the outward form of karate and their students suffer for it.

The Machida's didn't evolve karate, they took it back to the practical roots. They say as much in your video -- that you have to take karate back to its roots, as an art of self-defense, and that means realizing that applying techniques requires live opponents and who move and hit back and that every technique isn't going to be identical to the imagery in the kata and kihon. But, and I say this again, everyone with decent instruction knew this. No one with a good teacher was doing big wind up blocks. Plenty of people with bad instructors were. And there were way more bad instructors than good ones.

It’s interesting how their take has changed over the years. They said everything they did was karate and their father modified shotokan with more lateral movement. Then it turns out lyoto hasn’t practiced kata for years but started training with some jka shotokan masters in Los angeles to go back to his karate roots. Then he opens an academy and their karate has a lot of kickboxing elements and adapted to teach the use of hooks and the clinch and knees they showed in that video looks very Muay Thai influenced. Both brothers have crossed trained, so it’s only natural and admitted the way the kata shows knees isn’t practical and when you do it with a live partner, you have to learn knees from different angles. Good stuff.

 

[panamaican]

Lmao, so karate has been teaching uselessly for 70+ years as a whole, but changing things to be useful isn’t an evolution…ok

Are you listening to your video? Returning to useful practices isn't evolving, it's returning to how things are supposed to be done.

 

[panamaican]

It’s interesting how their take has changed over the years. They said everything they did was karate and their father modified shotokan with more lateral movement. Then it turns out lyoto hasn’t practiced kata for years but started training with some jka shotokan masters in Los angeles to go back to his karate roots. Then he opens an academy and their karate has a lot of kickboxing elements and adapted to teach the use of hooks and the clinch and knees they showed in that video looks very Muay Thai influenced. Both brothers have crossed trained, so it’s only natural and admitted the way the kata shows knees isn’t practical and when you do it with a live partner, you have to learn knees from different angles. Good stuff.

Karate is going to look like kickboxing when trained properly for combat sports. Like the knees, the way it's demonstrated in the kata isn't practical but no one should be training techniques to look exactly like the kata in the first place -- that's the problem. The point was always to learn the big principles from the kata and then learn how to apply it on an individual level.

 

[Noodles03]

This is video is pretty cool.

 

[Hotora86]

I used to think the state of Karate was "depressing" but I've changed my mind. Karate styles have gone their separate ways but that means you can find the flavor of Karate that you like and still do Karate.

For example: you want an Olympic sport? WKF Shotokan
Less sporty but light contact? JKA Shotokan
That but with more grappling? Wado
Old-school with more bunkai? Shorin
Old-school with hard body conditioning? Goju
More sparring but no black eyes? Kyokushin
More kickboxing oriented? Seidokaikan, Ashihara
That but with more grappling? Shidokan
Full blown MMA in a gi? Kudo

And if you wanna drop the gi, the kata, the bunkai and all that Japanese terminology... then just do kickboxing (which was heavily influenced by Karate anyway).

 

[JohnPJones]

Karate is a fighting style, not a ruleset. In theory you should be able to enter a kickboxing or mma competition and fight in it with distinctively karate moves.

What the hell are distinctly karate moves?

 

[JohnPJones]

I used to think the state of Karate was "depressing" but I've changed my mind. Karate styles have gone their separate ways but that means you can find the flavor of Karate that you like and still do Karate.

For example: you want an Olympic sport? WKF Shotokan
Less sporty but light contact? JKA Shotokan
That but with more grappling? Wado
Old-school with more bunkai? Shorin
Old-school with hard body conditioning? Goju
More sparring but no black eyes? Kyokushin
More kickboxing oriented? Seidokaikan, Ashihara
That but with more grappling? Shidokan
Full blown MMA in a gi? Kudo

And if you wanna drop the gi, the kata, the bunkai and all that Japanese terminology... then just do kickboxing (which was heavily influenced by Karate anyway).

What does ‘old school’ even mean when you use it?

 

[Hotora86]

What does ‘old school’ even mean when you use it?

That's a great question. I think "Okinawan" would be the answer for me. Okinawan Karate differs from the one later developed in Japan, as you probably know. Jesse did a nice comparison both in his YT video as well as in this article:
https://www.karatebyjesse.com/10-differences-okinawan-karate-japanese-karate/

 

[Azam]

I used to think the state of Karate was "depressing" but I've changed my mind. Karate styles have gone their separate ways but that means you can find the flavor of Karate that you like and still do Karate.

For example: you want an Olympic sport? WKF Shotokan
Less sporty but light contact? JKA Shotokan
That but with more grappling? Wado
Old-school with more bunkai? Shorin
Old-school with hard body conditioning? Goju
More sparring but no black eyes? Kyokushin
More kickboxing oriented? Seidokaikan, Ashihara
That but with more grappling? Shidokan
Full blown MMA in a gi? Kudo

And if you wanna drop the gi, the kata, the bunkai and all that Japanese terminology... then just do kickboxing (which was heavily influenced by Karate anyway).

Wouldn't describe Kudo as a karate style in all honesty - has none of the kata, ido geiko, stances/uke etc that you would expect to find in a karate style.

Even the kihon is very different - basically kickboxing.

Only thing it shares with Karate is commonality with budo roots but even Judo has this to some extent (not unique to karate).

Otherwise I agree.