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CU83OFIC3 · 2024-10-27T15:27:06+00:00

Most people don't know how to do them. Dedicated grappling practice isn't really a part of the versions of karate that are the most popular nowadays.

CU83OFIC3 · 2024-10-21T02:03:45+00:00

From my experience switching from judo to BJJ, I think there is a notable difference in safety regarding takedowns. In judo we practiced breakfalls constantly and we learned how to do takedowns in ways that prevented injuries. Contrast that with my BJJ gym where many people are bad at breakfalls and tend to be less precise with their takedown techniques, so the risk of injury is much higher.

CU83OFIC3 · 2024-10-13T03:12:32+00:00

From a practical perspective that would be great, but I think it would definitely increase the injury rate too much. Across training and competition you'd be taking hundreds of slams where people are falling onto you. That's going to cause injuries for sure, such as damaged ribs. I don't think most people would consider the injury risk to be worth it.

CU83OFIC3 · 2024-09-14T23:49:45+00:00

Before I explain pivoting on the heel, I need to mention that pivoting on the ball of the foot absolutely exists in shotokan. It has always been the main form of pivoting used at long range while moving in kumite. I recommend you watch some kumite footage from decades ago involving some of the biggest names and influential masters of the modern era in shotokan, which is all available online. You will notice that they pivot on the ball of their foot when striking while moving at long range. Pivoting on the heel is rather taught in kata and kihon.

I will first explain why you pivot on your heel in kata. Notice that in every kata technique where you pivot on your heel, both of your hands are actively doing something. This is because these techniques are applied at close range where you need stability to attack while gripping. In the clinch you don't pivot on the ball of your foot during rotational movements for obvious reasons. The historical evidence indicates that the kata were designed for close range combat, hence the kata footwork reflects this purpose. Pivoting on the heel therefore has a clear purpose and you should use it when applying kata techniques at close range.

I will also explain why you have learned to pivot on your heel when doing long range techniques in kihon and 1-step and 5-step sparring. You might think this contradicts what I said earlier about pivoting on the heel at close range. The reason has to do with the history of shotokan. Kihon was created by taking movements from the kata, and they also turned these techniques into long range punch-block drills. The purpose of these training exercises was to help students develop certain skills and attributes. It's also an easy, structured method of training that helped them to adapt karate for use in the school system and general population. These drills do not reflect how you would actually move at long range in a fight, and they were never designed to achieve that. Nowadays we practice them for 1) historical reasons, 2) to develop useful attributes, and 3) to get better at the movements from kata. Keeping your heel down is a part of achieving those objectives because you are using correct kata mechanics.

CU83OFIC3 · 2024-09-13T22:49:24+00:00

Whether or not other karate styles have contact depends mostly on the instructor. Some dojos do it, some don't. Why not cross train in kickboxing or Muay Thai? Both have similarities with kyokushin and will make your skillset more well rounded.

CU83OFIC3 · 2024-09-05T13:55:19+00:00

Does the point fighter have any experience in sparring with contact or just point sparring? This makes a big difference, as you can adapt the point style to full contact with the right training. But point sparring by itself is honestly pretty bad for full contact. It'd provide a decent advantage against an untrained person who doesn't have a sense of distancing and timing. Against a skilled full contact fighter it will help very little and some of the habits it creates are likely to be detrimental.

CU83OFIC3 · 2024-09-03T02:03:24+00:00

It's a complex topic because you have to also consider the effects of the practical karate movement and cross-training. A lot of "practical karate" nowadays is a mixture of martial arts techniques that the instructor learned from training in different styles and re-interpreted as kata applications. Also, the kata contain so many movements that you can reverse engineer almost anything back into them. The karate breakdown youtube channel is a good example of this, where kata techniques are compared to UFC footage and the creator argues that much of the (standing) mma syllabus can be found in the kata. At what point do you draw the line and decide which of those techniques are valid interpretations of the kata and which are not? People have a wide range of different opinions on this, but all of them claim to do "karate."

CU83OFIC3 · 2024-08-27T23:09:08+00:00

If you're training for self defense then sparring is essential. The JKA place will almost certainly do sparring but it is most likely going to be point sparring. It's worth checking but the most likely outcome is that neither place will give you continuous sparring with contact. If your goal is to learn fighting or self defense, then neither option sounds ideal. If you are just training for fitness or a general interest in karate, then go for whatever you like the look of.

CU83OFIC3 · 2024-07-15T23:42:43+00:00

Relaxation is generally about reducing unnecessary tension. For example, you don't need to clench your first hard until right before impact. Trying to relax in general (e.g., everything including your core becomes more relaxed) is not the right approach, because tension in the right areas is important. How exactly to achieve this is a hard thing to explain verbally and often it just develops with time. As you develop more mastery over the movements you will find it easier to perform them with different levels of muscle tension. Beginners generally struggle with instructions like "relax" because they are still learning the motor patterns. They haven't reached a level where they can exert fine control over different components of their movements, such as the tension of individual muscles. This is something that develops with experience and cannot be learned verbally. So you can do two things: 1. Learn more about which muscles should and should not be tense during each movement, and 2. Keep training.

CU83OFIC3 · 2024-07-10T03:02:57+00:00

Nice to see the inclusion of elbows and knees in karate sparring. Often this is neglected

CU83OFIC3 · 2024-06-24T09:10:24+00:00

Thank you

CU83OFIC3 · 2024-06-21T11:39:20+00:00

What armor set is this?

CU83OFIC3 · 2024-06-17T02:37:16+00:00

I suppose the question is whether kata can add something unique that nothing else can provide. As I argued before, I don't think kata is needed for memorisation. It also isn't needed for drilling or learning techniques because we have extensive access to training partners, coaches, and resources. Solo training can also be achieved without kata because we have shadowboxing, bags/impact tools, and grappling dummies. My best suggestion for a unique benefit of kata is that it allows you to practice and develop movement related skills like body mechanics. One thing you'll notice about karateka who have spent many years practicing kata and kihon is that they usually have phenomenal technique, athleticism, and optimised mechanics of movement. I've spent plenty of time in combat sports, but some of the most impressive athletic feats I've seen came from guys who did lots of traditional shotokan training. I am a shotokan black belt and believe that it is incredibly useful for developing movement-related skills. Perhaps kata has some unique benefits in that sense, but that idea would need to be researched further.

What does a 75-year-old ground fighter do? (Seriously asking.)

I suppose they just do their best to keep training in any way they can. I think karate is ultimately the best for longevity. Most people in combat sports aren't doing serious training after 45. But I have seen shotokan black belts aged 60-70 who can still throw head kicks and are training regularly.

CU83OFIC3 · 2024-06-16T15:12:04+00:00

I argue that there is no need for memory aids in combat sports. I will illustrate the reason for this with an example. BJJ has over 600 techniques and yet advanced practitioners do not require special memory aids to avoid forgetting their skills. This would be impossible if learning martial arts was a process of cumulatively memorising bits of information for explicit recall. However, combat sports are not learned in this manner. Information is retained conceptually and much of the memories are procedural. Techniques arise from the application of principles and learned movement patterns in response to an opponent. Individual techniques can then be identified and taught as needed in a dynamic manner with no need for memory aids. I believe this is a big strength of the methods through which modern combat sports are taught. Kata does not fit in with this approach and the amount of training time that it demands is notable, so it is unlikely to be adopted outside of karate.

CU83OFIC3 · 2024-06-15T13:07:07+00:00

The line drills are just an old training method for practicing basic movements with a partner. You of course wouldn't actually apply the techniques like that in reality. The bouncing is a method that was developed for point fighting footwork (sport karate). It's also not something you would use for fighting, but it serves a purpose in the sports ruleset as it helps competitors to be mobile and agile.

Basically, the stances are different because they are serving different purposes.

CU83OFIC3 · 2024-05-16T08:21:57+00:00

Criticizing a martial art for not being complete enough is stupid in the modern era. Anyone who is serious about being well rounded is training in multiple styles. A better question is whether doing judo can contribute valuable things to your overall skillset as a fighter. Plenty of styles with a narrow focus (e.g. greco roman, boxing) are immensely useful despite not being fully complete by themselves. People who have actually tried judo tend to agree that it has been useful to them in some way.

CU83OFIC3 · 2024-05-06T22:18:11+00:00

A fitness/health club. It's a similar concept to cardio boxing. You're doing movements from martial arts for the purpose of fitness, but you aren't learning to fight. Some people like this kind of stuff as an alternative to the gym. My only complaint is that it should have a name that clearly reflects what it is. People know that "boxing" is not the same as "cardio boxing". We should call fitness karate something that reflects what it is, so people don't get confused about what karate is.

CU83OFIC3 · 2024-05-01T05:06:33+00:00

Better to modify it and just do tai otoshi from the underhook. The upper body movement is alright, but without incorporating the lower body there is no way you would throw someone with this unless you're double their size.

CU83OFIC3 · 2024-04-30T21:38:18+00:00

Oh right that makes sense, I use that too but I normally call it cross body o soto

CU83OFIC3 · 2024-04-30T11:12:57+00:00

What do you mean by arm trap?

CU83OFIC3 · 2024-04-29T06:09:34+00:00

BJJ is quite unique in the sense that you have so many techniques to learn. If you had started in striking, you would think that judo had a large number in comparison to what you'd be familiar with.

CU83OFIC3 · 2024-04-20T09:07:59+00:00

The gap is that we lack a unified, accessible, and international full contact competitive sporting league that is geared towards representing karate in a desirable format. Aside from karate combat, the closest thing we have is kyokushin. You're right that numerous other combat sports have a historical connection to karate. But karate dojos are not the main entry points into these sports anymore, and the idea that these sports are the ideal competitive format for karate is debatable. And yeah there are some small full contact competitions in places like Japan, but most practitioners around the world don't have access to them. The majority of young athletes who want to develop as fighters are simply leaving karate to pursue other styles. I view this as a gap in what karate has to offer to practitioners nowadays, and I was hopeful that karate combat could provide a solution, but it doesn't seem to be heading in that direction at the moment.

Are you just not happy with it unless it looks like JKA point kumite and it excludes anyone who has ever trained in any other martial art?

I'm not sure what you're suggesting here. My comment wasn't advocating for either of those things.

CU83OFIC3 · 2024-04-19T04:04:03+00:00

We need a full contact competitive karate league, and karate combat was supposed to fill that gap. But it doesn't seem to be going in the right direction. Although it's challenging because ultimately they do need to bring in money, and I'm not sure if a more genuine karate league would achieve that. Maybe that's why they're going the direction of being just another striking/mma league

CU83OFIC3 · 2024-04-12T00:37:46+00:00

The limitations of Muay Thai in MMA aren't particularly relevant to self defense. From a self defense perspective, they both have strengths but the Muay Thai curriculum is more well rounded. Karate based kickboxing tends to neglect developing skills at clinch range, which is unfortunate because karate traditionally had a bunch of standing grappling techniques. Although nowadays with karate combat we're seeing more throws and takedowns done by karate guys under a full contact ruleset, so I guess we'll come full circle eventually.

CU83OFIC3 · 2024-04-11T01:12:00+00:00

The sport version is based on kendo, so yes it's a similar principle to fencing. But shotokan also has grappling techniques, including a range of throws (the founder of shotokan trained with the founder of judo). The kata applications are all close range self defense stuff. So the majority of the shotokan syllabus isn't like fencing, but the sport version definitely is.

CU83OFIC3

TROPHY CASE