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The History of Karate

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101–110 of 112 posts

Re: The History of Karate

#101
post #8

I was a great believer in karate as a combat sport for many years. The arrival of MMA proved the true effectiveness of each of the martial arts in an actual combat situation. Karate has value in combat, but it’s certainly not as effective as I originally thought. I took my son to do karate training for a year and watched the classes and honestly it seemed pretty worthless to me as a way of learning to fight/defend yo…

I disagree.

Vale Tudo came before MMA and had the most effective value for actual combat situations.

- No rounds

- No hand wraps and gloves

- No resets to standing for “non-action”

- Attacks to prone opponents

The problem is that there’s a big gap between “sports martial arts” rules and “self defense.”

Sport BJJ is just as bad as karate for self-defense because there’s lot of new movements that just don’t make sense when you’re attacked at a frat house or walking home late.

Old school BJJ grappling (Carlson Gracie) with a focus on self defense is literally the best thing for smaller people, women & children because there’s a focus on:

- minimizing damage to yourself

- escaping and reversing compromising positions

- having MULTIPLE options to either kill, break a bone or put your attacker to sleep

- (if needed) striking with elbows and knees.

Re: The History of Karate

#102
post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The arrival of MMA proved the true effectiveness of each of the martial arts in an actual combat situation. MMA is not an actual combat situation. A lot of what makes fighting style effective in real combat is simply not allowed in MMA (for good reasons). Things like: - attacking your penis and trying to cause injury there, - attacking your throat and trying to cause injury there, - sticking fingers into eyes, - tr…

These arguments have all been beaten to death I'm afraid. General consensus is that a boxer who actually gets to punch and be punched by another human being will be far more effective at any of the eye gouges/throat attacks etc than someone who does not have sparring as a focus. Or just try to imagine a situation where someone who doesn't constantly train sparring can kick a knee of a kickboxer who does spar a lot an…

>"General consensus is that a boxer who actually gets to punch and be punched by another human being will be far more effective at any of the eye gouges/throat attacks etc than someone who does not have sparring as a focus."

Consensus? Has someone done an actual survey or a study?

If you train, you will probably fight as you train. The techniques that you learn and repeat are the patterns that your brain will follow under stress of combat.

BTW how does the typical MA fighter respond to someone who picks up a metal pipe (2x4, rock, knife, gun) and proceeds to attack the MA fighter? I would hope that (s)he would do the reasonable thing: get the hell out of the area!

Avoidance & evasion are the most useful "martial arts".

Re: The History of Karate

#103
post #72
post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1.) You are guessing. 2.) If you need to explain yourself to strangers who demand to be explained why your kid does this or that sport, you will say something simple and socially acceptable. Neurotypical people wont start explaining in nuance. 3.) No one ever asked me why my kids do dancing or swimming. It is simply not question anyone asks normally.

You are right that ‘why’ is rarely asked directly - it seems like a blunt interrogation. But, it’s quite common for people to ask questions like ‘how did they get into that?’. Also, why does it have to be a ‘stranger’ asking the question? Again I agree that would be odd, but it doesn’t seem odd for a friend to be curious. Also: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27817729

> But, it’s quite common for people to ask questions like ‘how did they get into that?’.

No, I never had that question asked about dancing nor swimming or any other sport. I think it can possibly come out if someone finds the sport to be odd, but at this point Karate is not an odd sport. It is extremely common sport.

Re: The History of Karate

#104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Then shout and run. Everything else you do in a fight should just be in order to get to this step.

Exactly. It is unclear to me however if anything I wrote contradict it or if you just wanted to stress it.

Just wanted to stress it because that quote contained the essence of what I was always taught in Karate.

Re: The History of Karate

#105
post #8

I was a great believer in karate as a combat sport for many years. The arrival of MMA proved the true effectiveness of each of the martial arts in an actual combat situation. Karate has value in combat, but it’s certainly not as effective as I originally thought. I took my son to do karate training for a year and watched the classes and honestly it seemed pretty worthless to me as a way of learning to fight/defend yo…

* If your goal is for your child to learn to fight, then do boxing or kickboxing or Brazilian jiu jitsu.* Yes and I’d add wrestling.

Yes as a former judoka I think that it's nearly useless in the real world, what if your opponent wears a no sleave tee-shirt? You've never trained for such situation! In one to one, wrestling can be useful but against two opponents it's useless too..

Re: The History of Karate

#106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These arguments have all been beaten to death I'm afraid. General consensus is that a boxer who actually gets to punch and be punched by another human being will be far more effective at any of the eye gouges/throat attacks etc than someone who does not have sparring as a focus. Or just try to imagine a situation where someone who doesn't constantly train sparring can kick a knee of a kickboxer who does spar a lot an…

>"General consensus is that a boxer who actually gets to punch and be punched by another human being will be far more effective at any of the eye gouges/throat attacks etc than someone who does not have sparring as a focus." Consensus? Has someone done an actual survey or a study? If you train, you will probably fight as you train. The techniques that you learn and repeat are the patterns that your brain will follow…

> Consensus? Has someone done an actual survey or a study?

Oh god no, there are no studies as far as I know. But what I refer to consensus is the general feeling one gets by browsing martial arts forums. There used to be a great forum on this very subject - bullshido. For years and years folks have discussed these exact questions of effectiveness of deadly martial art techniques.

> Avoidance & evasion are the most useful "martial arts". Goes without saying!

Re: The History of Karate

#107
post #8

I was a great believer in karate as a combat sport for many years. The arrival of MMA proved the true effectiveness of each of the martial arts in an actual combat situation. Karate has value in combat, but it’s certainly not as effective as I originally thought. I took my son to do karate training for a year and watched the classes and honestly it seemed pretty worthless to me as a way of learning to fight/defend yo…

I disagree. Vale Tudo came before MMA and had the most effective value for actual combat situations. - No rounds - No hand wraps and gloves - No resets to standing for “non-action” - Attacks to prone opponents The problem is that there’s a big gap between “sports martial arts” rules and “self defense.” Sport BJJ is just as bad as karate for self-defense because there’s lot of new movements that just don’t make sense…

> The problem is that there’s a big gap between “sports martial arts” rules and “self defense.”

The "sport" aspect is the most important part for becoming an effective fighter. And being an effective fighter is paramount for self-defense situations.

The "sport vs self-defense" argument is a false dichotomy anyways. If my "sport" consists of me wrestling resisting humans to the ground, controlling all of their limbs, and potentially putting them to sleep, then my "sport" is an extremely effective form of self-defense.

Re: The History of Karate

#108
post #103
post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are right that ‘why’ is rarely asked directly - it seems like a blunt interrogation. But, it’s quite common for people to ask questions like ‘how did they get into that?’. Also, why does it have to be a ‘stranger’ asking the question? Again I agree that would be odd, but it doesn’t seem odd for a friend to be curious. Also: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27817729

> But, it’s quite common for people to ask questions like ‘how did they get into that?’. No, I never had that question asked about dancing nor swimming or any other sport. I think it can possibly come out if someone finds the sport to be odd, but at this point Karate is not an odd sport. It is extremely common sport.

> No, I never had that question asked about dancing nor swimming or any other sport.

Or it could be that your experience of disinterest is not universal.

I know plenty of people who express interest in what other people and their kids do, whether they are odd or not.

Re: The History of Karate

#109
post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

* If your goal is for your child to learn to fight, then do boxing or kickboxing or Brazilian jiu jitsu.* Yes and I’d add wrestling.

Yes as a former judoka I think that it's nearly useless in the real world, what if your opponent wears a no sleave tee-shirt? You've never trained for such situation! In one to one, wrestling can be useful but against two opponents it's useless too..

I think beating two opponents is a myth at best for any Art - especially if they know what they’re doing.

Re: The History of Karate

#110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems predicated on the assumption that Krav makes you a less skilled/unskilled striker/grappler when compared to say MMA or others, but I don't see any reason why this would be the case? So where are all the successful Krav-trained strikers and grapplers in the MMA world? If the striking and grappling are as effective as other styles that have stood the test of time, it's remarkable that there are still few if an…

So where are all the successful Krav-trained strikers and grapplers in the MMA world? If the striking and grappling are as effective as other styles that have stood the test of time, it's remarkable that there are still few if any high-level MMA fighters with a Krav background. Professional fighters aren't going to study a system where 50%+ of what they learn is disallowed in competitions. However, Krav _is_ used by/…

Well if your Krav classes include live sparring (not point or light sparring) then it's going to be more effective than the classes I have observed. And that's kind of the issue with Krav, maybe you'll learn some useful techniques and maybe your classes involve sparring, but there's no guarantee. And if you do have sparring it just ends up looking like poor boxing and BJJ. Why not just learn the real thing?

At the end of the day, of course techniques matter, but it's far more important that your martial art incorporates LOTS of live sparring. It needs to become second nature to apply your techniques against live/resisting/struggling humans that are trying to apply their techniques on you. That is why wrestling/judo/BJJ/boxing/MT are so dominant in MMA, NOT because of the "rule-following" techniques they use.

If a guy who has spent his training learning "street" techniques that you can't actually spar with (eye/groin/throat attacks) had to actually fight someone who has spent his training applying "non-street" attacks live for hundreds of hours, it wouldn't even be a fair fight.

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