Karate in MMA

Discussion in 'Karate' started by Renegade80, Aug 19, 2014.

  1. Renegade80

    Renegade80 Valued Member

  2. Hannibal

    Hannibal Cry HAVOC and let slip the Dogs of War!!! Supporter

    I think if you look hard enough at any physical endeavour you will find confirmation bias. It may look like karate, but it also looks like 3,000 other styles. If you are a karate stylist you will show flashes of karate in how you move, but it's worth bearing in mind that even Machida - Karate's MMA "poster boy - cross trains in Muay Thai. I would make the case that GSP represents the most visible MMA karate as a Kyokushin stylist, but then again as he does head shots maybe not......


    They are

    These are consistently used, but are not unique at all to Karatee and probably owe their genesis to muay thai

    Very bad idea in a competitive setting
     
    Last edited: Aug 19, 2014
  3. ap Oweyn

    ap Oweyn Ret. Supporter

    Um, right. And a quick side-by-side of Lyoto Machida's fight record and this fighter's reveal... ?
     
  4. liero

    liero Valued Member

    Good video.

    Faulty generalisation. You can't make blanket assumptions about an art or set of techniques based on one fight.

    But that 40 year old filipino martial artist had some 'game'
     
  5. Fish Of Doom

    Fish Of Doom Will : Mind : Motion Supporter

    machida's mma doesn't really look that much like karate either. his brother chinzo was a better representation, but iirc he got beat by grapplers a few times and dropped out of fighting or something. the old guy in the vid is a good representation of how karate striking looks when done properly, IMO, but the lack of guard is vexing.

    re: krotty techniques: kihon is not a way of fighting. they are ways of training movement patterns. when you fight, you fight, and that's it, you do whatever it takes not to get beaten into a pulp. some of what you do will be conditioned by the training you do in your dojo, but there is no law or commandment that says that you can't ground and pound or grapple or whatnot because you "do karate". and let's not get started on trying to fight using kihon. if you do that, you DESERVE to get beaten up.

    blocks work. i've used them in an MMA class against MMA trainees (granted, i'd been training for 12 years by then and i'm not exactly a fanatic traditionalist, but i am a krotty and kung fu guy through and through, AND i got owned by the grapplers), but that doesn't mean "kihon uke-waza will make you unhittable". it means that if you train your blocks against resistance you have a better chance of whacking an offending limb out of the way with that general motor pattern than you would otherwise.

    hikite i've addresed in my punching video in the technique thread. in kihon it keeps your shoulders stretched and un-borked, it removes the need to train backwards elbows, and MAY (or may not) be used as a pulling motion.

    another thing on use of blocks: how you block depends on where the strike is coming from, and on where your arms are in relation to that. an outside block against a contralateral punch is patently stupid and will get you a three-course knuckle sandwich meal before your arm is even halfway there. an inward block on the same side, though, can get there much faster, giving you a much higher chance of not getting your teeth knocked out. combine it with footwork to the outside, and then you're in a position where you can use a contralateral outward "block" to continue deflecting, check that arm and control it (after which proper karate striking can take place). and it's not that you go "oh, a punch/kick/whatever is coming from that direction, i better do XYZ block!" either, you see it coming and you whack it away or put something in the way, preferably with footwork and torso/head movement, and if you've trained your kihon right, against people actually trying to bonk you in the face, and have actually been bonked in the face upon failing to block, and learned from the experience, then that kihon will have some carryover to the motor skill required to not get hit.
     
  6. Renegade80

    Renegade80 Valued Member

    I'm not really sure what your point is here? Are you suggesting that an effective karate technique must be a muay Thai technique in disguise?

    That may or may not be true, but in either case it bears no relation to the point of the article I.e. Traditional techniques can be found to be effective in an mma setting.

    You seem to be suggesting that Muay Thai or a relationship to it is the only way something can be effective?

    Also why don't you feel basic blocks work? What is it about them that is ineffective? I'm not disagreeing with you but am curious as to your reasoning.

    Liero, are you suggesting that one example of a technique working is not enough to say that the technique is effective?
    If so I would disagree. The problem with trying to demand repeatability is that we cannot control any of the variables from one fight to the next.

    From the speed and angle of the blow inbound, to the reaction speed of the fighter and the number of hours and variety of training to be able to use a given technique, all are changing from fight to fight and in some cases from moment to moment within the fight.

    Therefore the best we can say is that technique x can be used effectively, once we've seen it done.
     
  7. ap Oweyn

    ap Oweyn Ret. Supporter

    Actually, that's precisely the problem with making that argument. If you show one isolated example of something working, you then have to take into account those very variables you so astutely listed above. Any number of them could account for the success of that isolated incident. If any one of them changed, we have no grounds to believe the actual technique is sound. That's precisely why repeatability is so important.
     
  8. Hannibal

    Hannibal Cry HAVOC and let slip the Dogs of War!!! Supporter

    No - read it again


    Not performed as a traditional technique they can't - I saw the video and the technique is modified to work in a full contact setting....something that woudl be called "bad technique" in the majority of TMA dojos. Why? because full contact fighting is not their area of concern or what they do well

    No - read it again

    Because they don't.

    They are slow, overexaggerated and can be circumvented by even a cursory feint. Basic blocks teach angles of dfense - try and use them against anyone of any level you will get squashed.

    The so called examples of low blocks in the linked video would again be scorned in a typical TMA context as having poor form

    So how do BJJ, boxers, Muay Thai fighters, Wrestlers et al consistently repeat the same techniques then?

    If you can't reapeat it it was a fluke
     
  9. Renegade80

    Renegade80 Valued Member

    You are right, but if we have only one or two fighters who put the time into developing a method our pool of data is too small. Asking for repeatability to judge a technique means asking for replicated training methods across a range of fighters and a range of fights.

    Without that control factor repeatability is meaningless.

    Hannibal, I re-read your post. Your point is unclear, please clarify.
     
  10. Hannibal

    Hannibal Cry HAVOC and let slip the Dogs of War!!! Supporter

    My point is "confimation bias" - you look for it, you find it
     
  11. ap Oweyn

    ap Oweyn Ret. Supporter

    Repeatability is never meaningless. If you had a slew of successful fighters using a technique, others will look to adopt it. Happened with high round kicks, flying knees, and a host of other previously shirked maneuvers. No control group needed.
     
  12. Kframe

    Kframe Valued Member

    Stupid forum ate my post...

    Hannibal I disagree with you sir, respectfully. I think the blogger has the right idea as spelled out in his earlier posts that the basic movements of the blocks as found in kata and kihon are to teach the proper angles of defense, not to be literally used as they are with their big exaggerated two arm movements. I think that the way the doctor was using them is the way they are intended to be used and that was what the basics were trying to achieve. However that said I would rather just do away with the complication of teaching the big exaggerated movements and just teach the application right off the bat.

    Don't know why karate/tkd persist in using this flawed methodology.

    I was taught to defend the same way as the doctor was using them, when I was at my karate/mma hybrid and used them to great success after that school closed and I was sparring at other places.

    I think the problem is, as Dan points out many times, is instructors not being taught proper karate and passing on flawed understanding to there students.
    Edit to add. Karate teachers teaching stupid things like chudan uke is a strike.... For the love of god how can anyone sane person come to that conclusion? The muscle whose name escapes me, that drives the primary "blocking" arm in chudan uke is one of the smallest and weakest. It is in no way or shape capable of delivering a damaging strike. However it doesn't take much energy to deflect/redirect something and that is something you can do with chudan uke.(when using the proper combat form of it, not the kihon basic form found in kata)

    What im finding funny is, im trying to decide between which school im going to train at. A tkd place or a JKD/kali place.. I think I just talked my self into the JKD place..
     
    Last edited: Aug 20, 2014
  13. Renegade80

    Renegade80 Valued Member

    Oweyn, I should have said the lack of repeatability is meaningless.

    The techniques in question are not fight enders but stylistic preferences so not things which are ever likely to be adopted across other styles.

    Hannibal, belief bias is just as problematic in these discussions: if you think karate sucks that will always be your conclusion regardless of what is presented to you.

    Also your assessment of what constitutes karate is highly debatable. Poor form is a comment reserved for practice of basics or kata. Sparring form is only bad if it impedes power or balance or something else that gets you hit. There is not one aspect of a karateka's form that isn't combative in purpose.

    Kframe, Dan's point of view is only one of many. I would find someone who trains the striking applications of uke waza and get them to hit you before you call them crazy.
     
  14. Hannibal

    Hannibal Cry HAVOC and let slip the Dogs of War!!! Supporter

    I didn't say karate sucks - you are using that supposition to reinforce your conclusions

    I hold a 1st Dan in Shotokan and still have many fond memories of my Shukokai days.

    Your comments absolutely reinforce my earlier point - you aren't seeing TMA techniques (which are less than 100 yrs old in most cases anyway) you are seeing variations on common themes that are not peculiar to ANY art per se....so when you see karate it is because you are looking for it; you could apply the same to ANY discipline and make a similar case....yet some, such as boxing, muay thai, BJJ, wrestling and judo maintain the same form from drilling as they do from practice so clearly there ARE more efficient training methodologies
     
  15. matveimediaarts

    matveimediaarts Underappreciated genius

    Can you explain why you believe this? I am unaware of Thai influence on karate styles ATM. (Kung fu influence is pretty obvious, though, such as the 8 direction defense/attack patterns like Tenshin Happo)

    Cheers.
     
  16. Kframe

    Kframe Valued Member

    Referencing the Chudan uke, it is crazy to think its a strike. The muscle group involved is to small to generate any power for a damaging strike. deflection does not take that much energy.
     
  17. Kframe

    Kframe Valued Member

    I agree with this for the most part. However, with the short time I had in judo, there was some slight differences in the basic practice of a throw and how it got applied in randori..

    However, your sentiment on how these things should be trained is exactly how I feel.
     
  18. Fish Of Doom

    Fish Of Doom Will : Mind : Motion Supporter

    you don't perform it correctly. it has a vertical element and a forwards element (that are what actually make it useful as a block in the first place), making the motion convertible into either a backfist or an uppercut. that said, it's not exactly my favourite technique. i'd rather just put in something like xingyiquan's zuan quan or heng quan and circumvent the whole issue.
     
  19. Kframe

    Kframe Valued Member

    I do know how to use it... I have used it as a deflection. Not my go to, but It does work. That however does not change the fact that the muscle group involved does not have enough mass to make it a damaging strike. The rotator cuff muscles to be exact.

    Can you explain how your able to get K.O power from such a tiny muscle group???

    http://dandjurdjevic.blogspot.com/2013/04/why-chudan-uke-makes-very-poor-strike.html

    I post that, because it jives with my own usage of it in past sparring.
     
  20. Renegade80

    Renegade80 Valued Member

    Except I haven't drawn any conclusions, only questioned yours.

    In general I agree with you, but then the article we are discussing does specify traditional techniques when speaking generally about techniques found in MMA (a subject referenced as an aside to another article).

    When the author talks about Karate techniques he talks about them in relation to a karateka. If it looks like karate and the person doing it is a karateka it seems reasonable to conclude the movement has been learned through a karate syllabus. Thus one can reasonably comment on the individual instance of karate's usage.

    The fact that the movements are so widespread across arts means only that if you don't know what art is in play you can't guess easily, and that ineffectiveness seems unlikely due to repeatability :p

    A bit like your Muay Thai references, I'm not sure what relative efficiency of different traditional syllabi have to do with it. I'm not sure that a difference between dojo form and fighting form is really that inefficient either.
     

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