I tend to call Kyokushin karate and offshoots as "knockdown" even though they are full contact in nature. "Full contact" as a style of Karate I tend to think of satin trousers and boxing gloves in a ring. Basically a sort of kickboxing.
Likewise - Dennis Alexio was one of the guys that I always thought was the business as I was growing up [ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pd772pmsFCU"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pd772pmsFCU[/ame]
It's not sport; it is a very well measured test, and none of those people were injured. I was just left of camera, and the only dodgey moment was about 3/4 of the way through the 2nd fight where I thought that an axe kick had damaged the brown belt's ribs. So did he, but he knew what to expect, cos he filmed the previous year's, eg. [ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FElnEMJKjQ4"]Seiki Juku Karate Black Belt Grading - Male Adults - Hampton April 2011 - Part 1 - YouTube[/ame]
You can see the guys being tested are physically knackered. Wouldnt want to know what they went through up until that point.
Yes Kyokushin is a knockdown system as one wins by knocking down his or her opponent. It is not a point system. A standard Kyokushin kumite takes 2 minutes and a 1 minute extension is given if it's a draw. But if there is no knockdown, one wins by several points from its aggressiveness in fighting and showing strength. One loses if that fighter continues to be on the defense, backwards movement or has expressed pain when hit by various attacks. Kyokushin fighters do not use gloves. The only protection is a groin guard and a mouth piece. As with these rules, there are restrictions as punches in the head is forbidden during kumite. The only exceptions are children and seniors (age 35 and above) as they can wear a head gear, shin guards and to some extent, mitts.
OP, in addition to what has already been mentioned, there are considerable fitness-related differences involved. Dishing out and withstanding incoming strikes meant to put you down and/or out are considerably more taxing, not only in terms of resilience-conditioning, but also in terms of cardio. Specifics related to timing and footwork will also differ, as--obviously--there are a great many strikes, combinations and angles which may score points, but not have any effect on an adversary trained and conditioned to fight in a full-contact context. For a person who is used to point (and yes, some point-sparring can include contact, but it's a whole different game), transferring to full-contact (also to any ruleset that includes grappling) involves a fair amount of adaptation in order to avoid gassing out early. Therefore, the preparatory fitness regimen will have to change considerably, in addition to the technical training regimen.
That definition exists here too. Strictly speaking, we're a Kyokushin offshoot but our training is more geared towards American kickboxing and ITF taekwondo techniques/rules.
Every time I read you saying this I think, "that makes absolutely no sense from what I know about traditional style MA." But it sounds pretty damned awesome. Would you consider your training to be a sort of evolution of traditional methods to training in martial arts?
I would call it "tailored" rather than evolved. That is, there are several versions of the black belt syllabus running parallel to each other that the individual can choose from depending on his or her preferences, physical make-up, and so on. The style is therefore adjusted to meet the needs of the stylist, rather than the other way round as is so common in martial arts. For example, we have a "sport route" to black belt for those people who like to spar and compete but hate doing kata (I'm one of them). And rather than say to everyone, "This is how we punch and it's the best way," we look to those styles which do it best - boxing for punching, taekwondo for kicking etc - and use it, modifying it along the way. I suppose you could call it the JKD effect upon karate.
