I'd like some karate-ka opinions on something I'm debating with myself....

I'm in total agreement with Mitlov. One thing I would say though, is that karate, done properly, SHOULD work in the ring.

 

Karate contains all sorts of techniques, some of which can be practised properly, some of which can't. The ones that can be practised would be the grappling techniques and punches and kicks. Those are all used in MMA and MMA is the best arena to put those techniques to the test. In my opinion the whole thing about karate taking all that time to learn is a cop-out. Purposely making something take longer just to cling to some over dramaticised philosophy is just impractical.

In my eyes, the ONLY way to be an effective fighter (in or outside of the ring) is to actually test what you know by fighting - there is NO substitute for experience. Back in times where people actually did put their karate to use regularly in reality, these oh so deadly techniques would have really been used and therefore developed and practised by the practitioner to a point where they became proficient by experience. Now in this day and age we don't go around fighting to the death regularly enough to be able to develop reliable technical ability in these "death touch" type techniques so they remain unpractised and therefore unreliable. What is, however available is MMA/full contact competition which does, granted, omit a lot of the more savage techniques, but it does provide a way for fighters to gain experience in using the techniques that are allowed.

So the choice for all of us modern day martial artists is either:

a) keep inefficiently training these techniques that you are unable to train full force/live and most likely never going to use which by default means that they are not going to be developed into anything reliable.

Or

b) mainly use the techniques that you know are effective and are able to use in full contact/live situations relatively safely and often enough so that you develop them into very reliable techniques that you have a lot of experience in using.

I'd much rather rely on well trained and practised punches, kicks and grappling techniques than a bunch of potentially deadly techniques that I will never actually get to put to the test.

I see no reason at all why I can't get all of that from karate.

 

I'm actually not convinced that vital-point-death-touches were EVER widely used in martial arts, even in the past. If I lived in the Tokugawa era and I wanted to kill someone with a "death touch," that death touch generally involved sharpened steel. If I was an Okinawan farmer who wanted to put the smack-down on invading samurai, I generally used farm implements (bo, tonfa, sai, nunchaku, kama).

You can certainly get all the things you describe from a good karate dojo. But you can ALSO get them just as readily from a good muay thai gym (or a good wing chun kwoon, etc). All other factors being equal, I don't think you get them any BETTER from karate than these other styles. So if your locality has a superb-quality muay thai gym and only a so-so quality Goju-Ryu dojo, which is going to give you the skills and experience you seek? The answer seems clear to me.

 

Yeah I get you. My point about the death touch thing should have been preceeded with "IF they ever worked". Meaning that if any unarmed, killing blow techniques ever worked, they only worked because they were actually put to use. The point being that unless something is used often in it's "real" environment, so the person doing it actually gets first hand experience in it, then I have very serious doubts about anyone's ability to use it effectively.

As for why I want to stick with karate, I just really would like to make it work. I have always liked it and I know it can be effective. People like Gavin Mulholland and anyone who trains/teaches like him would be exactly what I'm looking for, except he's all the way down in London. I think I am going to have to just accept my situation for now and do muay thai an MMA instead (and judo).

 

The competition vs. survival argument always intrigues me. We can see from one of the earliest Okinawan manuals, so early it may predate what we understand as "karate" (the "Bubishi") that there were certainly a wealth of maiming techniques. Several defense sequences include attacks to the eyes, throat, and groin. Just skimming through it I'd say they outnumber pure punching techniques, though felling and jointlocking techniques seem to outnumber even those. However, as it's been pointed out, Kano and others demonstrated the importance of being able to practice your techniques in a spontaneous, "live" setting.

Iain Abernethy approaches things from a slightly different point of view. He says that karate was meant to combat not trained fighters, but untrained aggressors, and therefore includes some defenses you're unlikely to need in a sport setting. Dr. John Titchen, in turn, uses police studies to determine common "Habitual Acts of Violence", and sure enough there's a number of attacks that occur in a street situation that are uncommon in a match fight. Even well-known BJJ and MMA competitor Renzo Gracie, in his book "Mastering Jujitsu", notes that streetfights start differently than an MMA match; Geoff Thompson, karateka-turned-bouncer, backs this up independently.

Incidentally, I never fail to be jealous that all these great karateka are in the UK and not in the Southeastern US.

BUT, I see no reason why karate can't be trained in a maner similar to competitive systems. The three karateka I listed above endorse varying, and usually progressive, degrees of contact training and sparring. Just speaking for myself, whenever I'm studying a system that doesn't include sparring as part of the curriculum, I get together with some buddies, we throw on some gloves and mouthpieces, and go to work. I still consider karate one of my "base arts" for my MMA training.

The argument that karate can't be used for competition just doesn't hold water in my oppinion. Like Mitlov says, we're training things like body mechanics, timing, etc. Does it have to be modified for a sporting arena? Sure. So does just about everything else, though, so that's no excuse. The core techniques and fighting principles carry over very well.

 

What I meant to highlight about anchoring power and keeping a stationary heel was not meant to be disparaging to sport fights. I was trying to distinguish between the two (traditional karate and sport) by noting a principle difference between actively pursuing a knockout, such as boxing, and defensively knocking someone out, which would be the best-case-scenario for a karateka. For a karateka who is fighting from a defensive position, he or she does not need to extend their own reach because the attacker is presumably the person closing the distance, conversely, if you were to be the attacker, you would also presumably be the one closing the distance and thus would want to stretch your punch, and raise your heel, to give yourself the advantage. Two different beasts.

Concerning death-touch blows in karate, I am unaware of any that exist. If anything, traditional Karate is an extremely pragmatic art. Um, Karate can be used in the ring, however some of it, for obvious reasons, must be stripped away, and only the more basic bunkai(s) of techniques can be used. When I speak of techniques that are off limits or could result in permanent damage or death, I'm not speaking of some weird, esoteric technique from Kill Bill that you can only understand in theory but never practice on a live person. I'm talking about eye gouging, grabbing someone's testicles and pulling as hard as you can, biting someone, riping someone's nose off...how much practice would you need to be able to effectively do this? It's about understanding your options in a fight. The reality is that most people don't even consider these options. If put in a head lock, often the most obvious solutions go untried, and the person inside the grip will try all these fancy reversals when they should be going for a groin strike. These are things that are prevalent in Karate and I imagine other traditional schools that are also frowned upon inside a ring.

I'm not saying Karate is better than any other styles, but being that this is the Karate forum I am talking about Karate.

 

Oh yeah, I mean there's stuff you can't do in a ring, it's just that I tend to think that these techniques are much more useful if there's a strong base of basic punching and kicking. I'm also aware that there are a few techniques found in kata bunkai that can be particularly nasty, e.g. the 'bombay twist' where you literally grab your opponent's head and do one of the motions from naihanchi to it. While I'm open to learning about that kind of stuff, I think that sport karateka are right to concentrate on the 'narrow but deep' range of a few simple techniques. I also have a healthy respect for what some people like to dismiss as 'sport fighting'.

 

This may be a stylistic difference between karate styles, but JKA Shotokan certainly does not advocate the sort of "defensive" fighting you describe. Instead, Shotokan teaches that the best defense is a good offense, and in times of crisis, the bum rush is your best friend That may be an exaggeration and oversimplification, but we certainly teach to close into the opponent, not wait for them to close on you.

Do you feel that bunkai analysis of kata has improved your biting skills, or made you a more effective biter? Same question with eye-gouging and groin grabs. Do you feel that kata training has made it more likely that you could take out someone's eye in a dark alley instead of merely scraping at their cheekbone or forehead, or that, while the blood flow to your brain is being cut off, you could effectively grab testicles through pants instead of just clawing the attacker's thighs?

You say these things are "prevalent" in karate. I can't say that I've ever practice poking at eyes in class, or pulling on someone's nose (I honestly hadn't heard of that last one before). How often do you train in them, and what does the training look like?

EDIT: As tone-of-voice doesn't carry over the internet, please note that I'm being curious, not sarcastic. The karate training you're alluding to is very different than the karate training I'm familiar with, and I'd like to better understand where you're coming from.

 

I sense a mocking tone in your writing...errr...well, my answer is surprisingly yes, in some respects! I do have bunkai(s) in my kata that involve grabbing someone's balls and pulling them into your punch, and other such nasty techniques. Do they make me a better biter? Well, that's just stupid, but there are places in kata, and ultimately karate, where these things are incorporated. I mean, I'm not sure why you seem hesitant over whether these techniques are viable means to self-defense. I mean, you write about these things as if they would be hard to do under pressure, and you neglect to realize that these are more intrinsic responses to aggression. I would hope that if you have the know-how to commit to an arm bar in a fight that you could also pull off biting them.

Edit: curiosity noted. I study an Okinawan style of Karate that doesn't come from Funakoshi.

 

When we study bunkai in class we incorporate a lot of joint locks, dirty fighting, such as pulling at someones nose to evade a choke hold, in addition to punching and kicking. We also practice some throws and some ground fighting.

 

I recognize that people can bite. My two-year-old does it quite well, unfortunately. So does Mike Tyson. My question regarding biting, though, is whether karate training has anything to do with it. The argument that karateka are better armed for real world altercations than MMA fighters because they have vicious techniques in their arsenal (including biting), necessarily requires karate to have BETTER biting than other people. After all, if karate does not IMPROVE your biting or eye-gouging, or give you the instinct to do it where that instinct did not already exist, then an MMA fighter can do it in real-world encounters just as well as a karateka, and that's not an advantage that traditional karate training has over competition-based training (or any bloke on the street).

I've seen groin strikes in kata bunkai, but that's the only one of the nasty techniques you describe that I've seen in my training. And yes, I do question the utility of groin strikes, because the groin is such an easy area to protect, and a not-quite-perfectly-aimed groin strike does essentially no harm to the opponent. I feel that the "magic bullet" of groin strikes has been overemphasized in self-defense. I'd much rather punch someone in the jaw or ear than try to poke their eye or grab their testicles. That's just my personal feeling about self-defense, not backed up by any proof or studies.

 

I think this will be my last post for the day. Sometimes, when people are taught more complicated techniques, such as reversals and joint locks, they lose perspective of more obvious, primitive solutions. I find that these dirty tactics are used by people who are forcefully inferior (i.e. children and some women) and come second nature, but are often overlooked by men who rely more on their brute strength, such as their punching power. This was never meant to be an exposition of why Karate is better than MMA, because I don't subscribe to this belief. But within the context of self-defense I find Karate to be effective, one of the reasons because I think it's versatile and IN ADDITION to effective punching and kicking it incorporates hair pulling, groin pulling (not just groin strikes), and others. I think you are being too much of a reductionist. It's not that Karate makes me a better hair puller, but that these tactics IN TANDEM with the kicking and punching and power of Karate are useful. I'm not espousing Karate's superiority. Why do all conversations around the martial arts always boil down to which style is better? This seems so pointless. They ALL have useful aspects to them...well, at least most of them.

 

Aemond, forgive my bluntness but it seems to me that you're using subtle terminology shifts to dismiss Mitlov's arguments rather than address them. You say you're not espousing karate's superiority, but you've already said that you believe it to be superior in the realm of self-defence, which is the main issue being discussed here.

If you're arguing that karate is superior to MMA for self defence because of its incorporation of biting, hair pulling and other techniques that are illegal in sparring, then your point is moot if an MMA fighter or even Joe Bloggs on the street is equally capable of doing it. If the actual training of karate does not make you better at pulling these techniques off against a fully resisting opponent who is intent on smashing your face in then you might as well just pay lip service to their utility and train MMA.

If you're arguing that karate is superior to MMA for self defence because it encourages the instinctive response of biting or gouging eyes then this raises a similar question - how does your karate training instill that instinct?

I think both questions can be answered when you compare the training of most MMA clubs to that of most karate clubs. The hard sparring and live training of MMA is far more likely IMO than the dead drills and light sparring of karate to develop the positional skill and physical fitness/strength to give these techniques a realistic chance of working in an actual fight and also the aggressive mentality needed to instinctively resort to such techniques. Yes, I am generalising - many karate clubs do hard sparring and grappling - but, as GojuKJoe said, there are no such clubs in his area.

I don't really get what you mean on the topic of knockout power. I'm not sure whether you mean, as per your earlier point, that keeping your heels planted generates more power (which I would not agree with as it inhibits the utilisation of your leg muscles to drive into the punch) or, as per your second point, that it's simply a strategic difference, as a defender won't be the one closing the distance to put power into the punch (which, again, I don't agree with, firstly because, as Mitlov mentioned, the best defence can be a strong offence, and secondly because the use of the foot generates power regardless of range). In either case, I don't think you raise any issues that are present in sport but not in street self defence or vice versa.

 

honestly, I'd have to agree with Mitlov, it won't be the same.
If you can find a good dojo then go to that dojo and train to your hearts content, but if you can't then I'd stick with the judo and muay tai and combine them. If you can remember some techniques from your old karate days, then incorporate them into your own style. For example I originally trained in jiu jitsu and then moved on to karate, but I still kept the throws and the idea of waiting for the opportune moment to initiate a technique. I'd just say do what you think is right, take my suggestions or not, it's your choice.

 

I think these techniques can be trained, not full contact in a sparring environment. Training your techniques, in kihon should be aimed a a fixed point, it may be dot on your heavybag. Aiming and distancing are trained by that. If trained propperly they can be transfered to a real situation.

Training techniques like fingerstrikes to the eye should be done holding back, or slightly deformed (maybe as a pat on the forhead.. whatever suits you).
All should be done with good supervision.

I wouldn't call these techniques 'to deadly to spar', I believe they can and should be trained. But for sparring, as you mention, I think it might be more appropriate to use slight substitutes, because it is safer in such a training situation.

Train them regularly: agreed
Can't be trained: disagreed

Karate being usefull in a ring: depends on rules and the fighters training.

 

What you need to bear in mind about fighting in a ring - the guys in there are really fighting, but those are not real fights.

 

On the other hand, I wouldn't like to come up against, say, randy couture in a real fight.

By the same token, there are karateka I wouldn't fight for a gold pig. But they tend to be 'fighters' rather than 'traditional' karateka.

I can't agree with this method of training where the motion that you perform is qualititavely different from the motion it is intended to represent. It seems a bit too much like playing tig. Besides, somebody with good basic skills can easily just add a poke in the eye to their repertoire, whereas somebody who has trained esoteric movements but without good distancing sounds a lot more like a pushover.

 

If it is your intention to kill someone, and you have a basic knowledge of the techniques to do so, then it wouldn't be difficult to do after subduing your opponent by smashing him silly. As long as you spend time training as a striker.

 

Agreed, but where does that get us? No martial art can claim to include "real fights." Anything short of a Project-Meyhem-esque situation (requiring members to go out and pick a fight in the real world with a complete stranger) is not a "real fight." Reality-based self defense drill? Not a real fight. Full contact, no-holds-barred sparring? Not a real fight.

 

This little tangent was one of the most interesting parts of the thread for me, so I've started a new topic in the general discussion section to talk about whether keeping the heel planted during a punch, or raising the heel, is a more effective way of generating power (all other issues such as mobility and stability aside):

http://www.martialartsplanet.com/forums/showthread.php?t=79973