http://fightland.vice.com/blog/lyoto-machida-the-double-edged-sword-of-competition-karate I thought that article nailed the pros and cons of shobu-ippon type kumite pretty well. I think a certain number of the problems are down to the refereeing in WKF type competitions - scoring techniques for flash value rather than any combative value - but many also apply to the format itself. It's not often you read one of these articles about traditional karate and MMA where it's not by some MMA fanboy who did a few weeks of karate when he was 6. On the contrary, this guy makes a lot of valid points and backs them up. Good article, I thought.
Very good article. Thanks for sharing, Mr Moose. The point he makes about Machida's opponents providing force for collisions (and subsequent KOs) resonates with me, because it's the method Bill Wallace teaches. However, rather than just sit and wait (which leads to the stalemates referred to in the article), Bill took it a step further by testing his opponent's reactions, and then getting them to react to feints. He actively got them to walk into his punches and kicks.
From what I gather Jack Slack is a British guy that has trained in multiple martial arts and is a real technical and tactical historian of combat arts and sports. He's written several e-books and his articles are pretty much always superb. He mainly writes on MMA and boxing but is also pretty pro traditional arts too. I think he's going to be on the Joe Rogan podcast at some point which will probably have more details.
Just read the article again, and the dude's really spot on. Particularly on the move in modern sports karate towards a ridiculous level of reliance on a sliding ura mawashi geri ("hook kick") which couldn't do any damage even if it did connect as the vector of force is enirely forwards, not penetrating. I think we've been grumbling about that here in the MAP karate forum for years, but it's nice to see that we're not an isolated little clique of grumpy karateka in thinking it.
Hook kicks may not be the most powerful kicks but I wouldn't write them off completely. I think they have a place in competitive fighting but not as a bread-and-butter technique. I've certainly shaken up a few opponents with them in my time (admittedly strictly amateur semi-contact kickboxingy points sparring stuff). I find it interesting how the hook kick doesn't seem to be such a big thing in TKD though. At least the TKD people I know (WTF people) don't seem to (be able to) do it.
I'm not anti-hook-kick at all. I think done properly it can be a very strong attack, but it's very easy to get wrong and still be scored in competition. A lot of people mess up the direction of force in their ura mawashi geri so that their foot is aimed towards their opponent while their body is turning away. I think that a good hook kick is essentially an angled variation of a side kick and most of the decent ones I've seen have been performed that way - pushing into your opponent, not past or away from them.
The article criticises reaching, flicking hook kicks. It even shows an example of a good hook kick with knockout power. Hook kick is bread and butter in ITF TKD. I think the extreme side on stance in WTF TKD limits it's usefulness (no-one wants to get disqualified for kicking their opponent in the back of the head and knocking them out).
You make a really good point here. Hook kick is a great technique which catches most people by surprise (even those who know to expect it). It's my highest percentage move. But when I moved from semi-contact into full-contact, I had to adapt it because although it made a satisfying slap when it landed (in semi-contact), it wasn't enough to stop people coming forward (in full-contact). So it went from being an explicit hook kick (shoot the leg out to the side of the opponent's head -- like an off-centre side kick -- and flex the knee to score with the foot sole) into more of a pushing hook-axe kick. I could describe it, but Jason Bourelly illustrates it perfectly in the video below. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Muy7tFeW61M
re: hook kick as scoring technique vs proper strike: consider the difference between a regular hook kick and a spinning hook kick: the latter, when it lands, knocks people out left and right. part of this is the spin, which is really strong, but part is also that the motion always follows the same direction. with a regular hook kick, your leg goes one way, then the other, which is slow, and if you make it fast, it has almost no power. i think this is an artifact of it being trained during linework. in the same way that you turn during a basic back kick so that you're always moving in the same direction, you cross the leg over and back on a hook kick because you have a fixed direction to face in during basic training, with little regard to actual tactical positioning. if you have he hook kick as an exclusively outwards technique for when you end up sideways to start with (thus nullifying the issue of having to cross the leg over and bring it back, in the same way that back kicks are easier if your opponent is actually behind you, not in front of you), then it becomes quite a bit more interesting, although not a technique i'm terribly fond of, myself.
I do it the Wallace way. Partly out like a side kick and then whip the heel through. Usually with a little forward 45 degree slide in the direction of the kick on the supporting leg.
