Why Traditional Karate is Not Effective for Self Defence

I'd stay on his/her blind side

 

Hehehe, good answer

 

It is important to note that the body is the body and size maters little with good traditional Karate. The exercises are just that, they developed the joints and the rest of the body.
Kata is a series of exercises which develop the body and the mind (when done properly) and adapt your personal fighting style to the muscles you train while doing them. Coupled with fighting practice (also a part of traditional MA) it is quit affective provided you have put in the hours of intense physical training to obtain the skill of mind an stamina of body to obtain them. Keep in mind that real MA where developed by warriors from experience and form movements and ideas that seldom change from art to art (using hips to make power for instance) If it were quick and easy everyone would be a martial artist but they are not and all’s the better.

 

Kataman

If you look in my photo section there is a pic under Karate (not me I must add!) but it is showing some very silly stances done and shown by Karate arts in the Kata's.

Can you explain a use for these stances?

I for one could invent something and perhaps blind or enforce if on some yellow belts but if trying to talk to a credible martial artisit I think I would be laughed at.

There are some things that work and work well in Karate, some should really be dropped though.

 

If anything karate needs more added.

 

When answering the question in short, times change.

Gruhn

 

Then that raises a good question. Given that a martial art "takes a lifetime to perfect", then where in the curriculum does additional material get added? Does anything get dropped? Or do you simply lengthen the process? And where does that lengthening take place?

The more basic question, of course, is what do you add?


Stuart

 

Right at the beggining, students need to be taught why they are doing the funny stances as originally there was a reason, they also need to add in grappling stuff as karate surely needs grappling.

 

I guess that's part of my point. Given that grappling can also be a lifetime endeavor, it's not necessarily the sort of thing that you can just "tack on." Know what I mean? I'm not dismissing your idea. I think it's definitely the right track. I'm just wondering how that gets implemented.

 

(editted - shortened by Thomas)

Anytime you add or change things in a system, there has to a rationale and deliberate reason and method for including and making it work. In other words, thinking "I'm standing so I'll use my TKD and when I'm on the ground I'll use my BJJ" is a good satrt but poitentially leaves out the middle... especially the act of ending up on the ground or avoiding ending up on the ground and getting up off the ground.

For us, we didn't have much grappling in place 10 years ago and we have added more (and are adding more), but we try to do it in a logical manner. For example:
When we train in breakfalls, we try to add a context, e.g. you backed up to avoid a guy and fell over a table. Then we take it the next step. "While you are down there..." the bad guy steps in to maybe kick you and from here we can work our leg traps and takedowns, covering up, and striking from the ground. Then we can take to where you took him down but he rolled and ended up on you... or you missed your strike and he is now on you. From there we need to work strikes, submissions and escapes.

We work the same method through sparring and self defence as well. When we are working self defence, both the attacker and defender use their skills to try to escape and regain the offensive. A single hand striaght wrist grab from a standing position may lead to a takedown and attempted ground submission with a counter and a counter to that.

By working the technqiues in with a spiralled pattern showing the clear meaning behind it and encouraging resistance and reaction is a good way to see what you are missing. Everey defence, strikes and counter is an opportunity for you or your partner to react with a strike, lock, or counter.

 

I wasn't even going to make an attempt to read the whole thread, so you'll have to forgive me if this is ground that has already been covered. Anyway-

I think that ultimately TMAs are going to have to come to terms with the fact that some things they hold dear may need to be eliminated or at least altered to become as effective as possible.

I myself practice a TMA, but as Self-Defense has become more of an issue, the curriculum as well as style has been greatly altered from its roots. Our stances have shallowed greatly, the emphasis to kicks to the head is now totally non-existent, we've drastically decreased the amount of point-sparring to nearly zero (We haven't even talked about it in 6 months.), upped the amount self-defense training (knife and gun scenarios, blind attacks, multiple attackers, and all usually as full contact as we can get.) and we've incorporated elements from Judo, HapKiDo, and even Greco-Roman wrestling into our style to help balance out grappling and the ground-game.

So you're probably saying "That's not Tae Kwon Do!", and I won't argue. It isn't, not in the "traditional" sense. Not to mention our ties to TKD were always tenuous at best, and we were tagged with that designation because of political reasons. But I think tradition is a great thing. I really do. And if it weren't for tradition, there wouldn't be a lot of the things we've built on and found success with. But as with everything, there ARE improvements to be made, and no style is perfect.

 

Thomas,

I've said it once and I'll say it again: You da man.


Stuart

 

Well said!

 

Just a question here,

How old does a martial arts style, system have to be to be considered Trational?
Bearing in mind that styles such as Karate, TKD, Kendo etc etc, are relatively new martial styles in comparisom to others such as Shaolin Kung Fu, FMA, Muay Thai etc.

So to say TMA is in effective has to pose another question, what are we really comparing TMA to, and what TMA are we talking about, because I do know Muay Thai, Certain Kung Fu Styles, FMA and even some of the older Japanese styles are very effective even in today's society.

Just a thought

 

Personally, I don't think the term TMA has anything to do with the objective age of a style. Just with the age of our exposure to a style. In other words, it doesn't matter that muay thai is older than taekwondo. What makes the perception of one being more traditional than the other is that, when I first became aware of martial arts, I was aware of taekwondo, karate, and kung fu long before I was aware of muay thai, bando, and eskrima.

EDIT: I guess what that means is that the conventions of taekwondo, karate, and kung fu (as practiced in the suburbs of the United States) became my "baseline." A sort of arbitrary tradition. And anything that deviated from that was regarded as "not traditional."

I think that's probably the case for lots of people. Perhaps many naysayers see pulled punches and endless kata as "traditional" simply because it matches their first cognitions of martial arts.


Stuart

 

This is tricky, lets view Karate like a basic form of southern CMA (as okinawa was close to southern china) most if not all southern CMA's use a system of grappling called chin nah. I think the bid point is that ju jitsu and karate need to join, add ju jitsu locks to karate positions, add meaning to kata and stances. (just like in southern CMA's)

 

I like that. Well said. I only ask because it's one thing to acknowledge the need for something. But success is mostly in the implementation, I guess.


Stuart

 

Good point, But I consider FMA and Muay Thai to be traditional in the sence that it has a set way of training your skills then after a time it is put into use Via some sort of heavy contact sparring to ensure your skills are workable in a real situation, something such as Karate that uses lets say a point system of sparring to my mind is a more modern approach and to my mind (my opinion that is) is unrealistic and a non traditional approach.

In my early MA days as a youth, the Karate I done was always applied Full Contact in a free flow fighting method.

So maybe what many consider to be traditional is a more modern adaptation of what was once a traditional system.

Regards


Pat

 

Exactly! I think yours is a much more accurate and, ultimately, useful definition of "traditional."

 

It'd mean that MMA is in fact more 'traditional' than most TMA is...