Karate or Practitioner?

[Tcell]

I notice that a lot of people these days really don't rate Karate.
It may be with good reason.
But to dismiss an art entirely....
I dunno.When people like Gary Spiers,Geoff Thompson,Peter Consterdine,Terry O'neil to name a few all come from a Karate background & all have years of experience working doors in some 'harsh' places.
I think the Karate they learned can't have been that useless.
But then again maybe it's the 'men' & not the art.

BTW - I don't train in Karate.

Cheers Jez.

[Tom Yum]

You can't assume just because a practicioner holds BB in karate or TKD means that they are a devastating fighter. It means they have attained a certain skill set and teaching ability, but if they train to fight either in full contact ring sports or as a body guard then that's a whole different story.

Ring fighting is a challenging sport and not too shabby in the way of self-defense. You fight against others who challenge your technique, strategy and conditioning.

Protection services is applied, realistic self-defense. From what I've read you have to get in the way of your client and a potential attacker. You have to restrain, control and if necessary, use crippling force.

So not only does the individual matter, the training style and conditioning matter as well.

PS- here's a thought...body guard who is also a pro-fighter.

[JaredExtreme]

Sadly most karate schools in the U.S. are McDojos. This doesn't mean that every single karate practioner sucks, but the ratio of good fighters per school is extremely low compared to other arts such as Muay Thai, BJJ, wrestling and boxing.

I'm sure that there's thousands of karate-ka's in the U.S. that could kick my ass, but I would be willing to wager that I could walk into any given karate school and defeat 70% of the students within.

[Szczepankiewicz]

I'd be willing to bet that your actual average Jared would be closer to 90 - 95 %.

[JaredExtreme]

Well I AM pretty tough......

[Nick]

Why do topics like this keep showing up? It's just going to turn into another arguement about how Muay Thai/BBJ is God's gift to the martial arts, whereas anything "traditional" is crappy.

I've been doing Okinawan Karate for about eight years now, and it seems pretty realistic to me. But I'm sure it pales in comparison to BBJ or Thai boxing.

Later...

[JaredExtreme]

Please refer to my thread about BJJ ineffectiveness......

[Lizard]

"BJJ is the best" OR "MT is the best". Best for what? If you are talking about which MAs are best for SELF DEFENSE then perhaps MT and BJJ are good choices. But try to remember that self defense isn't the only reason for doing MA. "Is karate good?". Good for what?

[Toudiyama[NL]]

I'm amazed that people think a MA that doesn't allow attacks to the back and the back of the head and that doesn't have any grabling is better suited for selfdefence( yes I mean MT)
Heck in MT the main means of defence is being better in taking the hits than your opponent is
just because you train/compete full contact doesn't make you better in selfdefence then arts that do not do so

Somehow people here tend to compare recreational karateka to competition thaibox fighters, I know several schools where they also have hours for people who want to do MT recreational, guess what, if the rec karateka and the req MT guy meet eachother in a real fight the outcome may not be what you expect it to be

As for time spend in training, there are karateschools whose focus is on WKF sparring, these can prep someone for matches in half a year or even less if you train more than 3x a week
backfist, reverse punch, front kick, roundhouse kick more of the basics isn't needed, yeah 1 or 2 adjusted blocks

[Lizard]

I don't like backfists. MT also does not have any palm strikes or hits to the throat. You don't learn to hit an opponent on the ground. There is also not much defensive moves taught in MT. Impractical moves? MT has them too: Spinning back elbow, kicks to the head. MT is by no means perfect. But it does have elbows, knees and powerful low kicks.

[Tom Yum]

Muay Thai uses palm strikes when applied to self-defense; traditional MT uses the palm strike because it is better than the knuckles when it comes to barefist. You can throw a palm jab, cross or hook as easily as with a fist.

However, some styles of martial arts have some pretty good palm techniques - the Chinese based karate systems and kung-fu. I have never experienced a palm strike to my arms in MT, however I have experienced limb destruction

[DRLashambe]

MT doesn't have any defenses? Limb destructions serve as both a defense and an attack at the same time. I certainly am not training to just "take a hit." I'm pretty sure everyone has, by now, seen the video of the block that lead to the opponent's shin breaking in a MT match. My goal, and one of the reasons that I tend to dilike traditional MA is to find the shortest distance between two points. I don't think I need to learn 14 moves when one will suffice. I don't need to learn a complicated kata "dance" when I could spend my time training to hit harder and faster.

[Lizard]

Limb destruction? I haven't learnt about them. Is that like using a parry to guide an opponent's fist into an elbow and using a knee shield to damage an opponent's leg? Any other examples?

[Toudiyama[NL]]

Want a fast way buy teargas or a gun saves you a lot of time training

My point is actually that people overestimate the value of contact during sparring

A last point, a trad MA school where people attain black belt level in a year isn't trusted and called a McDojo but it taking longer is also not good, see the dilemma?

[Tom Yum]

Elbow to the bicep against cross/haymaker. There are others