The Essence of Karate

[krys]

. But the chances of you finding the place it trained as it originally was are slim. Even if you go to the home country of the art you are unlikely to find it trained in an effecient manner. .

If you do some research, know what you are looking for, are ready to and have enough time there are fair chances to find the right stuff..... south east Asia isn't really a kindergarten.

One place I heard traditional styles were trained effectively was Russia and other former Soviet countries. A friend said he believes the reason that they are trained effectively in those countries is because the people in the former soviet seem to be more interested in self defense than tradition, its not marketed like in the U.S and because the martial arts were used mostly for the Soviet military.

I train RMA in eastern europe and my tp in Russia. They are trained effectively but there is no garantee you will be taught the right thing. Quite a few peoples went there and lost their time and $ practicing breakfalls and push ups.....
Besides there is some good stuff in weapon training but it isn't that good as what is taugh in south east asian arts.... most of the disarms will get you killed against somebody who knows weapon basics. One big problem is that rmas mostly consider single feed attacks....

[Toudiyama[NL]]

John Bluming, one of the highest ranking dans of karate and judo and a student of Mas Oyama,

Jon Bluming not John

9th dan Judo 10th dan Karate founder of Budokai ( kyokushin Budokai and Ashihara Budokai)

[Broadsword2004]

Jon Bluming not John

9th dan Judo 10th dan Karate founder of Budokai ( kyokushin Budokai and Ashihara Budokai)

I C, thanx for the correction there.

[Toudiyama[NL]]

Bluming was a one hit wonder, meaning he was one of the few, able to finish a fight with one punch

He never had to go to the ground because it never got that far

When he was not yet into Karate, he was just as good, if not better in Judo than Anton Geesink
This guy would throw almost anyone at the kodokan

BTW for those who don't know, budokai (kyokushin or Ashihara) is the incorporation of groundfighting into Karate

He brought Karate to the Netherlands and Kyokushin to Europe
He came back with a 6th Dan not because of his knowledge of Karate but because of his fightingskills ( not official but taken the timespan)

[CKD]

If you do some research, know what you are looking for, are ready to and have enough time there are fair chances to find the right stuff..... south east Asia isn't really a kindergarten.



I train RMA in eastern europe and my tp in Russia. They are trained effectively but there is no garantee you will be taught the right thing. Quite a few peoples went there and lost their time and $ practicing breakfalls and push ups.....
Besides there is some good stuff in weapon training but it isn't that good as what is taugh in south east asian arts.... most of the disarms will get you killed against somebody who knows weapon basics. One big problem is that rmas mostly consider single feed attacks....

By RMA do you mean Russian martial arts? I was talking about other traditional japanese and chinese styles. If you look at Russian MMA events you will see some karate guys hanging with thai boxers in standup. There are some pretty good schools in traditional styles there. The Soviet Union actually used to have a full contact karate championship in which striking could continue on the ground.

[Berserk001]

Berserk - go and find me any Karate-ka that has beaten any boxer. You have this theory, but that is all it is. There ARE some fantastic Karate fighters, but they are rare. And many of them do not count, as they got their effective skills by cross training in other arts - like Thai Boxing! And how does Kata teach you to "hit in the correct spot"? All it does is teach you to hit at certain angles that stay the same and have no regard for any change in size or position of an opponent.


Do Kata if you want to. It will make you better at........ Kata.

I never said that kata teaches you hit in the right spot it teaches you movements that you can use in a real combat

I am sure that you have not practice kata in your life

[Broadsword2004]

Kata teaches movements used in real combat in "kata form," meaning that when the bunkai is actually showed, you find you have to severely alter the way the movements are done; the mechanically-done movements of kata themselves are pretty worthless. They are only good for preserving certain techniques and nothing more.

[krys]

By RMA do you mean Russian martial arts?

Yes I meant ROSS, SYSTEMA, combat sambo. I too heard there are good chinese-japanese ma schools there. On another forum a spetsnaz officer said chinese master were invited to teach them tmas, his main instructor was a hung gar expert.
What I think is that ROSS and SYSTEMA are modified chinese mas with local russian imput (grapling), there are too many common points...

[darrianation]

TB makes some very excellent points and all of them are true. My take on kata is similar to his. Kata- It does not teach fighting, it does not give you fighting skills. Kata teaches only pre-determined strikes/blocks, footwork and direction changes that lacks spontaneity, resistance, and dynamics. Therefore it’s a non-specific as well as a dead exercise. The application of kata or in other words bunkai is also pre-determined, pre-arranged cooperative drills that are also dead.

Just because a karateka can execute a kata with great precision, fluidity, and with power does not mean he can do the same against a live, dynamic, and uncooperative partner or a real life attacker, the two are not connected. Kata and or bunkai also lack’s not only specificity, and overload principles they also lack on many levels the proper stimulus’s that produces sound fighting skills.

Kata is also counter-productive because it builds bad habits through improper neuro-muscle memorization. Cocking the hand/arm back, leaving the arm out at the end of the punch or block, unrealistic stop-go, and over exaggerated movements. You do not fight like this, but if you train like this there is a very real chance you will resort back to it when confronted with the rush of fear, stress, or adrenaline that often happens during a sudden and violent attack. This happens because your cognitive brain shuts down in the first few seconds of the attack, leaving you with your autonomic responses. So if you have trained and reinforced bad habits this will be how your autonomic nervous system will react, this can be dangerous.

Even though kata may teach some good things it still doesn’t teach fighting skills and coupled with the bad habits it reinforces at the end of the day the bad overrides the good.

My honest oppinion on kata, Get rid of KATA!!!

[CKD]

Yes I meant ROSS, SYSTEMA, combat sambo. I too heard there are good chinese-japanese ma schools there. On another forum a spetsnaz officer said chinese master were invited to teach them tmas, his main instructor was a hung gar expert.
What I think is that ROSS and SYSTEMA are modified chinese mas with local russian imput (grapling), there are too many common points...

Thats an interesting look at them. But I find them much more effective than the Chinese arts. Also there are boxing like strikes. But those two systems also take striking from Russian fistcuffs which has some eliptical strikes that look a bit like the Kung fu.

[Tom Yum]

On another forum a spetsnaz officer said chinese master were invited to teach them tmas, his main instructor was a hung gar expert.
What I think is that ROSS and SYSTEMA are modified chinese mas with local russian imput (grapling), there are too many common points...

I know nothing of Ross/SYSTEMA, but I read somewhere that after the Russians lost a war to Japan in the late 1800's, they studied Chinese systems, took what they found successfull and discarded the rest. Has anyone else heard this before?

[krys]

Thats an interesting look at them. But I find them much more effective than the Chinese arts. Also there are boxing like strikes. But those two systems also take striking from Russian fistcuffs which has some eliptical strikes that look a bit like the Kung fu.

These arts are really effective and can give you skills that would require long years of practice in many other tmas to aquire.... if I had to restrain my ma studies to two systems I would say rmas for empty hands and filipino-malaysian arts for armed combat.

There are many principles rmas share with internal cmas (bagua, taichi, hsing I), some exercises are actually identical..... for instance pushing hands, a sensitivity exercise with a staff, there is another where you hold tea cups in bagua and move them around your body in an elliptical way (tea shouldn't drop), in russian mas it is done with glasses (full of vodka ) .... rmas also use a lot of dynamic tension exercises like some forms of qi gong....

I would say russians learned real cmas, took the interesting parts, added local practices (leg fencing,grapling...), analysed and tested this scientifically and produced their own ma...

I know nothing of Ross/SYSTEMA, but I read somewhere that after the Russians lost a war to Japan in the late 1800's, they studied Chinese systems, took what they found successfull and discarded the rest. Has anyone else heard this before?

In 1904-1905 there was a war between Japan and Russia, the story says russians got heavy losses in the trenches when it came to close quarter combat. I heard this story too...

[Thai Bri]

I never said that kata teaches you hit in the right spot it teaches you movements that you can use in a real combat

I am sure that you have not practice kata in your life

You are very wrong. I studied Karate for many years. I initially believed all the bumph, just like you do now. And, as a police officer, I have had a great many fights. In my estimation less than 5% of the Karate training I underwent was of any use whatsoever.

Karate can be a highly effective form of fighting. Unfortunately it has been diluted for the stupid asses (like you) so that you'll pay thousands of dollars over many years to learn shite.

[Berserk001]

You are very wrong. I studied Karate for many years. I initially believed all the bumph, just like you do now. And, as a police officer, I have had a great many fights. In my estimation less than 5% of the Karate training I underwent was of any use whatsoever.

Karate can be a highly effective form of fighting. Unfortunately it has been diluted for the stupid asses (like you) so that you'll pay thousands of dollars over many years to learn shite.

you are probably a slow learner .Spell shit correct

[Thai Bri]

you are probably a slow learner .Spell shit correct

I will meet you any place in England to show you what I have learned. By the way, when I write "shite", it is because I mean "shite". If I wanted to write "shit", I would have written "shit". And I believe the phrase you are looking for would be "spell shit correctly".

Twats like you waste your own time and money. Why encourage millions of others to do the same? Have a nice day now.


Mike, re kicking in Kata. I do not think practicing it will help a real kick. The dynamics of a kick against thin air being so different to a kick against a target.