Irn Bru Freak

I agree. But lets make sure all karake-ka aware that being able to lung lunch someone to chest with no power at high speed, as will similar in fencing, will not work that well in a real fight. The first black belt in norway was a woman, an incredibily good looking one at that, who was presented by her black belt by Eneoda non the less.... a couple of years ago a somali imigrent broke into her house and grabbed her, the first thign she did was a reverse punch to the stomach. It bounced right off the guy. He lifted her off the ground and she was lucky someone disturbed them before he did anything else. All of her karate training up until that point was based around sports concepts (touch point), not real fighting techniques. in the horredous sitatuion she had to use her tecnhiqie for real it simply didnt work. 20 years of training. Sport/kumite karate is simply that. Part of training to increase reaction time, footwork. Sport Karate/Kumite/any fighting with rules is simply not real fighting. As long as we all know that real street fighting techniques can be found in the kata, and practised using drills we can survive in an enviornment traditional karate was designed for. The street.

Summarises my point exactly. Thanks Karate developed into something like chinese wushu, looks great fun, but 5 year old with a spoon would be able to best you in a fight.

Not really. Kumite and any form of rule based fighting you can only practise say 30% of potential techniques as in a real fight. You/we are practicing timing, footwork in a stand up fight with guards etc. When was the last time you saw someone lift their hands up in a guard positon for a street fight, measure the distance and pull off a straight reverse punch? I haven't. Do you practice glassing someone in your dojo? Do you practice poking eyes out? Tearing a set of keys across someone face? Ripping a finger out of it's socket? stamping on peoples rib cage? Pulling out a pen from your pocket and stabbing someone in the face? Pushing one opponent away from you as someone else comes in behind you with a knife? What you practice in the dojo is different to what you would use in a real fight. We practice against polite martial artists, not the monsters that exist who really don't care.

Can't fault your points at all. I follow a simple if somewhat flawed line of reasoning in that anything where there there are rules containing the fight, leads someone into unrealistic techniques for the street. Granted, developing high impact strikes in the combat sports helps balance this slightly.

Sounds like you are saying you see the value in Kata, however most people dont use them as such? or are you saying all kata is as good as free style kata to music non sense? Hoping it's the former !

I don't understand this. Kata's are a colelction of techniques passed down from the masters as templates to hurt people. They contain the best techniques from a number of generations, a particular style. How then, have we ended up with events based around made up kata done to music? Do these people actually think they are learning/practising techniques that would be usable in a fight? This kind of thing is utterly useless and I simply can't understand why we in the martial arts community see it of any value. eg: Can someone explain ?

What are our thoughts on the differences between sparring/kumite/point fighting/boxing/thai boxing etc any rule based contest and street fighting? I've come across a number of people recently who see them as the same thing. To me the former is akin to fencing, and the latter on a battlefield with a What say you people of the forum?

Thnks everyone !

Hi All, Paul from Glasgow, Scotland here. I'm part of a Shotokan club based in Glasgow. Our website: https://www.karateglasgow.com We have recently set up that website, and placed posters in the places we train. Currently looking to do some demos in the three local secondary schools to attract some new blood. Looking for some other ideas to help bring others in, what methods have your clubs used to attract new students?

First post .... Hi all, Paul from glasgow. I train at https://www.karateglasgow.com Looking forward to contributing and having fun !