Drew

I know a couple that you may be referring to, but I disagree that there is no defending them. By following the general rule that you keep your hanging leg during the body triangle from being pinned beneath your opponent, you almost completely negate their ability to perform them. Also, flexible ankles make them pretty hard to crank on hard enough to get a tap.

Apprantly, most Karate schools agree with you. So in addition to the front kick, they teach one to do a side kick the same way you just did. By mimicking a front kick, but pivoting on the ball of the foot and delivering a side kick at the last second. Cool, the more the merrier.

As eloquently put as always MP, thank you for your response.

I want to discuss this strange obsession that many martial artists seem to have with eastern philosophy. Now, I don't have anything against this, I am just rather confused as to why so many westerners, whether they practice a martial art that has eastern roots like karate, or one with western roots like boxing, seem to be so drawn to philosophers like Confucius or Sun Tzu. Seriously, there are a lot of different military tacticians and philosophers out there, many of them with some really good things to say about their chosen subjects. Napoleon Bonaparte was one of the best tacticians in recorded history, and yet I have never read or heard of one martial artist studying his writings for some hidden knowledge applicable to their endeavors in life. The Book of Five Rings is touted as one of the best out their for sword fighting. And yet the book entitled "Paradoxes of Defence," written by Englishman George Silver goes almost completely unrecognized, despite being in English and covering a very broad spectrum of weapons and their proper use. Having made a conscious effort to find it in any of the multitude of libraries I have visited, I have only grasped success once. Yet I have found several copies of The Book of Five Rings in each of these libraries. Heck, Rembrandt and Musashi even shared many of the same painting philosophies (brush economy, just doing it instead of obsessing.) Musashi just happens to also have been a swordsman. Now, I realize not everyone will think this is so. I'm sure you can think up plenty of famous fighters or martial artists or what have you that study great minds from the west. What I am saying is that it seems more focus on great minds of the east. The question I want to pose to you folks is this: Have you had the same experience as me? Do you feel that western sciences and arts in general have been shunned by the bulk of the martial arts community? If so, why? If you disagree, how come?

I'm not really a karateka so please feel free to ignore me. However, when doing a front kick (I assume thats what a mae geri is based on my limited Japanese) I prefer to turn the toes of my supporting foot out for two reasons. One, my fighting stance has the toes of my rear foot turned out anyway, so I may as well turn them out at the end of the kick. Of course, not everyone stands with their rear foot like mine, I just find that to be natural and don't fight it. Two, a lot of people will see a front kick coming from a mile away and back up accordingly, but not as many will expect it to mutate into a side kick in mid-chamber. The foot turning outward and the hips opening up make this transition all the more natural. Again, I'm no karateka, but I think you will find martial arts in general a lot easier and much more rewarding if you listen to your body when training instead of mindlessly doing what your instructors do. Everyone is unique after all. Best of luck to you!

I am willing to place my left hand on a table, put my right fist over my left arm, apply liberal pressure and drag my knuckles across veins arteries and tendons. I will not do so with a knife. Different principles apply. I agree, blunt weapons can be handled differently than edged ones must be. You can grab the striking surface of a blunt object, but not of an edged object. Also, kicking at someone with a knife to try to overcome their reach without putting your vitals in danger is all good and well, but what happens if the aggressor frequently practices knife fighting? There is a good chance that he's going to slide back and stab you in the ankle, or worse slide up diagonally and slash your femoral artery open or stab you in the lower torso somewhere. I'm not saying that its a bad idea, just that being super aggressive might not get you anywhere with a cool-headed knife fighter. Luckily, and I don't know this for certain but I have a hunch, most guys who try to stab you probably aren't going to be all that skilled. But against a skilled aggressor who is better armed, defeat is likely and the decisions you make should be based on that fact.

Agreed.

I agree that one should keep it simple, but wonder if the only one with any success was just an example of someone with more practice. There are plenty of other very simple ways to defend against a knife attack that work well. Not to mention there are better uses for a down block.

Oh, thank you, I didn't think to do a search.

The first rule of practicing submissions: Don't be a jerk. This one rule has always kept my knees and those of my training partners perfectly safe.

I kind of want to see him wrestle now, and learn exactly what he does to get around having a paralyzed arm.

It may be helpful to add that when you are the person who has the others back, another safe and more controlling alternative to the standard hooks is to "anaconda" his torso like in this video:

Which blocks work and which don't really all depends on the knife itself and the way in which the attacker wields it. Is the knife very short, or very long? Is the attacker holding it upside down or right side up? It is much easier to use karate style blocks against a short weapon being wielded upside down, than say a butcher knife being held right side up. Not to say that short knives aren't dangerous, or that the upside down grip cannot be used to great effect. Its just that your defense must change with the situation, and I've found karate blocks to work best against the upside down grip. When fighting the right side up grip, I prefer to take a wrestlers approach and gain two-on-one wrist control of the offending hand, and work from there. That being said, I like to do the same thing against the alternate grip, karate blocks don't do it for me. As for the length of the weapon, the longer it is, the more evasive you must be until you have a chance to close the distance and take it away. Think fighting a fellow with a baseball bat or a sword. You have to evade until they are off balance or you going to get clobbered by the weapon. Against someone who knows what they are doing you are almost certain to lose anyway. I seem to have digressed. My point is that I feel there are better ways to defend against knifes (or other weapons) than with karate blocks. Coincidentally, have you ever explored using karate blocks as wrist grab releases? Read Shotokan's Secret by Bruce Clayton, very enlightening.

Thanks to the both of you.

I was wondering if anyone here new what ashihara meant in the context of the karate style. Does it literally mean foot belly karate? Do they have some strange obsession with kicking people in the stomach? Or a focus on those parts of the body in training? These are the only definitions that I know for these words and my dictionary doesn't have anything to add. Thanks in advance.

....What?

Yes, I study Submission Wrestling, I didn't really want to label myself but have updated my profile to reflect this. There are no grades, and I'm not writing a book, I just wanted some people to list some sources, that's all. Like: This fellow. Thanks bassaiguy, as it turns out I never have run across that book, thank you.

I'm sorry, I suppose that I was a bit vague. I've done plently of google searches both in Enlglish and Japanese servers, and have found quite a few interesting things. I was just hoping that the users here might have some little gems that I may have overlooked. It may help to note that I am particularly interested in the possible grappling disengagements contained within many of the kata, particularly naihanchi/tekki.

I'm not a karate guy but I have a general interest in the applications of the various kata in karate. I was hoping that the community here might contribute their own reasearch resources, regardless of the form of media. Links to other websites, book titles, or even a text only post describing the possible bunkai would all be welcome. Sources including pictures or video are preffered. Thank you in advance for your contributions!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C2DirtL7JBg Sorry I'm not sure how to embed a video or make a hyper link, I hope I did it right. That is a video of some guy who fought about five guys off by himself in a crowded street. In The Princess Bride the character Andre the Giant played said something like, "you see, you use different moves when you're fighting half a dozen people." This is amusing seeing as he was having the opposite problem most people seem to have which was fighting Wesley only instead of multiple attackers. Anyway, his advice seems to be supported by the fight in the video, that man looks like a boxer with his steadfast devotion to punches, but he almost constantly backpedals so he only has to fight one person at a time. In an actuall boxing match I would bet my shirt that he more often circles away from his opponent's rear hand than backpedals, but clearly that would not have done him much good against all of those people.

I agree very much with ps1. Many people that you ask this question of will tell you no, but I wonder if they have ever earnestly tried and succeeded in devising some method of damaging or avoiding being damaged by another person. When you get down to it, that is all a martial art is, a collection of techniques used to beat someone down. As for those who would argue that a teacher is needed to keep you from kicking with the side of your foot or rolling your wrist or whatever, I would argue that anyone who has put any honest, halfway intelligent effort into becoming an intelligent striker would figure these things out very quickly on their own. Perhaps the beginners that you have observed doing these things are just that? Beginners? I have come across the same thing: people who claim to have studied fighting, wrestling or what have you but can not back up the claim in a sparring match or even against a heavy bag. By the same token, I have met people who study at a school and even several instructors that may have pretty technique but no "oomph," so to speak. Actually, the only people I have come across who kick with the side of their foot are from schools. There is a common denominator in both of those cases: the fighters didn't approach combat seriously, didn't train seriously against other would-be fighters, and most of all were not conditioned enough to roll with someone who had taken these things seriously. I knew a little girl who taught herself how to knit. She used a book and many hours of trial and error as her teacher, and she can knit the most amazing things now. As with many things, the most important thing in martial arts is to practice hard and practice often. I would encourage you to follow in that girl's footsteps whether or not you have a teacher. Take whatever information you can get, be it from a teacher, the sparring match you just had, or the fight your just saw, and plug it in to your own trial and error process. Take a proactive approach to your own education and you will go far in any endeavor.