MadMatt

Judo has very effective practicle applications for self defence. Striking arts utilize body parts as weapons and although useful at times, this can cause injury to yourself as well as your attacker (ie broken hand, foot or shin etc). The goal of Judo is to break balance and use the ground as your weapon. Please try to punch, kick or even grab someone when you are off balance, it is very difficult if not impossible in most cases. Then imagine your body hitting the ground at around 70kph (from a good hip throw), the consequences are devestating. It is a tough MA to learn and rather scary (IMO) at first, injuries are common but that is a part of the art, you just have to learn from them and condition your body to deal with the punishment.

I feel alot of the traditional karate stances have very little practicle application in actual fighting. Their main purpose is to develop strength, co-ordination and balance whilst moving which is very beneficial to the martial artist's long term development but when it comes to actual fighting the boxing/kickboxing method is the most efficient and effective. The reason people use it is not because of a deficiancy in their training or ability it is because of their basic understanding of what works in continous fighting.

b3n, Yes i think that's it, after you close your eyes, then open and do that breathing technique where you expel all the air from your lungs and squeeze you abs together. Then go into kibadachi. Its a punching kata moving from different stances, very strong kata I think. Geez I need to brush up on my terminology. White Warlock, I can understand what your saying but that's a part of learning karate and it's out of respect to the old masters. So I wouldn't really say they are 'token Japanese words', it means if I go to Japan or anywhere in the world I can train at a Kyokushin dojo and recognize the commands regardless of what language they speak. So you see it does have benefits. Oh well each to their own I guess.

My favorite kata is skito or skino kata (sorry I don't know how to spell it), but I still have many to learn. Oh well training, training and more training...eventually I'll get there!

I believe Sosai Oyama used to warn against this happening and was very frustrated at dojos not teaching all the aspects of the original syllabus. To focus entirely on tournament fighting greatly reduces the effectiveness of Kyokushin as a martial art as a whole, if that is their desire, then fine but in that case they should not claim to be Kyokushinkai.

If the guy was training with Team Quest or Militech, even for only a year, then I reckon he'd be a very dangerous fighter and would destroy most Traditional MA's no matter how long they've been training. But put him up against a seasoned Kyokushin fighter or Judo player then he'd have to have some previous fighting ability. It comes down to conditioning, I've seen a few knockdown tournaments where a yellow belt who's only had a years training destroys a black belt with vast experience, the reason is the yellow belt has done 3 months of solid tournament fighting prep whereas the black belt has been doing classes. There is no comparison. Muay Thai is the meanest toughest ring sport on the planet, if you've seen tougher things in karate I suggest you compare a full MT bout to a full contact tournament, that's why I do knockdown tournaments and not MT bouts.

The girls go hard at my dojo, you gotta keep your hands up coz their legs are like whips!

I'm training for a ring karate event coming up in two weeks. This will be my 3rd fight (I've had 1 win and 1 loss so I bloody have to win this one!!). This has been my training schedule for the past 4 weeks... Karate Class - Mon, Wed Judo Class - Tues, Thurs, Sun Fighting Karate Class - Fri Kata Class - Sat Running/Sprints (before Karate) - Mon, Wed, Fri Skipping and Weights (before Judo) - Tues and Thurs Bag work and sparring (after Karate) - Mon, Wed. Saturday is my rest day as kata class is pretty easy but I really enjoy doing it. It's been hard work but I've had no real injuries, I take protien suppliments to assist recovery, multivitamins and have a high energy diet. I do alot of stretching and walk 20mins to and from the dojos to loosen the legs up before and after training.

I was attacked by two girls after I had a fight with a guy, they really wanted to start it back up again, I just reacted, they were a threat and instinctivly I knew I had to keep them at range or the guy would be back on me. I dropped one with a side kick and swept the other off her feet, then held them in front of me (one arm each) so the guy couldn't attack. Eventually they wore themselves out and a large crowd had gathered so we all went our separate ways. All over a cigarrette and I don't even smoke! In these situations I think we just react the best we can, I was in fight mode, I felt bad about it but knew I had done the right thing in order to get out of the situation without getting hurt.

Also i was wondering how much self defence training you guys do at your Kyokushin dojos? We only do it when grading is coming up, otherwise it's all tournament fighting, but I really want to learn the take-downs, sweeps and joint locks!!

That's the beauty of Judo ground work (or so my instructor likes to tell us over and over again) is that Judo is designed to get you off your back and back onto your feet where BJJ guys want to take it to the ground and stay there. Plenty of fights go to the ground but usually only one person stays there...the one that gets knocked out! I still like watching BJJ though and I wouldn't mess with any of them! We do a far bit of ju jitsu with our judo coz it's a very traditional dojo, we learn combat judo not just sport.

For sparring to be really effective for the street it needs to be done at all ranges (standing at range, close quarter, standing clinch, ground), under resistance and emotional pressure. The problem for most karate systems (including my own) is that we spar under a set of rules that disallow a lot of techniques that if applied could be the difference in the street confrontation. Practicing complex SD manouvres in the dojo with a compliant partner only produces false confidence, most of the time you will not have the time or ability to think and react quickly enough to make them work. Add emotional pressure under severe duress and the chances of them working are even greater. The key for Karate instructors, in my opinion, is to separate tournament sparring from street SD training. Instructors need to put real pressure on their students to perform simple SD techniques under duress against resistant training partners. For example, 3 onto 1 sparring with the 3 attackers yelling obsenities pushin and shoving. How would you react? Of course safety is an issue but if all karate styles in general want to be taken seriously as effective forms of self defence then instructors need to re-evalute the way they train their students. They really need to research what the top reality based self defence instructors are doing and incorporate it into their syllabus. Just my thoughts though.

There are no weak martial arts only weak students or instructors. Look at the ability of their black belts, compar them with other black belts from other styles and make up your own mind. Strength is as much mental as it is physical.

Kyokushin and Judo

Just wanted to add I always laugh when people bring up the no face punching thing as a disadvantage for the street, and I agree you can just aim a bit higher, we do practice it doing kihon, but who needs to punch to the face when you can break someone's arm with one kick?

G'day guys, Our dojo is pretty full on into tournaments. Our Shihan runs 4 local tournaments a year, we have one state and one National tournament per year and then he runs Ring Karate events (which are Kyokushin rules over 3 or 5 rounds in the ring) twice a year, and it is all about perserverance and learning to train and fight through pain. I spend most of my days limping around and I always have bruises on most main parts of my body. But I'm young and wouldn't have it any other way. Shotokan is a great traditional style and I think the older I get the more I will focus on self defence techniques, and perfecting the kihon and kata of Kyokushin.

Some good points there guys, y2-sub, I have heard of it before and I checked out one website but I really know very little except that it's a variation of Kyokushin with throws and groundfighting and they wear special helmuts to allow punches to the head without gloves? If you can expand on that I would be interested to learn more.

I think it's a good idea, it would certainly add another dimension to the fighting. I have been thinking lately it would be good to combine judo and kyokushin rules in some way to add grappling, throwing and ground fighting as well as the stand up striking (no striking on the ground though, still no face punches but still no padding either!). The two original budo forms united! Just a thought...sorry for the rant!

I agree with what everyone is saying, I think Kyokushin in it's original form was a complete style but it definitly has lost some of its overall practicality due to so much emphasis on tournaments. I love competition fighting but am also really interested in learning the take-downs and sweeps that are part of the original teachings. I think I'd have to go to either Hawaii or Japan to learn them properly but I think it would be worth it. My sensei does awesome take-downs but rarely teaches them...maybe I'll have to hassle him to teach me! I do Judo as well and I think they go very well together. But I'm not a big fan of BJJ coz I think trying to force the fight to the ground goes against the basic laws of self preservation! OSU!

Very similar to our knockdown tournaments except I'm interested in the throwing and sweeping techniques being allowed, as well as holding while kneeing. That's very different to our rules but I must say I like that variation. Can anyone explain further as to what sort of throwing and sweep techniques they are referring to?

The benefits gained from sparring in the safe environment of the dojo in dealing with SD situations are proven to be minimal. Check out senshido.com if you want some real SD advice, Richard Dimitri is one of the best.

I agree with CIA, Sparring under controlled conditions and street fighting are not even close to the same thing. And sparring in the dojo is not going to help you deal with your emotions in a real fight. Controlling your emotions is the most important SD technique there is, before choosing the most effective course of action to take. Unfortunatly alot of MA training gives people a false ego that they are good fighters but they are only good fighters under certain rules. Also, Karate fighting is for sport and competition, not for street fighting. No true Karateka would willingly engage in a streetfight (but I guess that goes without saying).

One of the flaws of all MA systems is that they were developed for use against other martial artists to be tested in challenge matches (even if in warfare, still it was mostly used against trained soldiers), not against desperate criminals or thugs that will do everything they can to cause bodily harm. That's why street fighters are far more dangerous than martial artists because they fight without honour. Most martial art forms have huge limitations in adapting to real self defence scenarios and this issue needs to be addressed by all instructors. MA fighting for sport is one thing, self defence is completly different and nobody should claim otherwise.

Hello everyone, I'm writing to you from Melbourne Australia and I've been doing Kyokushin for just under a year now. I can't believe I didn't know about it before then but I'm pretty much hooked! Training flat out at present for a competition in August where I'll be fighting over three rounds in the ring vs either kung fu or karate under Kyokushin rules. It's my 3rd fight and I'm really looking foreward to getting stuck into em! Keep punching guys...OSU!