alsey

i don't like to label either karate or jujitsu as striking or grappling arts, because they both contain both, but cathal put it pretty well. i find the two work well together.

psychology is extremely important in any type of fight or fighting technique. however, i'd say that given that you have applied the pressure point technique correctly, it is mainly physical factors that determine the opponent's response. i don't think pressure points techniques involve the mind of the opponent. if i grab certain points on your arm, your arm bends. just like if i hit you hard in the head, your head will be knocked back. there's no psychology involved, its just physics and human anatomy. however, psychological things will affect my ability to apply the technique, and the opponents recovery from the technique. that's my opinion anyway. also, i kind of lump pressure point techniques into two categories. there are those that weaken a joint momentarily or induce some reflex action. i'm reasonably proficient with these sort of techniques and they can be used to set up locks and stuff. this is mainly what i'm talking about above. then there are the wierd knock outs and death touches and stuff. i don't understand how these techniques work/are supposed to work, and they don't seem to be very reliable. responses from different people vary massively to these sort of techniques. i would imagine psychology is heavily involved in this sort of thing.

err...me: titles: none (came second in a regional kata competition) height: 5-9 weight: about 80kg style: a mix of traditional kata based karate and JJJ (or kendo) favorite technique: shoulder throw then juji gatame (kendo: men-kaeshi-do)

i agree with zorbasan to an extent. even a white belt who knows one technique can show someone else how to do it. their teaching won't be very good however. a green belt or something could teach it a bit better, a black belt better still, and then you have proper instructors who can teach it very well. anyone can teach (or try to teach), its the quality of your teaching that comes from experience. so by all means teach your friend what you know, but make sure both of you are aware that you're probably not that good at teaching martial arts yet.

my gi have nothing on them, the way i like it. i've never liked the look of badges on gi, it spoils the traditional effect. one gi i used to use has like four badges on it because they were required by the jujitsu association i used to train with (WJJF). they ruined the gi as far as i'm concerned. my kendo keikogi has the kanji for hogen ('compassionate eye') stitched into it, but its hardly visible.

i just don't think that karate's grappling methods are adequate for dealing with someone who is trained in a true grappling art. however, the modern karateka is highly capable of fighting anyone at striking range.

if you make a low kick against an untrained fighter, you will probably hit them if your techniques is good. if you try the same low kick on its own against a pro, he will most likely avoid it. you have to do something else against a pro: you have to deceive, combine moves etc. that's the difference in technique i'm talking about. as for grappling, there are different levels of it. with some basic grappling knowledge i can beat most untrained people on the ground. but i won't be able to beat an experienced grappler.

many karateka get owned in street fights because they're only trained in long range striking. as soon as the range closes, their advantage is gone.

i suggest you read the thread i started talking about jujitsu and hence the samurai because i misunderstood elbows and knees when he said japanese styles don't contain groundwork. i thought he was talking about jujitsu. but anyway then we got talking about JJJ. still, the samurai did have quite a bit to do with karate. karate wouldn't exist without the samurai because the samurai did a lot of the enforcing of the 'no weapons rule' in okinawa. karateka fought samurai quite a bit, and the samurai usually won (why? because karate wasn't adequate for dealing with an experienced warrior). the thing is, kata will teach you the basic ne waza you find in judo and BJJ. if you train in these basics properly, then you will be able to use them in a fight. however, BJJ and judo contain a lot more than basic ne waza, and hence a kata trained karateka will have a tough time fighting a judoka or BJJ practitioner on the ground.

but a TKD artist will not attack me with a wild swinging punch. there will probably be multiple kicks and/or punches combined well, making the attack very difficult to deal with using the principles of heian nidan. another thing: each kata movement has more than one application. the movement contains principles which can be adapted to several situations. in a fight, you don't stand there and perform the kata movement exactly as it is in the kata. that is an ideal. through training you learn how to adapt the ideal to various situations. yes, exactly. or it could be interpreted as a choke. this isn't going off topic. its going back on topic if anything.

i compared it to UFC to show that striking on its own isn't adequate when all ranges of combat are permitted. unless of course combat starts closer than long range striking distance, or your opponent moves in close. untrained fighters are still extremely dangerous. however, because they are untrained you don't need to use complicated techniques to defeat them. this doesn't mean that fighting them is necessarily any easier than fighting a trained fighter, it simply means that the methods you will need to use are not as advanced.

bushido man, i think the word 'karate' is causing a lot of confusion in this discussion because there are a few rather different things it can mean. modern karate-do is mostly competition based. karateka today learn how to fight other karateka under certain rules. because of this, modern karateka get very good at fighting other karateka (and kickboxers, TKD practitioners etc). however this type of karate, which is really just a stylised form of kickboxing, isn't much use once the rules of competition are removed. everyone has seen it: strikers get beaten in the UFC (unless they also know grappling). on the street, a striking-only guy stands a good chance of getting into a situation where long range striking doesn't work. this is karate-do as it is mostly practiced today. now, in modern karate-do you find kata. these kata are a remnant from much older systems: the okinawan systems or ryukyu kempo. anyone who has done a bit of karate can see that the kata are a completely different style of fighting to competition karate. they are for all intents and purposes two different martial arts. so try to think of it is kata-karate and kumite-karate. in kata-karate, you have the fighting methods of the old masters. these are self defence techniques for use on the street. nearly all of them are actually very simple, compared to say a lot of jujitsu techniques. for the karateka of old, their enemy was the thug on the street. this is why the techniques are simple; you don't need complicated fighting methods to beat thugs. now, if you try to use these methods on a trained fighter, e.g. a modern MMA fighter, they will first know how to counter your techniques, and second they will know how to get through your defences with feints and combinations. kata doesn't contain feints or punch combos, and its hard to beat a trained fighter without them. neither does it contain advanced grappling methods. in kumite-karate, there is no grappling or groundwork, but there is a lof of feints and combinations! in this type of karate you learn exactly how to beat the defences of a trained striker, and how to counter the attacks of a trained striker. but this type of karate isn't much good in a fight without rules. so to summarise, a karateka today who practices both kumite-karate and kata-karate (with realistic drills) will be trained to fight other strikers in the ring, and untrained attackers on the street.

I've never heard or seen that - do you have a reference for it? other than what i've been told by various instructors, most of what i know about jujitsu comes from this book: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0804830274/ref=pd_rvi_gw_1/103-0057504-8379038?%5Fencoding=UTF8&v=glance&n=283155 i don't actually have it at the moment, so i can't quote it but there are several descriptions of samurai training methods in it. its more of a history book than a martial arts book as such. plus think about the fusen ryu guys. they couldn't have beaten any decent judoka unless they'd done plenty of randori themselves. yes, a modern MMA fighter would most likely beat a samurai in the ring. what i meant was that samurai did a lot of realistic combat training. ok, but for the most part we know the techniques the samurai practiced. of course there will be a few things we don't quite understand. i'm not really assuming anything. kata teaches you methods of self defence. if you are very good at this then the technique will most likely work in a fight. there is a chance that it won't, certainly. if it doesn't work then you just try another technique. but the idea is that you train enough so that the chances of the technique failing get smaller and smaller. this is true for any martial art and any fighting technique: if you're good at it, it will probably work. if it doesn't then you do something else. i don't see what the big deal is here.

hehe, what a legend

the reason i'm talking about things historically is because i'm trying to point out that there are a lot of things in certain martial arts which aren't commonly practiced today. karateka used to train grappling, and samurai used to do plenty of randori. these days, you have to be lucky to find a karate school which teaches grappling, and you also have to be lucky to find a JJJ school that does a lot of randori. at my current JJJ dojo, the senior students do randori most of the time. by the time kano came along, the samurai and hence JJJ were already in decline. nevertheless, in 1900 the kodokan representatives were defeated by fusen ryu students. when the samurai were still active and important at the height of the edo period, jujitsu was practiced quite differently to how it is today. the samurai training methods would match up to anything modern MMA fighters do, minus the modern knowledge of medicine, nutrition, psychology etc. now while this is all history, its only history by choice. the techniques the samurai practiced are still known today, its just not that common for a JJJ school to do much realistic training. the same goes for karate: the techniques the old masters practiced are still there in the kata, they're just not practiced much now. K-1 is essentially a kickboxing competition, yes? sorry i don't know much about these things. now we're talking about something quite different. karate as it is taught today is meant for fighting other fighters, but under certain rules: i have spent most of my karate training fighting other karateka. modern karateka can do well in competitions where the rules prevent serious grappling (i'm working on the assumption that this is true for K-1, correct me if i'm wrong), because modern karate is effectively a form of kickboxing. try to use karate or kickboxing in the UFC and you get beaten (unless of course you know some grappling as well). again, try to use modern karate or kickboxing on the street and you run the risk of getting into a grapple and not knowing what to do. now traditional karate training will give you what you need to fight against untrained attackers on the street: striking, grappling, throwing and ground fighting techniques from the kata. however these techniques aren't advanced enough to beat, say, a UFC fighter. i really want to keep this discussion on the subject of traditional karate, and perhaps i should be using the term ryukyu kempo instead. the kind of karate used in competition is something rather different. No, I don't. but you are making assumptions of what will or won't end a fight. I'm merely posing the question of, it that fails, then what? i could say the same about the chinese throwing you mentioned. what if the throw fails and the opponent doesn't land on their head? no doubt the practitioner of that style will then try a different technique until the opponent is disabled. the same goes for karate. ok that's technically correct i guess, i was including sweeps and stuff under 'throws'.

if anyone fights a TKD guy, they're going to be looking out for kicks. if the TKD guy kicks high, they're going to the floor. if they kick low they probably won't manage to do significant damage against the sort of fighters that take part in MMA tournaments. i'd imagaine the TKD guy in the video was waiting for a good opening to appear, probably as the other guy moved to attack. but the opening didn't come and he got taken down. plus he tried that fancy jumping thing which failed hard. after that, i'm sure his confidence was pretty much gone.

no doubt. IMO, they are still inferior on the ground to a wrestler, for example, but we are talking about untrained attackers, yes, this is fine. a modern JJJ practitioner, perhaps, but that's just due to the teaching methods used today, not what is contained in the art. an actual samurai who trained realistically would be a different story, and i'm sure would hold his own against any wrestler from that period of history. but a karateka would have nothing on a wrestler on the ground, and nothing on a kickboxer standing up. karate just isn't made for fighting other fighters. No, it doesn't. Having the "principles" in the kata does nothing for you on the ground. you have to train the ground game to get good at it, and I'd bet money that most karate schools don't do that. I know that the ones I've trained at / been in contact with don't do it with enough frequency to be good at it. And striking from the ground won't always cut it. However, you have aroused my curiousity - you say you don't need much to be able to defend yourself - what do you think you need? of course, you have to practice a lot. doing kata and nothing else won't make you a good fighter. you do the kata, identify the techniques and then practice them against an opponent. a compliant opponent first, then a resisting opponent. you're right though, most karate schools don't do that. all i'm saying that the techniques are there in the kata, whether or not they are practiced realistically is another matter. what do i think i need? i think i need to know how to get into a favorable position on the ground, how to apply chokes, and how to apply a few joint locks. i don't think i need to know, for example, everything a judoka knows. in my experience, with a bit of ground fighting knowledge you can easily beat someone who has no ground fighting knowledge. however, if i tried to ground fight a judoka i would get destroyed. there's the assumption again... completely disabled or slightly vulnerable. 1. there is an assumption that you will be able to clinch the guy off your entry 2. that you are able to throw him japanese throws, unlike chinese, tend to put someone on their back. that will not disable them unless their head bounces off of the ground pretty hard, or unless they try to catch their fall with their arm or something. Any other type of injury is incidental. Chinese throws aim to throw you on your head. With those, it's a safer assumption (yet still an assumption) that the attacker is disabled. if your technique doesn't work, then you try another, and another until something works. that's how you fight. but the idea is that against an untrained opponent, if you're reasonably skilled, your first technique will work. some of the kata movements i believe actually contain 'contingencies' in case your first technique doesn't work; the opening of heian nidan for example. sorry if i'm wrong but you seem to have the position that if there is a chance of a technique failing, then the technique is worthless. all techniques from any style can fail, and if they do then you just try another. japanese throwing techniques are very varied. some put the opponent on their back, some on their front, some on their side. a lot of them, if you drop to your knees while throwing will land the opponent on their head. a lot of jujitsu throws are made while the opponent is already locked; a lot of shoulder throws for example. when you do this, its quite likely that the locked joint will be seriously damaged during the throw. i don't know anything about chinese throws, but all the japanese throws i know result in you being in a position of complete control. the opponent may have landed quite safely, but their arm will be locked up and they will have a knee waiting to drop on their head. surely though that is just a matter of training and practice? i think i should clarify my position again: i don't think that by practicing kata you will automatically be a good grappler. the original topic was whether or not there is grappling and groundwork in karate. i said that there are grappling and ground fighting techniques in the kata. and essentially, that is all i said. of course, if you want to be proficient with these techniques then you have to practice them in a realistic training scenario with a resisting partner.

things started to get peaceful after tokugawa, when meiji was made emperor.

all the heians, tekki shodan and nidan, bassai dai and sho, kanku dai and sho, enpi, jitte, chinte, jion, hangetsu, nijushiho and gankaku. out of them, i probably wouldn't be able to perform bassai sho, kanku sho, tekki nidan, hangetsu, nijushiho or gankaku to grading standard.

yeah, that's rather different to hangetsu, though easily recogniseable as the same kata. its always interesting to see how other styles do things. its not a kata i've practiced much to be honest. i should get into it a bit more.

yeah, and its a serious problem. this is essentially why i stopped doing shotokan formally. i came to learn about the original nature of karate, attended a few seminars and stuff. then i asked the senior instructor at my dojo if we could practice some of it. to cut a long story short, the answer was no. also as a nidan i did a bit of instruction in classes, and it got to the point where i just couldn't do it anymore. i couldn't stand there teaching lame blocking techniques that could get people killed in a real fight. unless you're very lucky and find a school that teaches combative karate, you'll probably have to take your training outside the dojo in an informal setting as i and another guy from my old dojo have done.

maybe. But that is an unsafe assumption. I know many trained MA who have gotten owned by untrained guys with either more fighting experience, more serious mindset, or both. so do i, and i think that's mainly because of the way a lot of martial arts are taught these days. the kata teach you how to defeat an opponent before he has had chance to do something like tackle. if you are skilled in doing this then the chances are you won't get tackled. however, if you do, then karate does contain methods for fighting if you have been tackled to the ground. its just that the focus is on gaining the advantage and winning on your feet if you possibly can

that's because you don't want to be on the ground when there's hundreds of people swinging swords and halberds around. in JJJ the focus is to try and win the fight while still standing up to give you the best chance of survival, but if it does go to the ground then there is also a wealth of ground fighting methods. and that is a really bad idea. There is a japanese saying - ichi go; ichi-e - one encounter, one chance. But, realistically, it doesn't work that way. if your one chance - in this case, the ability to end it with one strike - fails and you DO go to the ground, then what? then you use karate's ground fighting methods. the reason there isn't much of it is because you don't need much of it to defend yourself. karate won't teach you how to beat an experienced grappler, but it does contain the methods needed to win most ground fighting situations. also i'm not talking about ending things with one strike. most karate techniques involve an entry, a clinch grapple of some sort, and then strikes or a throw, which then leaves the opponent either completely disabled or very vulnerable. that really doesn't mean much though... I mean, In principle, I can use muay thai and formulate weapons usage. But realistically, I wouldn't be very good with a weapon if I did. in principle you can develop any style into anything with enough thought, but i'm talking about actual ground fighting principles here: not stand up principles which can then be developed into ground fighting, although they are also in the kata. from the japanese? aren't the main japanese styles - wado, shito, etc. all karate-do? I know they may (like wado) have jujutsu influence, but it's still a do. ok let me clarify what i'm saying. the karate-do styles are mostly practiced as kick/punch-block systems today. however, these styles still practice the old kata which have mostly come from the okinawan karate (or ryukyu kempo or whatever you want to call it) which was a complete self defence system. so if you look in the kata, you'll see there is more to karate than the punch-block stuff that is commonly practiced in karate-do.

I disagree. you will not find ground work in any pure japanese style that I know of. you won't find ground grappling in most chinese styles either, other than dog boxing. ground striking, but not ground grappling. And I'd wager that it's not in a lot of okinawan karate either, considering the chinese influence. i suggest you do some more research on japanese styles. traditional jujitsu is full of groundwork. almost all (if not all) of judo and BJJ can be found in JJJ if you look for it. there isn't much in karate, i've tried to explain why in the post above. the idea is that if you're any good at karate you won't need to go to the ground in most situations. but then, the principles of ground fighting are actually there in the kata. karate is massively different from jujitsu because of what its meant to be used for. jujitsu is a warrior art for dealing with other warriors, often on a battlefield. karate is in every sense a self defence system for use against the untrained. i won't say anything about chinese styles because i know next to nothing about them. yeah, that's probably a better way of putting it. heian godan springs to mind. look towards the end of the kata and try to imagine what is going on if the practitioner is on the ground instead of vertical. very difficult to describe in text as i hope you can imagine, i can only reference you to this book: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0953893219/sr=8-1/qid=1153779255/ref=sr_1_1/103-0057504-8379038?ie=UTF8 it has been invaluable in my own study of kata. again, karate isn't meant for fighting other trained fighters. so you won't find something like how to get out of a choke while putting the other guy in your guard in a kata. you'll just find quick and simple methods of beating the untrained on the ground. yes, shotokan is a style of karate-do. but there is more to karate than karate-do.

what? The concept of mma has only been around since about 1995. And regardless of how long its been here, okinawan karate has always taught its grappling side... yeah, exactly. around about 1995 MMA got big, and western karate masters started to work out what karate was about. Not true. It's not taught because they didn't put it in the system. Judo teaches morote gari, which is a double leg. Not only that, but one of the most common street techniques you see is a tackle. Technically, a tackle and a double leg are drastically different, but in principle, they are the same. i was talking about karate, not judo. i've never identified anything in a karate kata as a double leg takedown. if you have, i'm very interested to hear more. tackling is common on the street between untrained fighters, but anyone any good at karate would have disabled an untrained opponent before they had the opportunity to tackle. karate mostly deals with the point just at the onset of physical confrontation. kata teaches you how to take the advantage imediately and disable your opponent before he can really do anything. it also teaches you to stay on your feet whenever possible.