Why did karate lose its value?

[UselessDave]

Karate had its time. Why not anymore, exactly?

One thing that someone's gonna say would be that people don't have the patience anymore. But some people do. Wonder where dose come such a difference.

To me, like for most of you, it's clear that I continue training, and has always been. For some it's just a stupid style, and they can't understand why would anybody think it's any good.

Any outlooks?

[sojobo]

Karate had its time. Why not anymore, exactly?

One thing that someone's gonna say would be that people don't have the patience anymore. But some people do. Wonder where dose come such a difference.

To me, like for most of you, it's clear that I continue training, and has always been. For some it's just a stupid style, and they can't understand why would anybody think it's any good.

Any outlooks?

"There is only training".

That's what my sensei used to say and those that know...

Sojobo

[Ueshirokarate]

Karate hasn't really lost its value. For two decades it fell into a decline in popularity because of a heavy marketing campaign against it and other traditional martial arts. The good thing about the past two decades, is that it has really forced the traditional arts to think about real fighting and real world application of its catalog of techniques. It has also made consumers more discriminating in choosing a school. The bad part of it, is that the general public thinks of karate as kickboxing with some board breaking trickery. It is up to us to market the style and bring it back to the place it should be.

[RW]

We live in different times right now.

When karate was "created" (think, Gichin Funakoshi times, even though I know there's much more history to karate before that), people couldn't just go fight other people on TV like you see in UFC # 1 or UFC # 2. What's more, Kyokushin couldn't have direct face punches because it was not allowed by some japanese law (citation needed here).

Karate changed from a "jutsu" to a "do", in order to survive. People trained Kata and point-sparring. Sparring had to do without knees, elbows and joint locks (funny how Muay Thai bills itself as "the art of the 8 limbs", when karate clearly had those techniques as well but shunned them in sparring). Even the K-1 competition began as a combat sport without face punches.

Under this "pasteurized" approach, karate managed to survive and even thrive in an era where a more raw martial art like today's Muay Thai or today's MMA would be unthinkable in western countries. If you examine katas and drills, karate has chokes, elbow strikes (empi!!!), knee strikes, arm locks, and even some crazy things like well, pulling the nuts in some drills. All of that dissapeared and "sport karate" took its place, with point sparring where people can actually jump towards you, HEAD FIRST, and attempt to tag your helmet (they called it "blitzing")

Then karate became too popular, and mommies everywhere sent their kids to karate. Mom is spending good money on keeping Jonny in karate, and let's face it, if Johnny came back from karate class with a black eye, mommy would enroll Johnny in piano lessons instead, so we better keep Johnny. The result? Lots of point sparring or crippled full-contact sparring (in many cases, kyokushin sparring is 2 grown men exchanging chest punches) and kata, kata and more kata. apparently, if you can memorize a string of movements, you can beat up a person.

This still worked, and karate thrived and gained an element of mysticism. Movies and mcdojo teachers popularized the "karate chop" and board breaking.

---

Then times changed, and society was more open to full contact martial arts and things like being hit in the face, getting hit by elbows, knees, etc. Suddenly you can see two grown men beating each other up, "no holds barred" fights (an older term for MMA) was born.

With the advent of MMA, things changed. The "tapout culture" began, and their disdain for traditional martial arts.

[MasterPain]

That is a great rundown of the last couple decades. i don't know which is more annoying, the jumping leaning helmet tap technique or "tapout culture."

People from both sides are smug toward each other. But people with high levels of real skill in MMA and more traditional arts tend to respect what the other is doing.

[Ueshirokarate]

That is a great rundown of the last couple decades. i don't know which is more annoying, the jumping leaning helmet tap technique or "tapout culture."

People from both sides are smug toward each other. But people with high levels of real skill in MMA and more traditional arts tend to respect what the other is doing.

This is such a great point. A true martial artist is a martial artist and doesn't really care about labels, rivalries, styles, etc. Effective fighting technique is just that. It doesn't matter if it is from Tai Kwon Do or BJJ and a good fighter that has trained hard is a good fighter that has trained hard.

Great martial art is great martial art no matter who is doing it or what art they practice and a true martial artist will recognize this. It is the "danger face" crowd that likes to debate this stuff. It is the true martial artists who can appreciate true mastery of an other.

[Dobbersky]

Because WE have allowed Johnny's Mummy to dictate what the contents of a Karate School Training should be is the reason why Karate has become what it is today!

I am happy with my small school, I accept Black belts from other schools and martial arts styles who didn't realise how effective Karate could be. We train for the street. In fact this is one of my motos " Karate for the street not for trophies"

I always tell my "Mummies" from Day 1 this is a FULL Contact Karate School and they will get hit by other students during their training.

If They "Winge" i always advise them taking up Gymnastics as they wont get punched or kicked then!

I'm not saying that from day 1 we go in a beat the newbies to an inch of their life but the opposite, allow them the confidence to hit the other person and "FEEL" what it is like to hit someone, and "FEEL" what its like to be hit by someone too.

I know the first time I got hit "Full Contact" I thought "Is that it?"

Kata has been taught as pretty dances with no reason to it, then the Karate schools have a "SEPARATE" Self-Defence series of techniques, WHY??? Because everything you need is IN the KATA!!!!

Why spend time practicing a Kata when not evern your Instructor knows what its for. This is why MMA etc is so popular. The Student "feels" like he can get the same effect "WiTHOUT" having to learn "Senseless" Kata - This is what a Jeet Kune Do practitioner told me Kata was, a shame he lives in another Country as I would have invited him to see how ineffective Karate Kata is. Hopefully changing his mind and giving him a positive mindset on Karate too.

[JusticeZero]

Three things:

- Soccer moms ("You do Karate? But that's just for kids!")

- "Unrealistic" stances misapplied out of context - horse stance is useful for a lot of things, but if you think that you should go into a fight by dropping into a horse stance and putting your hands at your hips and waiting for them to come up to you, you're not helping matters

- Fads - Every time some new art becomes the "new thing" and people become enamored of it, all the arts before slide a little down the totem pole as being old school. Look at Judo; that art seems like it's almost impossible to find these days. It's just too 1970's. And who does Boxing by itself anymore?

[tallgeese]

Three things:

- Soccer moms ("You do Karate? But that's just for kids!")

- "Unrealistic" stances misapplied out of context - horse stance is useful for a lot of things, but if you think that you should go into a fight by dropping into a horse stance and putting your hands at your hips and waiting for them to come up to you, you're not helping matters

- Fads - Every time some new art becomes the "new thing" and people become enamored of it, all the arts before slide a little down the totem pole as being old school. Look at Judo; that art seems like it's almost impossible to find these days. It's just too 1970's. And who does Boxing by itself anymore?

I think that sums up the decline of the relevancy of traditional karate in a nutshell. Stances, and their mis use has been a major pet peeve of mine since starting in the arts 20 plus years ago. MMA quickly confirmed to us the fallacy that many people already wondered about, that immobility is a liability. If you're breaking up someone's arm who you've just thrown to the ground via joint manipulation then a horse stance is great. However; move it out of this application it becomes less adequate.

The other two items are problematic as well. The soccer mom syndrome we've done to ourselves to an extent by allowing kids classes to become the money maker at almost all commercial schools, thus the perceived focus of what we as martial artists do.

The stance thing, which is what strikes the biggest chord with me is actually a symptom of a larger, more problematic, root cause- a lack of realism in current training methods.

 

This, to my mind, is caused by a couple of things:

1) a failure to modernize training as new methods and information come to light.

2) a failure on current generations of practitioners to either understand or pass on the combative nature of the arts.

In number two, we see the misapplication of stance work that Justice spoke of. Either people don't know what it's for ( a fault of their teachers by the way, not theirs) or they just don't want to take the time to teach a more complex concept (a commercial component that is entirely their fault). Now, when the stance does not work as prescribed in a misunderstood kata, the art gets bad rapped for being ineffective when what really happened was that the practitioner used a hammer to try and drive a screw.

That causes a major disconnect with relevancy.

[sensei8]

Karate has NOT lost any value in my honest opinion!! Karate is still quite viable across the board. Perhaps it's only viewed as valueless by the masses that aren't experienced in karate for whatever reason(s).

I'm a karateka, and I've been a karateka for many, many, many years; therefore, me, being a karateka, I've no value at all...none whatsoever!!

Not only am I a karateka, but I'm a traditional karateka, and have been my entire life, and now, because of that, now, I'm irrelevant, of no use.