Why did karate lose its value?

[brickshooter]

IMO, the three major factors are:

1. Karate got watered down to fill the needs of its biggest customer - children. And those children grew up, became instructors and passed on their own watered down version of Karate.

2. Incompetent instructors who teach technique rather than application. For example instructors should have made it clear that all Karate stances are "1 second snap shots" during a fight to leverage weight, transfer weight or retreat while maintaining balance. No one is supposed to hold a particular stance as a guard throughout the entire fight. Not only does it limit mobility, it tires out your legs. "How to do" is taught, but "how to use" is not.

3. Karate got killed in the marketing wars.

[Harlan]

I don't think it's lost it's 'value' at all. I think it has diminished in appeal due to marketing, as mentioned previously.

Real karate is extremely valuable. Just hard to find.

[RW]

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.

While I agree with everything you posted, and I think that your school must be awesome, I was thinking...

How heavy is your school's sparring on takedown techniques and joint locks? They're indeed part of karate:

What about elbow and knee techniques?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hDy8GwbkyeQ

These are two parts of karate that for some reason seem to be delegated to kata and drills, but were forgotten from sparring, which is a shame, because now people think that if you want to learn takedowns, you need wrestling or judo, while you need BJJ if you want joint locks and you need Muay Thai if you want knees or elbows. It drives me nuts.

And to be honest, stuff like armbars and leg locks are way too hard, people need to practice them with a semi-resisting partner for months to learn them... just to do a kata or drill and imagine you're doing it (like in bunkai) won't do.

[RW]

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.

1) Why do those stances exist? I honestly have no idea.

2) You mentioned something really important: MODERNIZATION.

Do you think that Muay Thai has always incorporated boxing style punches and ring-like footwork? Nope. Before Muay Thai there was Muay Boran, which had very rigid, different punches and karate-like kata:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bPr8cVpBxX0

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=357hGHv6sJ8&feature=related

Then modern equipment, rules and influences made their way to muay thai. They adopted boxing punches and de-emphasized some positions and kicks. Modern Muay Thai was born.

Karate, meanwhile got too static, too regulated, too politicized. Why do people still pull the other hand to their waist when punching? Why do people spend most of their time doing kata and horseback or forward foot stances when they won't fight like that? Etc etc... modernization needs to take place.

[andym]

IMHO karate was seen to lose it value, after too many within it lost sight of the values of karate. Chasing quantity over quality, undermining these values for money. Selling the art short and undermining it, too make it easy to teach lots of kids. The end result of all this, has resulted in this 'product' , being seen as all there is to karate. That it is not fit for purpose and has lost its value.

Andy

[Ueshirokarate]

The real question should be, how do we make karate respected and popular again? Just yesterday I was saying how my son takes karate to a neighborhood kid. He almost immediately said he wants to take BJJ. My hat's off to the Gracies for their amazing marketing.

[sojobo]

We need better instructors imo.

That might help.

Sojobo

[tallgeese]

The real question should be, how do we make karate respected and popular again? Just yesterday I was saying how my son takes karate to a neighborhood kid. He almost immediately said he wants to take BJJ. My hat's off to the Gracies for their amazing marketing.

True, but also for having a great product that has show itself to be effective in multiple setting many times.

[Ueshirokarate]

The real question should be, how do we make karate respected and popular again? Just yesterday I was saying how my son takes karate to a neighborhood kid. He almost immediately said he wants to take BJJ. My hat's off to the Gracies for their amazing marketing.

True, but also for having a great product that has show itself to be effective in multiple setting many times.

Like more Machitas in the UFC?

[sensei8]

I'm at loss for words at the moment.