How long do you do Karate for?

[InternetSwag]

For example let's say you did Muay Thai for 3 years, would you need to do Karate for the full duration?

Would you even need a new Martial Arts style? Is Muay Thai a complete form of martial arts?

Would you be better at Karate than a newbie to MA altogether? Because of your Jui Jujitsu or Muay Thai w/e backround?

[MasterPain]

would you need to do Karate for the full duration?

Define full duration.

Martial arts end when you quit or die.

[InternetSwag]

would you need to do Karate for the full duration?

Define full duration.

Martial arts end when you quit or die.

Well I guess you can only learn so much in a span of 5 or 10 years?

What can your sensei teach you after 15 years?

Don't you move on to something more challenging eventually?

[JusticeZero]

There is several hundred years worth of material to learn in every martial art in existance, even humble Boxing could keep you learning well into the 26th century.

"Complete" is a challenged term, given that every martial art is constructed to be complete within the bounds of what its practitioners are expected to deal with and expected to know. If it lacks anything it is generally because the people doing it had no need to study that for some reason. What you need might be different from what the creators of the art needed, which is hardly the fault of the art.

[sensei8]

I fully concur with both MasterPain and JusticeZero.

[JusticeZero]

And of course there's always the issue that after you have spent 500 years working on boxing, you will have to defend the art from all the people who complain that it's all flowery and show, impractical for practical or competition use, useless for fighting, and clearly outdated because it doesn't use Venusian Sandworm Style footwork techniques, which look suspiciously similar to the stance work that your instructor five hundred years ago was deriding as impractical. but that's a topic for elsewhere.

[ShoriKid]

would you need to do Karate for the full duration?

Define full duration.

Martial arts end when you quit or die.

Well I guess you can only learn so much in a span of 5 or 10 years?

What can your sensei teach you after 15 years?

Don't you move on to something more challenging eventually?

I guess I've wasted the last, 8..9 years. At least that much. Guess I have been wasting my time improving foot work, timing and distancing. Should have moved along to something more challenging than improving the fluidity, speed and ability to work my tuite. Probably should have stopped working on combinations, bunkai, clinch work, sweeps, throws unbalancing techniques too. Since they shouldn't be that challenging.

Sorry, gets my dander up a bit when someone thinks of karate, JJ, boxing, whatever is simple. That in a couple of years they'll have it down. On the surface, if that's all you want to train, it shouldn't take you more than a couple of years to be ready to move on past karate. Or boxing, or MT, BJJ, intergalactic laser tag or whatever flavor of the month combat skill is out there. If you want to be good at something, really good though, you will put years into training. And then find out you've just started scratching the surface of what there is to learn.

[Kuma]

If by full duration you mean the rest of your life then yes you will.

[tallgeese]

I agree with just about everyone here, you can and if you fall in love with an art, will, spend the rest of your life doing it. Even if you move into something else, you'll take those tools and those experiences with you and they will flavor everything you do from then on.

Also, just because you've been training with someone for 15 years does not mean that your the only one improving. They've been training as well, and likely will be able to further mold you as you go.

There are reasons to move around bit. One is cross training, of which I'm a huge proponent. If you have a need that your current system, which you like already, doesn't have an answer for, then go and get it. Add it to your pattern. Nothing wrong with that. Also, over time, your reasons for training might change or compartmentalize. It's okay to explore those avenues as well.

But these changes aren't based on "I've learned everything to know in this art". They are based on conscious choices about what different arts offer your martial journey.

[JusticeZero]

Right. It's sort've like any other field. I'm working on my PhD, and I am reading ridiculous numbers of books. Some undergrad student might think that by now, I know most of the field. However, what I actually know is how little any of the people in the field know, and how long I am going to have to work to add even a paragraph or two to a typical textbook of knowledge. In a compact subfield of a pretty specific field.