Question About What Style Should I Choose.

[MasterPain]

Sounds to me like you have decided muay Thai is the best. Also that boxing is the best but also stupid? Good luck to you.

[Wastelander]

I will go ahead and respond to the points that you brought up in your reply to me, OP, but before I do that I will say this--you don't really want to train in Okinawan karate. You have made it abundantly clear that you think Muay Thai and boxing are superior fighting arts, even while you are criticizing them. I think that you actually just want to train in MMA, which is fine. Maybe you do have an interest in Okinawan culture/tradition, and maybe you do want to throw on a gi and practice a kata every now and then, but it seems to me that you aren't really interested in Okinawan karate as a whole.

I am a fighter. You disagree with me based on what? From my experience, the blocks of Goju-ryu wouldn't work in a real fight. You stand in front of a great boxer or Muay Thai expert and try to block his strikes with that, and he is going to throw a bomb at your chin and knock you out cold. The katas in Goju-ryu are beautiful choreographies, and there are many aspects of the style that work in real fights. But those blocks are impractical. Too slow and based on mechanics that are inadequate for the human body.

How can a block not be used for blocking? That is an oxymoron. Look, I think Goju-ryu is awesome and one of the best styles of karate for real fights, but it is not perfect. It's defense has some serious deficiencies.

I am not saying that your experience is incorrect, I simply disagree with your knowledge of how the "blocks" in Okinawan karate are meant to be used. You are thinking that the movements called "blocks" are only able to be used one way, and the way you have seen doesn't work well for that purpose. Look at it this way--mime what you would do with your hand to turn the steering wheel of your car one-handed, then mime what you would do with your hand to wax that car one-handed. The movements are very nearly identical, but accomplish two completely different things. I know this seems very Karate Kid (wax on, wax off) but it's true.

All that said, there ARE ways to use the traditional blocks of karate and make them work. Dan Djurjevic has done some great posts on his blog about that very topic, if you are interested.

But you got to admit that the "sparring" is extremely choreographed and limited. It is not like in Muay Thai, where you can use whatever techniques to knock out your opponents. In karate, you are limited to using the movements that agree with the style. For instance, in many styles you have to use the cork-screw punch, which is a lot more awkward and, contrary to popular belief, actually slower than a normal punch. In the sparring of many styles, you have to use this punch. You go to sparr against a boxer using that punch, and he knocks you out. I have seen sparing sessions of kyokushin-shinkai, and they don't throw elbows at each other even though elbows are much harder than fists, nor do they do a kick such as the roundhouse kick, which is simple and powerful, prefering awkward high kicks that actually have a lot less power. The only reason they survive these "sparing" sessions is because they are fighting against guys who are also limited by "approved" techniques that agree with that style. Go do that in MMA, that is no-holds-barred and full-contact, and you will lose 9 out of 10 times against boxers and kickboxers. Simple as that.

I think you are thinking of renzoku kumite and yakusoku kumite, which are choreographed fighting sequences with a partner. The "iri kumi" that I am referring to is not choreographed, and doesn't seem to be any more restricted than MMA sparring. I will also note that while an MMA fight is full contact, it is not "no-holds-barred" (there are something like 50 rules in place for professional MMA, and even more for amateur MMA) and when MMA fighters spar, they don't do it full contact--if they did, they would always be too beat up to train consistently.

What you need to understand is that fighting from mid-range is stupid because that's where your oponent is in perfect position to strike you. You should either get close and clinch or stay on the outside using ranged strikes, moving around him to get openings. Boxers fight mostly in mid-range, and they are the fighters who take the most brain damage in all combat sports. Boxing is highly effective offensively, but it is stupid defensively.

I agree that most altercations occur in mid to close range. But that is because most people don't know how to fight. You should always try to put yourself in a position where your oponent cannot hurt you back. This is why Thai kickboxers clinch and use knees, and why jiu-jitsu masters take the fight to the ground and use leverage on their opponents joints to break their limbs. Staying in front of your oponent and banging is stupid. That is what brawlers do, and it is a style of fighting that demands enormous physicality for your to prevail. The fighter with the most power and toughest chin wins.

Fighting at mid-range is stupid if your opponent is better at it than you--mid-range isn't just where they can hit you, but where you can hit them, too. If you are bad at that range then yes, you should get in close to nullify their striking or you should stay at long-range to make use of your kicks. This isn't a matter of style so much as personal ability and preference--you should always play to your strengths, if at all possible. As far as standing in front of your opponent and trading strikes, I would agree that is a bad decision unless you are a seriously tough fighter, but Okinawan karate, in general, doesn't promote that anyway.

As for boxers taking the most brain damage, that is largely because of the rule set used in boxing--it promotes head-hunting and allows fighters to continue fighting after receiving a concussion, making their brain injuries drastically worse.

Okinawan karate styles are more practical than Japanese ones. I agree with you. The problem is the lack of ranged strikes and full-contact sparring. Kyokushin-Shinkai has full-contact sparring, but a lot of it's techniques only work within a sports contest and not really in real fights.

Depends on how you define "real fights," and I wouldn't say that Okinawan styles are more practical than Japanese styles--both can be practical, but only if it is taught and trained in a practical way.

Lots of martial artists don't like MMA because they don't like the brutal reality of seeing that a lot of the stuff they learned is useless in a fight. They don't like that they wasted 5-10 years of their life earning a black belt that makes them only marginally more dangerous than an untrained individual.

But all martial arts have valuable aspects that work in real fights. For instance, Lyoto Machida is a Shotokan master who was good enough to earn the UFC's light-heavyweight title. A lot of the stuff he knows didn't work, but enough worked for him to go 15-0 before finally losing. He had to adapt his karate to MMA, but when he did it worked beautifully. Interestingly, though, he uses a lot more the simple jab than any karate strike. But at UFC 129 he had that moment when he knoked out Randy Couture with a crane kick straight out of a movie. That was one of the most beautiful martial arts moments in history.

I would agree that a lot of martial artists don't like seeing MMA because they feel that it is an attack on something they have dedicated their lives to, but that isn't the only reason. I know of a lot of martial artists who don't watch it because it goes against the values that they were taught in their arts--primarily that one should avoid violence and not seek to harm another person with their skills. Personally, I like MMA and watch it frequently--in fact, I just won the UFC fight prediction pool at my work.

I will point out that karate does, in fact, have a "jab" and the technique that Machida used to KO Couture wasn't really a crane kick, it was actually a fake front kick used to set up a front kick with the other leg, and that technique is found in the kata Kusanku/Kanku Dai.

[bushido_man96]

Instead of picking out a particular style, I'd recommend checking out the area schools, watch classes, and talk to instructors about you wants and needs, and see which fits the bill for you. Every instructor has a different method, and one may have what you're looking for.