Karate in streets

[wildbourgman]

If through training, you can refine this inherent built in ability to increase your accuracy and power, and at the same time become more stable on your feet and better at judging distance, then there's no way it's fair to dismiss that training, even if it's not against full resistance.

I agree with this thought process. I've seen videos where Ian Abernethy gave explanation to parts of old school karate kata that made you think "what in the heck is that used for in the real world?" and he correlated it to what we would do instinctually as humans. Then he takes what you would do on crude instinct with no training and polishes it into a effective karate technique. To me that makes since, take what your going to do anyway and make it work when possible and then work on fixing the instinctive actions that we don't want you to do in a self defense situation.

For instance if someone takes a swing at you, most untrained people are going to cover the area that is being targeted, back up or even turn around. You convert that into a more effective block, parry or other technique and now your beginner student doesn't look like a fish out of water. In that scenario the covering up is a good starting point, but you don't want the student backing straight up or giving the attacker their back so that part of the instinct needs to be fixed. Only after this do you start to work on a counter. The progression starts from where your at, in doing that you can have a beginner walk out the door after the first class without going backwards.

[MatsuShinshii]

If the schools focus is on fighting, yes.

If the schools focus is on sport, no.

To clarify a little more, if the focus is on all aspects of fighting then yes. What that means is not just striking or kicking but also grappling, throws, sweeps, take downs, controlling techniques (joint locks and the like), etc., etc.

I don't mean mixing Judo and Jujutsu in, although you could, I mean teaching the whole art not just the sport side of the art.

The problem with "Karate" when we speak of street defense is that the sport side of modern Karate is not suited for this type of fighting. They are more accustomed to longer ranges and time to throw strikes and kicks and 95% or higher of street fights is close range. This, unfortunately, is rarely practiced in modern Dojo. Realism in training is the key to the art being effective in a real fight.

[TJ-Jitsu]

. If that criterai is met we can further the discussion. If its not, it stops the discussion- regardless of whatever style you may be speaking of .

With respect, I've heard this claim a lot, especially from BJJ fans (not only, also heard it from others including some karate fans). But I've not seen any objective evidence to back it up..

This is EVERY MMA event ever- that's an awful lot of objective evidence that cannot be written off.

I get that it seems to be common sense, but that doesn't make it true. A few hundred years ago it was common sense that the earth was flat. I think it's hard to make a fair assessment of anything in the absence of objective evidence. Within such evidence, an idea is nothing more than opinion or theory.

People have known for thousands of years the earth was round- sailors for example. But there are still some to this day who think the world is flat....

So lets talk about this evidence. Every MMA event ever. In the earlier days of MMA and especially with the entry of UFC, peoples expectations were based off of many years of misinformation. Many people believed that whoever hit the hardest while taking the least amount of damage in return would win. Whats worse is that every style that was labeled as a "sport" was written off before it had a chance to even try its hand.

What ended up happening? The sportive fighters cleaned house. Those that did boxing, wrestling, judo, jiu jitsu, sambo and so on regularly won. These were competitions held across the globe with numerous participates all representing several different styles and several different nationalities. What was interesting was that some styles had or shared similar techniques, but didn't share similar successes. This correlated with how they trained and the resistance offered.

Sparring with full resistance becomes necessary to become a quality fighter. Until then you've no idea the limits of your power and strength cardio, and even the reliability of your technique. Theres no better proving ground. Imagine if you wanted to learn how to swim. Who are you going to learn from? The guy who talks theory and has you practice exercise and theory but never gets wet, or the guy who says "lets jump in the water and I'll show you!?"

The most common form of 'evidence' that training against resistance works is that it works in the gym or it works in competition. If we take a similar example but outside of the field of combat, the flaws in that logic become self evident. Take the jet pack or the flying car. Both have been proven viable and effective several times, within the constraints of the test environment in specific conditions. Yet looking out the window now, I'm not seeing any. Combat is perhaps the most extreme test of anything. We know from larger scale conflict (wars) that even the most highly trained soldiers meet their demise in the battlefield because something was not as they'd trained for. Such appears many times throughout history.

You're making a false analogy. Flying cars and jet packs are entirely possible- they're merely not made because they're not practical and theres no return investment...

Whether or not it is necessary to practice regularly against full resistance depends largely on the techniques you hope to use. My understanding of BJJ is nearly nil. It is limited to what I've seen in a few videos. But it looks complicated. And it looks very easy to get wring. And the consequences of getting it wrong look dire. They look like the kind of techniques that you really must practice against full resistance regularly if ever you hope to make them work in the dynamic and unpredictable heat of battle.

I think you're on to something here....

But to punch or kick then extract yourself, this is built in human nature. Untrained people do it when they have to. They push and shove and call in knees and elbows if they have to. There's lots of evidence for this.

Not a single person in the history of mankind was ever a "natural" puncher, kicker, knee-er, or elbow-er. Since you're basically describing muay thai I'll just call it that for short.

A novice poses virtually no threat to a trained fighter because they've no idea how to throw any of those strikes effectively. The only thing people "instinctively" do is flail hopelessly. They also try to wrestle hopelessly too, but I don't dignify that as jiu jitsu or wrestling either.

Humans don't do anything well off instinct. Instinct in built into animals that don't have long life spans and therefore don't have time for a learning curve. Humans have virtually more time than any other animal and more capability to learn and use their brain to a far greater capacity than any instinct could afford.

And it is easily observed live if you know which nightclubs to stand outside of. Most punches and kicks miss completely, or miss their intended target and hit something that isn't really an effective point, like a shoulder or a glancing blow across the torso. Yet these people often manage to escape from the fifth unharmed. The very definition of self defense. If through training, you can refine this inherent built in ability to increase your accuracy and power, and at the same time become more stable on your feet and better at judging distance, then there's no way it's fair to dismiss that training, even if it's not against full resistance.

Sure it is, because you're completely dismissing the greatest variable of them all- your opponent

[wildbourgman]

The problem with "Karate" when we speak of street defense is that the sport side of modern Karate is not suited for this type of fighting. They are more accustomed to longer ranges and time to throw strikes and kicks and 95% or higher of street fights is close range. This, unfortunately, is rarely practiced in modern Dojo. Realism in training is the key to the art being effective in a real fight.

This was alluded to and debate by some others on this thread and I understand both sides. I've been on both sides where being a novice at sport karate hurt me in what I'll loosely call a self defense situation ( I deserved what I got) but on the other hand I have had situations where sports karate training helped me much more than having no training at all.

I do think there is a place for having a good grasp on longer range fighting as I learned in Shotokan karate and even longer range when practicing with some of my TKD friends. I think that it's very helpful as I learn close quarters fighting techniques such as in Matsumura Shorin Ryu, which I agree is more realistic for in a high percentage of situations.

[RW]

Would I throw a tsuki strike, while chambering my other hand to my ribs or waist? No.

Would I adopt a kiba dachi or shiko dachi (horse stance) stance while on the fight? That screams "kick me in the balls please".

Would I move into a zen kutsu dachi forward stance while attacking? That's a great way to lose a fight.

Would I bring my hand all the way behind my ear so I can then block a strike with a shuto uke? Of course not.

Would I raise my forearm in an Age Uke block while chambering my other hand? Nope.

If we go by the Kihon, Kata, Kumite rule, and it that is 33.33% each, that means that 66.66% of what we train in karate is actually unusable in a real fight.

This is not a criticism about karate. ITF Taekwondo has very similar moves to age uke, tsuki, shuto uke, etc, and stances very similar to Kiba Dachi, shiko Dachi, etc. WTF practitioners often spar with their arms hanging at waist level and never strike with the hands. Kung fu has even less practical concepts, why would anyone adopt a lotus position or a cross stance while fighting? Even getting out of that stance is difficult! In general, most traditional martial arts will have you train "unusable" things 66% of the time at least.

What matters is what you do with the resting 33.33%, kumite. Karate can and has been used in pressure tested fight environments. Look at Lyoto Machida, Sage Northcut, Seth Petruzelli or Steven "Wonderboy" Thompson.

In order to end with usable karate for a real fight you need to pressure test your techniques in real, full contact or semi full contact fights. You learn to swim by swimming, you learn to drive by driving, you learn a language by speaking it. So it's only logical that you learn to fight by fighting.

I would argue that karate, and traditional martial arts in general have a different purpose. This takes us back to the whole -do topic, TMAs are supposed to be about self development and growth. Mastering those stances, learning and perfecting those kata, strengthening your body by practicing kihon and calisthenics, etc, it will all result in a healthier, more fit and more engaged individual. You're also helping to keep alive an ancient, wonderful art that if lost is not coming back.

My 2 cents

[GojuRyu Bahrain]

How usable is Shotokan Karate in "the streets"? That depends on how one trains! I voted "no" because in my experience most Shotokan Dojos train far, far away from reality.. No pressure testing, unrealistic distancing, no understanding of the strategies/principles contained in the Kata and - worst of all - no interest in making it actually work.

Dojos and Senseis that train self-defense ready Shotokan are rare. On the other hand: the material would be great for self defense: Shotokan Kata are full of highly relevant material. Shuto Uke drills as limb control, Capitalizing on flinch reations to shift into advantageous positions....take, for example Kanku Dai the way Iain Abernethy shows it. Brilliant applications, excellent use of natural flinch reflex - integrating it into practical applications, live drills with limb & distance control, seizing the initiative, followed by rapid & effective finishing techniques etc..

But, unfortunately, that is not what the vast majority of Shotokan Dojos (that I know of) train.

[GojuRyu Bahrain]

PS> A good rule of thumb to see if a Dojo is serious (in regards to self defense): they do some clinch work and stand-up grappling, and integrate that into the analysis of Kata.

[LLLEARNER]

Ultimately it is how you train that determines whether your karate, Shotokan or another style, is useful to you in the street.

Stances for instance are intended to be transitions. If you watch UFC you see a lot of stance work that comes from karate backgrounds.

Chambering the return hand to the side can also simulate a two-handed push-pull technique. The off-balancing component in Judo techniques requires the push of one hand and pulling of the other. I also look at the high block set in Heian Shodan, and see the retracting hand having performed a "receive" of the opponents arm down and a simultaneous strike under the jaw or into the throat with the other hand.

As others have mentioned, Ian Abernathy has brilliant (I thought that in a British accent) practical applications of kata. I think the sport aspect has overshadowed the practical application intended with kata. A big part of me wishes the atmosphere martial arts existed in during the 60's-80's would make a comeback. The other part of me does not want the medical and dental bills associated. But, I know a fault of mine is romanticizing the past in which I was not around for. I do the same thing for SCUBA diving.

I am weirdly contemplative tonight.

[OneKickWonder]

Ultimately it is how you train that determines whether your karate, Shotokan or another style, is useful to you in the street.

Yes. Even in line drills fighting thin air.

I'm currently sidelined due to injury. But I still go and watch because my family train. Being sidelined sounds awful but it does have the advantage that you get to see it from the outside, but with inside knowledge. Everyone was training the same thing but in their own way. To take two extremes, I saw one full of contemplation. Kicking to the count, but thinking about everything. I saw another screaming out and pulling faces and looking like a total psychopath. In the case of the latter, even though he was fighting thin air, I could see in his mind he was smashing some imaginary assailant to smithereens. Of course that doesn't automatically mean he can do it for real. I know he is a weakling and a bit naive. But he's young. I know that with that level of determination in his training he'll be formidable in time.

[RW]

Ultimately it is how you train that determines whether your karate, Shotokan or another style, is useful to you in the street.

Stances for instance are intended to be transitions. If you watch UFC you see a lot of stance work that comes from karate backgrounds.

Chambering the return hand to the side can also simulate a two-handed push-pull technique. The off-balancing component in Judo techniques requires the push of one hand and pulling of the other. I also look at the high block set in Heian Shodan, and see the retracting hand having performed a "receive" of the opponents arm down and a simultaneous strike under the jaw or into the throat with the other hand.

As others have mentioned, Ian Abernathy has brilliant (I thought that in a British accent) practical applications of kata. I think the sport aspect has overshadowed the practical application intended with kata. A big part of me wishes the atmosphere martial arts existed in during the 60's-80's would make a comeback. The other part of me does not want the medical and dental bills associated. But, I know a fault of mine is romanticizing the past in which I was not around for. I do the same thing for SCUBA diving.

I am weirdly contemplative tonight.

Got links to any Ian Abernahy videos you like the most? I'd love to take a look!