Is Karate making a comeback!?

[sensei8]

I didn't know Karate needed a comeback. MMA didn't bother me in one iota whatsoever. My Student Body stayed strong, and many of my students were turned off by some of the pre-fight antics.

Many of my friends that own Karate dojo's weren't effected by the MMA surge of the past and present. Operating and owning a dojo requires skills beyond MA skills.

Karate dojo's that offer any ground fighting more than likely lost their Student Body to MMA schools for ground fighting training.

What's the general profile of your typical class attendant?

I've found out karate has made a niche with the following groups:

- Holdovers from the past, people who began training in the 80s or 90s, maybe early 2000s, these are the most serious students and the ones who truly care about the martial art aspect of karate

- kids: their parents take them to karate so they have some sort of after-school activity.

- more recent studies who see martial arts as a workout mainly, they tend to dislike sparring and they are not really interested in the nuances of technique.

To the bold type above...

Mine's a wide plethora due to my having been cross training for a very long time; all that you've mentioned above.

[Shojiko]

I believe alot of of MMA fighters/teams are thinking outside the box and looking into what TMA has to offer to expand the fighters tool set and think outside the norm. The fight the impressed me not too long ago was the

Match between Rose and Wei lei. No brutal trading of exchanges, just a nice clean kick set up to end it and leave with no damage. Rose accredited the kick to her TKD backgound.

With Karate - some MMA fighters have cross trained in styles such as Shotokan, or already had Karate backgrounds and have become champions at some point. Some of the head coaches of elite MMA teams have Ranks in TMA so I wouldnt doubt they throw in some TMA techniques with their overall fight strategy.

Karate still is a minority IMO, its pretty rare we get to see a new breakout fighter with a Karate background that actually uses techniques from the system.

[vergil96]

It's an interesting topic, however, I can't compare with what it was like the 90s. It's true that karate classes are full of kids and their parents plus there are a bunch of people who have been training for ages. At university, hardly anyone trains anything, let alone fighting sports. They all go to the gym if anything at all. People talk about MMA and it's popular to say that traditional martial arts are ineffective compared to MMA so "it's not worth it" to train traditional martial arts. Which I find plain annoying, because people who say this are couch potatos and are good at neither MMA nor anything else, and secondly, they don't take into account that being effective in street fights might not be why someone trains.

[gspell68]

I think Karate, along with other "traditional" styles, are making a comeback. I don't know if it has more to do with the "downfall" of MMA, or the rise of Karate in popular culture with the likes of shows like Cobra Kai. Either way, it is welcomed.

As an aside, I don't think MMA is losing popularity or is falling by the wayside. By and large, MMA is the avenue that Martial Artists that want to compete professionally take. MMA has evolved so much, and the athletes competing there are truly elite athletes. Not everyone who gets into Martial Arts is going to be an elite athlete, nor do they all want to train that way. So, I believe styles like Karate and Taekwondo will always have students ready to step into their ranks. I also believe that as more pro MMA athletes step aside and retire, they may look to the more "traditional" styles (or look back to them) in order to fill that void in their world.

Maybe it has something to do with the coronavirus?

I know that I would not be thrilled to be inhaling someone else’s hot dragon breath at point blank range.

Socially distanced kata practice seems pretty attractive given the current pandemic situation!

I’m not exactly sure that we ever saw a good matchup of “elite athletes” in the early days of the UFC since I seem to remember it essentially being a Gracie promotional campaign.

It would have been nice to see someone of the caliber of a JKA instructor or the son of an Okinawan master that was eating/breathing/living karate like Royce did with his father and BJJ.

[sensei8]

Once again, if I may...

I didn't know Karate went anywhere where it had to make a comeback. Recently I read that at present, around 100 million people on five continents and 192 countries practice karate. Sounds pretty viable to me, still. Marketing drives the horse, and sometimes the horse can't be led to water to say it's soul.

[bushido_man96]

I think Karate, along with other "traditional" styles, are making a comeback. I don't know if it has more to do with the "downfall" of MMA, or the rise of Karate in popular culture with the likes of shows like Cobra Kai. Either way, it is welcomed.

As an aside, I don't think MMA is losing popularity or is falling by the wayside. By and large, MMA is the avenue that Martial Artists that want to compete professionally take. MMA has evolved so much, and the athletes competing there are truly elite athletes. Not everyone who gets into Martial Arts is going to be an elite athlete, nor do they all want to train that way. So, I believe styles like Karate and Taekwondo will always have students ready to step into their ranks. I also believe that as more pro MMA athletes step aside and retire, they may look to the more "traditional" styles (or look back to them) in order to fill that void in their world.

Maybe it has something to do with the coronavirus?

I know that I would not be thrilled to be inhaling someone else’s hot dragon breath at point blank range.

Socially distanced kata practice seems pretty attractive given the current pandemic situation!

I’m not exactly sure that we ever saw a good matchup of “elite athletes” in the early days of the UFC since I seem to remember it essentially being a Gracie promotional campaign.

It would have been nice to see someone of the caliber of a JKA instructor or the son of an Okinawan master that was eating/breathing/living karate like Royce did with his father and BJJ.

I don't know about that. Dan Severn was an elite wrestling talent. Art "One Glove" Jimmerson was a professional Boxer at the time, and a former Golden Gloves Champion. I think there was plenty of talent in the early UFCs. The sport just hadn't evolved yet.

[gspell68]

I think Karate, along with other "traditional" styles, are making a comeback. I don't know if it has more to do with the "downfall" of MMA, or the rise of Karate in popular culture with the likes of shows like Cobra Kai. Either way, it is welcomed.

As an aside, I don't think MMA is losing popularity or is falling by the wayside. By and large, MMA is the avenue that Martial Artists that want to compete professionally take. MMA has evolved so much, and the athletes competing there are truly elite athletes. Not everyone who gets into Martial Arts is going to be an elite athlete, nor do they all want to train that way. So, I believe styles like Karate and Taekwondo will always have students ready to step into their ranks. I also believe that as more pro MMA athletes step aside and retire, they may look to the more "traditional" styles (or look back to them) in order to fill that void in their world.

Maybe it has something to do with the coronavirus?

I know that I would not be thrilled to be inhaling someone else’s hot dragon breath at point blank range.

Socially distanced kata practice seems pretty attractive given the current pandemic situation!

I’m not exactly sure that we ever saw a good matchup of “elite athletes” in the early days of the UFC since I seem to remember it essentially being a Gracie promotional campaign.

It would have been nice to see someone of the caliber of a JKA instructor or the son of an Okinawan master that was eating/breathing/living karate like Royce did with his father and BJJ.

I don't know about that. Dan Severn was an elite wrestling talent. Art "One Glove" Jimmerson was a professional Boxer at the time, and a former Golden Gloves Champion. I think there was plenty of talent in the early UFCs. The sport just hadn't evolved yet.

My bad.

I was referring specifically to karate.

Even more so, there was a dearth of traditionally trained Japanese karate-ka.

I only remember one Japanese guy that was like a nidan that let himself be taken down way too easily by Royce.

[Miick 11]

I think Karate, along with other "traditional" styles, are making a comeback. I don't know if it has more to do with the "downfall" of MMA, or the rise of Karate in popular culture with the likes of shows like Cobra Kai. Either way, it is welcomed.

As an aside, I don't think MMA is losing popularity or is falling by the wayside. By and large, MMA is the avenue that Martial Artists that want to compete professionally take. MMA has evolved so much, and the athletes competing there are truly elite athletes. Not everyone who gets into Martial Arts is going to be an elite athlete, nor do they all want to train that way. So, I believe styles like Karate and Taekwondo will always have students ready to step into their ranks. I also believe that as more pro MMA athletes step aside and retire, they may look to the more "traditional" styles (or look back to them) in order to fill that void in their world.

Maybe it has something to do with the coronavirus?

I know that I would not be thrilled to be inhaling someone else’s hot dragon breath at point blank range.

Socially distanced kata practice seems pretty attractive given the current pandemic situation!

I’m not exactly sure that we ever saw a good matchup of “elite athletes” in the early days of the UFC since I seem to remember it essentially being a Gracie promotional campaign.

It would have been nice to see someone of the caliber of a JKA instructor or the son of an Okinawan master that was eating/breathing/living karate like Royce did with his father and BJJ.

I don't know about that. Dan Severn was an elite wrestling talent. Art "One Glove" Jimmerson was a professional Boxer at the time, and a former Golden Gloves Champion. I think there was plenty of talent in the early UFCs. The sport just hadn't evolved yet.

My bad.

I was referring specifically to karate.

Even more so, there was a dearth of traditionally trained Japanese karate-ka.

I only remember one Japanese guy that was like a nidan that let himself be taken down way too easily by Royce.

You do realize that the 'Royce promotional campaign ' was rigged ( special opponents selected and 'rules' dictated by Gracies to restrict their oppositions talent ) ?

[bushido_man96]

I don't think it was that rigged. Yes, it was their tournament, but they Gracies had been doing challenge matches for some quite some time before these tournaments started. There were plenty of good fighters in the tournaments, and I don't think any highly graded or skilled Karatekas being brought into the tournament would have changed any of the outcomes.

[RW]

I don't think it was that rigged. Yes, it was their tournament, but they Gracies had been doing challenge matches for some quite some time before these tournaments started. There were plenty of good fighters in the tournaments, and I don't think any highly graded or skilled Karatekas being brought into the tournament would have changed any of the outcomes.

I feel part of the issue is that few people were aware of BJJ-style grappling at that point in time. Everybody could recognize a punch or a kick, but a kimura or heel hook? Not so much.

Imagine that there were some alternate dimension where everybody grew up seeing BJJ instead of professional boxing and the cool movies in hollywood displayed wrestlers instead of karateka or kung fu guys. Schoolyard fights would consist on guys wrestling each other like kids do instead of flailing their arms trying to punch each other in the nose.

Then suddenly there is an "ultimate fighter" tournament where this guy is doing this wild, innovative thing which consists of closing his fist and thrusting it into people's faces or using his foot as some sort of stick to kick people with... he'd have had the same success the gracies had in UFC1.