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Athletic vs Stocky


Neil

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My teacher sais a Karate body should be strong and heavy and not athletic, the boxing teacher sais I should lose some weight to become faster. For people who have had any real experiances out in the street and in the ring for that matter do you find (of course excluding such things as movement, skills etc for now) did you find the more athletic fighter hard to beat or the more heavyily built fighter? Basically a light strong fighter or a heavy strong fighter.

 

Neil

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I think this is in ref to Goju as a style fitting a stocky body type. I know a couple of goju karateka and they tell me the stocky do better at goju. Don't know if that's true or not......
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Some pics of Miyagi Chojun Sensei, including one when he was training as a young man that gives you some idea of his body type. http://www.xs4all.nl/~frits007/isshinryu/miyagi.htm

 

Also, from an essay of Richard Kim's, from a piece he credited to journalist Tokuda Anshu; a description of a demonstration:

 

"Miyagi performed without pretension. Okinawa never saw anything like it. It was the performance of a karate meijin. Miyagi thrust his hand into a hunch of bamboos and pulled out one from the center. He stuck his hand into a slab of meat and tore off chunks. He put white chalk on the bottom of his feet, jumped up, and kicked the ceiling-leaving his foot-prints on the ceiling for all to see. Spectators hit him with long bos (staffs) with no effect. With his fingers he tore off the bark off a tree. And with his big toe he punctured a hole in a kerosene can. And he did many more feats which had to be seen to be believed. "He performed all afternoon, way past the two-hour mark. After the performance, Miyagi said, 'Any karate expert who trains properly can do all this, It is simply a matter of paying the price. Karate is a total commitment. I have not done anything that someone else cannot do, or, for that matter, you. There is no half-way measure. Either you do it or you don't. Nothing is impossible.'"

 

http://www.martialartsca.com/kim.html

The journey of a thousand miles begins with one step.


-Lao-Tse

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Your body don't matter the style will grow to fit you as it does each of us.

 

Some of us are naturl athletes and others of us are not. We can't really change that. Yeah we can work on speed and agility but a better athlete has an advantage over a person of the same size and talent.

(General George S. Patton Jr.) "It's the unconquerable soul of man, and not the nature of the weapon he uses, that ensures victory."

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I have seen quite a lot of pictures of Miyagi when he was younger and he has pretty much the same build as me, although I am smaller in height 5'7. I just want to ask becasue I still can't decide whether I want to lose weight or gain. If I gain it I could be a very heavy small fighter who proboly has more power? Or I could lose some weight and be a lot faster. I just don't know!

 

Anymore comments about stocky vs athletics are welcome, absolutley anything, even if you are just looking post anything I want to hear about this. Maybe more about karate people build like masters, or maybe just some fight encounters or something.

 

Neil

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I have a very heavily built sensei. My GF says he looks cute, like Santa. I have seen this man run, jump, spin, and in general do things so much quicker than people who are skinny that I've given up saying skinny people are fast.

 

On a funnier note, my GF saw him use his belly as an attack on a blue belt. He bumped the blue belt back and jumped toward him with a kick. :P

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I think stocky fighters are better in a real fight and athletic in competition.

"When my enemy contracts I expand and when he expands I contract" - Bruce Lee

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I'm sorry - what is the difference between stocky and athletic anyway? Can someone be both? I know you said something like light and strong vs heavy and strong, but wouldn't it depend on the reason for the person's weight, and whether they train cardio and stamina as well?

The journey of a thousand miles begins with one step.


-Lao-Tse

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The stocky solid fighters can take a lot more hits and tend to be more durable though not as fast in general as your typical lightweight. :karate:

Pain is only temporary, the memory of that pain lasts a lifetime.

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