RESPECT!! your art!

[Shotokan_Fighter]

i do shotokan karate as you all know and i love my style. I eat sleep and breath shotokan karate. There has been nothing better to me than karate. It may sound weird, but id do anything just so i can train, and ppl bash karate all over, saying it dosent work saying, that a karate block dosent work, id like to know where some of you are geting you info at cause thats bs. any one who is a hardcore karate ka knows that respecting your art is a big thing. you just dont goto your karate class and kick and punch its more than that, at least to me it is. As you herd, karate isnt a sport its a way of life, it has to become more than just a hobby. i know there are ppl who respect there style, and it may not be karate, but dont say that karate dosent work. karate wasnt made for fighting other arts, a muay thai fighter may beable to beat a karate ka in and out of the ring, but how many muay thai fighters walk the street looking for fights?? karate was ment for self defense (fighting), self defense and fighting is the same thing. if you get in a fight you are fighting you have to defend your self, self defense all the same thing. im just saying have more respect for your art and dont bash other arts. Edited June 24, 2003 by Shotokan_Fighter

[AndrewGreen]

i know there are ppl who respect there style and may not be karate but dont say that karate dosent work. karate wasnt made for fighting other arts like a muay thai fighter may beable to beat him in and out of the ring

 

You said it right there "karate wasnt made for fighting"

 

respect your art, kust respect it for what it is.

 

Karate is great, I've done it for years, but it is not really that good for fighting, better then nothing, but their are much better methods for learning to fight.

 

If you acknowledge that why are you insulted when someone tells you it doesn't work, it doesn't, it wasn't meant to.

 

But saying it doesn't work is a little missleading, it does work, there are just better methods.

 

Saying it doesn't work is like saying a 286 CPU doesn't work, it does, just not as well as a pentium 4.

 

Perhaps it works better for other things, but not fighting.

[mikS]

i do shotokan karate as you all know and i love my style i eat sleep and breath shotokan karate. there has been nothing beeter to me than karate it may sound weird but id do anything just so i can train and ppl bash karate all over saying it dosent work saying that a karate block dosent work id like to know where some of you are geting you info at cause thats bs. any one who is a hardcore karate ka knows that respecting your art is a big thing. you just dont goto you karate class and kick and punch its more than that at least to me it is. as you herd karate isnt a sport its a way of life, it has to become more than just a hobby. i know there are ppl who respect there style and may not be karate but dont say that karate dosent work. karate wasnt made for fighting other arts like a muay thai fighter may beable to beat him in and out of the ring but how many muay thai fighters walk the street looking for fights?? karate what ment for self defense (fighting), self defense and fighting is the same thing. if you get in a fight you are fighting you have to defend your self self defense all the same thing. im just saying have more respect for your art and dont bash other arts.

 

Karate wasn't made for fighting? What WAS it made for then? it WAS made for fighting. Please know something about your art before you go on about respecting it.

[AndrewGreen]

Karate wasn't made for fighting? What WAS it made for then? it WAS made for fighting. Please know something about your art before you go on about respecting it.

 

No it wasn't.

 

At least not modern forms, older forms we can only speculate but I doubt it. The training methods that have survived do not suit that goal

[Kirves]

Why only speculate? Why don't you try one, they're out there in public. Just go past the modern styles, especially the known McDojos and you'll easily find good old fashioned karate.

[AndrewGreen]

Actually I've been doing it for a long time now, and I know its strengths and weaknesses.

 

Truth is karate changed a lot in the first half of the 20th century.

 

Very few sources exist before that, the bubishi being one of the main ones.

 

Quite a few where written during that period, but very few before.

 

Based on the bubishi and other old sources I stand by my claim, there is little to suggest that fighting was the primary goal.

 

Health, culture, and some self-defence benefits.

 

The main thing that we have from old karate are the kata, which have been modified to some extent but we have no real way of knowing how much.

 

Now why don't you go try one of the "sport fighting" schools?

 

I find it strange that your sig says "Now show it while sparring", sparring is not really a traditional training method. Many of the "old style" masters where against it as it would water down the art.

[Kirves]

Actually I've been doing it for a long time now, and I know its strengths and weaknesses.

 

Good!

Truth is karate changed a lot in the first half of the 20th century.

 

Truth and truth. Truth is some karate changed a lot, some a bit. Truth also is that karate was never stagnant in history either, it always evolved.

Very few sources exist before that, the bubishi being one of the main ones.

 

There are several organizations that preserve their respective systems as closely to the old teachings as possible. Hohan Soken (grandson of Bushi Matsumura) has talked about the old ways, also about how the ways have changed and why, and also why he didn't join the big organizations (he didn't want to water the system down too much). Seibukan Shukunaihayashi is an organization that was founded to preserve the teachings of Chotoku Kyan in a 100% unchanged manner, and so on.

Based on the bubishi and other old sources I stand by my claim, there is little to suggest that fighting was the primary goal.

 

Based on some other sources (like Hohan Soken's interviews), the book Tales of Okinawa's Great Masters by Nagamine, the history of Seibukan and so on, I'd say it was all about self defence.

Now why don't you go try one of the "sport fighting" schools?

 

I am.

I find it strange that your sig says "Now show it while sparring", sparring is not really a traditional training method. Many of the "old style" masters where against it as it would water down the art.

 

Many, not all. First of all, I never said I study old style. I have in the past, and still have close friends who continue to do so. I myself prefer full contact sparring and "aliveness" as Matt Thornton puts it. BTW, Hohan Soken often talked about how tough the fighting was in the old way of teaching - he has repeatedly said how karateka would sometimes be killed or crippled for life in training and that would sometimes ruin the lives of their families as well. That was how serious the "old-time" training was.

 

What I have gathered from the sources I have looked into:

 

1. First karate was a tough fighting/self defence art, training was rigorous and often dangerous.

 

2. Later the training was modified into less rigorous, as the modern life doesn't fit so well with karate that often kills or cripples people. So contact and dangerous practises was limited. As karate became more popular, with girls, weak men and children attending, it was watered down even more. People who studied karate during the first half of the 20th century, and some who did it in good dojos even as late as 60s (like Joe Lewis) say that back then nobody cared if you could take the training, the people in the dojos were 18-30 strong males and even many of them dropped out. But after those times, it was softened so anybody could study it without being afraid of injuries.

 

3. Some people started noticing that karate had become too soft. The people who studied it in these new soft schools, couldn't fight anymore. So these people started making modern contact karate styles to make it work again. For example, Mas Oyama - the founder of Kyokushinkai, said that he made his karate tougher so it would amount to what karate used to be, and in his opinion should be.

 

So, now that we are talking about "old karate" we must define are we meaning option #2 here which is softer and weaker than the "modern karate" of option #3, or are we talking about the "real old karate" of option #1, which was, if possibly even tougher than the modern tough styles.

 

But, I feel we're getting a bit off topic here. The original post was about how karate was not designed with the idea of defending against muay thai fighters on the street, and I agree. When someone says that style X won't beat style Y in K1 or UFC or whatever, my first thought is, are these people really that afraid that some MMA champ from K1 or UFC is coming at them on the streets? Most people who study a martial art for self defence, do it a couple times a week for a couple hours per session - that's it. Of course he won't beat the local MMA champion, but I don't think that is the reason he's studying the martial arts anyway.

 

Ahh, what a rant.

[monkeygirl]

Just to clear something up here:

i know there are ppl who respect there style and may not be karate but dont say that karate dosent work. karate wasnt made for fighting other arts like a muay thai fighter may beable to beat him in and out of the ring

 

You said it right there "karate wasnt made for fighting"

 

Actually, he said karate wasn't made for fighting other arts, which is a huge difference. While I can't verify the truth of his statement, I'm pretty sure that's what he meant.

[tommarker]

i'm getting sick of this shit... do we have to have this "discussion" 3 times a week?

[capn_midnight]

in regards to the original post: before beginning an argument, please use a form of grammar close to the standard system.

 

starting an argument with bad grammar is like starting a fight with bad self defense skills. you're going to get destroyed.

 

I could write a two pages on your grammatical errors alone.