Anyone practice Shotokan karate?

It's fun. I am currently a green belt, which is not very high, but not that bad either. Our teacher is quite good and seems to be serious about belts. Is karate good in MMA?

Anyone else practice it? So far I mastered the Heian Shodan, Heian Nidan and Heian Sondan. I am currently learning the Hein Yodan.

 

I think if you are talking about MMA usefulness, then I think Shotokan is one of the worst things to go. But MMA is by far not everything, so if you like it then keep it up.

 

CroCop started in Shotokan. It is gut for builidn basic standup tecniques, like putting whole body into punch, not just your arms, has good kicks too. It depends a lot on your instructor. Shotokan is very popular in eastern europe. When sparing we could punch and kick to body with full force, but you could only barely touch opponents head. So it is not much different than kyokoshinkay.
Karate or any other stand up sport by itself is not enough for mma.

 

I used to teach Taekwon-do at a college (traditional ITF style). We had a guy from Sweden who did Shotokan karate ( black belt) in the class. He was good. A good fighter, good hands, good kicker. Heck he was just a good athlete. He had to make barely any adjustments to do things in our style. The two styles were almost identical.

It was awesome to have him because, as a obessive martial artist, you could say to him, "Wanna stay after and do bag work/spar/whatever. And he'd always be up for it.

 

Don't know much about it but if you are having fun with it then keep it up. As far as karate being good for mma, from what I hear the majority say it isn't.

 

It is not bad I did Shotokan from age 7-13 then moved onto doing Boxing and now I'm practicing Muay Thai. Let me be honest with you... all those Kata's you've mastered and are learning are worthless. Shotokan Karate isn't all that bad as long as you are sparring because you will pick up some decent skills. I would seriously recommend you taking another form of standup whether it be Kyokushin Karate, Muay Thai or Boxing because it is more practical for real fighting.

 

Karate isn't that great for mma unless it's kyokushin. I used to do shito ryu, but it's quite different from shotokan. different meaning better.

 

Yeah good question, I have no idea how different is kyokushin.

 

the difference between Kyokushin Karate and most other styles of karate (there are few differences technique-wise...most karate shares the same techniques, trust me Ik now, ive done like 4 styles of karate as a kid, and studied a crapload others) is that Kyokushin is a much harder style.....its purely in HOW they train...not what they train.....they focus the hardest on body conditioning, than just about any other style of Karate out there, on average....however there are always exceptions to the rule.

 

The guy who founded Kyokushin started out in Shotokan but didnt think they sparred enough so he created Kyokshin which has like 2 forms from white to black belt and a heavy emphasis on real full-contact sparring as opposed to Shotokan which has lots of forms and form practice and litttle light-contact sparring.

 

It always depends on the person doing the style, but the people I have trained with who did shotokan always sucked when fighting/sparring. They had no experience with shots coming at them with intent, poor reactions and always had a very low, poor mobility stance. Good for power, but you step back and they'd miss by miles and it'd take them ages (in a fighting time frame) to re adjust, in which time you've landed shots everywhere.

 

you named the kata's you mastered but i think your sparring is more important for MMA

 

I think you hit the nail on the head. The difference is in the how. And much of it comes down to the person as well.

When I taught TKD at the college I used to get many people from many styles. Some people were really not that good. They were stiff, very one attack oriented, etc, etc.

But most were good, and some were awesome. People like to make fun of the 'karate guy' who jumps into a front stance, delivers a front punch, and yells 'Ya' while you side step and hit them with jabs. There were some like that, but it was the exception and not the rule. You'd spar with them and be dodging very fast combos.

I even had one girl come in who was a brown belt at her uncle's dojo back at home. When I sparred her, light touch, she stuck me with several kicks and punches. I had to start giving everything I had just to hang with her and keep some semblance of masculine pride.

Come to find out she'd been taking it since she was 5 years old (13 plus years) and the only reason she was still a brown belt was because her uncle was especially demanding of his relatives...

Good lesson for me. Don't underestimate people...

 

If you have a traditional teacher straight from Japan or Okinawa it will do wonders for conditioning your mind and body. My sister use to be in it and she was scared shitless every time she went to class, but it made her able to take anything she has to go through.

It kinda sucks when you first start but the black belts in shoto are awesome, the sparring is insane. So many times I have watched the class and have seen people left and right leaving with blood all over their gis. Yeah it isn't effective as other styles but you gotta see what time it came from and that it didn't really evolve. Wide stances = for huge armies pushing against each other and such. So the katas really weren't useless, just useless now in this era.

In the end I think people who grew up doing it have a really good base if they want to switch to other styles, they may have some bad habits but I can guarantee they will pick it up faster than most people.

 

At least the karate is good for my cardio and conditionning. I always do it at high intensity, so that I am always sweating a lot.