Karate Myths and Misconceptions

[BudoNoah]

It goes back to the primary issue related to teaching karate. That what is taught to the new student is not what is intended of the high level student.

The pulling motion of the opposite hand is used to help the student develop rotational power. It teaches the student how to rotate the hips with a very reliable physical cue. It also teaches the student how to steady the non-striking limb while the striking limb is in action. All very true and important for someone learning the art.

But it's not ultimate purpose of the movement - which about limb control as the video points out. Something that's not explained until later in your training.

All throughout karate (or at least Shotokan), we see this repeated. One explanation for beginners, a different explanation for experienced karateka.

Another example is when they talk about different timing for the same techniques. Many of the movements, especially in the pre-blackbelt kata that can be applied in 3 different ways. 1) Block then Counter with the other limb. 2) Parry and counter with the same limb. 3) Parry and strike at the same time.

It's the same sequence of physical movements but the instructor's belief about the student's skill level determines which explanation the student gets. This is a big part of why Western karate lagged the Japanese for so long. Some of the higher level teachings for the movements weren't taught to the non-Japanese in those early years for a variety of reasons (some intentional, some unintentional). It took years before the gaps were known and even more years before they could be learned and then taught.

Honestly, I don't find that having people pull their hand to their hip REALLY helps them with their rotation. I think people want to believe it does, because they have been told it will and weren't given a better answer, but I haven't really seen it be any more beneficial than having students keep their hands up. I also think that teaching beginners different reasons for things than more advanced students is a terrible thing. You might teach them different techniques, and work with them on different levels of understanding, but I find ZERO benefit to teaching them something that is wrong because they are a lower rank, and then waiting to teach them the correct thing until they are a brown or black belt.

 

[panamaican]

Honestly, I don't find that having people pull their hand to their hip REALLY helps them with their rotation. I think people want to believe it does, because they have been told it will and weren't given a better answer, but I haven't really seen it be any more beneficial than having students keep their hands up. I also think that teaching beginners different reasons for things than more advanced students is a terrible thing. You might teach them different techniques, and work with them on different levels of understanding, but I find ZERO benefit to teaching them something that is wrong because they are a lower rank, and then waiting to teach them the correct thing until they are a brown or black belt.

I don't think that the pulling hand helps with actual rotation, I think it helps with visualizing the rotation, like with hanmi and shomen. This side of hip is going forward, this side isn't. Some people need that type of physiological cue until they have better muscle control of their hips and back.

I agree with the 2nd half of your post. Although it's not that they're teaching them something wrong, they're just not teaching them the full set of concepts. It wouldn't be a problem if they explained that it's only the 1st level of something more complex but they don't.

It's like the gedan barai conversation from before. Gedan Barai can certainly just be a down block. That's a very simplistic explanation for the movement but it's not "wrong", it's just incomplete.

If you know you're going to have the same student for 3+ years to study a single kata, that's not a problem. You teach the movements, the superficial principles, and then work up to the more complex stuff. It's when you don't have that time and you don't get to explain those more complex concepts that you end up with bad karate. The student learns the superficial movements and concepts and then leaves thinking they've mastered something.

It's the result of the difference in these societies. We've gone from a scenario where 1 teacher taught one or two specifically selected students to scenarios where 1 teacher is teaching dozens of students at the same time. In the first one, the teacher knows he has as much time as he needs to really impart a complete set of knowledge. In the 2nd one, the teacher has students coming in and coming out, staying for undetermined amounts of time. They're all at different levels of ability/understanding but learning the same kata. It's inevitable that the 2nd group is going to come away without a complete understanding of the system.

 

[Jack Stevonovich]

I don't think that the pulling hand helps with actual rotation, I think it helps with visualizing the rotation, like with hanmi and shomen. This side of hip is going forward, this side isn't. Some people need that type of physiological cue until they have better muscle control of their hips and back.

. Although it's not that they're teaching them something wrong, they're just not teaching them the full set of concepts. It wouldn't be a problem if they explained that it's only the 1st level of something more complex but they don't.

So, would you say they are teaching the student a technique rather than Karate in that case?

 

[panamaican]

So, would you say they are teaching the student a technique rather than Karate in that case?

It's not a technique. It's a principle/concept. Pulling one side back to aid the other side going forward is a principle to help students learn about rotation.

The "pulling hand" is another, more practical, principle. It's about the importance of using the off-hand to control the opponent while performing a technique. It's combined with the principle of breaking kuzushi - which is about disrupting the opponent's balance before applying a technique (judo has a similar principle I believe). The pulling hand movement doesn't mean "This is the technique for pulling the opponent", it's meant to say "This is where you should pull the opponent and break their balance but there's no singular way to do so."

It is karate's application of multiple concepts and even multiple intentions to the same physical movement that makes it important to distinguish between techniques and concepts.

Like the "Gedan barai" movement. Anyone can copy the physical movement and say that they're learning a karate technique but without the proper explanation, they could have the wrong understanding for the movement and thus haven't learned what they think they're learning. This is a bigger problem in karate where the names for movements are not the same as the intention behind the movements. In some other art, a movement called "punch" is always a punch but in karate it might be called "punch" but be a grab or a deflection. So, the unaware might copy the movement thinking they've learned a punch and apply it as a punch but they completely missed that they were supposed to be learning a grab.

 

[Jack Stevonovich]

It's not a technique. It's a principle/concept. Pulling one side back to aid the other side going forward is a principle to help students learn about rotation.

The "pulling hand" is another, more practical, principle. It's about the importance of using the off-hand to control the opponent while performing a technique. It's combined with the principle of breaking kuzushi - which is about disrupting the opponent's balance before applying a technique (judo has a similar principle I believe). The pulling hand movement doesn't mean "This is the technique for pulling the opponent", it's meant to say "This is where you should pull the opponent and break their balance but there's no singular way to do so."

It is karate's application of multiple concepts and even multiple intentions to the same physical movement that makes it important to distinguish between techniques and concepts.

Like the "Gedan barai" movement. Anyone can copy the physical movement and say that they're learning a karate technique but without the proper explanation, they could have the wrong understanding for the movement and thus haven't learned what they think they're learning. This is a bigger problem in karate where the names for movements are not the same as the intention behind the movements. In some other art, a movement called "punch" is always a punch but in karate it might be called "punch" but be a grab or a deflection. So, the unaware might copy the movement thinking they've learned a punch and apply it as a punch but they completely missed that they were supposed to be learning a grab.

what do you think of Machida's style of karate?

 

[JohnPJones]

Another myth / misconception which needs to be squashed!
Fresh video from Iain Abernethy.

thanks for sharing never heard of him. Subscribe now though

 

[panamaican]

what do you think of Machida's style of karate?

I don't think much about the style and I didn't think much about it earlier. His karate training is very apparent in how he fights and how he moves, moreso early in his career than later but it's still there. 2-hands working together, his use of distance and timing (his ma-ai), his kamae, etc.

 

[Hotora86]

I don't think that the pulling hand helps with actual rotation, I think it helps with visualizing the rotation, like with hanmi and shomen. This side of hip is going forward, this side isn't. Some people need that type of physiological cue until they have better muscle control of their hips and back.

I agree with the 2nd half of your post. Although it's not that they're teaching them something wrong, they're just not teaching them the full set of concepts. It wouldn't be a problem if they explained that it's only the 1st level of something more complex but they don't.

It's like the gedan barai conversation from before. Gedan Barai can certainly just be a down block. That's a very simplistic explanation for the movement but it's not "wrong", it's just incomplete.

If you know you're going to have the same student for 3+ years to study a single kata, that's not a problem. You teach the movements, the superficial principles, and then work up to the more complex stuff. It's when you don't have that time and you don't get to explain those more complex concepts that you end up with bad karate. The student learns the superficial movements and concepts and then leaves thinking they've mastered something.

It's the result of the difference in these societies. We've gone from a scenario where 1 teacher taught one or two specifically selected students to scenarios where 1 teacher is teaching dozens of students at the same time. In the first one, the teacher knows he has as much time as he needs to really impart a complete set of knowledge. In the 2nd one, the teacher has students coming in and coming out, staying for undetermined amounts of time. They're all at different levels of ability/understanding but learning the same kata. It's inevitable that the 2nd group is going to come away without a complete understanding of the system.

Here's a "crazy" idea... why not mention BOTH concepts at the same time?

Imagine teaching a complete beginner:

"Retract your non-striking hand to your hip - this is called Hiki-Te. This will help you visualize and emphasize hip rotation. However the true purpose of this move is limb control - pulling the opponent off balance or into your strike. Remember about that application - we will train it a bit later / at a higher belt."

Is that really too much info for a while belt?
I don't think so.

 

[Jack Stevonovich]

Here's a "crazy" idea... why not mention BOTH concepts at the same time?

Imagine teaching a complete beginner:

"Retract your non-striking hand to your hip - this is called Hiki-Te. This will help you visualize and emphasize hip rotation. However the true purpose of this move is limb control - pulling the opponent off balance or into your strike. Remember about that application - we will train it a bit later / at a higher belt."

Is that really too much info for a while belt?
I don't think so.

wait... I'm confused.

 

[panamaican]

Here's a "crazy" idea... why not mention BOTH concepts at the same time?

Imagine teaching a complete beginner:

"Retract your non-striking hand to your hip - this is called Hiki-Te. This will help you visualize and emphasize hip rotation. However the true purpose of this move is limb control - pulling the opponent off balance or into your strike. Remember about that application - we will train it a bit later / at a higher belt."

Is that really too much info for a while belt?
I don't think so.

I agree. I think it's unnecessary the way they currently do it and out of touch with modern society.

It can even be combined into one concept. "Using your hips - visualize pulling backwards on the opponent with one hand while striking forward with the other hand."

The rotating around an axis thing makes far more sense when you're thinking about two connected people. One is moves in one direction (pulled) while the other moves in the opposite direction (strikes).

 

[Hotora86]

I agree. I think it's unnecessary the way they currently do it and out of touch with modern society.

It can even be combined into one concept. "Using your hips - visualize pulling backwards on the opponent with one hand while striking forward with the other hand."

The rotating around an axis thing makes far more sense when you're thinking about two connected people. One is moves in one direction (pulled) while the other moves in the opposite direction (strikes).

This unified concept could be a bit harder to understand IMO, though it has its merits of course.

As for the whole "rotating around an axis" concept - I really dislike this and would never teach it. Humans stand on two legs and don't rotate around their spines or on some imaginary spine extension protruding from the ass. I just find it to be silly and not very useful.

"Rotate your hips" is fine. "Rotate around your axis" is putting legs on a snake.

 

[panamaican]

This unified concept could be a bit harder to understand IMO, though it has its merits of course.

As for the whole "rotating around an axis" concept - I really dislike this and would never teach it. Humans stand on two legs and don't rotate around their spines or on some imaginary spine extension protruding from the ass. I just find it to be silly and not very useful.

"Rotate your hips" is fine. "Rotate around your axis" is putting legs on a snake.

I was thinking about a vertical axis between the 2 people, not one running up the midline of a person, lol.

But I do understand that the unified concept could be harder to understand but I don't think it's that much harder. And it's pretty easy to demonstrate with a partner. But this is why they've simplified things so much. We agree on the unified concept. You've broken it down into 2 steps to be shared at the same time but taught separately. They've taken it further and only share the first step, saving the second step until much later. From a teaching perspective, we're working to the same goal. I guess it really boils down to how much the student can grasp. Maybe children need the version where you only share the 1 step but adults can probably handle the unified concept. And then everyone else falls in the middle.

I don't know but that's probably why I'm not a teacher.

 

[BudoNoah]

We teach that hikite is for pulling the opponent into your strikes pretty much right off the bat--it is explicitly shown in the first movement of the first kata in our system--and it doesn't seem to cause a problem for those students, even when they are quite young. As for using it to visualize rotation, I don't even bother with that, because I focus on getting them to use their legs to appropriately drive their movement, instead. If you did, though, I don't really see a "unified concept" approach being any more difficult.