^^ I got ya. Great post. Thank you.
^^^ YES. May I turn back to your core T. question...?
----- You posed your partner as a seeming "knockdown" karateka, who used what I call the "hit & run" strategy, clearly conventional by Shotokan, et al....
Here's a quote from another Karateka poster, a self-professed knockdown guy.... I'll proclaim the relevance below....
*QC* ...Lyoto beat Michael McDonald (a K-1 legend) when McDonald was at his peak and Lyoto was a relative newbie. I think Lyoto modified his fighting style to stop aiming for the body any aim at the head with a punch. Seems pretty easy to change the target.... *QC*
^^^ He was responding to a Boxing / MT MMA stylist who held traditional karate training as impractical & a waste of time.... though that's not the core premise of your T, I want to point out how his answer relates to karate self-defense....
Before I do that though, I want to point out 2 misconceptions, the first one is Chachkiller's understanding of traditional karate,,, he presumably makes from his luv for "knockdown" and full-contact >>> Mistake No. 1.
Mistake No. 1. The highlight says that Machida modified his Shotokan [sic] fighting style to stop aiming for the body and [sic] aim at the head with a punch....
I believe Lyoto's Shotokan kumite vids show him (& his opponents) using head punches all along....
Mistake No. 2. Somehow the fact that KYO or similar "knockdown" karate styles prohibit head punches during full-contact free sparring kumite, has been translated into karateka don't train, or don't know how, or can't punch to head.... This is a complete misconception....
^^^ Chachkiller points this out clearly in his concluding sentence in the highlight....
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Where am I going??? The fact that people viewed karate through the boxing or MMA lens, or alternatively, the fact that people in karate, particularly "knockdown" versions, believe that somehow---in order to fight effectively---you have to dramatically change your
karate base from some popular conventional sporting version..... is false, as Chach attests....
The same holds true for karate infighting.... Because Shotokan's kumite competitive convention employs the "distance fighting"---the experience with your opponent....
The traditional karate base specifically trains exchange fighting....
The fact that your "Knockdown karate" opponent relied on the Shotokan-like competitive "distancing formula" shows he did not train the Shotokan traditional karate base, which emphasizes in-fighting kumite very much so....
Both on the head punch issue & the type of fighting-zone strategy,,, like kata, the MMA World's understanding of traditional karate's breath & depth is one of half-knowledge and misconception....
KarateStylist