Ultimate karate

[savateur doom]

I would like this to be a discussion of the potential of karate in mma, specifically at the HW and lhw levels.

In this discussion we will look at karate as the fifth part of a whole. We will assume for the purpose of this discussion that muay Thai, boxing, wrestling and gjj are complimentary and complete in their simplicity.

Karate for all its benefits is fragmented in those benefits, thanks in large part to various rules. The parts of karate that seem to work best are situational techniques and defense in a cage as opposed to a ring.

In mma the successful styles of karate are based on a few key branches, we may bring back all the way to jujutse and te (of Okinawa)

They are:
Korean: Olympic WTF Taekwondo
Kicking

Shuri-te: shotokan
Punching

Naha-te: kyokushin
Conditioning

Jujutsu: judo
Clinch

Of these the no GI or non self defense techniques are perhaps 2/3 of their curriculum. Obviously there is cross over and some defensive movements are superior to others. But I'm more interested in how they come together.

Gifs and insights would be welcome? What does this look like against the bigger stronger man, for someone with a speed advantage and clear knockout power?

 

[savateur doom]

I would like to add, alot of this you can in the shinken shobu kyokushin rules.

 

[AndyMaBobs]

If you are asking opinions on the most complete form of karate in terms of all aspects (no offence but your post could be worded better) then surely Seidokaikan is what you would be looking for. As I'm pretty sure it allows and emphasises punches to the face.

I can't claim to be an expert but I'd imagine that unless you wanted to count Daido Juku/Kudo which is really a good at all, master of none sort of deal, that seidokaikan would be the most "complete".

Or Masaaki Noiri's style, shin karate.

I would imagine posters like Azam and Shinkyoku could answer this far better than I could.

 

[DoctorTaco]

Wasn't karate frank mir's plan against mark hunt?

 

[shinkyoku]

OP classification of styles is ...questionable.

You have the knockdown styles. These include kyokushin, shidokan (the kyokushin offshot, not the okinawans style with the same name), seidokaikan, enshin, ashihara etc etc.
Some are more into kickboxing than others. Shidokan teach kickboxing (similar rules to MT) from the start (outside of Japan MMA rules are also intergrated). Shidokan was founded by a kyokushin champion and is in style a carbon copy of all the other knockdown karate styles, but they are heavily into kicboxing and MMA. Their most well known profile in the US is Shonie Carter, who came into the UFC as a shidokan champion, and now is one of their head trainers for grappling. Seidokaikan lets each fighter pick and specialize which rules they want to train with, once they reach a certain belt. Seidokaikan was big in k-1 as the k-1 founder just happened to also be the founder of seidokaikan. Their attempts to get into mma have been less successful. In kyokushin only a few places teach kickboxing seriously (kickboxing sparring is common, training for competition is not), as they focus on knockdown karate rules. No kyokushin group is really into full mma rule fighting.

Knockdown karate styles tend to be (there are always exceptions) heavy hitting standup styles, but they often (especially on hw level) lack footwork, relying on toughness for defence. Not ideal for mma. Standing and trading is in the core of knockdown karate mentality (even is styles like ashihara, with names like Semmy schilt and Davit Kiria, that pride itself on it circular footwork and its theories of never facing the opponent head on). But standing and trading make you wide open for grappling.


Shinkarate (the style of masaaki Noiri) is basically kyokushin with gloves and headpunches allowed in technique. Shinkarate is also a umbrella organization that allows any dojo of whatever style join (the bulk seems to be independent dojos with knockdown karate background), as long as they want to compete with shinkarate/glove-karate rules. The formal style of shinkarate is restricted to a few gyms in japan.
Truthfully, shinkarate&glove-karate is not significantly different from kickboxing in appearance. Once you train for a specific set of rules, you tend to resemble all others who train for the same rules.


Point karate (shotokan etc) is a horse of a different colour. Point karate guys tend to be "elusive". highly mobile, keeping distance and "hit without being hit" philosophy. That works fine as long as you can pull it off. If you get caught, it tend to not be as effective. It is also almost a entirely defensive tactic. Being elusive does not work if you have to go to the opponent. They also stick to simple techniques and sweeps. You will not see many spectacular kicks or high risk moves.
Do I need to say that the only really successful MMA fighter of this type is Machida. Why? because it is insanely difficult to stay elusive for a whole fight.


American point karate guys like Stephen "wonderboy" Thompson is like point karate with more spectacular kicks and more offensive capabilities. The key to his success is his controll of distances and his timing. As much as I like wonderboy, I kind of think that it depends on the opponents being completely unfamiliar with his style, distancing and timing. I expect his winning streak to end.


There are plenty of mma inspired styles of karate. Daido juku/kudo is the most well known (despite being very hard to find), but it is far from the only one. Most are fighting with Gi only, and as anyone can tell, the step over to no-gi is big. They also tend to fall into the "jack of all trades, master of none" group. Decent at gi grappling, decent at standup, decent at everything -but no more than decent. Good as a base, but you need to get specialized training from outside sources in each sub-discipline.

Im not bothering to include vids this time. I just link to my vid heavy thread about different types of karate
http://forums.sherdog.com/threads/so-you-think-you-know-all-about-karate.2263005/

 

[shinkyoku]

Wasn't karate frank mir's plan against mark hunt?

It certainly was a part of Stephen Thompsons plan vs Johny Hendriks

 

[DoctorTaco]

It certainly was a part of Stephen Thompsons plan vs Johny Hendriks

i thought we were talking HWs. Besides, thompsons a kickboxer.

 

[shinkyoku]

i thought we were talking HWs. Besides, thompsons a kickboxer.

And Frank Mir is well know for his career in karate tournaments? Thompson has a firm background in karate, no matter where he has chosen to use his karate. Mir does not.

 

[DoctorTaco]

And Frank Mir is well know for his career in karate tournaments? Thompson has a firm background in karate, no matter where he has chosen to use his karate. Mir does not.

Mir's dad owned a kenpo karate school. He literally grew up in a dojo and did tournaments up through high school.

 

[Watsurgol]

OP classification of styles is ...questionable.

Im not bothering to include vids this time. I just link to my vid heavy thread about different types of karate
http://forums.sherdog.com/threads/so-you-think-you-know-all-about-karate.2263005/

Thanks for posting the link to your old thread, very informative.

 

[spacetime]

Do I need to say that the only really successful MMA fighter of this type is Machida. Why? because it is insanely difficult to stay elusive for a whole fight.
/

No, that's not the reason. It's because Machida is the only World Championship level point fighter to have ever competed in MMA. Compare that to a myriad of Olympic lever wrestlers and grapplers. Fighters of Machidas style can too go on the aggressive, but it's more of a fencing style approach to attacking.

 

[spacetime]

And I know someone with a higher grade and accomplishements than Machida, namely my biological father who's a shihan and european champion in team, JKA in the late 70s. Machida is not the best representative of Shotokan.

 

[Jukai]

Tomari-te: kenpo karate
Combinations

Stopped here. Bad thread is bad.

 

[shinkyoku]

And I know someone with a higher grade and accomplishements than Machida, namely my biological father who's a shihan and european champion in team, JKA in the late 70s. Machida is not the best representative of Shotokan.

Your dad is not really relevant to anything. no offense.
Sure there are guys out there that are better at shotokan or point karate whatever the style, than machida. Machida was a god guy at junior pan-american level in a small organization, but sure there are much better guys than him internationally. But they have not made it big in mma. Maybe world champion WKF/JKA/other-acronym guys would do better (IF they learned grappling. IF they learned full contact. IF they learned continuous fighting). Maybe not.
What we do know is that several guys with lesser karate credentials over the years, have failed to make it big with the "elusive" tactic, and several attempts by non-karate (but still top level) fighters to copy machida has failed miserably.
So "insanely difficult"? Yeah, I think I stick with that.

 

[shinkyoku]

Mir's dad owned a kenpo karate school. He literally grew up in a dojo and did tournaments up through high school.

But not to the level where he got any titles in any of those tournaments.
BTW, Isnt it nice how you discount Thompson as only having practiced karate as a kid despite him using karate and nameing karate as his art during his whole standup-fighting career, but credits Mir as a karate fighter because he practiced karate (well, kempo, there is a difference. not that you care) as a kid, despite him being mostly known as a grappler and bjj guy. Or atleast you credit him as a karate fighter when he lost.

 

[DoctorTaco]

But not to the level where he got any titles in any of those tournaments.
BTW, Isnt it nice how you discount Thompson as only having practiced karate as a kid despite him using karate and nameing karate as his art during his whole standup-fighting career, but credits Mir as a karate fighter because he practiced karate (well, kempo, there is a difference. not that you care) as a kid, despite him being mostly known as a grappler and bjj guy. Or atleast you credit him as a karate fighter when he lost.

Wat?

 

[savateur doom]

Stopped here. Bad thread is bad.

Fixed.

 

[savateur doom]

OP classification of styles is ...questionable.

You have the knockdown styles. These include kyokushin, shidokan (the kyokushin offshot, not the okinawans style with the same name), seidokaikan, enshin, ashihara etc etc.
Some are more into kickboxing than others. Shidokan teach kickboxing (similar rules to MT) from the start (outside of Japan MMA rules are also intergrated). Shidokan was founded by a kyokushin champion and is in style a carbon copy of all the other knockdown karate styles, but they are heavily into kicboxing and MMA. Their most well known profile in the US is Shonie Carter, who came into the UFC as a shidokan champion, and now is one of their head trainers for grappling. Seidokaikan lets each fighter pick and specialize which rules they want to train with, once they reach a certain belt. Seidokaikan was big in k-1 as the k-1 founder just happened to also be the founder of seidokaikan. Their attempts to get into mma have been less successful. In kyokushin only a few places teach kickboxing seriously (kickboxing sparring is common, training for competition is not), as they focus on knockdown karate rules. No kyokushin group is really into full mma rule fighting.

Knockdown karate styles tend to be (there are always exceptions) heavy hitting standup styles, but they often (especially on hw level) lack footwork, relying on toughness for defence. Not ideal for mma. Standing and trading is in the core of knockdown karate mentality (even is styles like ashihara, with names like Semmy schilt and Davit Kiria, that pride itself on it circular footwork and its theories of never facing the opponent head on). But standing and trading make you wide open for grappling.


Shinkarate (the style of masaaki Noiri) is basically kyokushin with gloves and headpunches allowed in technique. Shinkarate is also a umbrella organization that allows any dojo of whatever style join (the bulk seems to be independent dojos with knockdown karate background), as long as they want to compete with shinkarate/glove-karate rules. The formal style of shinkarate is restricted to a few gyms in japan.
Truthfully, shinkarate&glove-karate is not significantly different from kickboxing in appearance. Once you train for a specific set of rules, you tend to resemble all others who train for the same rules.


Point karate (shotokan etc) is a horse of a different colour. Point karate guys tend to be "elusive". highly mobile, keeping distance and "hit without being hit" philosophy. That works fine as long as you can pull it off. If you get caught, it tend to not be as effective. It is also almost a entirely defensive tactic. Being elusive does not work if you have to go to the opponent. They also stick to simple techniques and sweeps. You will not see many spectacular kicks or high risk moves.
Do I need to say that the only really successful MMA fighter of this type is Machida. Why? because it is insanely difficult to stay elusive for a whole fight.


American point karate guys like Stephen "wonderboy" Thompson is like point karate with more spectacular kicks and more offensive capabilities. The key to his success is his controll of distances and his timing. As much as I like wonderboy, I kind of think that it depends on the opponents being completely unfamiliar with his style, distancing and timing. I expect his winning streak to end.


There are plenty of mma inspired styles of karate. Daido juku/kudo is the most well known (despite being very hard to find), but it is far from the only one. Most are fighting with Gi only, and as anyone can tell, the step over to no-gi is big. They also tend to fall into the "jack of all trades, master of none" group. Decent at gi grappling, decent at standup, decent at everything -but no more than decent. Good as a base, but you need to get specialized training from outside sources in each sub-discipline.

Im not bothering to include vids this time. I just link to my vid heavy thread about different types of karate
http://forums.sherdog.com/threads/so-you-think-you-know-all-about-karate.2263005/

Thanks for the input. I guess the point of the thread was less about which style of karate was best and more about the benefits of combining skills by competing under different rules.

Imagine someone who could control distance like machida, stopping power like Uriah Hall, kicks like cung le and throws like karo.

 

[maddog7]

The correct answer is:
Ogawa's Zendokai

/end thread

 

[Paradigm]

And I know someone with a higher grade and accomplishements than Machida, namely my biological father who's a shihan and european champion in team, JKA in the late 70s. Machida is not the best representative of Shotokan.

How far did you dad get in MMA? I assume we know of him, if he got a UFC belt or similar along the way.

James Toney was probably the boxer with the best credentials and resume to fight in MMA so far. How far did he get?