Where is the best karate?

[MarcoW]

I live in a small city so I know I go to the best Karate school in town.
But say I was to donate all my time to karate where would I go to find the most useful, alive karate training?
Not much care about competition.
I thought Okinawa, but I've heard they focus mostly on form.
The states always has good training. Which states have the best karate for self-defense? What about Europe, or Japan?

 

[ChachiKiller]

Buddy, you are probably not going to get the best karate without doing forms a lot. It is not lik kickboxing where you only refine technique in sparring. Basics are part of the training.

Track down ranked teams or competitors (know what style of fighting the do so you don't to the tap point fighting style) on the internet and train with them. Maybe you could train with peopl who are national/international competitors. You may have to kiss a lot of frogs. Canada has some good instructors because it is so damned cold that they train a lot.

 

[Azam]

I live in a small city so I know I go to the best Karate school in town.
But say I was to donate all my time to karate where would I go to find the most useful, alive karate training?
Not much care about competition.
I thought Okinawa, but I've heard they focus mostly on form.
The states always has good training. Which states have the best karate for self-defense? What about Europe, or Japan?

I'd say Okinawa if you want good overall quality instruction. It depends also which style of karate you want to dedicate yourself to;

Uechi Ryu - Kiyohide Sensei's dojo in Yomitan I think (according to wiki remember it being elsewhere)

Goju Ryu - Higaonna Sensei's dojo in Naha.

Note that your training will focus heavily on conditioning, physical fitness & forms - I don't know how much they spar or compete but they definitely do - I know that Kiyohide sensei was famous in his youth for being 9x champ in competitions.


You could try Tokyo as well for JKA Honbu or IKO1 Kyokushin Honbu - I'm not sure about JKA but the IKO1 is conditioning & sparring centric - you would also benefit from having world class trainers drop in from time to time like Francisco Filho, Glaube Feitosa, Ewerton Teixeira, Ryu Narushima etc etc - I know they train regularly in the Ichigeki facility there.

Also you might want to look into Hajime Kazumi's dojo - he split from the IKO many years ago & teaches in his own dojo - he introduced MMA sparring, competitions & has been teaching karate to that ruleset competition wise.


I'm not sure about places in Europe since there are good dojo's but nothing that really stands out.

 

[Inquisitus]

This video has some good stuff on training in an okinawan dojo.

 

[BudoNoah]

I live in a small city so I know I go to the best Karate school in town.
But say I was to donate all my time to karate where would I go to find the most useful, alive karate training?
Not much care about competition.
I thought Okinawa, but I've heard they focus mostly on form.
The states always has good training. Which states have the best karate for self-defense? What about Europe, or Japan?

Okinawa is probably your best bet for finding "real" karate, so to speak, but there will be a lot of kata practice whether you like it or not. That said, the karateka over in England seem to be making great progress in the "practical" karate realm. If you're looking solely for alive training and don't care for the rest of karate, then something like Kyokushin, Enshin, or Ashihara would be good, but the best places for that change over time--check out the most recent world championships for knockdown karate to get a feel for it. America is such a mish-mash that you absolutely can't judge quality by location.

 

[Inquisitus]

Here's a good video on the JKA style.

 

[bowlie]

Cumbria, UK under Iain abernethey

 

[MarcoW]

Buddy, you are probably not going to get the best karate without doing forms a lot. It is not lik kickboxing where you only refine technique in sparring. Basics are part of the training.

Track down ranked teams or competitors (know what style of fighting the do so you don't to the tap point fighting style) on the internet and train with them. Maybe you could train with peopl who are national/international competitors. You may have to kiss a lot of frogs. Canada has some good instructors because it is so damned cold that they train a lot.

I don't mind kata, but I like Goju (which I do now) because it doesn't have too much kata. Goju only has 12 kata, not the 20-30 most of them like Shotokan have (although uechi ryu only has 8).

what I would want would be a place where they train well enough to make their maneuvers practical. My current dojo has weekly sparring. Sparring 2-3 times a week would be good for me. The rest technique, conditioning and kata.

For goju the best place would be Higaonna's dojo for sure, but does he let anyone in? I don't know

 

[peanut66]

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why is everyone so deathly afraid if doing katas / forms / patterns

theres lots of schools out there who focus on competition and see forms as being on the " have to do list, because "

try out a few and see what fits you ,

in your quest to avoid forms you may be overlooking the best schools around

a little forms does a body good .

 

[Saenchai]

Kyokushin is da best.

 

[shinkyoku]

I live in a small city so I know I go to the best Karate school in town.
But say I was to donate all my time to karate where would I go to find the most useful, alive karate training?
Not much care about competition.
I thought Okinawa, but I've heard they focus mostly on form.
The states always has good training. Which states have the best karate for self-defense? What about Europe, or Japan?

As for the states always having good training. The states are mostly known for McDojo when it comes to karate. The dojos that supply good training are few and hard to find.

As for "best" karate, it depends on what kind of karate you are looking for and what you consider "best".
If you are looking for knockdown karate. The best dojos are in Japan or europe, esp eastern europe. Although Brazil have a few high class dojos too.
There are a few good dojo in the US, but for some reason they do not produce that many top level fighters..
It has flaws, but it will make you a fighter.


If you are looking for gloved karate, you need to go to Japan or france. Or you could look for a shidokan dojo They do a little glove karate too. And some would argue that glove karate is just kickboxing.



If you are looking for point karate, it is either Japan or france. They are pretty dominating. (or used to be. I do not follow point karate closely anymore)


If you are looking for pragmatic self defence karate, I would recommend Iain Abernethy and his Wadoryu shool in UK.




The okinawan schools are just as often bogged down in modern "tradition" as ordinary karate. You might get lucky, but most likely not.

A better choice might be Koryu uchinadi, by Patrick McCarthy. It is not a old style in itself, but rather a recreation of what traditional karate should be if people still understood it. (I prefer Iain Abernethy

 

[wheels22v]

I personally would go to the Machida Dojo in Brazil.

 

[NightVole]

I think modern styles of Karate that incorporate angles/clinch work and alive training is the best style to train. This would be either Ashihara or Enshin karate, maybe one of the hybrid(elements of mma) systems by Jon bluming or Dave Cook. Personally if I had to pick the best place it would be Dave Jonkers dojo in Zuidlaren Netherlands. He is a 7th dan in Ashihara and his is very much a modern and realistic system. He also has trained top fighters like Semmy Schilt and Davit Kyria which is a good sign.

 

[Jukai]

I know people ain't gonna like to hear this, but the people who come out of Iain Abernethy's school of training look like poor brawlers. He spends a lot of time on akido-esque grappling, the actual striking is quite poor.

For what it is worth, England's WKF champs seem to have had a bit of success translating to kickboxing.

 

[Bay Area]

If you are looking for point karate, it is either Japan or france. They are pretty dominating. (or used to be. I do not follow point karate closely anymore)

Why do the practitioners quickly retract their fists after scoring a hit, and start celebrating? Isn't it up to the referee to determine if a hit was scored or not?

 

[bowlie]

Why do the practitioners quickly retract their fists after scoring a hit, and start celebrating? Isn't it up to the referee to determine if a hit was scored or not?

If they celebrate the ref is more likely to score it. If he isnt sure, and they look like they are he may be swayed

 

[$uperman]

I personally would go to the Machida Dojo in Brazil.

x2.

 

[DivineComedy]

I know people ain't gonna like to hear this, but the people who come out of Iain Abernethy's school of training look like poor brawlers. He spends a lot of time on akido-esque grappling, the actual striking is quite poor.

For what it is worth, England's WKF champs seem to have had a bit of success translating to kickboxing.

Do you have videos that show this?