Why Karate isn't effective for self defense

[Vergilius]

Well, it's true that a lot of the bunkai stuff that is supposed to be useful in a fight is actually worse than useless: you never get a chance to practice it because it's supposedly "too dangerous" and it's often too complex to actually recall and use in real life without such practice (and often relies on an opponent doing exactly what you want). But the punches and kicks we use when we actually put on gloves and spar - the control of distance, the ability to move side to side or backwards to slip punches, the rotation of the hip to generate power, knowing how to put a combination together - all those things can and do work irl.

 

[fluffball]

Well, it's true that a lot of the bunkai stuff that is supposed to be useful in a fight is actually worse than useless: you never get a chance to practice it because it's supposedly "too dangerous" and it's often too complex to actually recall and use in real life without such practice (and often relies on an opponent doing exactly what you want).

I'm not a karate guy, but I firmly believe that's a trainer issue. The idea something is too dangerous to practice is just plain trainer ignorance, you can practice just about anything in a relatively live environment. For example I once checked out a school that told me that they didn't spar because if they did it right someone would die every single match.

And as far as things being too complicated, I again think that's trainer ignorance. Many of the sets of moves people put together are purely for mall demonstrations. The individual moves may and probably are valid techniques, but they've been put in some silly WWE rehearsed scenario. Most (original) karate moves are actually very simple... just a simple rotation for a hip throw or trip, etc.

 

[barnowl]

I'm not a karate guy, but I firmly believe that's a trainer issue. The idea something is too dangerous to practice is just plain trainer ignorance, you can practice just about anything in a relatively live environment. For example I once checked out a school that told me that they didn't spar because if they did it right someone would die every single match.

And as far as things being too complicated, I again think that's trainer ignorance. Many of the sets of moves people put together are purely for mall demonstrations. The individual moves may and probably are valid techniques, but they've been put in some silly WWE rehearsed scenario. Most (original) karate moves are actually very simple... just a simple rotation for a hip throw or trip, etc.

Ian abernathy is a karate guy, and backs up your opinion on the forms and movements. http://www.iainabernethy.co.uk/articles/The Pinan-Heian Series as a Fighting System

 

[Vergilius]

I'm not a karate guy, but I firmly believe that's a trainer issue. The idea something is too dangerous to practice is just plain trainer ignorance, you can practice just about anything in a relatively live environment. For example I once checked out a school that told me that they didn't spar because if they did it right someone would die every single match.

And as far as things being too complicated, I again think that's trainer ignorance. Many of the sets of moves people put together are purely for mall demonstrations. The individual moves may and probably are valid techniques, but they've been put in some silly WWE rehearsed scenario. Most (original) karate moves are actually very simple... just a simple rotation for a hip throw or trip, etc.

Well, just as an example, several katas have a move which is basically: twist your opponents arm and strike the side of his throat. You "practice" that, but not for real: your opponent allows you to grab the arm and you pull the blow away without actually striking the throat (or at least not with force). If you did strike the throat with force, that could likely render your training partner unconscious, so you can't do it in a "live environment". At the same time, applying this move in real life requires your opponent to act in a really specific way or be 100% surprised. I wouldn't feel confident using it at all, but on the other hand I do feel confident in my ability to blitz an untrained opponent with three or four strikes or kicks because I know how to move on my feet and they don't.

 

[fluffball]

IMO if you're going to practice those 1-step moves or katas with partners, you need to (eventually once you've learned the move) do away with your partner not resisting, and you should get used to some reasonably heavy contact. Punching the carotid sinus is not that different from throwing a straight right full force at someone, and gloves are always an option. People get punched in the throat and neck all the time in sparring. Just don't intentionally aim for the carotid at full force, and if you mess up and your partner goes out, well that happens in MA training. It's not permanently damaging unlike rocking someone in sparring.

I had my eyes opened when I was still doing TMAs back in the day, I tried to do a joint lock 1-step move on a new student and he barely resisted, unlike what I was used to. It didn't work anymore.

I have come across schools that teach katas with full resistance. If your kata shows a hip throw, your partner goes into full on Olympic judo mode once you have the technique down.

 

[Azam]

^^

Precisely the issue with many styles of Karate I feel. Ippon kumite (one step sparring) is a great tool to introduce and help you learn Bunkai/Kata application & technique.

But it's no replacement for full contact sparring. That said I think sparring needs to be a lot more safer - I've frequented some gyms where the sparring was literally dog fights or where it was to hard for my liking. I think light-medium sparring should be done frequently - harder sparring more sparingly.

I don't think any martial arts style should be damaging to your health where you can't keep up long term practise. It's a bit of a balancing act.


The other issue I have with Karate in general is that we learn/practice all these ukes for example and they never leave Kihon or Ippon kumite. I mean we're all required to learn soto uke, jodan uke, mawashi uke, uchi uke to pass gradings or we do continually repetitions of it in Kihon yet that's where we only ever do it. There is a disconnect with the material you learn and what you actually apply in kumite - I mean all that effort in Kihon with repetitions but it never leaves the Kihon table, no-one really bothers to learn how to apply that stuff in sparring.

I think learning forms & kata are important - but I don't think any style of Karate should have a syllabus where you are required to learn 20+ kata. I think that is detrimental and defeats the purpose of actually learning kata to begin with - I mean who in all honesty will remember that much content - let alone even attempt to understand how to make use of that much material.

Something that also irks me with Karate as well is all this concentration on grappling aspects of Bunkai but no attempt to apply that bunkai in a full contact spar where you can strike & grapple without restriction. It's all good talking about Bunkai & application but it doesn't really mean anything until you actually apply it in a fully resisting scenario like sparring.

There is some content also that is notoriously difficult to apply in a full contact spar - I mean how do you replicate a kick to the balls (kin geri) or spear-hands strikes to the face (without potentially removing your partner's retina) etc.

 

[Vergilius]

^^

Precisely the issue with many styles of Karate I feel. Ippon kumite (one step sparring) is a great tool to introduce and help you learn Bunkai/Kata application & technique.

But it's no replacement for full contact sparring. That said I think sparring needs to be a lot more safer - I've frequented some gyms where the sparring was literally dog fights or where it was to hard for my liking. I think light-medium sparring should be done frequently - harder sparring more sparingly.

I don't think any martial arts style should be damaging to your health where you can't keep up long term practise. It's a bit of a balancing act.


The other issue I have with Karate in general is that we learn/practice all these ukes for example and they never leave Kihon or Ippon kumite. I mean we're all required to learn soto uke, jodan uke, mawashi uke, uchi uke to pass gradings or we do continually repetitions of it in Kihon yet that's where we only ever do it. There is a disconnect with the material you learn and what you actually apply in kumite - I mean all that effort in Kihon with repetitions but it never leaves the Kihon table, no-one really bothers to learn how to apply that stuff in sparring.

I think learning forms & kata are important - but I don't think any style of Karate should have a syllabus where you are required to learn 20+ kata. I think that is detrimental and defeats the purpose of actually learning kata to begin with - I mean who in all honesty will remember that much content - let alone even attempt to understand how to make use of that much material.

Something that also irks me with Karate as well is all this concentration on grappling aspects of Bunkai but no attempt to apply that bunkai in a full contact spar where you can strike & grapple without restriction. It's all good talking about Bunkai & application but it doesn't really mean anything until you actually apply it in a fully resisting scenario like sparring.

There is some content also that is notoriously difficult to apply in a full contact spar - I mean how do you replicate a kick to the balls (kin geri) or spear-hands strikes to the face (without potentially removing your partner's retina) etc.

I agree with a lot of what you say here. At my dojo, though, we do "free combat" as something distinct from kumite - in principle you are allowed to use all techniques during this form of sparring though in practice we leave out the more dangerous stuff. You even have to do a token amount of free combat at graduation to pick up your next belt. But like you said, there is still a massive disconnect between kata, kihon and sparring - and though the rationale is that there is stuff we need to learn to pass to the next grade and then there is what works (and sometimes they overlap - my sensei is pretty good about that), I feel it is a weakness from an actual self-defense/combat perspective that not every session includes free fighting or at least kumite (I have a training partner and we've arranged to do a few rounds of free combat after each session to compensate). I assistant teach a class, and there are definitely guys there who would hardly be any better at defending themselves now than when they started two years ago - but they have met the minimum required to advance so far. The guys who do want to honestly improve can and do get better. My sensei says that the completely useless parts of kata and kihon should be looked upon as gymnastics, if nothing else.

 

[Vergilius]

IMO if you're going to practice those 1-step moves or katas with partners, you need to (eventually once you've learned the move) do away with your partner not resisting, and you should get used to some reasonably heavy contact. Punching the carotid sinus is not that different from throwing a straight right full force at someone, and gloves are always an option. People get punched in the throat and neck all the time in sparring. Just don't intentionally aim for the carotid at full force, and if you mess up and your partner goes out, well that happens in MA training. It's not permanently damaging unlike rocking someone in sparring.

I had my eyes opened when I was still doing TMAs back in the day, I tried to do a joint lock 1-step move on a new student and he barely resisted, unlike what I was used to. It didn't work anymore.

I have come across schools that teach katas with full resistance. If your kata shows a hip throw, your partner goes into full on Olympic judo mode once you have the technique down.

Agree with this as well. When my training partner and I are made to practice bunkai, we occasionally apply some resistance once we have the move down and it tends to fall apart. Sadly, we don't usually have the time and opportunity to keep on practicing until it actually works WITH resistance.

 

[panamaican]

Agree with this as well. When my training partner and I are made to practice bunkai, we occasionally apply some resistance once we have the move down and it tends to fall apart. Sadly, we don't usually have the time and opportunity to keep on practicing until it actually works WITH resistance.

Everything falls apart once you add resistance...until you practice it enough times with resistance. Unfortunately, your average 1-2 hr class just isn't enough time, unless it's everyday. That means time out of class is your best friend.

My suggestion is to really go back and drill just one kata for 3+ months. Drill just those techniques with a noncompliant partner until it truly becomes second nature. Unless you're training in this manner, most of your class time is really wasted. As you already know, techniques are great until the other guy starts trying to defend them and then you have to figure out what the alternatives are without being instructed - generally the katas show this but we rarely teach it that way.

One of the things I enjoyed when I trained was that we were always free to be noncompliant in the drills or to try to add follow ups to the techniques. I learned some of the most effective techniques when my partner would stop the drilled technique and counter and I was forced to deal with it. But key to that was that my drill partner was already a black belt and knew more counters and responses than I could ever imagine.

I think the first time I grasped this was when we were drilling an elbow technique (your standard X followed by the elbow maneuver). My partner threw the elbow as drilled and I decided to block it, he immediately transitioned that into a clinch and f'ed up my whole idea of defending myself. But that experience wouldn't have happened if I wasn't free to defend the technique and he wasn't free to respond organically.

IMO, all drills should allow the receiving partner to attempt to defend him/herself and force the attacker to apply at least 1 follow up.

If there isn't time in class, do it on your own time.

 

[Vergilius]

Everything falls apart once you add resistance...until you practice it enough times with resistance. Unfortunately, your average 1-2 hr class just isn't enough time, unless it's everyday. That means time out of class is your best friend.

My suggestion is to really go back and drill just one kata for 3+ months. Drill just those techniques with a noncompliant partner until it truly becomes second nature. Unless you're training in this manner, most of your class time is really wasted. As you already know, techniques are great until the other guy starts trying to defend them and then you have to figure out what the alternatives are without being instructed - generally the katas show this but we rarely teach it that way.

One of the things I enjoyed when I trained was that we were always free to be noncompliant in the drills or to try to add follow ups to the techniques. I learned some of the most effective techniques when my partner would stop the drilled technique and counter and I was forced to deal with it. But key to that was that my drill partner was already a black belt and knew more counters and responses than I could ever imagine.

I think the first time I grasped this was when we were drilling an elbow technique (your standard X followed by the elbow maneuver). My partner threw the elbow as drilled and I decided to block it, he immediately transitioned that into a clinch and f'ed up my whole idea of defending myself. But that experience wouldn't have happened if I wasn't free to defend the technique and he wasn't free to respond organically.

IMO, all drills should allow the receiving partner to attempt to defend him/herself and force the attacker to apply at least 1 follow up.

If there isn't time in class, do it on your own time.

It's true this would be a good idea. We already spent extra time after class doing kumite and free combat - and stretching to keep a modicum of agility into our mid-30'ies. Hard to find time for everything, but maybe I'll suggest it.

 

[Azam]

I agree with a lot of what you say here. At my dojo, though, we do "free combat" as something distinct from kumite - in principle you are allowed to use all techniques during this form of sparring though in practice we leave out the more dangerous stuff. You even have to do a token amount of free combat at graduation to pick up your next belt. But like you said, there is still a massive disconnect between kata, kihon and sparring - and though the rationale is that there is stuff we need to learn to pass to the next grade and then there is what works (and sometimes they overlap - my sensei is pretty good about that), I feel it is a weakness from an actual self-defense/combat perspective that not every session includes free fighting or at least kumite (I have a training partner and we've arranged to do a few rounds of free combat after each session to compensate). I assistant teach a class, and there are definitely guys there who would hardly be any better at defending themselves now than when they started two years ago - but they have met the minimum required to advance so far. The guys who do want to honestly improve can and do get better. My sensei says that the completely useless parts of kata and kihon should be looked upon as gymnastics, if nothing else.

I think Karate needs a lot more of that - freestyle sparring preferably with striking & grappling - a bit like Kudo lol.

I don't think there are useless parts of kata & kihon - I think they are useless if not applied in the right context. Then again my opinions on Bunkai are a bit different from the normal. I don't think there are magically hidden applications in forms - there just physical instructions on how different techniques should be applied. Kihon only becomes an exercise in futility if you repeat endless repetitions of soto uke, uchi uke, gedan barai, age uke etc etc but never actually try to apply it in sparring or outside of Kihon - it just becomes movements you do like your sensei - like gymnastics.

A lot of the uke in Karate are catered for grappling applications as well - in many styles of Karate though there are no avenues to grapple - the result is you don't learn how to use things like soto uke in a grappling context - or even mawashi uke.

Like you said you can always improve & learn how to do it outside of class - but I feel any instructors should always provide the avenue where students can apply what they have learnt with resistance in class otherwise your missing out on a potential part of Karate that is being neglected.

 

[II Muchetto II]

though in practice we leave out the more dangerous stuff

I'd love to know what the 'dangerous stuff' is that you are being taught.

It smells a little McDojoish too me.

Last time I sparred with a karate black belt who has a reputation of being a bit of a bully in his karate school because he was constantly trying to hurt people in the one step sparring drill and he always preached about being taught the old traditional karate ways so he is knowing all these dangerous moves, he was by far the easiest guy to hit. And the easiest guy to evade strikes from in a open sparring day that had a few different styles turn up. It was pretty pathetic.

Because I didn't hold my jab out for 10 seconds so he could demonstrate 5 moves he would do, and because I wasn't intimidated every time he screamed when he would throw a punch, he didn't know what to do when we was sparring with a good level of contact.

And this isn't a knock on karate, I know plenty of top fighters who have a high level of karate, but I have a bit of a issue when people are being led to believe that they are learning some dangerous techniques that are too lethal to test out.

 

[panamaican]

It's true this would be a good idea. We already spent extra time after class doing kumite and free combat - and stretching to keep a modicum of agility into our mid-30'ies. Hard to find time for everything, but maybe I'll suggest it.

You don't necessarily have to cut down on kumite or free combat. You could implement a requirement that kumite specifically rely on those kata based techniques that you drilled. So a round of knife hands, sweeps and hip tosses. Or elbows, side kicks and limb control tech. Whatever you worked on just continuous attempts to land it or defend it. Whatever set ups you want to use, whatever defenses you want to train but the ultimate goal is to land the drilled technique in kumite.

 

[fluffball]

I'd love to know what the 'dangerous stuff' is that you are being taught.

It smells a little McDojoish too me.

Last time I sparred with a karate black belt who has a reputation of being a bit of a bully in his karate school because he was constantly trying to hurt people in the one step sparring drill and he always preached about being taught the old traditional karate ways so he is knowing all these dangerous moves, he was by far the easiest guy to hit. And the easiest guy to evade strikes from in a open sparring day that had a few different styles turn up. It was pretty pathetic.

Because I didn't hold my jab out for 10 seconds so he could demonstrate 5 moves he would do, and because I wasn't intimidated every time he screamed when he would throw a punch, he didn't know what to do when we was sparring with a good level of contact.

And this isn't a knock on karate, I know plenty of top fighters who have a high level of karate, but I have a bit of a issue when people are being led to believe that they are learning some dangerous techniques that are too lethal to test out.

I used to go to open-style tournaments when I was younger that had basically no rules, "medium contact" (i.e. you're representing your style in front of hundreds of strangers, so try to literally kill someone with your jab). There were effectively no rules... I mean they existed, but almost everything was allowed. Groin shots, throws, sweeps, elbows, knees, knife hands, anything. Coming from a TMA background, I was like "well someone is clearly going to die." Other than the occasional fractured arm or broken ribs, no one got hurt.

Amusingly many of the regulars were missing teeth, but that's because equipment was optional and these idiots didn't wear mouth guards. It may have looked cool at a big karate tournament, not so much anywhere else.

 

[Vergilius]

I'd love to know what the 'dangerous stuff' is that you are being taught.

It smells a little McDojoish too me.

Last time I sparred with a karate black belt who has a reputation of being a bit of a bully in his karate school because he was constantly trying to hurt people in the one step sparring drill and he always preached about being taught the old traditional karate ways so he is knowing all these dangerous moves, he was by far the easiest guy to hit. And the easiest guy to evade strikes from in a open sparring day that had a few different styles turn up. It was pretty pathetic.

Because I didn't hold my jab out for 10 seconds so he could demonstrate 5 moves he would do, and because I wasn't intimidated every time he screamed when he would throw a punch, he didn't know what to do when we was sparring with a good level of contact.

And this isn't a knock on karate, I know plenty of top fighters who have a high level of karate, but I have a bit of a issue when people are being led to believe that they are learning some dangerous techniques that are too lethal to test out.

The "dangerous stuff" we don't apply are for example: strikes to the throat, kicks to the balls, elbows to the jaw, knee stomps etc. The dojo is actually one of the best in my country, consistently producing medal winners at European championship level and the teachers are very proud of their record. There is a lot of focus on living up to and even going beyond SKIF regulations - and of course that means we practice differently from a dojo with more focus on the self-defense aspect.

 

[TehGwarch]

Strikes to the throat, kicks to the balls, eyes, etc are not necessary when you can strike with power and skill

Kicking upward at the groin is low percentage, kick the groin the same way you front kick the abdomen with the sole or ball of the foot pushing in. Much harder to defend.

The purpose of a groin kick should be to fold the opponent in half and drop his hands so you can beat him up properly. There is no need to practice this separately, just lower.

Throat strikes are really low percentage, people are conditioned to protect that area, you end up hitting their chin which you could have hit with a fist anyway. Now you hurt your fingers. lol

 

[II Muchetto II]

The "dangerous stuff" we don't apply are for example: strikes to the throat, kicks to the balls, elbows to the jaw, knee stomps etc. The dojo is actually one of the best in my country, consistently producing medal winners at European championship level and the teachers are very proud of their record. There is a lot of focus on living up to and even going beyond SKIF regulations - and of course that means we practice differently from a dojo with more focus on the self-defense aspect.

What organisation does it compete under? European medals doesn't say much for a karate club these days, I know a club that has British and European champs but they didn't win a fight to get it, they just turned up and know one was in their category so they was awarded gold medals.

(Not saying your club is like this, there are plenty of really good clubs about, but still plenty of cultish ones who trade under really poor governing body's, it's ruining your sport in the UK at the moment unfortunately)

 

[Vergilius]

What organisation does it compete under? European medals doesn't say much for a karate club these days, I know a club that has British and European champs but they didn't win a fight to get it, they just turned up and know one was in their category so they was awarded gold medals.

(Not saying your club is like this, there are plenty of really good clubs about, but still plenty of cultish ones who trade under really poor governing body's, it's ruining your sport in the UK at the moment unfortunately)

ok, I don't think there are politics like that involved in my country, but I don't follow that stuff closely since I myself don't compete in international tournaments. The dojo generally competes under SKIF rules. The next international tournament in which we are represented is the Euro Grand Prix in Pilsen in October.

 

[II Muchetto II]

ok, I don't think there are politics like that involved in my country, but I don't follow that stuff closely since I myself don't compete in international tournaments. The dojo generally competes under SKIF rules. The next international tournament in which we are represented is the Euro Grand Prix in Pilsen in October.

Cool, I think it's important to have a good competition squad where you train, it's really important to have a people who inspire you on the mats,

Shotokan is probably the only karate style I really like, I really like the footwork, explosiveness and timing of their top fighters. (But to be fair, I've not really invested much time in knowledge on other styles)

It sounds like you are lucky enough to have found a great club, with students and coaches alike.

 

[Vergilius]

Cool, I think it's important to have a good competition squad where you train, it's really important to have a people who inspire you on the mats,

Shotokan is probably the only karate style I really like, I really like the footwork, explosiveness and timing of their top fighters. (But to be fair, I've not really invested much time in knowledge on other styles)

It sounds like you are lucky enough to have found a great club, with students and coaches alike.

Thanks man. It's supposedly top 5 in the country, so I'm pretty happy. It's either that or a fairly easy-going jiu-jitsu dojo where I live. We have some really good kumite and kata guys who can win medals on a european level and at least compete on the world level - and on my own best days I can be competitive with the best guys in kumite/free combat (don't think I'd beat the three very best guys any day, but it feels good not to get blown out, at least). Maybe I'll cross over to jiu-jitsu one of these days and see how that goes