Karate's Public Image

[Steel Tiger]

The other day on the news I saw the announcement of a civic program initiated by the police in South Australia. They put together a youth Boxing tournament for boys (perhaps girls too I'm not sure) aged 12 to 15. A doctor has come out in criticism of the tournament saying that Boxing is designed to beat people about the head until they are unconcious and he would have preferred it be a Karate tournament.

Is this doctor voicing a misconception of Karate or have the various point-fighting systems for tournaments brought people to think of Karate as non-offensive?

[tshadowchaser]

you may be correct in thinking that many people now see Karate as only a point fighting system with padding.
Old time Karate tournaments and fights not only did damage to the head but to much of the rest of the body

[terryl965]

Yes Karate and Olympic TKD and along with Judo is just become the stepping stone for most people. If they ever really saw what this Art could do without the sport influence that have really become the main stage here then most people would look at it differently.

[Steel Tiger]

you may be correct in thinking that many people now see Karate as only a point fighting system with padding.
Old time Karate tournaments and fights not only did damage to the head but to much of the rest of the body


Yes Karate and Olympic TKD and along with Judo is just become the stepping stone for most people. If they ever really saw what this Art could do without the sport influence that have really become the main stage here then most people would look at it differently.

Both of you and I can see into the art and know how devastating it can be. Do you think that the sport aspects of Karate, and TKD for that matter, are 'dumbing down' the art. These arts were originally developed as ways to kill, or at least seriously injure, people whereas Boxing has always been a sport, a brutal one true, but a sport nontheless. Are they losing their souls to sport and the lure of gold medals or is this just a perception?

[terryl965]

Both of you and I can see into the art and know how devastating it can be. Do you think that the sport aspects of Karate, and TKD for that matter, are 'dumbing down' the art. These arts were originally developed as ways to kill, or at least seriously injure, people whereas Boxing has always been a sport, a brutal one true, but a sport nontheless. Are they losing their souls to sport and the lure of gold medals or is this just a perception?


Yes the sport aspect of both styles are taken away the true meaning of what they are able to do. People see these as if it is only a game like soccer and Baseball. What the future holds for these Arts are truly a guessing match, when they allowed the arts to be water down by non qualify instructors and people that really have no ideal what the significant of the art is and to apply the technique the right way it gave way to sport in this and every country.

[Kacey]

I don't know which misperception is stronger for this man - that "Boxing is designed to beat people about the head until they are unconscious", or that such things never happen in Karate. On the other hand, while people do get knocked out in Karate and other MA tournaments, there is an emphasis on focus and control, while in Boxing, a knockout is a desired outcome.

[Steel Tiger]

I don't know which misperception is stronger for this man - that "Boxing is designed to beat people about the head until they are unconscious", or that such things never happen in Karate. On the other hand, while people do get knocked out in Karate and other MA tournaments, there is an emphasis on focus and control, while in Boxing, a knockout is a desired outcome.

I think you may have touched on the doctor's actual complaint, the desired outcome in Boxing. But when I heard his interview I was struck by his implication that Karate was inherently less dangerous and it made me wonder if this was a commonly held belief among the uninitiated.

[mjd]

I hate to say it but karate has become in the public eye a soft sport, point sparring, kids are not allowed to make contact, it is a image that has been tatooed by the mass marketing karate orgs out their trying to make the big bucks. Most of the large groups or clubs have after school programs that is more for watching kids then teaching the arts.

The rest have to live with the image the big orgs give us, it's life, but do you really care?, if you love what you do the answer is no.

[exile]

I hate to say it but karate has become in the public eye a soft sport, point sparring, kids are not allowed to make contact, it is a image that has been tatooed by the mass marketing karate orgs out their trying to make the big bucks. Most of the large groups or clubs have after school programs that is more for watching kids then teaching the arts.

This is I believe a completely accurate assessment of what has been happening to karate under the pressure of its tournament competition aspect. And don't forget, folks, this isn't a new development. Funakoshi spent a good many paragraphs in various books of his railing against the sport conception of kumite. And consider the following from one of the masters of the modern bunkai-jutsu movement (kata interpretation for combat-realistic street defense):

In the 1950s and the early 1960s with the introduction of competition with rules the emphasis again began to change and through the 1970s to the 1990s sport karate was very much at the centre of our thinking. The purist karateka may claim that they never practised sport karate and that they always maintained their tradition. Although many of us would like to think that, the evidence is against us. So all-pervasive is the competition ethic, and so deeply is it ingrained in practice methodology, that it is difficult to distinguish it from what we aspire to, namely the practice of the art of karate.

The competition thought-process manifest itself most obviously in use of combat range or engagement distance (maai). Most contemporary karateka are comfortable at long range (also called competition range). All modern Kumite practices are designed to operate at this long range, and by continual exposure to it the karateka finds his comfort zone. Changing back to short range upsets the average karateka's level of comfort and puts him in unfamiliar territory.

(Bill Burgar, Five Years, One Kata, Martial Arts Publishing Ltd., UK, 2003, p. 34) Substituting taekwondo for karate here would not change the truth value of Burgar's statement one bit, and anyone who wonders about that implicit comparison with boxing, at karate's expense (so far as its reputation for street effectiveness is concerned) has only to look at the career of TKD, whose street credibility has become negligible—with reason!—even as it has become the dominant international competitive MA, based on its Olympic status. Judo, alas, went before both TKD and karate and blazed the trail, so to speak. So the reputation of karate, like that of the once much-feared TKD, has taken a definite turn southward, so far as its combat effectiveness is concerned, for very similar reasons.


The rest have to live with the image the big orgs give us, it's life, but do you really care?, if you love what you do the answer is no.

So very true! What difference does it really make, any more than what other people think of our favorite restaurant? If we really love the place, we couldn't care less who finds the food there too spicey, or expensive, or whatever. In fact, the fewer people competing with us for seats, the better, eh? As long as there are just enough customers to keep the place in business, do we really care what anyone else says or thinks?

[Steel Tiger]

So very true! What difference does it really make, any more than what other people think of our favorite restaurant? If we really love the place, we couldn't care less who finds the food there too spicey, or expensive, or whatever. In fact, the fewer people competing with us for seats, the better, eh? As long as there are just enough customers to keep the place in business, do we really care what anyone else says or thinks?

We always say things like this, but we really do care what people think of our arts. There is an element of ego involved, we want people to think well of what we do, but there is another issue. If the art we practice develops a very poor reputation then people are not going to want to study it and it will fade into obscuring, and perhaps from existence alltogether.

[exile]

We always say things like this, but we really do care what people think of our arts. There is an element of ego involved, we want people to think well of what we do, but there is another issue. If the art we practice develops a very poor reputation then people are not going to want to study it and it will fade into obscuring, and perhaps from existence alltogether.

This is just the problem of there being not enough customers in the restaurant to keep it going (or too many of the remaining customers wanting inferior cuisine, so the overall quality of the place goes downhill). My own feeling is, karate is in better shape than TKD so far as reestablishing its claim to being the premier `street' art. There's a whole movement afoot in the UK and elsewhere (your own Patrick McCarthy has played a leading role in this) to rebuild karate around a kata/bunkai-based curriculum, with emphasis on its fighting applications rather than the dueling model—adept vs. adept under sanitised conditions—which seems to have crept into all of the karate-based MAs to the detriment of the combat side. In the KMAs, that movement is still in its infancy and has much more of an uphill fight, so I have to say, I'm a bit envious of karate in that respect.

The real danger, I think, is not the extinction of the art but the ultimate loss of any real choice in how one trains, what sort of art one is able to choose to train in. Very, very few dojangs teach the Korean arts from combat-based perspective; there isn't even a generally used Korean term cognate with `bunkai'—the whole concept is foreign to most TKD schools, though TSD is better in that respect, I gather. I don't care all that much what outsiders think of TKD, but I am very troubled by the lack of choice in TKD curricula and instruction. My own school is good in that respect, but the culture of TKD has become progressively way less martial over the decades, in spite of the severe combat effectiveness inherent in the art, and a monoclonal environment is never good for practitioners. At least with karate, there's a lot less central control by vast international organizations intent on dictating matters of syllabus and training focus...

[Steel Tiger]

This is just the problem of there being not enough customers in the restaurant to keep it going (or too many of the remaining customers wanting inferior cuisine, so the overall quality of the place goes downhill). My own feeling is, karate is in better shape than TKD so far as reestablishing its claim to being the premier `street' art. There's a whole movement afoot in the UK and elsewhere (your own Patrick McCarthy has played a leading role in this) to rebuild karate around a kata/bunkai-based curriculum, with emphasis on its fighting applications rather than the dueling model—adept vs. adept under sanitised conditions—which seems to have crept into all of the karate-based MAs to the detriment of the combat side. In the KMAs, that movement is still in its infancy and has much more of an uphill fight, so I have to say, I'm a bit envious of karate in that respect.

The real danger, I think, is not the extinction of the art but the ultimate loss of any real choice in how one trains, what sort of art one is able to choose to train in. Very, very few dojangs teach the Korean arts from combat-based perspective; there isn't even a generally used Korean term cognate with `bunkai'—the whole concept is foreign to most TKD schools, though TSD is better in that respect, I gather. I don't care all that much what outsiders think of TKD, but I am very troubled by the lack of choice in TKD curricula and instruction. My own school is good in that respect, but the culture of TKD has become progressively way less martial over the decades, in spite of the severe combat effectiveness inherent in the art, and a monoclonal environment is never good for practitioners. At least with karate, there's a lot less central control by vast international organizations intent on dictating matters of syllabus and training focus...

I can see what you mean. I suppose the great variety of Karate styles alongside the concerted effort to 'bring back' the bunkai give it a certain resilience. Coming from a CMA background I can really feel for you TKD guys. It seems there are as many styles of gongfu as there are Chinese so it is strong and weak all at the same time. TKD has only a single voice it seems and its screaming for Olympic glory.

It may be that guys like Abernathy and McCarthy can rescue Karate's somewhat fallen image.

[chinto]

Both of you and I can see into the art and know how devastating it can be. Do you think that the sport aspects of Karate, and TKD for that matter, are 'dumbing down' the art. These arts were originally developed as ways to kill, or at least seriously injure, people whereas Boxing has always been a sport, a brutal one true, but a sport nontheless. Are they losing their souls to sport and the lure of gold medals or is this just a perception?


yes and no. first boxing came from 'pugilisum' a style of striking from europe that had other things in it then it does now in its sport form. In short boxing was developed as an unarmed combat system to criple and kill in europe.

Karate was also developed as a strikeing, and grapling and trowing system with locks and all the other things you would want in a system of unarmed combat used to survive leathal attackes by armed and unarmed attackers.

neither were really developed to be sports. I personaly really hope that unlike boxing Karate would not end up "dumbed down" into just a prize fighting sport, but would maintain its original intent and system which is very very efficent and effective in self defence.

[chinto]

I hate to say it but karate has become in the public eye a soft sport, point sparring, kids are not allowed to make contact, it is a image that has been tatooed by the mass marketing karate orgs out their trying to make the big bucks. Most of the large groups or clubs have after school programs that is more for watching kids then teaching the arts.

The rest have to live with the image the big orgs give us, it's life, but do you really care?, if you love what you do the answer is no.


Sad but often true, meany of the comercial dojos for karate and other styles such as TKD that are often lumped into the same 'karate' title by much of the public are more baby sitting services then any thing else. they teach only a very very 'dumbed down' curiculam, especialy to kids, and that is what people think all karate is. We know that properly tought and unchanged from the old ways Karate is a very efficent and effective system of self defence that assumes that you will die if you do not win. enough said on that score, but much of the public has no clue about it at all.

[Steel Tiger]

yes and no. first boxing came from 'pugilisum' a style of striking from europe that had other things in it then it does now in its sport form. In short boxing was developed as an unarmed combat system to criple and kill in europe.

Karate was also developed as a strikeing, and grapling and trowing system with locks and all the other things you would want in a system of unarmed combat used to survive leathal attackes by armed and unarmed attackers.

neither were really developed to be sports. I personaly really hope that unlike boxing Karate would not end up "dumbed down" into just a prize fighting sport, but would maintain its original intent and system which is very very efficent and effective in self defence.

I have to disagree with you about the origins of boxing. It was a sport practiced by the ancient Greeks long before the Latin word pugnis ("fist") came into existence. The Greeks practiced it as a sport as combat to them was between armed men.

Regardless of this, I agree that it would be bad for Karate to be "dumbed down" into prize fighting.

[thetruth]

I don't think the doctor was having a crack at karate. The dangers of boxing are well publicised. Long term impact to the head through boxing has been shown to cause brain damage. Every few months I see an article about a boxer in hospital after a fight with a brain hemorrhage or who has died in the ring and then there's the likes of Muhammad Ali. I'm sure that those who box choose to do so but there are safer sports to involve your kids in such as the sport side of karate. Now I know that the sport aspect was never a part of real karate but its a part of some styles now and if it is good for kid why not have kids do it? There is no need to get precious about the fact that people don't know how dangerous karate can be yada yada. The kids wouldn't be learning that portion off the bat anyway.

Also just a thought on Patrick McCarthy. I have been to a number of his seminars (5 or 6 I would say) as he was a friend of my old instructor. He has a lot of historic knowledge but as far as bunkai and application his knowledge is limited as far as the bunkai from past masters goes etc. We were doing some bo drills one day with him when he showed us an extremely dubious move. I questioned my own instructor over it who later asked Patrick, who admitted he had made it up to fill a gap in the drill he didn't have. He lost me right then and there. He also still talks about the habitual acts of physical violence etc. Nothing has changed and he is still repeating the things he was saying 10 years ago with nothing new to add. If anyone is to take karate forward and united it is not him.

Cheers
Sam:asian:

[exile]

I can see what you mean. I suppose the great variety of Karate styles alongside the concerted effort to 'bring back' the bunkai give it a certain resilience. Coming from a CMA background I can really feel for you TKD guys. It seems there are as many styles of gongfu as there are Chinese so it is strong and weak all at the same time. TKD has only a single voice it seems and its screaming for Olympic glory.

Yes, multiple styles and the failure of large-scale organizations to impose top-down control are what have kept the CMAs and O/JMAs healthy, IMO. As long as mutations and variations are possible, the art will keep its stylistic ecological diversty. The pressure of big-money competition creates the equivalent of automatic factory farming where everything that might be adaptive or innovative is instantly weeded out—or in the case of TKD, marginalized and defined as eccentric. I really believe that in the next several years a rift will develop between combat-oriented and tournament oriented TKD which will lead to a major division between the two, comparable to that between judo and jujutsu.


It may be that guys like Abernathy and McCarthy can rescue Karate's somewhat fallen image.

And there are other guys out there doing the same thing. I do see these chaps as the tap-root of the rebirth of karate as a jutsu, a fighting discipline. We have a few in the KMAs, but we need many more!


Now I know that the sport aspect was never a part of real karate but its a part of some styles now and if it is good for kid why not have kids do it? There is no need to get precious about the fact that people don't know how dangerous karate can be yada yada. The kids wouldn't be learning that portion off the bat anyway.

Well, the Brits have a saying: `Begin as you mean to go on.' If you start with a standard kihon approach and emphasize the distant fighting range which is the standard dimension for kumite, then, as the passage from Burgar I quoted earlier suggests, you are in effect socializing the new practitioner into an approach to karate which is pretty much going to go inevitably in the sport competitive direction, and if you try to introduce the CQ range a few years later, with associated techs, you will probably find it much harder to get students to learn practical street defense karate than if you started from a kata bunkai based curriculum. In our TKD school, I try to get kids to apply some of the basic CQ techs inherent in the hyungs—traps/locks, with stances interpreted as projections of weight into a tech, `blocking' movement as strikes to the head or throws, and so on—from the very first forms we teach them.


Also just a thought on Patrick McCarthy. I have been to a number of his seminars (5 or 6 I would say) as he was a friend of my old instructor. He has a lot of historic knowledge but as far as bunkai and application his knowledge is limited as far as the bunkai from past masters goes etc.

But it's also true that a lot of those old bunkai have been lost, so a certain amount of reverse engineering is necessary to see what the practical application could have been. He probably brings to bear as much knowledge as he can of past applications, but there's not much one can do to recover most of that knowledge, unfortunately.


We were doing some bo drills one day with him when he showed us an extremely dubious move. I questioned my own instructor over it who later asked Patrick, who admitted he had made it up to fill a gap in the drill he didn't have. He lost me right then and there. He also still talks about the habitual acts of physical violence etc. Nothing has changed and he is still repeating the things he was saying 10 years ago with nothing new to add. If anyone is to take karate forward and united it is not him.

Well, he's getting on, a bit, I think; you can't run forever, and he is, if I'm right, the oldest or one of the very oldest of that bunkai-based training crowd. Certainly the work he did on HAOV has been very important and a new generation of fighter, people like Burgar and Geoff Thompson and others in the `reality-based TMAs' have picked up on that work and shown in detail how well bunkai from classic kata address those HAOVs. That work still, so far as I can see, has yet to become familiar and mainstream enough to represent a major alternative to the sport-sparring kumite approach to karate. PMcC certainly deserves credit for his part in reviving that view of karate, even if he isn't in the avant-garde at this point...

[Grenadier]

That doctor has probably only known about Karate based on point tournament matches. Even then, I don't think he has witnessed a USA-NKF or WKF-style match, where the competitors do hit hard and fast (albeit with gloves).

I wonder if he would change his mind, if he saw one of Oyama's knockdown tournaments?

[Steel Tiger]

That doctor has probably only known about Karate based on point tournament matches. Even then, I don't think he has witnessed a USA-NKF or WKF-style match, where the competitors do hit hard and fast (albeit with gloves).

I wonder if he would change his mind, if he saw one of Oyama's knockdown tournaments?

I think you are exactly right. It is very likely that his opinion would change if he saw a knockdown tournament. What is most likely is that he would recommend young teens practice no martials at all.

[Em MacIntosh]

I like that people think it's soft. Let them. It is up to us to continue to practice that which is bad-ass self defense and keep it alive. The McDojo's make the real schools that much more real. A diamond in the rough, so to speak. As long as we keep it real, it's still real. Karate's too popular anyway, IMO.

[chinto]

I have to disagree with you about the origins of boxing. It was a sport practiced by the ancient Greeks long before the Latin word pugnis ("fist") came into existence. The Greeks practiced it as a sport as combat to them was between armed men.

Regardless of this, I agree that it would be bad for Karate to be "dumbed down" into prize fighting.
yes tht is true that both pancratian and greek boxing were used in the olimpics, but as pugilisum the romans changed boxing a little and it was used in the arina in the "games" by gladiators in combats that were at times to the death. ( not all gladiators fights were to the death.. at least 60% or so were not the historians are saying) but yes to dumb down any martial art to a prize fighting sport is very very unfortunent.

[chinto]

I like that people think it's soft. Let them. It is up to us to continue to practice that which is bad-ass self defense and keep it alive. The McDojo's make the real schools that much more real. A diamond in the rough, so to speak. As long as we keep it real, it's still real. Karate's too popular anyway, IMO.


I don"t know about to popular, but it has been dumbed down by some schools to be more apropret to kids. this is very unfortunent in that there are adults who learned karate as kids and do not realize this and teach what they were tought as they were tought it. this leads to people who have not been tought the applications that are originaly intended for self defence and yet they think they have been given all the training that they need to defend themselves. It is sad that some one who has been effectivly trained basicly for turnement compitition has no Idea that there is a whole range of much more effective techniqes and or aplications in the kata they have been tought if they only aply them properly. this kind of thing leads to people who do get hurt in a self defence situation and blame the system rather then themselves and perhaps their instructor for not training them better.

[Em MacIntosh]

Indeed, chinto, you and I seem to be kata lovers. I know one of the most important things for me when choosing a karate school is how well they train their kata. I'm definitely not saying that it's essential for good karate as some good schools don't teach it or have little emphasis on it. I don't go to karate to learn JKD. I do that on my own. I find karate has preserved a beautiful piece of okinawan, japanese and even chinese history. Ancient, effective wisdom. I like the old ways. I like the idea of training in the old ways. I think people had harder lives and were made out of tougher stuff back then, of course, I wasn't around back then...

[Victor Smith]

Steel Tiger,

For your original question I think you may be focusing on the wrong aspect of the Doctor's opinion.

Many in the Medical profession have problems with Boxing (and similar head impact sports) because of the body of evidence that long term concussive impacts to the head have detrimental effects in human development (with even greater effect in the young).

I think his use of karate, assuming he's talking about point competition, as being safer is just that without head impact being the purpose, there would be less long range problems for the majority of practitioners. Obviously he's not talking about the range of other venu of karate competition where head impact is very much the case.

I'm quite sure getting our head's banged up is not good at any age, but I can clearly see the problems that permitting the young to do so may be even more dangerous.

Any of our opinions, wants or desires about what style of study or competition we may wish to have, has no impact on the reality of what the Medical profession has documented.

What awareness the Doctor has of karate might just be what he's been exposed to. In my experience the general public knows next to nothing about what really is occurring in the martial world, unless they bump into it on a personal basis, such as if someone's child takes karate and participates in point tournaments.

[Zero]

Steel Tiger, maybe you and many of the others who responded to your coments actually got the wrong take on the doctor's statement and he has more knowledge regarding the fighting styles than you give him credit.

Boxing as a ring sport with professional gloves of 10oz with a strong focus on head strike induced KOs over 8 - 12 rounds can absolutely pummel the brain. With the gloves it means that both the fists and the head can soak up and take many more hits (and therefore increased deep concussion to the brain) than fighting bare-fist or with MMA combat gloves.

In my experience and talking to my far more experienced trainers karate and other such styles is generally less damaging to the head as with a bare knuckle or foot/shin strike to the jaw/temple your opponent normally goes down in 1 or 2 good hits. Sure this is a sharp impact resulting in temporary concussion but the damage is often rather discrete and short-lived. With boxing the impact is spread out more and the focus of shock soaked up and dampened to a degree by the gloves. This results in a much longer and sustained punsihment to said head!! And generally over a fight that goes many rounds more.

So if this was the doc's point, then I'm totally with him on this. If on the other hand he was just referring to sport karate and flashy display competition then he's right too - these kind of competitions generally being a joke if you're after any form of full contact or realistic competition.

PS: boxing like so many of the styles that are now heavily sport related originated in finishing disputes between individuals in bloody gore with torn and broken knuckles and shredded faces (if you ever have to fight/box bare handed you'll soon learn it's no sport).

[Steel Tiger]

What awareness the Doctor has of karate might just be what he's been exposed to. In my experience the general public knows next to nothing about what really is occurring in the martial world, unless they bump into it on a personal basis, such as if someone's child takes karate and participates in point tournaments.

This is exactly what I was asking about, the public perception of Karate. This particular doctor, worried about the damage boxing can do, suggested a Karate tournament would be safer. Was this because there is a general (incorrect) belief that there is nothing harmful in Karate? Has sport Karate so coloured the whole art's public image?


Steel Tiger, maybe you and many of the others who responded to your coments actually got the wrong take on the doctor's statement and he has more knowledge regarding the fighting styles than you give him credit.

I don't think I did get the wrong take on what the doctor said. He quite clearly implied that he would prefer, and consider safer, a Karate tournament to boxing. What made me ask the questions I have, is a thought I had as to whether he was expressing a widely held view that Karate is some sort of play fighting while boxing is real fighting.

I know this to not be the case. But I was wondering about the image of Karate in the world, not so much the reality. Is it going the unfortunate way that TKD and gongfu have gone, to the point where they are considered a bit of a joke (not my own opinion I assure you) by some practitioners and many laymen?

[Sukerkin]

What an interesting read this thread had been :D. Thanks to all the conributors so far with the insights and views they have given :tup:.

Perceptions and actualities are always going to be at odds; for this you need look no further than boxing, now widely regarded as a sport whereas in fact is it such an effective martial art that the punching techniques in CMA and JMA were changed as contact with this WMA was made.

What I'm hinting at here is the flip-side of the threads OP in a way i.e. the trivialisation of Western martial arts in comparison to Eastern. But it is all part and parcel of the same 'problem' ... the 'sportification' of military combatives.

Noone with any sense of moral responsibility wants anyone to die whilst training in, or using in competition, the martial arts we study but the fact remains that that was the whole purpose of the arts (leaving aside the benefits to a persons nature that MA training can bring). Their purpose was a last ditch effort to stay alive when all other weapons are denied to you or have been lost.

'History' also tends to forget such little gems that it was in Victorian times in this country (England) that we had women fighting to the death with swords for entertainment of the crowds (and that children were kept from fractious crying with "Mothers Peace", an ingested infusion of opiates). Attitudes have changed as to what is acceptible, which is okay. What is a problem is the insidious undermining of the 'actualities' as they are replaced with media sound-bites.

Karate is not sport anymore than boxing was but if efforts are not made by those that appreciate this then soon it can be seen that karate will have a point-scoring-no-it-doesn't-hurt-anyone-honest fate awaiting it.

[TheOriginalName]

I'm only a newby to the art of Karate - so hopefully i might bring a different view from what has been expressed so far.

Whilst i have always had an interested in MAs my impression of Karate before i started training wasn't based on recent compititions or the like. It was based on main-stream movie of the 80s, mainly the classic "Karate Kid".
Whilst this doctor may actually know more than i am giving him credit for, i would suspect that he doesn't know much about karate at all.

I also would believe that he was not having a go at the art of karate. In fact we should take this as a compliment. It is widely known that karate is full-contact and designed to be devistating. The thing is i would be willng to bet that their are not many doctors that see serious long-term injuries from MAs. This is because whilst we do practise full-contact we do so with control - if you drop your guard i may release a punch but i'll stop short where as a boxer would not show such control.

Lets also take the other positive out of this story - that karate is seen by the public as an excellent way of improving self-estime and person control in all aspects of life.

As i opened with - i'm only a newby, so perhaps don't have the "connection" with the deeper meanings of the form that some of you have shown but hopefully what i've said may have been a slightly different spin for you all.

And in closing - the best thing we can do to continue to improve our public image is to get others involved. Nothing destroys wrong assumptions better than experience.

[chinto]

Indeed, chinto, you and I seem to be kata lovers. I know one of the most important things for me when choosing a karate school is how well they train their kata. I'm definitely not saying that it's essential for good karate as some good schools don't teach it or have little emphasis on it. I don't go to karate to learn JKD. I do that on my own. I find karate has preserved a beautiful piece of okinawan, japanese and even chinese history. Ancient, effective wisdom. I like the old ways. I like the idea of training in the old ways. I think people had harder lives and were made out of tougher stuff back then, of course, I wasn't around back then...


yes they were I think tougher then we are now, and well they knew that if their training failed them they and their familys were provably dead! So I know, and I have a hunch you would agree, that they were not into sport,games, or political corectness when it came to their familys safety.
For those reasons and some others I do look at how they train their kata. The old masters and men who trained back then knew it was win or die if they could not avoid the fight. They also knew that if they died their familys might be killed too. With that at stake they didnt teach or train in crap, usless stuff, or any thing that was not effective and efficent at all ranges. I think you and I know this and want that effectiveness and on top of that the history and tradition and other things that evolved for a reason, ....SURVIVAL, pure and simple.

That is what I personaly think a lot of the MMA and "reality training" types do not get. The old masters were not interested in sport, they could care less who would win in the 'octogon' or any ring with its rules and referree. They were concerned with survival, with their wives and children and themselves being alive at the end of the altercation and to hell with any one who attacked them!

OK, I jumped off my soap box, sorry about that, but, I just had to say it!

[chinto]

Steel Tiger,

For your original question I think you may be focusing on the wrong aspect of the Doctor's opinion.

Many in the Medical profession have problems with Boxing (and similar head impact sports) because of the body of evidence that long term concussive impacts to the head have detrimental effects in human development (with even greater effect in the young).

I think his use of karate, assuming he's talking about point competition, as being safer is just that without head impact being the purpose, there would be less long range problems for the majority of practitioners. Obviously he's not talking about the range of other venu of karate competition where head impact is very much the case.

I'm quite sure getting our head's banged up is not good at any age, but I can clearly see the problems that permitting the young to do so may be even more dangerous.

Any of our opinions, wants or desires about what style of study or competition we may wish to have, has no impact on the reality of what the Medical profession has documented.

What awareness the Doctor has of karate might just be what he's been exposed to. In my experience the general public knows next to nothing about what really is occurring in the martial world, unless they bump into it on a personal basis, such as if someone's child takes karate and participates in point tournaments.


yep, giota agree with you on that.

Most Doctors and other Medical professionals do not really know the spacifics of martial arts of any kind. they know what they see come into the Emergency Room (ER) and what they see when they are responding with the Ambulance, or on the wards in the hospital.

If you showed that same Doctor a real karateka doing any thing like what most of the old styles teach he would be horrified that "any child would be tought such mayham!" more then likely. But, like most who have maybe seen a pint turnement on TV they think that there is not the impacts, let alone the multiple blows cousing impacts, to the head that are comon in sport boxing.
I do wonder what that same Doctor would have said if he saw some of the bunkai for the diferen kata, and what the techniques are really intended to do to creat trauma to the human body when its for real..

[chinto]

Steel Tiger, maybe you and many of the others who responded to your coments actually got the wrong take on the doctor's statement and he has more knowledge regarding the fighting styles than you give him credit.

Boxing as a ring sport with professional gloves of 10oz with a strong focus on head strike induced KOs over 8 - 12 rounds can absolutely pummel the brain. With the gloves it means that both the fists and the head can soak up and take many more hits (and therefore increased deep concussion to the brain) than fighting bare-fist or with MMA combat gloves.

In my experience and talking to my far more experienced trainers karate and other such styles is generally less damaging to the head as with a bare knuckle or foot/shin strike to the jaw/temple your opponent normally goes down in 1 or 2 good hits. Sure this is a sharp impact resulting in temporary concussion but the damage is often rather discrete and short-lived. With boxing the impact is spread out more and the focus of shock soaked up and dampened to a degree by the gloves. This results in a much longer and sustained punsihment to said head!! And generally over a fight that goes many rounds more.

So if this was the doc's point, then I'm totally with him on this. If on the other hand he was just referring to sport karate and flashy display competition then he's right too - these kind of competitions generally being a joke if you're after any form of full contact or realistic competition.

PS: boxing like so many of the styles that are now heavily sport related originated in finishing disputes between individuals in bloody gore with torn and broken knuckles and shredded faces (if you ever have to fight/box bare handed you'll soon learn it's no sport).


Yes and No, In that if you look at boxing, bare knucke was a sport and also an art that used pain for the knock out. the main points besides the liver were the point between the uper lip and the nose, and the point just under the ear. that is why most of the very old sport boxers who fought bare knuckle usualy had the two frount teeth missing and collieflower ears.

The gloves are a major contributer to the brain trauma. there is no disputeing that at all! you can with a rapped hand and a heavy boxing glove hit the hard bone of the skull a lot harder with out injury to your hand then you would have with out either of them. Once again there is no disputeing that that is the reason that brain trauma is how modern boxing knocks people out. I can see and agree with the doctors concerns with any one in that kind of ring sport.

but to say that some how the techniques of the non sport modifed Karate is in any way "safer" is rediculous. That is like saying that a sporting rifle in 30-06 caliber is some how "safer" then say an M1 rifle that was designed as a battle rifle for the US Military. they both fire the 30-06 cartridge and both have the same basic balistics. If any thing Karate if it is tought properly is more likely to couse permenent injury. That does assume that you do not have rules that prevent the use of the techniques that any prize fight will have to outlaw. there are a lot of rule in the UFC and K1 and of coure the point ternements that either prevent use of the techniques that are most likely to injur and to finish the fight quickly, and in the case of the point turnememt prevent real contact. with this in mind the partisipants are indeed often safer from brain injury then they are in a "traditinional boxing match of 15 rounds with standing counts".

[chinto]

This is exactly what I was asking about, the public perception of Karate. This particular doctor, worried about the damage boxing can do, suggested a Karate tournament would be safer. Was this because there is a general (incorrect) belief that there is nothing harmful in Karate? Has sport Karate so coloured the whole art's public image?



I don't think I did get the wrong take on what the doctor said. He quite clearly implied that he would prefer, and consider safer, a Karate tournament to boxing. What made me ask the questions I have, is a thought I had as to whether he was expressing a widely held view that Karate is some sort of play fighting while boxing is real fighting.

I know this to not be the case. But I was wondering about the image of Karate in the world, not so much the reality. Is it going the unfortunate way that TKD and gongfu have gone, to the point where they are considered a bit of a joke (not my own opinion I assure you) by some practitioners and many laymen?



no , not a joke. But, I do think that meany when you mention a "karate turnement" think of the point matches. Most law enforcement and military take martial arts seriously, and most Emergency Room Doctors know very well how delicat a human life really is. I think its from the point of not having the heavy gloves and the standing 8 count and some other things that scare medics that he things it is less likely to lead to major trama. This of course is with his assumeing that there are a lot of rules agenst the kind of blows and locks, and traps, and throws, and other things that are tought in the traditional old school karate designed to damage, truamatize and rupture orgians, and the other techniqies that are designed to criple and kill and brake things. Orginazations like the UFC and K1 spacificaly forbid such things, and partly becouse with out them the fight might well only last about 3 seconds. non the less it has led to the impression that persision and controle and not injury is all that meany martial arts are about.

[Victor Smith]

I’m not sure there is much of a public perception of karate.

There is the constant onslaught of movie and tv karate that has no relation to reality.

There is some awareness of karate schools (especially those schools that give public demonstrations often perpetuating the same mythology about karate) and if a family member participates they may have seen some tournament karate, most often point sparring. But on the whole the public neither worries about karate much and most often sees it today as a youth activity just like dance classes.

BTW, today on Okinawan 75% of the karate students are youth too, from about 0% in 1972. Today’s perceptions are often a world wide situation.

Let’s look at it clearly.

Pre 1900 there was almost no karate, just a small group of private practitioners. There was no sport version of sparring. There was almost no violence on Okinawa that required karate-ka to defend their families. They were part of the Japanese empire, and karate developed by members of the elite classes for their own reasons. Almost the only thing we can say for sure is that the primary training tool was kata, and what practices were wrapped around kata study remain speculation.

Post 1900, there was some transfer of karate into the Okinawan equivalent of high school to prepare young men for the draft into the Japanese military. Only the elite sent their youth to school at that time, and the primary purpose wasn’t karate for self defense but for drilling practice to prepare them for boot camp.

Most Okinawan karate remained in small groups of study, but as time passed and the depression continued to hit Okinawa hard, more and more instructors tried their hand at training youth in school or after-school programs. There was some experimentation of sparring with Kendo gear but it did not become a universal practice, and karate remained primarily a kata study with subsidiary practices.

Karate also was exported around the world. First in the Okinawan disporia from depression, too much population not enough land, to communities that developed throughout the east (Singapore, Japan, etc.), Hawaii, South America. We know little about who did what.

More formally Karate spread to Japan into the University system, and it was organized for the needs of University students. As Japan was a civilized country it was not primarily done for self defense but hard adult training. In time the University system developed a way to practice sparring with a handful of karate techniques, and after WWII, this was exported to the world. In the USA those practices, with many variations, developed a wide range of practices. There never has been one universal sparring approach in the sport developed. No contact point sparring, light body contact point sparring, hard body contact point sparring, semi-pro sparring, full contact sport sparring, etc.

Then government regulation took hold. They looked at the growing karate industry and many states wrapped it into the Health Club industry requiring bonding insurance. That brought the insurance industry into the controlling hand. And sparring without very restrictive practices and full body gear became the rule to keep the insurance.

So point sparring was the logical conclusion as the insurance industry does not exist to pay out money.

Other sorts of sparring exist outside of that control, and PKA, or those who want to compete in MMW, whatever, exist too.

But the existence of sparring is a modern phenomena, and how far it goes depends on each groups rationale.

It is safe to say most people who practice are not doing so to risk injury playing any variation of a game, and will not compete. For those who do compete in harder and harder contact, there is not any public analysis of what the long term impact of those practices have on ones health in later years. They are mostly doing so at their own risk.

Separate has been the study of Kata technique application, the Japanese term is bunkai, but there was not a clear Okinawn term for such, as most of their practices were without any technical vocabulary, theirs was a non-verbal form of transmission. BTW the term ‘bunkai’ is a specialized usage in some but not all Japanese systems and it’s public usage is very different from it’s karate usage.

The potential range of any techniques application potential is often very vast, but as much of that usage will cause great damage to a partner, it often must be practiced slow and in a restrictive manner, allowing kata to be the training tool to learn how to develop full force. How any system or school approaches that study is their choice.

Technically one technique that can respond to any attack is theoretically all one ever needs. The larger study then becomes a growth for the practitioner potential.

There are a lot of valid ways to practice arts that are effective, but if they are a descendent of Okinawa karate their primary practice is kata. If it is not kata ,then it is something else, worthy but not karate, IMO.

[Zero]

[quote=chinto;809180]
but to say that some how the techniques of the non sport modifed Karate is in any way "safer" is rediculous. That is like saying that a sporting rifle in 30-06 caliber is some how "safer" then say an M1 rifle that was designed as a battle rifle for the US Military. they both fire the 30-06 cartridge and both have the same basic balistics. If any thing Karate if it is tought properly is more likely to couse permenent injury.

Perhaps you ridiculously misunderstood my point Chinto - I meant only danger to the brain through prolonged and ongoing impact. I never meant that a karate or any other martial technique is 'safer' than a boxing punch - it's obvious to any one who has actually fought full contact that a shin kick to the temple/head or elbow to the jaw is going to do a lot more 'one off' damage than a glove clad punch. However, generally in my experience of fighting full contact on the receiving and delivering end, an effective strike - or couple of hits - to a nerve centre results in a KO or TKO. WHile there may be more superficial damage such as torn flesh, broken jaw, popped eye, the trauma is over quick. I feel that generally there is a far greater risk of brain damage related to boxing - having had a broken jaw, I'd rather have had that any day than to lasting brain damage!!!

I'm only talking about brain damage or sanctioned fights - not regarding on the street or unfettered martial moves such as knife hand throat/osophagus strikes, eye gouges etc.

[chinto]

[quote=chinto;809180]
but to say that some how the techniques of the non sport modifed Karate is in any way "safer" is rediculous. That is like saying that a sporting rifle in 30-06 caliber is some how "safer" then say an M1 rifle that was designed as a battle rifle for the US Military. they both fire the 30-06 cartridge and both have the same basic balistics. If any thing Karate if it is tought properly is more likely to couse permenent injury.

Perhaps you ridiculously misunderstood my point Chinto - I meant only danger to the brain through prolonged and ongoing impact. I never meant that a karate or any other martial technique is 'safer' than a boxing punch - it's obvious to any one who has actually fought full contact that a shin kick to the temple/head or elbow to the jaw is going to do a lot more 'one off' damage than a glove clad punch. However, generally in my experience of fighting full contact on the receiving and delivering end, an effective strike - or couple of hits - to a nerve centre results in a KO or TKO. WHile there may be more superficial damage such as torn flesh, broken jaw, popped eye, the trauma is over quick. I feel that generally there is a far greater risk of brain damage related to boxing - having had a broken jaw, I'd rather have had that any day than to lasting brain damage!!!

I'm only talking about brain damage or sanctioned fights - not regarding on the street or unfettered martial moves such as knife hand throat/osophagus strikes, eye gouges etc.

My appoligies, I did missunderstand you. Yes I would have to agree that you are correct in that respect with out question. the gloves and hand wraps resulted in the development of a style of boxing for sport that does indeed do more long term brain damage as the KO is usualy from brain injury by contraque. ( the brain impacting the skull by 'sloshing')

I have known medical Doctors who really would advicate the removel of the gloves and hand wraps for boxers on the grounds that that way the injurys would be superficial in genreal insted of truamatic brain injury, usualy small and meany over time, but still brain injury.

[Patrick McCarthy]

....Also just a thought on Patrick McCarthy. I have been to a number of his seminars (5 or 6 I would say) as he was a friend of my old instructor. He has a lot of historic knowledge but as far as bunkai and application his knowledge is limited as far as the bunkai from past masters goes etc. We were doing some bo drills one day with him when he showed us an extremely dubious move. I questioned my own instructor over it who later asked Patrick, who admitted he had made it up to fill a gap in the drill he didn't have. He lost me right then and there. He also still talks about the habitual acts of physical violence etc. Nothing has changed and he is still repeating the things he was saying 10 years ago with nothing new to add. If anyone is to take karate forward and united it is not him. Cheers Sam:asian:

Sam,

Although I have been a registered subscriber here for sometime I rarely have the luxury of reading many of the posts. I found yours today. Thanks for sharing your opinion. I have a couple of questions for you:

a. Which of my seminars have you attended?
b. What was the 'dubious' technique, and, under what circumstances did I teach it?
c. Who's your instructor that I allegedly revealed such a thing to?
d. What is it about the HAPV that you find so useless, especially when it has found such widespread support eslewhere?

Finally, if folks like me 'ARE NOT' destined to help move this art forward can you describe what experience you possess, or, how, after a couple of seminars, you're able to determine this?

Thank you for your time.

Patrick McCarthy

[Gordon Nore]

I think too much is being read into the good doctor's statement... When you train in boxing, apart from the cardio knock-offs, the expectation is that you will box. You will get in the ring and hit someone and get hit.

I think the doctor assumes that a karate teacher teaching kids will be teaching self-defense, including control and avoidance.

For younger fighters, I agree that strikes to the head should be pulled as a rule. We don't train our kids for tournaments, but one of the rules is no contact to the head or face when we spare. (The adults play a little rougher.) Now that's different to me from flippy unfocused technique that serves only to get points.

[Harley_Ninja237]

in pt karate they just chase you around with a leg or throw a punch and run away happy they got a point...
there is bare knuckle karate though that stuff is brutal

[exile]

in pt karate they just chase you around with a leg or throw a punch and run away happy they got a point...
there is bare knuckle karate though that stuff is brutal

Harley—are you thinking of Kyokushin?

[Brian S]

Unfortunately today's karate is viewed as an afterschool program where kiddie games are played, a way to get in shape/physical fitness, a moneymaking endeavor, and non-offensive anti-violent tippy tappy mcdojo crap.

Let's all dress up like peacocks and flaunt our certificates and memberships!!! YAY!!!

I'm having a bad view of what it has become these days. I'm quite unhappy about it as you can tell.

[exile]

Unfortunately today's karate is viewed as an afterschool program where kiddie games are played, a way to get in shape/physical fitness, a moneymaking endeavor, and non-offensive anti-violent tippy tappy mcdojo crap.

Let's all dress up like peacocks and flaunt our certificates and memberships!!! YAY!!!

I'm having a bad view of what it has become these days. I'm quite unhappy about it as you can tell.

Same with TKD and, increasingly, any other art whose practitioners buy into the same business model. The prospect of real, 21-carat violence is... disagreeable to a lot of people, and they'll avoid places that take it seriously enough to provide realistic training for you to apply in meeting it. And that goes triple when people's kids are involved...

[chinto]

Same with TKD and, increasingly, any other art whose practitioners buy into the same business model. The prospect of real, 21-carat violence is... disagreeable to a lot of people, and they'll avoid places that take it seriously enough to provide realistic training for you to apply in meeting it. And that goes triple when people's kids are involved...

yes much of the public provably does think that, but there are still hard corps dojo's out there that still teach it right.

[kidswarrior]

Karate is not sport anymore than boxing was but if efforts are not made by those that appreciate this then soon it can be seen that karate will have a point-scoring-no-it-doesn't-hurt-anyone-honest fate awaiting it.This sums up my views, also. Karate, and perhaps much of TMA, is at a crossroads where it must become convincingly realistic as a fight stopper, or it's going to become all-out drivel. I think it's up to each of us who cares about the former to teach that in our corner of the world, and that that will be enough (it's all we can do, so it is enough).

Note that I didn't say that I believe we have to be brutal or hard core every minute of every training session. In other words, going all out all the time imho is not a good formula for longevity in MA practice--too much wear and tear on the body--and we need to keep developing dedicated practitioners who are also elders in the arts. Instead, I believe we each just have to keep learning and refining our own realistic skill set and be true to our guiding principles.

[exile]

Karate, and perhaps much of TMA, is at a crossroads where it must become convincingly realistic as a fight stopper, or it's going to become all-out drivel. I think it's up to each of us who cares about the former to teach that in our corner of the world, and that that will be enough (it's all we can do, so it is enough).

Note that I didn't say that I believe we have to be brutal or hard core every minute of every training session. In other words, going all out all the time imho is not a good formula for longevity in MA practice--too much wear and tear on the body--and we need to keep developing dedicated practitioners who are also elders in the arts. Instead, I believe we each just have to keep learning and refining our own realistic skill set and be true to our guiding principles.

TKD is, alas, the model that karateka have to consider in deciding which way they want their art to go. There are many of us on this board who do TKD as a serious self-defense combat system, and we find ourselves in the distinct minority within our own art. Look at all the agonized threads on TKD's public image, and the difficulty of finding training in the art which exploits its inherent combat effectiveness in full, to get a picture of what awaits karate if it gets seduced by the point-scoring sport competitive side of its persona.

I would venture to suggest that for the average practitioner, the chief benefit of the art comes at the level of the individual instructor/student relationship and the skills that are thereby transmitted. No matter how much sports/athletic glory the MA as a whole derives from its martial sport side, it will not benefit the individual karateka nearly as much as the pursuit of personal excellence in combat skills, whose payoff is the justified confidence that one can hold one's own in an unsought violent confrontation and walk away afterwards in one piece. Be guided by what happened to us when TKD, institutionally speaking, lost its connection to its street-combative roots...

[Tez3]

yes they were I think tougher then we are now, and well they knew that if their training failed them they and their familys were provably dead! So I know, and I have a hunch you would agree, that they were not into sport,games, or political corectness when it came to their familys safety.
For those reasons and some others I do look at how they train their kata. The old masters and men who trained back then knew it was win or die if they could not avoid the fight. They also knew that if they died their familys might be killed too. With that at stake they didnt teach or train in crap, usless stuff, or any thing that was not effective and efficent at all ranges. I think you and I know this and want that effectiveness and on top of that the history and tradition and other things that evolved for a reason, ....SURVIVAL, pure and simple.

That is what I personaly think a lot of the MMA and "reality training" types do not get. The old masters were not interested in sport, they could care less who would win in the 'octogon' or any ring with its rules and referree. They were concerned with survival, with their wives and children and themselves being alive at the end of the altercation and to hell with any one who attacked them!

OK, I jumped off my soap box, sorry about that, but, I just had to say it!


Ol I seem to spend a lot of time saying this and here I go again! You have two different concepts there, one is MMA and the other is 'reality training'. As an TMA and an MMA 'type' I have tell you people train MMA because they want to compete, it's a sport, we don't say it's anything else so there is 'nothing else to get' If we train as well for SD purposes it's a different sort of training, please don't muddle the two up and say we don't understand.
I believe boxing is thought to be more dangeous because not only the fighting involves taking blows to the head but the training does as well. I think it was recorded somewhere that a boxer can take many hundreds of repeated blows to the head through their careers through fighting and training.

[harleyt26]

There are many teachers and even complete styles and organizations that have never been taught anything but the most basic beginners level of applications to the kata they train.They have never had the more brutal advanced concepts shared with them,they only know basic block,punch turn block,punch,kick.That is why in my opinion it seems that the win to survive or die karate is dissapearing.There are more and more of these schools multiplying with limited knowlege,in comparison to the ones that teach the more advanced concepts.I think there are many reasons for this.One reason would be the younger ages of the students being taught and the legal implications.Another reason could be the commercial aspect,it takes longer to bring a student to the learning level needed to understand the body mechanics involved with the more advanced concepts.By body mechanics I am referring to your mechanics involved in generating and delivering the power needed as well as the mechanics it takes to position and protect youself etc.There is also the knowlege needed to know what,when and where you can apply sudden and immediate pain and death to an opponent.I think it is more financially feasable to teach a kata with the block,punch white belt bunkai and charge them to test.Its all about the money.There are still good teachers out there but they are getting more and more rare every year.
I am sure the rest of you have encountered this also.People aproach me and say I hear you teach karate,I have been looking for someplace to take my kids.They are not looking for a place that trains adults in the life and death fighting concepts.They are looking for someplace to take their kids to get them a black belt to stay competitive with the neighbors kids.Trying to keep up with the Jones so to speak.
Its a matter of supply and demand.The consumer demands subpar,somebody will supply their demands.I do not think that will make the real karate dissapear.But I do think the names will eventually have to change to seperate them.
Most of the time the schools don't even know they do the sport oriented karate.Thats the way they were taught and they were told its the real deal.Since the only other karate they have seen is at tournaments they just don't know what is involved in the real thing.Sometimes they are not allowed to train outside their own dojo in order to keep the mushrooms happy and in the dark.
Tournaments and MMA are the only venue available to the public to view karate.There is no venue that can effectively demonstrate the real death dealing applications taught by authentic karate.Any rules whatsoever do not apply.Eyegouges,groin strikes,taint kicks,throat attacks,back breaks,neck breaks,knee kicks,fish hooks,nostril rips,ear tears,hair pulling etc.etc.etc.are part of authentic karate.How can you teach those to children?Why would you teach those to tournament competitors?
Tom Hodges

[kidswarrior]

There are many teachers and even complete styles and organizations that have never been taught anything but the most basic beginners level of applications to the kata they train.True. Been there, seen that.


One reason would be the younger ages of the students being taught and the legal implications.This is a conundrum for me in starting anyone, say, under the age of 14/15, who will then only grow into the truly ugly applications in mid-later teens, when they are a little more able to handle the responsibility and understand the implications of their actions.


People aproach me and say I hear you teach karate,I have been looking for someplace to take my kids.They are not looking for a place that trains adults in the life and death fighting concepts.They are looking for someplace to take their kids to get them a black belt to stay competitive with the neighbors kids.Trying to keep up with the Jones so to speak.
Its a matter of supply and demand.The consumer demands subpar,somebody will supply their demands.Well, we can't control what others do, so imho we just need to figure out what's right for us. And since there seems to be a fairly like-minded group involved in this thread, maybe it's a good start? (Yeah, I know we've had minor disagreements about sport/reality, but basically there seem to be many who want the same thing: a MA practice that really works, and not just for adults). And as we see from posts by MT stalwarts as Exile, Steel Tiger and others who practice non-karate arts, the desire goes beyond O/JMA and American MA.


Since the only other karate they have seen is at tournaments they just don't know what is involved in the real thing.Sometimes they are not allowed to train outside their own dojo in order to keep the mushrooms happy and in the dark.
Tournaments and MMA are the only venue available to the public to view karate.There is no venue that can effectively demonstrate the real death dealing applications taught by authentic karate.Any rules whatsoever do not apply.Eyegouges,groin strikes,taint kicks,throat attacks,back breaks,neck breaks,knee kicks,fish hooks,nostril rips,ear tears,hair pulling etc.etc.etc.are part of authentic karate.How can you teach those to children?There is one other venue where the karate/MA taught to youngsters is tested: the schoolyard/walk-home fight or bullying. This is the true test that the kids I interact with have been put through, and why TMA leaves a bad taste in the mouths of so many youngsters. Because frankly, too may MA trained youth are not able to fight off the street fighter/punk. Word of these losses gets around--that kids who really need the self-defense applications come up short--because they weren't really taught in such a way that their skills would work against a determined street-experienced hoodlum. How have I handled this problem? By ignoring the calls to teach younger kids. I just don't have an answer (yet). But Steel Tiger's earlier comment that Mas Oyama would probably do the same reminds me this problem may be a real juggernaut.

[harleyt26]

As I read kidswarrior's response I realised I came across as anti sport karate.I do not have anything against karate being done as a sport,in fact it is a good thing in my opinion.I enjoy watching the competitions and attend tournaments when I can,to spectate not compete.My issue with it is I think it should have its own name.
Now about teaching kids,that is fine but that is self defence.I still say they cannot be taught the killing techniques that traditional karate was developed for.Those techniques are not for a controlled self defence situation,they were for efficient killing in a combat situation.
Teaching a kid self defence techniques are great and that is all you can do to help,but in those situations that poor kid is usually up against a much larger bully type or a group of attackers.What can you do to help?If his peer group knows of his training his chances are even further compromised.I have no good answer for that situation.I think the parents want their children to have that "blackbelt" to intimidate the possible antagonizers.It may help and it may not.I still say for me the legal implications involved with teaching children are just to risky.
Then there are the risks involved with being accused of sexual misconduct with a child.I have seen several karate schools closed because of these accusations,they may or may not be true,but I will not risk my reputation on it.You've only got one shot with that.
Tom Hodges

[exile]

You have two different concepts there, one is MMA and the other is 'reality training'. As an TMA and an MMA 'type' I have tell you people train MMA because they want to compete, it's a sport, we don't say it's anything else so there is 'nothing else to get' If we train as well for SD purposes it's a different sort of training, please don't muddle the two up and say we don't understand.

Quite right, reality-based training is an attempt to simulate violent street encounters with untrained but experienced assailants—see Peyton Quinn's work for a good picture of one approach to this. Reality-based training cuts across MA style and focuses on


the tailoring of combat applications from any such style to meet and defeat the standard attack initiation routines that street thugs most typically engage in (there is now substantial documentation of just what these routines consist of, compiled from police reports and other social service records of civil violence);


the development of maximum power in simple, direct strike combinations (which in the TMAs turn out frequently to be right there in the kata or other formal pattern sets practiced in those TMAs respectively); and


the channelling and control of the adrenal overdrive response that survival situations trigger in all mammals and which must be harnessed effectively so that it becomes an asset, not a liability in must-win situations.


There isn't the least bit of 'sport' involved in this sort of training...


This is a conundrum for me in starting anyone, say, under the age of 14/15, who will then only grow into the truly ugly applications in mid-later teens, when they are a little more able to handle the responsibility and understand the implications of their actions.

Yup. And it's a problem which will probably never be satisfactorily solved. Kids are subject to abusive physical intimidation at ages when they are not really ready to assess whether that raking claw hand eye strike that can easily leave their 11-year-old tormenter partially blind for the rest of his life is the right thing to do. Given my own personality and reactive tendencies, I would very likely have done something to someone like that in my preteen years horrible enough for me to still be regretting it five decades later. Does that mean that the child has no other options when caught out in the open by the Dudley Dursleys of this world? I don't believe it, but I've no good answer either...


... basically there seem to be many who want the same thing: a MA practice that really works, and not just for adults). And as we see from posts by MT stalwarts as Exile, Steel Tiger and others who practice non-karate arts, the desire goes beyond O/JMA and American MA.

The troubling history of the TMAs in America implicates all of us. A culturally rooted combat skill set is transfered to a prosperous Western context where it becomes specialized esoteric knowledge shared and guarded by a small number of serious devotees; it acquires a mystique, exploited in popular media; it becomes an 'object of desire' as millions of kids respond to Bruce Lee and all the rest of the cinematographic MA industry; someone realizes that with all this enthusiasm out there, you can make a living (and in some cases, actually get rich) from this stuff; the emphasis shifts to getting bodies in the door and keeping them there... and you wind up with marketing 'self-esteem' and 'Little Tiger' after-school programs and good wholesome values and everyone's happy... except for us. Remember, it was suburban culture and the explosion of dojos, dojangs and whatever in strip malls which was the natural home of this latest development in the dilution of the TMAs, and what were the suburbs about in the first place? Lower and middle middle class Americans escaping the dangers of the City. Owning your own home, in part, but for a lot of people's parents—and here I speak from bitter experience—it was getting out of the increasingly dangerous places that east coast American cities were turning into. All those people who fled Manhatten to Nassau County in the 1950s... they're the people who created the myth of suburban safety (through robotic conformity, on LI at least). Just try telling people who are products of that ethos—denizens of the suburbs where the TMAs are such big sellers—that their kids need to learn self-protection for self-preservation, and see what happens to your balance sheet.


There is one other venue where the karate/MA taught to youngsters is tested: the schoolyard/walk-home fight or bullying. This is the true test that the kids I interact with have been put through, and why TMA leaves a bad taste in the mouths of so many youngsters. Because frankly, too may MA trained youth are not able to fight off the street fighter/punk. Word of these losses gets around--that kids who really need the self-defense applications come up short--because they weren't really taught in such a way that their skills would work against a determined street-experienced hoodlum. How have I handled this problem? By ignoring the calls to teach younger kids. I just don't have an answer (yet). But Steel Tiger's earlier comment that Mas Oyama would probably do the same reminds me this problem may be a real juggernaut.

This is what I'm talking about... it happens, and yet people don't really want their children to learn how to blind or maim their aggressive age-mates. When I was a kid, in 10th grade, maybe, a really nasty kid my own age was giving me a very hard time in the gym locker, and cornered me in one of the tile line showers. I kicked him in the abdomen so hard he fell backward and hit his head, hard, on a set of shower fixtures. He fell down and didn't get up, and I got out of there. I saw him again in school the next day, and he avoided me after that. I was relieved, because I didn't want to get in trouble. But I have to confess, I was half-hoping he would start something, because I had had a taste of the power that comes from being able to do something to your persecutor, and I wanted to do it again, in a weird way. I don't think that's a healthy thing for a kid to feel, but that's where my moral development was at that age. Teaching children lethal techs—and I had reacted instinctively, I had had no training and knew nothing about the use of strikes to weak places—is almost certainly a bad idea, yet, as KW points out, it is often what they need to know to protect themselves. So what to do?


As I read kidswarrior's response I realised I came across as anti sport karate.I do not have anything against karate being done as a sport,in fact it is a good thing in my opinion.I enjoy watching the competitions and attend tournaments when I can,to spectate not compete.My issue with it is I think it should have its own name.

I agree, Tom. And I don't think you came across as anti-anything. A lot of people feel the same way: the sport aspect and the combat aspect are simply going to come to a parting of the ways in the near future, because they are no longer even remotely about the same things.


Now about teaching kids,that is fine but that is self defence.I still say they cannot be taught the killing techniques that traditional karate was developed for.Those techniques are not for a controlled self defence situation,they were for efficient killing in a combat situation.
Tom Hodges

Again, I agree with you (and with KW). It's a dilemma, and the thing about a genuine dilemma is that there's no particularly good solution...

[Steel Tiger]

Again, I agree with you (and with KW). It's a dilemma, and the thing about a genuine dilemma is that there's no particularly good solution...

This is the great dilemma facing all modern martial artists. The vast majority of us are perfectly normal, law-abiding citizens and yet here we are studying skills designed to maim and kill. We need to find a way, in our small community and ourselves, to reconcile these two seemingly irreconcilable things. How do you transmit the entirety of an MA which is full of methods on how to kill?

For the youngest children it is just a game but it is also a chance to instil some social responsibility as we tell them they should not seek to harm others. The message changes as students get older. Teenage students have a better understanding of what they are doing and it becomes necessary to tell them they should not harm others except to protect themselves. Then, with adult students, there is an assumption that they have a concept of social responsibility so it is alright to pass on the full knowledge of the techniques as we believe they know how far they can go to defend themselves.

It is at the younger end that the arts are losing their fiercesome image (if they ever really had one). Kids are going into MA day care and then progressing through their arts with the same attitudes, perpetuating and enhancing a degradation of the perception of the martial arts.

[chinto]

This is the great dilemma facing all modern martial artists. The vast majority of us are perfectly normal, law-abiding citizens and yet here we are studying skills designed to maim and kill. We need to find a way, in our small community and ourselves, to reconcile these two seemingly irreconcilable things. How do you transmit the entirety of an MA which is full of methods on how to kill?

For the youngest children it is just a game but it is also a chance to instil some social responsibility as we tell them they should not seek to harm others. The message changes as students get older. Teenage students have a better understanding of what they are doing and it becomes necessary to tell them they should not harm others except to protect themselves. Then, with adult students, there is an assumption that they have a concept of social responsibility so it is alright to pass on the full knowledge of the techniques as we believe they know how far they can go to defend themselves.

It is at the younger end that the arts are losing their fiercesome image (if they ever really had one). Kids are going into MA day care and then progressing through their arts with the same attitudes, perpetuating and enhancing a degradation of the perception of the martial arts.

you are right, and there is not a lot you can do about it.. of course seeing some 6 year old with a black belt is a bad joke but it happens... not in the style i am in , but the local tkd school had an arttical in the local paper saying they gave 2 kids, one 7 and one 8years old a shodan rank... ridiculous to me.. but they did it.

[Hand Sword]

Well,

I would first ask is it really a misconception that the doctor has about Karate? It's kind of a double edged sword. To those who are serious about their training, the answer would be an overwhelming Yes! (almost feeling slighted about the response he gave) However, I think all of us need to come to the realization that Karate has become what he and most of the public seems to think--a joke, or more appropriately something for kids to do, or a workout, etc... It has earned soccer mom status in the view of most. The majority of the way it's taught, marketed, etc.. is what it is--something less thasn that "brutal" boxing stuff or even worse, that "human cock fighting" mma stuff.

[SageGhost83]

I think all of us need to come to the realization that Karate has become what he and most of the public seems to think--a joke, or more appropriately something for kids to do, or a workout, etc... It has earned soccer mom status in the view of most.

It is very interesting that you say that. My Shotokan sensei told us something to that effect when I first started in the arts. He is a very stern, hardcore, old-school type of person, you know - your typical old man from the far east who never says too much but is on you like white on rice if you screw up. He said that Karate practiced in the west in general and the US in particular, is so watered down in modern times that it doesn't even deserve to be called karate. Then he launched into one of those long stories about how serious and brutal the training was when he was a young man back in his home country and in the 60' and 70's in the west. He told us that now you have "karate moms" who gather in schools to gossip with each other while their children do something that looked like it was trying to be karate. Then he made me laugh when he said that modern karate should be called "gimp-ryu". He is my favorite sensei and I miss training with him dearly - what I wouldn't give just to spend another day with him. He punished us with his brand of old-school training, but he made us extremely proficient - we were putting brown and black belts to shame at tournamets even though most of us were only yellow and orange belts. Ah, how I miss that training. Since that time, I have had to move on to WTF TKD to continue to train live with another person. It is fun but, well, I'll just say that the average commercial TKD/Karate school leaves a lot to be desired in terms of actual true-to-the-art's-original-intention type of training and I'll leave it at that...

[chinto]

I think it does depend on the dojo in the end.. some are kinda a joke and teach only sport applications and things like that. they become basically day care.. then there are dojo's that teach traditionally and are not really into sport training and teach what the art is really designed to do and how to apply that training for that use.

[Hand Sword]

God bless you and those that do that! Sadly, you are all so few and far between that there isn't a dent to the overall image of today.

[Fiendlover]

well karate's main objective is self defense but we also teach offensive techniques but boxing is all about offense with few defensive techniques. karate also teaches more than just knocking people out. it teaches discipline, honor, brotherhood, etc. whereas boxing does not. i dont think the doctor has a wrong vision about karate but i think he just wants to keep it more civil if you will. not that karate is civil all the time........

[fuyugoshi]

well karate's main objective is self defense but we also teach offensive techniques but boxing is all about offense with few defensive techniques. karate also teaches more than just knocking people out. it teaches discipline, honor, brotherhood, etc. whereas boxing does not. i dont think the doctor has a wrong vision about karate but i think he just wants to keep it more civil if you will. not that karate is civil all the time........

If the local school offered a boxing course and a karate course for my kids (if I had kids, of course), I wouldn't doubt, I would have them take boxing. Amateur boxing is not as bad as you say, and the seriousness of boxing competition creates an attitude that I like. The karate classes would probably be some acrobatic XMA, some cheerleading baton techniques disguised as kobudo, or some poorly executed physical education drills that resembles poorly executed kihon.

On the other hand, as you described karate and boxing, boxing is more advanced self defense system than karate.

[Sukerkin]

Whilst I can appreciate that emotions can run high in any discussion, do you really believe the description you just gave of Karate, fuyugoshi?

I know that things change over time but in the days when I could train for empty-hand I always found the the Karate chaps to be more than challenging enough opponents.

Perhaps you were speaking of people presenting sports aerobics as "Karate" for marketing purposes rather than the rather more seriously miened karatekas of my aquaintence?

[fuyugoshi]

Whilst I can appreciate that emotions can run high in any discussion, do you really believe the description you just gave of Karate, fuyugoshi?

I know that things change over time but in the days when I could train for empty-hand I always found the the Karate chaps to be more than challenging enough opponents.

Perhaps you were speaking of people presenting sports aerobics as "Karate" for marketing purposes rather than the rather more seriously miened karatekas of my aquaintence?

You are right, I overreacted a bit and I didn't explained myself. I think that the term "karate" nowadays refers to too many things. Eight years ago, I was very surprised when I moved to the USA to see a dojo at almost every mall. I was also surprised to see so many tournaments, like "the battle of Atlanta", "World championship", etc... That was not all, I saw so many world champions... but I didn't see not one good martial artist. At tournaments, this is what I saw:
Most kata were created by their performers, usually teenagers
I saw what they call "musical kata", which in my opinion is just dancing.
Some kids were swinging around what they called "bo", but actually were batons that they handled exactly as cheerleaders (or batonists, I don't know the word) do.
In the kata traditional divisions, I saw people performing modified versions of traditional kata, and the judges didn't disqualify them. I even saw one guy who put together parts of six goju ryu kata and performed it as traditional kata... and he won!!!!
In kata traditional division, some Okinawan kata were performed in theatrical ways: for instance, instead of the fluidity of mushimi in some hand movements, these guys did somewhat straight hand movements with lots of arm shaking, and their breathing was as if they were having a stroke!!!!
The way they fight is also very primitive, but I understand that is because of the rules. Change the rules, and change the fight!At one dojo I saw kids learning a bastardized version of goju ryu, a version that, for example, added yodan yoko geri or yodan mawashi geri to parts of the kata where previously there was no kick at all. One grand master added left kicks to sanseru because he thought the students should practice both legs, so they almost double the time needed to perform that kata... And the technique was so poor!!!! Champions that didn't have hikite, no kime... I can make a huge list of things that surprised me. On the other hand, I saw a karate/kickboxing dojo (http://www.mikido.com) and a boxing gym here in Newport News, (Hoopers Academy of Self Protection) that are different, I think because of the type of tournament they compete. They have very good fighters in kickboxing and boxing, they train boxing style, they have spirit, mystic, commitment and they can take a hit (by the way, they also teach taekwondo at Hoopers, but it is not that good).

That is why I would send my kids to boxing classes over karate, at least as long as I live in the USA. To make me change my mind, I would have to investigate the karate instructor and his organization. There are some organizations that are reliable (to me, at least): some goju ryu like IOGKF, Jundokan international, Jundokan Okinawa, Meibukan, etc; there are some shorin ryu (kobayashi, matsubayashi, etc). From mainland Japan also there are some good organizations and some good instructors in shito ryu, wado ryu, some shotokan instructors, etc. Also, some recent karate offsprings like kyokushin, enshin, daidojuku, etc. Definitely, there are lots of people who deserve all the respect, but the mainstream of karate is not good at all, and the country is so big, that good martial artist are almost isolated (in Okinawa the old masters lived in an area smaller than NY city).

The topic of this thread is the public image of karate: well, for the public, the image is that of the dojo at the mall, or tournaments like the battle of atlanta or one of those world tournaments (where there are no foreign competitors)

I started my training in 1984, and we did hit each other (it was a university dojo, so everybody was young and eager), so I understand when you talk about your training partners in the past. I also miss mine. Now I work at a university and we can not sparr because the university doesn't want legal problems if somebody is hurt.

[exile]

At tournaments, this is what I saw:
Most kata were created by their performers, usually teenagers
I saw what they call "musical kata", which in my opinion is just dancing.
Some kids were swinging around what they called "bo", but actually were batons that they handled exactly as cheerleaders (or batonists, I don't know the word) do.
In the kata traditional divisions, I saw people performing modified versions of traditional kata, and the judges didn't disqualify them. I even saw one guy who put together parts of six goju ryu kata and performed it as traditional kata... and he won!!!!
In kata traditional division, some Okinawan kata were performed in theatrical ways: for instance, instead of the fluidity of mushimi in some hand movements, these guys did somewhat straight hand movements with lots of arm shaking, and their breathing was as if they were having a stroke!!!!
The way they fight is also very primitive, but I understand that is because of the rules. Change the rules, and change the fight!At one dojo I saw kids learning a bastardized version of goju ryu, a version that, for example, added yodan yoko geri or yodan mawashi geri to parts of the kata where previously there was no kick at all. One grand master added left kicks to sanseru because he thought the students should practice both legs, so they almost double the time needed to perform that kata... And the technique was so poor!!!! Champions that didn't have hikite, no kime... I can make a huge list of things that surprised me.

There's a very clear lesson from this, which shouldn't come as news to anyone who's followed the history of the MAs: as the sports/spectacle side is pumped up, the martial content and 'public image' goes down. This happened to judo, it happened to taekwondo, it's happened to the CMAs as government sponsored 'wushu' has superseded the family-based and 'hard' systems in the public mind, and it's been happening to karate as the sport side has come to prominence (look at that appalling 'XMA' special The Discovery Channel ran on Matthew Mullins, Mike Chat and the rest of 'em a couple of years ago). The only thing that could do karate's public image more harm at this point would be to lobby successfully to become an Olympic sport. Instant death-knell.

Yes, it's true that boxing is also a sport; but that's why I said 'sport/spectable' earlier. In boxing, violence, not acrobatics, is the draw. Sure, skill is crucial, but the skill people are looking for is in the delivery of hard punches. In TKD and, increasingly, sport karate, acrobatics and 'flash' are the components of the spectacle that draws viewers. Increasingly artificial techniques, and fighting ranges that have no relation to an actual violent street encounter, are imposed and rewarded by the rule system; in contrast, boxing rules keep the fight at distance ranges which are much more like what you see if you're unfortunate enough to be involved in a punch-up with some drunken yob or bullying lowlife. And so boxers have to train for fighting at those ranges, which results in a more realistic overall approach to combat than any of the TMAs—whether Chinese, Korean or Japanese—whose sport/spectacle side rewards gymnastic and athletic difficulty. The high, complex kicks that are the stuff of current sparring, and the wushu-like distortions of kata and hyungs that you're complaining about are all the result of the marketing of TMAs as circus theatre. However corrupt boxing is (and has been for a long time), there's a fundamental honesty about its basic premise: in a fight, two people are striking each other hard at very short range till one goes down. To the extent that MMA competitions have maintained that premise, they've benefitted in the 'image' department for exactly the same reasons.

But as Sukerkin has pointed out, there are plenty of places where you can train karate on the same assumptions—that you're going to use it to defend yourself from a violent attack, typically initiated at very close range, and that you're going to end the attack by delivering very hard strikes to vulnerable critical places on the attacker's body, particularly above the neck. In a sense, what you're saying is that you're going to have more trouble finding places which train karate like that than you will in finding boxing schools which train you for close-in striking effectiveness, and you're probably right about that... more's the pity. :(