karate and self defense?

[drummingman]

i keep coming across things that say that karete is not good for self defense.i even saw someone on this board say they loved karate but that its not that good for self defense.so what gives? is karate good for real self defense or not? what styles of karate are good for self defense and what ones are not?
the styles in my area are american goju ryu and motobu ha shito ryu.are either one of these styles good for self defense in real fighting on the street and not just in the dojo?

 

[exile]

i keep coming across things that say that karete is not good for self defense.i even saw someone on this board say they loved karate but that its not that good for self defense.so what gives? is karate good for real self defense or not? what styles of karate are good for self defense and what ones are not?
the styles in my area are american goju ryu and motobu ha shito ryu.are either one of these styles good for self defense in real fighting on the street and not just in the dojo?

Drummingman, a ton of ink---and in this medium, bytes---have been spilled on this question. You should take a look at some of the threads having to do with kata, for example. Meanwhile, this is how I think the issue you raise should be framed:

First, there is a sport vs. combat dimension to a lot of MAs. Taekwando and karate in particular are striking arts which have developed a major ring-competition component over the past couple of decades, with TKD now an Olympic event, and sport karate importing into its own practice a lot of the flashy, and largely combat-impractical, high complex kicks from TKD. Regardless of the name of the MA, point-sparring in one or another version tends to put the premium on athletic difficulty and drive the technique-toolkit of the MA away from street-effectiveness to ring-effectiveness. I don't know just what you were looking at that was dissing karate's fighting effectivenss, but the same thing happens with TKD, and 100 times out of 100 the negativity is aimed at Olympic-sparring style TKD, because that's almost all that people see. So let's start by excluding sport karate from the question, because if you include it, the answer will be unfairly skewed towards the negative, which I think is absolutely the wrong answer.

On the other hand, ask yourself where karate came from. The founders of the modern MA of karate, Matsumura, Anko Itsosu and several others, were bodyguards of the King of Okinawa and served him in LEO capacities as well. They were forbiddedn by the Satsuma overlords of Okinawa to own bladed weapons or firearms; all they had were their hands, elows, knees and feet. How combat-ineffective do you think the empty-handed MA these guys helped codify from native Okinawan and Chinese fighting systems could be, if that's what the king's bodyguards were using to protect his life and carry out law enforcement there?

So that means you have to look at the `record' that these guys left of their art---the boiled-down essence of the fighting systems that were their bread-and-butter---i.e., the kata, and see just what their combat potential is. And to start with, you need some guidance, because the effective applications of the kata movements had long been concealed in training, and after the Satsuma overlordship ended, Itosu, trying to get karate into the Okinawan school system, repackaged some of the kata as the `core curriculum' for school use and disguised the nastiest applications as simple punch-block-kick sequences---explicitly warning adults, however, that that's what he was doing, and that to do real karate they were going to have to recover the most effective bunkai, the real combat applications, themselves. The terms `block' and `chamber' are labels for movement, they are not, by and large, accurated descriptions of the intended moves---big difference there!

So how do you find out about decoding the kata and seeing just how effective the techiques they conceal are (or can be, if you train them right?) I'd start with Iain Abernethy's book Bunkai-Jutsu: the Practical Application of Karate Kata, and pay particular attention to his last chapter, on how to train the fighting techniques ---which cover all combat ranges and show the locks, throws, sweeps and other grappling moves in the art and how these interact to set up very damaging strikes to finish off an assailant---and ways of combining them in a real `situation'. What Abernethy stresses here is crucial: you have to train karate techniques in a particular way, that lets you simulate the unpredictable and violent nature of real fights (as vs. rule-governed contests), and his final chapter goes into detail on how he does this at his dojo and how training partners can do the same thing. Also take a look at Lawrence Kane and Kris Wilder's The Way of Kata, and anything by Javier Martinez or Patrick McCarthy on applications of kata-based techniques.

These guys have done a huge amount of study and practical expermentation on the information about hard combat uses incorporated in the kata, and you really owe it to yourself to look at their very impressive results if you want to see the full range of evidence that we now, thanks to their work, have on that question. But you also have to recognize that if you want to use karate---or TKD, or kenpo, or wing chun, or.....---for real fighting, should that become necessary, you have to study the art in a school which encourages self-defense apps primarily, and you have to train for real, unpleasant, violent conflict. It's not just what you know, but how you train it, that determines effectiveness. If you do go that route, though, karate can be a devastating system.

 

[drummingman]

thanks a lot exile for that grat post.
yeah i don't care about point fighting and things like that.to me all that matters when it comes to studying a martial art is real world slef defense.
can you maybe go into some of the things that you talked about when it comes to putting the real combat back into the kata and how some of that stuff plays out?

 

[twendkata71]

The problem you run into is that people do not spend enough time training in karate do to really develop their skills. Also self defense is not the only thing that karate training is about. It is about defeating your own weaknesses, developing your mental and physical strength. I can see were people would see karate as ineffective, the sport aspect and commercial schools are so prevelant that it is mostly what the public sees. One of the big things that has ruined karate is totally commercial karate. They have watered the karate down to make it a more appealing commodity. People want to be pampered, they want to learn it all now, but they don't want it to be the rough,hard core training of the original karate teachers.
When I was training in Shorin ryu, I asked my sensei what to do if my opponent tangled up my arms, he said" bite his nose off". I asked him is that part of karate. He said" all parts of the body are used in karate,even your teeth". So, yes, karate is effective for self defense. You just have to find the right school. There are a lot of Mcdojo's out there and extreme sport schools, sport karate/taekwondo schools,etc. that would be what you would want to avoid. And yes there are schools out there that do both, sport karate competition and real self defense karate do.
Urban goju ryu(USA Goju) are known for their hard nosed, self defense karate. I cannot speak for the Motobu ha Shito ryu people. But, if they are anything like their name sake Motobu, he was a hardcore streetfighting karate guy, that in his early days, tested all of his techniques on the street.
The Shito ryu that I have experience(Shukokai kempo) is very rough and street tactic oriented.

 

[searcher]

From my own personal experience I have a hypothesis. The karate-ka that are not good at self-defense are the ones that get their BB and then stop training. Then they procede to go around bullying and bragging that they are a BB in karate. They then procede to get the crap kicked out of them and it gives us a bad reputation. You don't know the times I have beat the crap out of guys that have kicked the crap out of one of these braggarts.

 

[exile]

Hi again Drummigman---the things Twedkata talks about here are just what I was getting at.

The problem you run into is that people do not spend enough time training in karate do to really develop their skills. Also self defense is not the only thing that karate training is about. It is about defeating your own weaknesses, developing your mental and physical strength. I can see were people would see karate as ineffective, the sport aspect and commercial schools are so prevelant that it is mostly what the public sees. One of the big things that has ruined karate is totally commercial karate. They have watered the karate down to make it a more appealing commodity. People want to be pampered, they want to learn it all now, but they don't want it to be the rough,hard core training of the original karate teachers.

This is along the same lines that I was getting at when I referred to the training methods that people like Iaian Abernethy, Lawrence Kane or Geoff Thomspson---karateka whose `day jobs' have included gigs as bouncers or crowd control coordinators and security operatives---advocate in their writings. Remember, always, that karate wasn't a luxury or a hobby for the people who created it and their students. They were weaponless subjects of a harsh occupying force, who had to make every bit of their training count to the maximum. The first generation of Koreans exposed to Japanese karate lived in a dangerous, crime-ridden society, according to what I've read about that period, where poverty, going hand-in-hand with a brutal Japanese occupation, made life fairly cheap---and it was if anything even worse just after the war; the demand for MA training was based on totally practical considerations of day-to-day survival. People were willing to get knocked about, bruised and bloodied in order to learn effective fighting skills, and they were willing to toughen themselves up---via strength training and body conditioning---to get themselves in shape to both admister and withstand damaging strikes. You have to see that as the context in which karate developed and spread.

When I was training in Shorin ryu, I asked my sensei what to do if my opponent tangled up my arms, he said" bite his nose off". I asked him is that part of karate. He said" all parts of the body are used in karate,even your teeth". So, yes, karate is effective for self defense. You just have to find the right school. There are a lot of Mcdojo's out there and extreme sport schools, sport karate/taekwondo schools,etc. that would be what you would want to avoid. And yes there are schools out there that do both, sport karate competition and real self defense karate do.

Again, this is just my point---it's how karate is taught and trained that makes it grimly effective (or not) at stopping an assailant cold. Look at it this way: karate has punches, palm heel strikes, knife hand strikes, elbow strikes at many angle, hard mid- and low-height kicks, locks, chokes, sweeps, neck twists, strikes to the eyes... how could it not be effective??? Only one way: if its combat toolkit were largely ignored, or failed to be taught in a way which had these separate pieces work together and build logically and inevitably to a disabling strike on a vital part of your attacker's body. Unfortunately, as Twendkata is pointing out, there are plenty of commerical schools which do fail to teach karate properly along just these lines.

Urban goju ryu(USA Goju) are known for their hard nosed, self defense karate. I cannot speak for the Motobu ha Shito ryu people. But, if they are anything like their name sake Motobu, he was a hardcore streetfighting karate guy, that in his early days, tested all of his techniques on the street.

The Shito ryu that I have experience(Shukokai kempo) is very rough and street tactic oriented.

So look, here's what I'd do if I were you, Drummingman: on the one hand,

(i) read some of that stuff I mentioned so you can see in depth just what `combat applications of kata moves' actually means in practice, and

(ii) on the other hand, visit a few dojos, talk to the instructional staff there, and try to keep your ears open for the hints that will tell you which way the school goes---in the direction that Twendkata points out for the various Okinawan schools he mentions which emphasize fighting skills and applications, or in the other direction---the commercial/sport direction that really won't help you if you have to defend yourself.

Give these a whirl and you won't go wrong!

 

[Robert Lee]

Karate is no good. It is the person using what they know that makes it good. with that said. Any self defence art That a person takes the time to train hard push there limits understand What they can do That person will get good at it. The ones that just get that 2 to 3 hours in a week will see slow improvement And never really get it. You have to not only train hard in class but should train at some point every day if you want to get good.

 

[WMKS Shogun]

eXile,
If I had to guess, I would say that you have read the book Shotokan's Secret by Bruce Clayton (based on your understanding of the history). Though I agree that looking into books that go into the meanings of the katas adds a ton of depth to karate (and taekwon-do). There are plenty of self defense applications to be discovered and practiced in the katas. Grabs, throws, locks, breaks, escapes, and chokes can all be found and applied for self defense if a student cares to look hard enough.

 

[Flying Crane]

I think the simple answer is that any and every martial art, if done well, is very useful for self defense.

But the flip side is also true: any and every martial art, if done poorly, is useless for self defense.

It is only a tool. It is up to you to learn and train to use that tool well.

 

[exile]

eXile,
If I had to guess, I would say that you have read the book Shotokan's Secret by Bruce Clayton (based on your understanding of the history). Though I agree that looking into books that go into the meanings of the katas adds a ton of depth to karate (and taekwon-do). There are plenty of self defense applications to be discovered and practiced in the katas. Grabs, throws, locks, breaks, escapes, and chokes can all be found and applied for self defense if a student cares to look hard enough.

Hi David, yes, I have read Clayton's book (though I remain a bit skeptical about many of his inferences---as Danjo has alread pointed out on another thread a while back, Clayton seems to be, unwittingly, retrofitting modern Shotokan's very low stances to the royal Okinawan court context of a century and a half ago---a time when, according to the best independent evidence, the stances of the Okinawan karateka were much higher than they are now. This is a serious anachronism that makes much of his claims about specific features of Shotokan's origins a bit questionable). His account does jibe with others I've read in connection with the backgrounds of the various early karateka whose discoveries evolved into contemporary Shotokan---particularly Iain Abernethy's work---and I also find convincing Simon J. O'Neil's and Stuart Anslow's investigations of the connections between earlier Okinawan karate styles, Shotokan, and the wartime and Kwan-era Korean MAs that became Taekwando. Abernethy's work in particular documents in a very plausible and straightforward way the way striking and grappling components of karate are encoded in kata and can be recovered from them using his rules for `reading' these patterns; similarly for O'Neil's work, which clearly is heavily influenced by Abernethy's. Kane and Wilder's book, Martinez's book on the elements of Okinawan tuite that can be inferred from those styles of karate, and Patrick McCarthy's work all point in the same general direction. Taken together, that overall line of analysis seems to me to make good sense of aspects of kata which otherwise seem just baffling and, from the point of view of actual combat, rather pointless.

I've tried thinking through the way that style of analysis might make sense of the kichos and the Palgwe forms and have been struck by the usefulness of the results. Over time, I'm hoping to work out some scenarios using their methodology for all of the Palgwes---SJO'N's book on the WTF forms will be out next year, and Anslow's book on the ITF tuls has recently appeared, but it looks like no one is going to address the Palgwes, so if I want to see how those work using that framework of analysis, I've got to do them myself...

 

[JasonASmith]

I'm on my second read-through of Clayton's book, and I must say that I do like some of his conclusions(even if they are a bit of a stretch in places) His thoughts on the Tekki set are interesting. I'm still of the mind, back on topic, that it's the practitioner of whatever system is being used at the given moment, not the system itself...So Karate is as effective as anything else, as long as it's done well...

 

[exile]

I'm on my second read-through of Clayton's book, and I must say that I do like some of his conclusions(even if they are a bit of a stretch in places) His thoughts on the Tekki set are interesting.

Yes, I'm sure he has some of it at least right... the question is, just how much? Someone needs to revisit his data and interpretations and maybe shed some new light on what he's come up with.

I'm still of the mind, back on topic, that it's the practitioner of whatever system is being used at the given moment, not the system itself...So Karate is as effective as anything else, as long as it's done well...

Yes, exactly my thought as well.

 

[drummingman]

i just found "the way of kata" and hope to buy it soon.

 

[Brandon Fisher]

Karate is effective. Its all in how it is applied, true that all parts of the body are used in karate and more people are not learning that because of the commericalization has Wend Sensei has pointed out. When I created Seijitsu Shin Do I made a promise to myself that those that achieved higher rank would have a open mind to self defsne and understand that simple is best when it comes to the real thing. Short sweet and effective is how I teach self defense and yet my karate is very hardcore when used at its full potential however I don't show it right away in the training its gradule development. People tell me all the time when I hit them they feel more pressure in the center of their body and their back then where I hit them. This is karate, the ability to have very powerful pentrating technique that ulitmately can cause a lot of damage. True traditional karate is still effective when used correctly. But takes many years to develop it and most people won't take the time. Especially in the western world.

 

[exile]

i just found "the way of kata" and hope to buy it soon.

It's a good read, drummingman, full of sharp ideas on realistic applications of kata. But the Abernethy books really are the classics of that approach. If you can get your hands on a copy of Bunkai Jutsu, start it and put everything else on hold till you finish it. Abernethy is not just a very experienced karateka and gifted analyst---his book is full of revelations of the kind that make you want to slap your forehead and ask yourself in exasperation, `why didn't I see that before???'---but he's a graceful writer whose way of presenting his discoveries and hypotheses make it genuinely hard to put the book down. And he does the crucial things: he states his claims very specifically, so you know exactly what he means, and he presents evidence and arguments that really speak to the validity of those claims. It's not that easy to find that level of discussion in the MA literature, unfortunately...

 

[drummingman]

hi exile.i looked for the abernethy book tonight at my local boarders,they did not have it.i even tried to order it,again no luck as it was not even on file.i guess i will have to get it on line.
i did notice that on the back of the way of kata there is a quote by abernethy as to how good that book is.just thought i would let you know that just in case you did not know.i know that you like the book as well,and considering how good you say the abernethy"s book is that makes me also look forward to reading the way of kata.

 

[exile]

hi exile.i looked for the abernethy book tonight at my local boarders,they did not have it.i even tried to order it,again no luck as it was not even on file.i guess i will have to get it on line.

Hi dm---yes, that was how I wound up getting IA's book. There's apparently a significant demand for it---Amazon is sometimes back-ordered several weeks for it---but oddly enough, it isn't in bookstores that much.

i did notice that on the back of the way of kata there is a quote by abernethy as to how good that book is.just thought i would let you know that just in case you did not know.i know that you like the book as well,and considering how good you say the abernethy"s book is that makes me also look forward to reading the way of kata.

Oh yes, I know that IA is a big fan of theirs, I've seen his quote on the back, and if you look up the Amazon.com reviews of their book, he's got a nice commentary there. And they do have some very interesting interpretations that are worth thinking about (Okinawan karate styles are their base, particularly Goju ryu, though everything they do is generally applicable to other striking art pattern interpretation). There's a kind of difference in their approach from IA, though---he tends not look for `hidden moves so much'---moves that are interpolated between the overt movements of the kata. There's some reason to think that such moves really were intended to be understood as a concealed part of the kata by their creators---part of the common understanding of fighting methods at the time, so you didn't necessarily have to always put them in---but IA is more conservative in his take, going more literally by just what the kata themselves show. I don't think that Kane & Wilder overuse their appeal to hidden moves, but it's something not all kata analysts do. Still, it is definitely worth thinking about!

 

[OneKickWonder]

My personal opinion, as much as it is worth, is that any martial art is effective for self defense. BUT ONLY TO A CERTAIN EXTENT. If you learned TKD in junior high and never applied it after that and you get attacked when you are 25 you might remember. In the beginning when learning an art, as Brandon Fisher said about his, you learn things slowly and not necessarily to the full potential. If techniques, forms, katas, and even the basics are not practiced on a regular basis, then they will be lost and therefore useless for self defense. But if you practice your art, and refine your body to it and it to your body, you will always stand a better chance of defending yourself. Also most of the time when talking of self defense it is assumed the other person has little or no knowledge of MAs. If they do, then it is just a matter of what they know and what you know and how you apply it to the situation. These are all the ramblings of my mind and not necessarily fact but they have been the subject between me, my instructor, and several other seniors in my school.

 

[KageMusha]

From my own personal experience I have a hypothesis. The karate-ka that are not good at self-defense are the ones that get their BB and then stop training. Then they procede to go around bullying and bragging that they are a BB in karate. They then procede to get the crap kicked out of them and it gives us a bad reputation. You don't know the times I have beat the crap out of guys that have kicked the crap out of one of these braggarts.

I have seen that several times. I look at it this way: regardless of your art, you are spending time learning distance, timeing, strikeing, and overall fighting. If you truly devote yourself to learning ANY kind of fighting, then fight someone who hasn't, you have a much better chance.

The only thing I think hurts a lot of people is closed mindedness. Some people dedicate themselves to one way of fighting. I am not saying one style, I am saying one way. For example: Circular movment over linear. All karate has at least a little of both. But some people just train in the linear because they believe it is all that is needed. But what about when you come across someone huge.... you need circular movment for that. Some just use circular with the thought that they can't get hit now. We all know that isn't the right answer either. You need both. Along with skills on standing your ground, and counter attacking, and so on and so on.....

I also like the fact that even the traditional karate schools are starting to import more ground fighting. With the popularity of the UFC and MMA in general, it is more likely for someone to take you down since they see it on tv now.

20 years ago, people watched boxing. So if a fight broke out, you went fist-a-cuffs. Now they see grappleing, so that is what they do.

 

[Iron Leopard]

well karate was developed for self defense and should still be that. TKD is mostly health and sport in the schools around me. MMA and groundfighting schools are good but they again focus too much on the sport aspect and ground fighting aspect and not the self defense or stand up fighting.

You need to know how to fight on the ground but you also want to avoid it at all costs if that is possible. most kempo schools weather american or chines/shaolin kempo are very self defense oriented from my experience.

You again can discuss this with your future instructor and find out if he covers all self defense applications. If most of the training involves, high kicks, jumping kicks, endless acrobatic forms or finger strikes to the chest or other useless strikes. and point sparring or fighting with protective body gear then it's probably not self defense oriented.