Thoughts on Sport Karate

[camotheman]

Hey guys, more of a rambling of my thoughts here than a question, but, I wanted to write a little post about sport Karate and my thoughts and experience with it. I’m specifically talking about WKF / WUKF / AAU style sport karate.

A little bit of background, growing up, I competed in sport karate until about the age of 18. I trained this alongside traditional karate, at the same dojo. I do believe that sport karate has benefits, it teaches you to be light on your feet, have good footwork for kumite, good distance management, and control of your techniques (power). Sport karateka are also some of the best athletes that I’ve worked with before.

Now, there are also areas where this falls short. In the kumite of sport karate, the match stops when someone gets a point, this is not realistic whatsoever. If I punch you, and you are still conscious, that does not guarantee that you will stop attacking me. Stopping after the point like this can create some bad habits if you were ever in a real world situation. Now, I’m not saying that if you were in a real world situation, that you would stop after one punch, but it definitely breeds bad habits.

Another shortcoming of sport karate would be the limited range of techniques and targets. No leg attacks, limited grappling with the opponent, no knees, no elbows, and light contact with your opponent. This limits karate in several ways, but to me it limits how many techniques I can use from kata. Now, I understand that it’s for safety reasons, but I’m sure that there is a good middle ground that could be found with a less limited ruleset and some extra protection.

I spoke to my Sensei about this a few years ago and he told me that sport karate is for children, and that you learn “real karate” (traditional) as you age into adulthood / teenage years. I think that sport karate can definitely build good skills and coordination for a martial artist, but still has shortcomings for a real confrontation or traditional karate.

I understand that sport karate is huge, and that it’s not going anywhere, but I wanted to pick your brains.

What do you all think about this? Does modern sport karate have a place in the traditional space, or should it be left behind?

 

[skribs135 155]

Hi Camotheman, welcome to Martial Talk. I'm a 4th degree black belt in TKD and a purple belt in BJJ. I've dabbled a bit with Muay Thai and a tiny bit with MMA. I've competed and won golds in local medals in both TKD and BJJ.

Now, there are also areas where this falls short. In the kumite of sport karate, the match stops when someone gets a point, this is not realistic whatsoever. If I punch you, and you are still conscious, that does not guarantee that you will stop attacking me. Stopping after the point like this can create some bad habits if you were ever in a real world situation. Now, I’m not saying that if you were in a real world situation, that you would stop after one punch, but it definitely breeds bad habits.

This is an area where it may actually have some benefit. If you continue striking after the other person has given up, then it can be considered battery (likely depending on jurisdiction and other factors). In a lot of self-defense situations, I don't think it's necessarily wrong to gauge the response to your strikes.

Another shortcoming of sport karate would be the limited range of techniques and targets. No leg attacks, limited grappling with the opponent, no knees, no elbows, and light contact with your opponent. This limits karate in several ways, but to me it limits how many techniques I can use from kata. Now, I understand that it’s for safety reasons, but I’m sure that there is a good middle ground that could be found with a less limited ruleset and some extra protection.

I saw very, very few catastrophic injuries in TKD. The only concussion I saw in 10+ years of training across three different schools was the result of a freak accident during drills. I saw a few sprains, but no catastrophic joint injuries.

I've been doing BJJ for just under 4 years and I know at least 3 people that had to quit due to knee injuries, and it seems there's a lot more moderate injuries (sprains, etc.) from the training. I also know that you don't get good in Muay Thai without taking a lot of hits the head in the process.

I spoke to my Sensei about this a few years ago and he told me that sport karate is for children, and that you learn “real karate” (traditional) as you age into adulthood / teenage years. I think that sport karate can definitely build good skills and coordination for a martial artist, but still has shortcomings for a real confrontation or traditional karate.

I think with any martial art, there's an opportunity for more mature training the more mature the student. This goes for the age of the student as well as the experience level.

 

[camotheman]

Hi Camotheman, welcome to Martial Talk. I'm a 4th degree black belt in TKD and a purple belt in BJJ. I've dabbled a bit with Muay Thai and a tiny bit with MMA. I've competed and won golds in local medals in both TKD and BJJ.

This is an area where it may actually have some benefit. If you continue striking after the other person has given up, then it can be considered battery (likely depending on jurisdiction and other factors). In a lot of self-defense situations, I don't think it's necessarily wrong to gauge the response to your strikes.

I saw very, very few catastrophic injuries in TKD. The only concussion I saw in 10+ years of training across three different schools was the result of a freak accident during drills. I saw a few sprains, but no catastrophic joint injuries.

I've been doing BJJ for just under 4 years and I know at least 3 people that had to quit due to knee injuries, and it seems there's a lot more moderate injuries (sprains, etc.) from the training. I also know that you don't get good in Muay Thai without taking a lot of hits the head in the process.


I think with any martial art, there's an opportunity for more mature training the more mature the student. This goes for the age of the student as well as the experience level.

Hi Skribs, I’m a (mainly) karate and kobudo practitioner of 20 years, but I’ve also done BJJ on and off for a few years, and some Muay Thai as well. Thanks for the warm welcome, happy to be here!

I agree with the legal aspect of your response, I agree that in a true confrontation, things can be taken too far, to the point where your self defense actions may have further consequences than you expected. I think as a martial artist, you should be disciplined enough to know when you hit that point. Now, we’re not all perfect people, and emotions can run high, so I do understand why it can happen

On the topic of injuries, in sport karate, I’ve seen a few concussions and several broken arms (they don’t breakfall on a takedown and try to post with their arm, it’s awful to watch). I think that on the topic of injuries, you get out what you put in to it, you have to know your own personal limits and not let ego get in the way. There’s a time and place for hard sparring, and there’s a time and place for technical sparring.

 

[skribs135 155]

On the topic of injuries, in sport karate, I’ve seen a few concussions and several broken arms (they don’t breakfall on a takedown and try to post with their arm, it’s awful to watch). I think that on the topic of injuries, you get out what you put in to it, you have to know your own personal limits and not let ego get in the way. There’s a time and place for hard sparring, and there’s a time and place for technical sparring.

The few concussions you might get in competitions where some head contact is allowed and a lot is not (which you'll find in sport karate or in TKD) is a lot different than the amount of concussions you'll get competing Muay Thai or boxing.

My experience with TKD is that take-downs are not allowed, if they are allowed in Karate then I understand there will be dislocations from improper breakfalls or from resisting throws when they're set.

 

[camotheman]

The few concussions you might get in competitions where some head contact is allowed and a lot is not (which you'll find in sport karate or in TKD) is a lot different than the amount of concussions you'll get competing Muay Thai or boxing.

My experience with TKD is that take-downs are not allowed, if they are allowed in Karate then I understand there will be dislocations from improper breakfalls or from resisting throws when they're set.

In the rule set that I’ve competed in, takedowns are allowed but only calf to calf takedowns, and sweeps must be followed up with a scoring technique, no hip throws or anything of that nature.

 

[philwhite]

I always competed in US sport karate so rules are usually point fighting above the waist, no takedowns, sweeps only for unbalancing an opponent. Depending on the level I’ve seen a lot of injuries over the years but its mostly safe. It usually only gets dicey with older teens, adults, and black belts. The weight classes are usually a joke so a lot of injuries result from weight/size mismatches. I weight about 135 and my last fight was against a 300+ lb guy.

Point fighting has its pros and cons. I think its good for building blitz speed and faking. We always trained both points and continuous sparring. It has always been easy for me to adapt to either.

There are a lot of fighters that moved from sport karate to kickboxing and mma and have done quite well.

I feel like the ropes may be a bigger obstacle for karate fighters over anything else. An open ring gives you a lot of room to run and more strategy to avoid danger

 

[goldenglory86]

Good for mma

 

[drop bear135 10]

There is definitely full contact karate out there with grappling if you wanted to do full contact Karate. There is also Kudo, and a bunch of other systems if you like to compete and well rounded.

As far as rule sets go. If you compete in multiple rule sets. Then you shouldn't get too specialised if that is your issue.

 

[Prince_Alarming73 9]

I... actually prefer point fighting the old fashioned way with relatively light contact. Please don't dogpile me, hear me out. I believe it has huge potential carryover to self defence applications- you train yourself to move from a standing position, go in, do the business, get out. The few fights I've witnessed as an adult show this to be a winning strategy, and it takes seconds or split seconds to happen. A good drill to develop this is what we occasionally used to do, which is to do one step sparring with an unannounced technique and the other person has to defend in any way he or she can. Due to my experience at school, I'm actually fairly good at it.