Karate- what chances does it stand on the street?

[sherwinc]

Also G.W.Bush thinks the 6 day ( not 7, the 7th was a resting day) creation was 6 days not longer or shorter ( he is a BA christian)

i think i am convinced, i think its 7 days, maybe you are right - its 6 days.....

[DrAgOn-T]

I've pretty much given up on trying to educate sherwinc on reality. He seems content to live in a fantasy world where kung fu is the greatest thing since water, and can defeat anything (even when it has been PROVEN otherwise). Even Bruce Lee said kung fu was "pretty, but lacked effectiveness". But hey, if it makes him happy to be ignorant then goody goody for him.

By the way, sherwinc, when was the last time you fought a boxer on a dinner table?

[Toudiyama[NL]]

i think i am convinced, i think its 7 days, maybe you are right - its 6 days.....

Why do you think sunday is a restingday?

Besides that, at whaat day did "God" create light, because from that moment a day was a day

But you showed us something herre KF people are like religious people, they believe without there being any real evidence for what they believe
Modernists/contact MA are like atheists, they need evidence/proof
like scientist, they take a theory and try if it hold ( by going in the ring)

KF people like you are like people believing urban legends are true because so many people are telling them

[Broadsword2004]

Wow, I've been away for awhile, anyways, I noticed this thread, now I have NOT read any of it except for page one so if a lot of this stuff was already argued or said, forgive me, I am just making a general statement here, but I think karate, real karate, fairs very well on the street in terms of free-hand fighting. As for against BJJ, I think it depends on the fighter. And as for good ground skills being good for a streetfight, I think that is baloney, you go onto the ground on the street and hit rocks or broken glass or even hard pavement, it's a whole new ballgame.

As for TKD being a joke and karate being uselss, 99% of karate and TKD people can't fight for beans. As for karate and TKD under people who are welll-trained, first off, kicking is kicking, as long as you do it right and can get the kick there, karate or TKD will kick the crap out of many people. A few of the professional fighters of the UFC have trained in TKD even for their kicking skills. Secondly, a lot of the stuff in karate, such as the fighting stances, are not used for fighting, they're used to build up strength and power in the legs. Also, when I learned karate, a few of the students questioned my sensei on some of these basics we had the practice. Like the one called "Chinese fan block" and and the "Grasping Block" (I forget the Japanese), these blocks would NEVER work in any fight. As it turns out, a crap load of the "useless basics" of karate carry over into the kobudo, which is why they are trained. They are trained in karate to build up the strength, speed, power, same with the stances, but also for the kobudo weapons and even the katana. The basics must be well-learnt to have any proficiency with those weapons.

As for karate being a civilian artform, I wholeheartedly agree, it is, it actually was not a military art at all. Karate was more a "farmer's art" to fight off the military, but not for like battlefield stuff.

But against a tough karate or TKD fighter (real TKD by the way isn't just all kick kick kick kick kick kick from my understanding), it can be a tough match. And a smart fighter who is a striker has some ground skills as well.

Most people don't know about the basics being for weapons though, and many instructors seem to make people think that those basics ARE for actual fighting, many of them. But you need a weapon in your hand for them to make any sense. As for TKD, if you've got a person who can kick with very good speed and skill and accuracy, with lightining-fast kicks, who also has good punches and can handle in-close stuff (isn't all WTF-style TKD), with some ground skills, if said person comes up against a (pure) ground fighter, that ground fighter is probably finished unless they are very careful. Remember, a good striking fighter has strength to, it's not like you local joke of a karate person fighting some muscular high school or collegiate wrestler or football player. Even Royce Gracie, when he dominated the very first UFC with his ground skills, and awoke people to ground fighting, he had kicking and boxing skills as well, he wasn't pure ground fighter.

Karate has just been so watered-down cuz most people are lazy-asses who don't wanna train hard. I once went to this one traditional-forms oriented school. There was this one Asian girl there who did a really good traditional form demonstration. This guy had all the black belt kids' pictures on the wall. Each had their blackbelt on with (::::faints::: a katana!?! Now, I thought that was cool, 'till I saw this girl start doing pushups. She could only make 10 before wearing down!!!! Now, in this day and age, in the U.S., if a girl can do 10 pushups, that's actually something, most, unless they are workers or gymnasts or cheerleaders, cannot make one. But still, 10!?! What kind of muscular strength and endurance is that. A good blackbelt should be capable of like 100 straight pushups. Heaven forbid she ever get grabbed by a rapist or something. Or any of those fighters. The standards these days of real karate are too low.

One thing I loved about the school I trained at was the old-styleness of the instructors. Some of them were "too" old-style and mean and so forth, but at least they had small classes and they worked the hell out you. And if you were young, like me, they'd say, "Those guys are young, work the tar out of them!!" And they'd explain the actual principles and true meanings of like the kata moves and so forth, what the forms were actually symbolizing and such. Which also is kind of one difference I think with like pure competition forms even. Real karate forms, while it's B.S. that you can learn to fight from just doing them, at least represent an actual fight with some nasty moves in them. You are supposed to know those katas as well. Competition forms look great, but are pure show, no bunkai, or combat-meaning in them, except for punching some guy or kicking. Which is fine I think, as long as they are recognized as martal-performance arts. I am going of topic I guess but I mean, I think karate isa very effective street art, but like anything, it must be adapted, and the person must train hard, and also have a strong body that has strength and endurance.

Also, shotokan karate has ground techniques in it. This notion that karate is a strict stand-up strike art is not real. Real karate has the ground-fighting in it; ground-fighting is part of karate. A good karate fighter is adaptive, should be flexible I would think, in technique, and somewhat in the body, and conditioned to endure. A hit from a karate person can be a hard hit! Also, karate I think should be criss-crossed a little with boxing; my instructors always criss-crossed it with boxing, because they said boxing is like a necessity.

But I think most people's knocking karate is due to a lack of understanding. Karate is effective if trained properly, it does have ground techniques, and its basics that you are supposed to train in do make sense, just a lot are for weapons. Joe Lewis was a karate fighter, and he was one of the meanest fighters to ever step into the ring. And he trained hard, everyday. He was also a kata champion as well.

As for TKD, I have not trained in it at all, but like I said, it's kicks are similar to karate's, and in the "hands" of a good fighter, who has ground skills somewhat and who is strong and well-conditioned, TKD is very lethal.

In the style I trained in, one had to be a purple belt at least, preferably a brown belt (like 3-4 years of training) in karate before they would even teach you iai jutsu (the drawing the katana) or real kobudo, or even real aiki jutsu, which took like 8-10 years to get a black belt in the style, and that was after starting it with a purple or brown belt in karate.

Remember, I read only a few posts on the first page, so if all this was covered already, my bad.

[sherwinc]

I've pretty much given up on trying to educate sherwinc on reality. He seems content to live in a fantasy world where kung fu is the greatest thing since water, and can defeat anything (even when it has been PROVEN otherwise). Even Bruce Lee said kung fu was "pretty, but lacked effectiveness". But hey, if it makes him happy to be ignorant then goody goody for him.

By the way, sherwinc, when was the last time you fought a boxer on a dinner table?

sparring a boxer on top of the 1m by 4m table????

i did not try yet sparring on top of the table instead..... we spar heavily in a very tight fighting place, computers in-lined in our left side, while there a crystal at my back and computers in-lined also in our right side while a glass door in my spar partners back..... we spar hard especially when brown-out, we were always inside the internet service provider mall.......
this really show how can you control your speed/power not to exceed if it did not hit to opponent, or else we will pay for the damages that we do......

but in our club, we spar with my KungFu mate on top of the long bench chair, i can consider myself as a half-flat footed cause of the structure of my both feet..... we prefer shifting from Bow-Arrow Stance, to Back Stance..... a perfect time when you execute Lotus Stance while you groundfight attack his feet.......

i also experience Monkey Bridge Sparring......
it is like a 7 meters by 7 meters square line on the ground where all your martial arts 13 classmates stands to all the corners of the square line, then both of you spar inside...... those 13 classmates of your will kick/punch you if they reach you, so dont let your body closed to them while you spar - and your sparring partner will also not allow his body to close near your 13 classmates or they will attack him unexpectedly........

(since we are only 15 kungfu students)

Note:

the only trick to overcome this fighting place is:
You should always step forward, and dont allow yourself to step backward by all means......

why?
cause you dont know nothing behind your back!!!!!!!!!

trust me.....

CONVINCED????????

[Phorce]

I don't think a full on thai kick can be blocked by a forearm, thai kicks are just to powerful, elbows definately. kicks can be deflected by forearms but I don't think full out blocked

Goin back to the possibility of blocking this actual kick, who says that it had full power? maybe the kicker was a little off balance, couldnt kick properly (yet), or a number of other factors that could change the situation.

Also, I agree with Darrington, in that the right block can block the right kick if its performed well. Even on the hardest roundhouse the Tai practitioner can give im sure that a number of people could block it given the correct pronation of the arm etc etc.

[Phorce]

Amen broadsword, thas prolly the best laid out opininon that ive read on this forum.

[brokenelbow]

Karate was more a "farmer's art" to fight off the military? You need a weapon in your hand for basics to make any sense? Broadsword2004, where did you get all this information on karate? What style teaches that?

[sherwinc]

Goin back to the possibility of blocking this actual kick, who says that it had full power? maybe the kicker was a little off balance, couldnt kick properly (yet), or a number of other factors that could change the situation.

Also, I agree with Darrington, in that the right block can block the right kick if its performed well. Even on the hardest roundhouse the Tai practitioner can give im sure that a number of people could block it given the correct pronation of the arm etc etc.

if blocking is useless to a Thai round kick - then all MuayThai fighters have no arms left, cause all of their arms are all broken.......

in fact...... they use their head and body to block to Muay Thai Round Kick..... the reason why their head is already broken........

their head is already broken before their forearms.....

HAW HAW HAW HAW.........

a Human Dummy is still a Human Dummy.......

[Broadsword2004]

Thanks for the compliment, Phorce.

The style I did was called Tatsu-Do. It has karate, iai jutsu, kobudo, and aikijutsu, all as individual arts. If one studied just the karate, they would learn some kobudo, some iai jutsu, some aikijutsu, some jujutsu, but at purple or brown belt, one could go and study aikijutsu, iai jutsu, or kobudo as a completely separate art. But first one had to start out with the karate, in order to develop good strength, speed, coordination, the ability to fall and get thrown around, the ability to take a hit, etc...the style was started by Hanshi Cavalier, who was a student of Sosho Durant of Goshin-Jutsu.

What I meant was that karate was a farmer's art in the sense that the techniques of karate and kobudo were created by the Okinawan farmers to combat the samurai, since samurai were often bullies. Later on, when karate came to Japan itself, karate was formalized into "karate" and combined with the Japanese code of bushido. And then the different karate masters branched off into forming their own styles, etc...and modern karate usually is combined with techniques of like aikijutsu, jujutsu, etc....which were techniques from the arts used by the samurai.

What I meant about basics, I didn't mean that all basics are worthless for empty-handed fighting, I just meant that a lot of basics that may seem totally worthless for empty-handed fighting were actually meant for weapons training, later on. I guess sort of like you build up a strong body for executing punches and kicks, well you build up good basics for executing weapons techniques. And many basics were used for both empty-handed fighting and fighting with weapons. But you're not telling me in a bar brawl, you're going to wind up and use an outside striking block, inside striking block, or punch sideways from a horse stance (like get into a horse stance and punch towards the right with your left arm; you can generate like zero punching power). But those kinds of things make perfect sense when the weapon application is shown.

Also, and this is just to the Chinese artists who think otherwise, because so many seem to believe this, JAPANESE KOBUDO DOES NOT TEACH THEIR STUDENTS TO HOLD THE BO (or staff, whatever you wanna call it) WITH A WHITE-KNUCKLED GRIP!!!!

[Toudiyama[NL]]

What I meant was that karate was a farmer's art in the sense that the techniques of karate and kobudo were created by the Okinawan farmers to combat the samurai, since samurai were often bullies. Later on, when karate came to Japan itself, karate was formalized into "karate" and combined with the Japanese code of bushido. And then the different karate masters branched off into forming their own styles, etc...and modern karate usually is combined with techniques of like aikijutsu, jujutsu, etc....which were techniques from the arts used by the samurai.

Sorry but Karate was NO farme art, it is Chinese Fukien KF combined with the native art of Ti, and those that practiced it were nobility

What was introduced into Japan was already a watered down version of it.
No bunkai and kumite were part of it, instead only basics and Kata
Now if you take away bunkai, tegumi drills and kumite, and start doing the walking basics ( which weren't part of it before Itosu messed it up) and on top of that have people like the son of Funakoshi change all movements into large movements and stances, you will have a hard time making it effective as it was before even if you ad jujitsu techniques

[Broadsword2004]

The original Okinawan karate was not practiced by the nobilty, that was the samurai arts; where are you getting your information from?? (and NO I do NOT mean that in a critisizing, "Where the hell did you get that info??" - type of way, I am just curious). But remember also what I said, the Okinawan karate was combined with the arts of the samurai somewhat.

[Broadsword2004]

Whups! Hold up, maybe we misunderstood each other here; if you meant the Chinese nobility, I misinterpreted that. Anyways, what I should have put in was that the Okinawan karate practiced and developed by the Okinawan farmers was adapted off of some of the Chinese martial arts; the Okinawan farmers adapted the techniques of the Chinese art into an art that they could utilize, and along the way they developed the kobudo, which was the fighting with the farming tools. Original Okinawan karate borrowed a lot from the Chinese martial arts, but the art itself that it was, was a farmer's art. It was vilalgers and farmers who used it, against the samurai.

Then, later on, karate become systemized and formalized and was combined with the bushido code and with other arts of the samurai.

[Toudiyama[NL]]

first nobility isn't the same as samurai

Second sorry but you are wrong, none of the old masters were farmers, it was nobility, or at least of richer families, farmers do not have the time to spend
The richer families could send their relatives to China for instructions, and it was them that had contacts with the 36 families

Satunuku "Tode" Sakugawa (1733-1815)

1. Studied Kenpo in China.
2. A student of Takahara in Okinawa and Kusanku in China.
3. Awarded title of "Satunushi", a social class two levels below the royal family.
4 First teacher of "Tode" (later to be known as karate) in Okinawa

Sokon "Bushi" Matsumura (1797-1889)

1. Forefather of Shorin-Ryu
2. A student of Satunuku Sakugawa
3. Awarded title of "Bushi" by King Sho Tai of Okinawa
4. Worked as a body-guard for three different Okinawa kings

Kanryo Higashionna (1851-1915)

Grandmaster Kanryo Higaonna (Higashionna was the original Okinawan pronunciation) was born on March 10, 1853, in Naha, the capital city of Okinawa. His father, Kanyo, worked as a merchant sailing between the small islands of Okinawa, trading everyday goods.

common sense will tell us no farmer would be able to spend enough time or be able to travel to Fukien, China

Other point Kama is often seen as a farming impliment, do you think Samarai would use it then? In Japan they have kusarigama which is a Kama with a ball and chain which belongs to the ancient samurai arts

Only Tomari was a farmer/fishermen village Naha and Shuri weren't, a mater a fact, they looked down on Tomari

[Broadsword2004]

I see, well that makes sense, I forgot to take into account that there weren't just samurai and then "the farmer people," there were classes of people inbetween. However, what about Okinawan kobudo weapons that were farming tools, like oar and nunchuku? Also, I had heard that the reason the Japanese adopted the method of punching iron 'till their hands got super hard was because the Chinese method used the herbs and started on with punching sand, then gravel, then like rock or wood, but since the people who fought the samurai needed hard hands quickly, they just did it the quick way, even though it built calluses on the knuckles and gave arthritis in the long run. Is that true? Cuz I know that Chinese master Pan Qing Fu is does not do it the way that keeps the hands nice, he has big calluses on his hand from punching steel 1000 times a day.