The History of Karate
smithsonianmag.com
smithsonianmag.com
Interesting to see there is no mention of "kalaripayattu". Kalari as its famously shorten [1] have about 2000 years of history and is used with both weapons and no-weapons. Bodhidharma was said to have left from then Tamil states to China.
Basically Jesse visits China, finds people showing him Kung fu katas that resemble goju ryu katas. And their explanations about what the katas describe supports the “grappling” theory.
For me who trained goju ryu a s a kid it was eye opening and I think makes a lot of sense
[0]: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Higaonna_Kanry%C5%8D
[1]: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ch%C5%8Djun_Miyagi
[2]: The practice of Goju-Ryu is focused on both mastery of physical control and mental focus (summarizing my experience in this). With the death of Sensei Miyagi, however, the lineage split between his sons who each claimed to be the heads of their own branches of the system.
Edit: Another peeve. In the very beginning of the article they try to group the practice with unconventional weapons — farming tools, bo staffs, etc — into naha-te when the reality is this branch of practice is kobudo. I wish that the author did more research on this section because there are plenty of sources documenting this portion of the art’s history.
That's because you can't have people permanently maiming each other during "friendly practice". If the village parents send their kids to the local monastery (or school, or wherever) for "training" and they come back with broken bones or just one of two eyes, they'll be rightfully very angry with the teachers of that martial art.
Hence, over time, every martial art accumulates restrictions, formalities, and the standard moves become just the safe ones. Grapples, deflections, etc...
A true "martial" art, the type optimised for maximising your chance at winning a fight to the death, cannot be taught safely in classes. Eventually people will get hurt. That's... the point!
People bringing up MMA are missing this: Even MMA has rules, and lots of them. If it was truly unlimited, very few people would escape without permanent, ruinous injuries.
What girls are told in self-defence classes is this: Go for the eyes, throat, and nose. Kick your opponent in the shins as hard as you possibly can. Knee men in the balls with full force.
If you did any of that even once in any formal training or competition, you'd likely be kicked out.
And in reality, many do.
Obviously it depends on the dojo, but the ones I've interacted with were genuinely concerned with real-world self-defense too, even if it wasn't their primary focus. So they included days and discussions that focused on it.
There were no karate MMA champions for years, and people dismissed taekwondo techniques. Lyoto Machida has had great success coming from a karate background, and so have taekwondo kicks. You can already see people working in wing-chun-style hand traps.
Joe Rogan has some nice commentary on this history.
As a side note, having watched all 3 seasons of Kobra Kai, I find it amazing that in all 3 seasons they only managed to pronounce the word "karate" less than 5 times. Making a movie/TV show about something you cannot even say right
"Kawatee"...
This statement most resonated with me. I had to give up playing hockey because - at the lowest grade - people paid no respect to you. If they could kick the ball and the ref didn't see it, they would continue play. If they could hit the ball hard at you from point blank, that is fine.
You see similar in elite sport, players in "football" of whatever code. Everyone knows it. A professional player who breaks the rules is expected to play on as if nothing happened until the ref calls it.
At this point it is not a game, it is a grudge match.
The win at all costs mentality costs one themselves.
Usain Bolt doesn’t exactly have much opportunity to engage in funny business aside from peps, at least not funny business which would fall short of criminal charges if discovered.
I think the west may put a lot less emphasis on competing honorably or whatever. But playing fair is still morally better than not. E.g. people get viewed negatively for real cheating in pro sports (steroids, the "Cheatriots"). In some sports, however, the ref and what they catch is just part of the game.
The tolerance of cheating/bending-rules as a general cultural issue is very interesting though. Generally ethical behavior is sort of a luxury, which is harder to maintain as it goes against one's economic benefit. Japan seems like something of an outlier in that regard.
I was rather alarmed at the number of fouls I saw, including fouls occasioning injury. Thing is, footie players practice luring their opponent into perpetrating a foul, thus gaining a free kick. Getting fouled a lot is a way of contributing to your team's success, and for some players it is their signature skill.
If you have the ball, and are being pursued, you leave what appears to be an opening for a tackle, but you bait-and-switch, so that the pursuer's boot connects with your shin, not the ball.
This I have no issue with. The rules make the game and at elite levels you would expect every little optimisation to be made.
But soccer also has a history of players flopping too. People who are trying to get the foul you mention, but without the cause. This is a despicable act. It is blatant disrespect for the players and the game.
I don't know if it happened in the latest championship but I didn't watch it, due to such crap in the past.
I practiced karate for years, and I still would if I hadn't moved far away. My teacher was a fan of exchanges with other schools, which is how we ended up visiting a Jujitsu school to learn some grappling moves. The instructor was a police officer that worked at the local prison.
During our first break, the instructor excitedly told my teacher that he recently found a second-hand book with techniques that his Jujitsu line had banned years ago for being too brutal. He was starting to bring them back. Later on that day he showed us such a technique that could, in theory, paralyze a man for life. He seemed very proud of that one, and was looking forward to try some of his new knowledge in his next prison riot (his words, not mine).
I shudder to think of the type of BS macho mentality that one would get from training under this guy for years - I've met plenty of karate instructors from all over the world, and they were all great teachers and great human beings. Given that I personally know of three people who had to use their karate skills for self defense (two robberies and one home invasion at night), that seems to me good enough: you learn how to defend yourself in a realistic situation, but also respect, self-improvement, and a healthy general distaste for violence.
Every time someone suggests that karate doesn't work because it wouldn't be as effective in a modern war zone, I remember that guy.
This "expert" seems to think that Westerners invented wuxia.
"There are Western fantasies about every martial art" doesn't mean "There are only Western fantasies about every martial art".
The arrival of MMA proved the true effectiveness of each of the martial arts in an actual combat situation.
Karate has value in combat, but it’s certainly not as effective as I originally thought.
I took my son to do karate training for a year and watched the classes and honestly it seemed pretty worthless to me as a way of learning to fight/defend yourself. Most of the training rituals id say are more akin to tai chi or dancing…. doing katas is pretty much pointless.
We left the karate club.
Most martial arts training seems to me to be tangential to actually training the student to actually win a fight.
If your goal is for your child to learn to fight, then do boxing or kickboxing or Brazilian jiu jitsu.
To top it off, training in something like muay thai will get the kid a great headstart on leading a fit lifestyle. Never done an aerobic activity more tiring or sweat inducing.
Only adding a specific one from my experience.
Personally, I have a little harder of a time training BJJ for the reason that everyone thinks it is the best for real-world defense but the reality is many moves open you up to serious maiming in a combative environment. Take for example the typical "get past the guard" move, I most always have the option in a true fight of grabbing your knees and splaying them outward leaving you with an unfortunate convalescent leave, perhaps permanent injury.
More generally, if you're going for true-blue self-defense any sporting-oriented art is good but not great - you'll do well against an untrained assailant, which is likely a good chunk of the threat model.
i'm not big on martial arts or even mma but for some reason i've seen this argument in various places often enough that i've also seen the appropriate response: if that were true then all of the most successful mma fighters would be krav maga experts. in actuality not a single one practices krav maga. the proof is in the pudding.
Put a good striker in a fight with someone who isn't a good striker. The skilled fighter would evade most of what the unskilled fighter threw at them. There isn't even much need for blocking and covering if most of what is coming at you isn't making significant contact in the first place. Now take out the rules. If the unskilled fighter couldn't land a punch on the skilled fighter before, why would you expect them to suddenly be able to land an extremely precise strike to a vulnerable area now? And why wouldn't the skilled fighter also be able to do the same but better since they still have more power and accuracy and the unskilled fighter still has weaker defence?
It's the same with grappling. It's true that a joint lock can be devastating and that's why we usually disallow most of them in combat sports, but to be applied reliably you need some control over the area around the joint. Put a good grappler in a fight with someone who isn't a good grappler. The good grappler is going to control the position better. Now take out the rules. If the unskilled fighter couldn't get a good position to control the skilled fighter before, why would you expect them to suddenly be able to apply an effective joint lock now? And why wouldn't the skilled fighter also be able to do the same but better since they still have a better position to work from and the unskilled fighter still has weaker defence?
MMA is a sport and an MMA match isn't like a "real" fight for all kinds of reasons but simple, efficient, effective techniques such as you see in MMA matches are a good foundation for "real" fighting too, even if you might choose to add other types of training as well for use outside the controlled environment.
The difficulty arises when the rules of a sport cause a fighter to ignore situations that can arise in an actual fight. For example, I train in Dog Brothers Martial Arts. Grappling is common and encouraged, but at the same time most fighters conceal training knives on their person and headbutts are common. That requires an adapted form of BJJ from that used in MMA. Overhooks become more valuable because they allow you to control a limb that is holding a weapon. When you are in the bottom of guard you need to keep your opponent away from you so that they can't headbutt you.
That aside, the main thrust of your argument seems to be, "If you can't land a non-lethal blow, then there's little or no chance of your landing a lethal blow." I don't think anyone disagrees with that. I think the disconnect is that once again your argument comes down to, "Krav automatically makes you less skilled than _______ (insert style here) and thus unable/unlikely to land any attacks."
But, once again, I don't think that follows unless there's a provable weakness/deficiency with Krav itself and/or you really do have a BJJ black belt vs. a level 1 Krav student, in which case I don't think anyone is going to disagree about the outcome.
Anyone who practices Krav on a regular basis and learns the techniques well can become a skilled striker, grappler, etc., in which case they will have an advantage over a straight MMA fighter of the same level simply because the Krav practitioner will be trained in very harmful attacks that MMA disallows (i.e., groin shots, eye attacks, etc.).
So where are all the successful Krav-trained strikers and grapplers in the MMA world? If the striking and grappling are as effective as other styles that have stood the test of time, it's remarkable that there are still few if any high-level MMA fighters with a Krav background.
Anyone who practices Krav on a regular basis and learns the techniques well can become a skilled striker, grappler, etc., in which case they will have an advantage over a straight MMA fighter of the same level simply because the Krav practitioner will be trained in very harmful attacks that MMA disallows (i.e., groin shots, eye attacks, etc.).
Leaving aside your questionable claim that groin shots and eye attacks are very harmful, all of this would only be true if the time the Krav fighter invested in training those other techniques was not at the expense of the basic striking and grappling skills.
However the big practical problem with techniques like joint locks and targeting soft spots isn't that they can't work, it's that training them to the level where they can work effectively often requires much more time to build up much more skill than just punching the other guy in the face as hard as you can or executing a basic takedown and hold on the ground. If you'd just spent that much time practising the simple, reliable striking and grappling techniques, you might get a lot more bang for your buck.
Professional fighters aren't going to study a system where 50%+ of what they learn is disallowed in competitions. However, Krav _is_ used by/taught to various special forces and law enforcement groups. To me, this more than makes up for a lack of "professional fighters" using the discipline.
Leaving aside your questionable claim that groin shots and eye attacks are very harmful
Try going to any martial arts lesson while not wearing a cup and LMK what your thoughts are afterwards :)
all of this would only be true if the time the Krav fighter invested in training those other techniques was not at the expense of the basic striking and grappling skills.
However the big practical problem with techniques like joint locks and targeting soft spots isn't that they can't work, it's that training them to the level where they can work effectively often requires much more time to build up much more skill than just punching the other guy in the face as hard as you can or executing a basic takedown and hold on the ground. If you'd just spent that much time practising the simple, reliable striking and grappling techniques, you might get a lot more bang for your buck.
Your comment makes me wonder if either you've not actually seen proper Krav Maga or you've seen it as practiced by a McDojo type of place. I attend classes led by a Krav Maga Worldwide certified instructor. Each lesson begins with 10-15 minutes of combatives (basic kicks, palm strikes, hammer fists, etc.). It's the whole "practice 1 kick 1000x" thing. The lesson then focuses on basic skills like escape choke from the front, escape choke from the side, escape bear hug, etc. It's all very practical and focused on primal attacks/counterattacks ("punching the other guy in the face as hard as you can" like you said).
Joint locks and targeting soft spots are just tools that _can_ be used, but the mantra is "closest weapon, closest target." Hit where you can as hard as you can and don't stop until they stop. With only a couple of exceptions, no weapon disarms happen until your opponent has stopped fighting.
Bottom line is that Krav in its true form is reliable striking and grappling techniques combined with "OK let's practice how to respond in this specific scenario." It doesn't get fancy and tries not to employ techniques that require any fine motor skills.
EDIT: Formatting
At the end of the day, of course techniques matter, but it's far more important that your martial art incorporates LOTS of live sparring. It needs to become second nature to apply your techniques against live/resisting/struggling humans that are trying to apply their techniques on you. That is why wrestling/judo/BJJ/boxing/MT are so dominant in MMA, NOT because of the "rule-following" techniques they use.
If a guy who has spent his training learning "street" techniques that you can't actually spar with (eye/groin/throat attacks) had to actually fight someone who has spent his training applying "non-street" attacks live for hundreds of hours, it wouldn't even be a fair fight.
There's at least one successful mixed martial artist with a Krav Maga background (Karolina Kowalkiewicz, UKM Expert level 2), but she's definitely an outlier rather than the rule. Krav Maga tries to be a no-rules self-defense method that can be trained in as little time as possible. If your aim is to be a high-level competitor in a specific sport, and you have the required time and athletic ability to train appropriately, then your best bet is to skip the middleman and train in that sport directly.
Additionally, Krav has no competitive/tournament side to it, unlike most other martial arts. According to my Krav instructor, this is because the minute you add this aspect to a style, you then need rules around what is and isn't allowed. This goes against the core philosophy of Krav, which is "win the fight and get back home alive by any means necessary." It's about survival, and when fighting for survival you can't impose rules around what is and isn't allowed.
Much of what Krav focuses on (i.e., elbows, knees, groin/face attacks, etc.) isn't allowed in competitive fighting, so why would a professional fighter spend their time learning a style that they can only use say 50% of? Much better to learn something that was created with tournaments/competition in mind, where you can use 100% of what you learn, which is what I think most (all?) of them do.
So I don't think the "very few/no professional fighters learn Krav so it's no good" argument holds up, because 1) professional fighters would be wasting a lot of time learning Krav if professional fighting is their goal and 2) its widely used by many organizations outside professional/tournament fighting who arguably have an even greater need than professional fighters do for an effective self-defense methodology.
Law enforcement have very little need for street fighting. If things are getting physical, the job is usually to detain a suspect as safely as possible. It's unlikely that the rules of engagement will allow causing the suspect severe harm or death, and if a LEO really is in that kind of situation, their priority is probably going to be disengaging and either transitioning to a weapon or deploying some sort of protective and restraint gear as quickly as possible.
Additionally, Krav has no competitive/tournament side to it, unlike most other martial arts.
The trouble with all martial arts that don't have any focus on competitive training is that you can never be sure they actually work unless you're in the rare position of having to use them for real and finding out the hard way. If you have ever been in that position then you have my greatest sympathy because the result is usually horrible whether or not you "win".
I like other disciplines/styles and plan to study BJJ and Muay Thai later on. I just don't think it's valid to say no tournaments = untested. After all:
- US Military using Krav >= competitions/tournaments
- IDF using Krav >= competitions/tournaments
- Law Enforcement using Krav >= competitions/tournaments
Right?
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The style I studied was taught for free in the sensei's basement, and it was, to put it bluntly, a rather brutal art. Not many parents would be into it (all of the students were adults in my dojo).
Not to take anything away from Krav Maga and similar styles. There's just a lot of variation in what is called karate.
There are good clubs, but you have to research them. Most Kyokushin clubs will teach you quite a bit
Foundation of modern karate was in the era when every boy in Japan did Judo in school. Every accomplished karate teacher at the time also was a decent judoka. For example Oyama who founded Kyokushin was a great grappler, many Natinal level judoka also trained karate.
You have to train grappling or you might as well not bother training at all.
On the other hand, with grappling sports like wrestling, judo, BJJ, you can start sparing the first class. And the risk of brain injury (I assume) is less than every other contact sport. So your child will get more time sparing. Which would translate to better real life fighting skill.
In the end, by being in some sort of combat sport your child will probably lose interest in winning fights on the street or playground. Every time they show up to class they are defeating others and being defeated. It loses its emotional charge and they don't need to prove themselves to random people.
But I agree head injuries are a far bigger concern than elbow/knee etc. And making striking arts safe tends to make them unrealistic. So grappling sports like Judo are a much better combination of self-defense and safety.
But do you really* want your child to learn to "win a fight" or to "fight"? To what degree? Any fight whatsoever? Doing so would require teaching things (s)he does not fully understand and are emotionally unprepared for, e.g., maiming or killing someone. [OTOH if you want to teach that to a child, then teach him how to be a doctor b/c doctors know how the human body works better than almost anyone else and how best to turn it off.]
Instead set other goals: self-confidence, pride, athletic skill and endurance. I would first explain the role MA plays and constantly emphasize avoidance of hostile situations. IMO teaching anyone (including children) good evasion/escape is more useful than MA and more fun.
In most cases parents are happy with “self defence theatre” in which the parent feels they’ve done the right thing, in which the child feels confidence because they falsely believe they can defend themselves.
Most parents I think would be reluctant to have their children really learn to fight/defend themselves.
When parents tell me their kids are doing karate, and if they are interested in my thoughts, then I ask them, “exactly why are they doing karate? Do you know? What’s your true goal?”
And if their real, true goal is self defence then I gently explain there’s better options than karate.
I teach my girls to fight.
My intention is 1. to keep them out of fights 2. to make sure they can escape or win any fight someone else forces upon them.
Play dumb, hide your worries, try to talk yourself out, if it doesn't work hit, grab and twist or kick with the intent to cause severe pain. Then shout and run.
An armed society is a polite society and I do my part.
If an assailant get hurt I can live with that. The bloke I gave a beating some 25 years or so ago actually became a better person as far as I could se.
Everything else you do in a fight should just be in order to get to this step.
It is unclear to me however if anything I wrote contradict it or if you just wanted to stress it.
The value of "martial" art training is that it gets over the surprise factor.
Dealing with a stranger being in your personal space, grappling with you, pushing you over, and/or hitting you: you don't want an actual attack to be the first time your child experiences any of those.
If the child is somewhat used to those things, she has a chance of thinking clearly enough to make herself a chance to run away. Otherwise the third "F" reflex, freeze, will take over.
Yes and I’d add wrestling.
Martials arts is great for all that. So are other sports and activities. I've studied martial arts for 20 years of my life - never did I have a goal during that time of learning to fight, but I loved practicing, and loved the community of people I spent time with in those years.
Try asking parents whose kids do karate. I’m guessing a large number of them will say “self defence”, especially parents of girls.
2.) If you need to explain yourself to strangers who demand to be explained why your kid does this or that sport, you will say something simple and socially acceptable. Neurotypical people wont start explaining in nuance.
3.) No one ever asked me why my kids do dancing or swimming. It is simply not question anyone asks normally.
But, it’s quite common for people to ask questions like ‘how did they get into that?’.
Also, why does it have to be a ‘stranger’ asking the question? Again I agree that would be odd, but it doesn’t seem odd for a friend to be curious.
No, I never had that question asked about dancing nor swimming or any other sport. I think it can possibly come out if someone finds the sport to be odd, but at this point Karate is not an odd sport. It is extremely common sport.
Or it could be that your experience of disinterest is not universal.
I know plenty of people who express interest in what other people and their kids do, whether they are odd or not.
All martial arts give you a different flavour, they teach you different things. There is not one style that rules them all.
Tai Chi as you mentioned, in Lee style and others is way to move and flow. To think and be. Unsurprisingly it is a foundation for Kung Fu (grappling, striking etc.) and the foundation for weapon styles.
So a kata/form is a way to train yourself to move a particualar way. I appreciate that a 'stylised dance' may not be to everyones taste. But it is training your body and your mind to move a particular way. To react a particular way. To encode a way of holding yourself, of moving through space.
Similar to Tai Chi being a foundation to a sytsem of fighting. So too is karate. You can augment it with Aikido, Judo, JuJitsu. You can add weapons too.
The point is they all have value, (Samba and Systema look class) when you are younger you chase that outer excitement of testing yourself against others, I guess as you get older you start to think more about how to move and flow and think and be.
Sometimes there is a need to be violent, but I am not sure if that is what a child should be taught. Self defence is not just what a martial art is for, it is so much more than learning to hurt someone else.
IMHO.
MMA is not an actual combat situation. A lot of what makes fighting style effective in real combat is simply not allowed in MMA (for good reasons). Things like:
- attacking your penis and trying to cause injury there,
- attacking your throat and trying to cause injury there,
- sticking fingers into eyes,
- trying to break knee by kicking where it breaks.
Obviously it is not taught in any of those sports. Because they are sports.
Or just try to imagine a situation where someone who doesn't constantly train sparring can kick a knee of a kickboxer who does spar a lot and gets kicked a lot.
Consensus? Has someone done an actual survey or a study?
If you train, you will probably fight as you train. The techniques that you learn and repeat are the patterns that your brain will follow under stress of combat.
BTW how does the typical MA fighter respond to someone who picks up a metal pipe (2x4, rock, knife, gun) and proceeds to attack the MA fighter? I would hope that (s)he would do the reasonable thing: get the hell out of the area!
Avoidance & evasion are the most useful "martial arts".
Oh god no, there are no studies as far as I know. But what I refer to consensus is the general feeling one gets by browsing martial arts forums. There used to be a great forum on this very subject - bullshido. For years and years folks have discussed these exact questions of effectiveness of deadly martial art techniques.
> Avoidance & evasion are the most useful "martial arts". Goes without saying!
- trying to break knee by kicking where it breaks.
Oblique kicks are allowed in MMA.
- attacking your throat and trying to cause injury there,
90's UFC had no rule about this. Currently, while no direct strikes allowed you can trachea crush if you want to force a submission (ezekiel).
Damn had no idea Ezekiel is possible in no-gi, something to practice now. Thanks!
MMA has been hurt a lot by the dominance of UFC. A lot of the details of UFC's rules distort its similarity to actual combat. For example: wearing gloves, fighting on highly padded floors, lenient rules on fighters circling each other, forbidding kicks and knees on the ground, fighting shirtless, etc.
MMA also overlooks a lot of aspects of combat:
- Situational awareness and deescalation
- Responses that are appropriate for less forceful situation (e.g. control techniques)
- Use of weapons
- Defense against weapons
- Strategies against multiple attackers
Finally, I think that there is some survivor bias. Even if MMA is the ideal martial art for young fit males with an aptitude for athletics, that doesn't necessarily mean that it is ideal for people who are less physically or athletically gifted.
And by that, I mean it was mostly two guys rolling on the ground, one of whom might have known what he was doing. I think that's fairly comparable to most bar fights a person is likely to encounter.
Your point about weapons, situational awareness, and so on are well taken. Krav Maga claims to focus on those areas, and they generally admit that it won't make you as good at one-on-one fighting as BJJ, but will make you more likely to survive a fight where someone might stab you in the neck while you're trying to sink in your gogoplata.
I don't know it that's accurate, but it makes sense. I also appreciate that, from the videos I've seen, Krav Maga stresses that the best self defence technique is enough cardio to run away.
I tried tai chi for about 6 months. For us beginners, it was mostly katas, and I routinely came away with aching muscles. Advanced students used tai chi for sparring, and the instructor occasionally came in with swords, and did a rather alarming performance.
As a kid I learned judo. That was mostly wrestling; but to advance, you had to do some kata work. I didn't find judo katas nearly as stretching as I later found tai chi katas; but I was 10 when I learned judo. I was 50 when I tried tai chi, and not very fit; so that might explain my different experiences.
Karate was something that rough boys bragged about; it was clear to me that it was a technique for hurting people, so I stayed clear.
Vale Tudo came before MMA and had the most effective value for actual combat situations.
- No rounds
- No hand wraps and gloves
- No resets to standing for “non-action”
- Attacks to prone opponents
The problem is that there’s a big gap between “sports martial arts” rules and “self defense.”
Sport BJJ is just as bad as karate for self-defense because there’s lot of new movements that just don’t make sense when you’re attacked at a frat house or walking home late.
Old school BJJ grappling (Carlson Gracie) with a focus on self defense is literally the best thing for smaller people, women & children because there’s a focus on:
- minimizing damage to yourself
- escaping and reversing compromising positions
- having MULTIPLE options to either kill, break a bone or put your attacker to sleep
- (if needed) striking with elbows and knees.
The "sport" aspect is the most important part for becoming an effective fighter. And being an effective fighter is paramount for self-defense situations.
The "sport vs self-defense" argument is a false dichotomy anyways. If my "sport" consists of me wrestling resisting humans to the ground, controlling all of their limbs, and potentially putting them to sleep, then my "sport" is an extremely effective form of self-defense.