# Old vids of me sparring Shotokan vs freestyle



## BigJavi973

This was a vid of ..... shoot... 2009... so it was many years ago when I just got my purple belt... I think if I remember correctly haha.... but yea fought this dude, who informed me that he had already over 20 cage fights (mma).... I think I've gotten better since then, especially with the understanding of the martial arts (mentally). *I'm the one with the red gloves & footpad kept coming off cuz initially I didn't want to use any.

Round 1:





Round 2:





PS.... Yes I did get hit in the jewels


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## MAfreak

this was kickboxing rules?
didn't look like shotokan, so no matter what shotokan belt, if you train like a kickboxer, you are already better prepared for fights like this.  not sure about the guy with the blue gloves. doesn't looks like many mma experience to me.


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## BigJavi973

MAfreak said:


> this was kickboxing rules?
> didn't look like shotokan, so no matter what shotokan belt, if you train like a kickboxer, you are already better prepared for fights like this.  not sure about the guy with the blue gloves. doesn't looks like many mma experience to me.



freestyle rules so it can benefit the many that where there. You can not fight conventional shotokan in a real life fight. One of the rules there was not to hit that hard, cuz we wasn't trying to send each other to the hospital etc..... so I treated that more like a light sparring match. Also, in karate there isn't a sport kumite. Sport kumite (point fighting) was brought well after.


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## MAfreak

imo freestyle would include grappling/ground fighting but with full boxing gloves uhm whatever. i guess every host has his own interpretation.


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## BigJavi973

MAfreak said:


> imo freestyle would include grappling/ground fighting but with full boxing gloves uhm whatever. i guess every host has his own interpretation.



The term "freestyle" was used there as there were many different styles fighting so they had just a "universal" set of rules. Not just "karate fighting rules" or "taekwondo rules" for example.


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## JowGaWolf

MAfreak said:


> imo freestyle would include grappling/ground fighting but with full boxing gloves uhm whatever. i guess every host has his own interpretation.


Grappling on a hardwood floor? that's insane.  There would be so many injuries from something like that.  There's a reason why grapplers use a mat.


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## Tez3

Freestyle in karate competitions usually means more or less kickboxing. It allows anyone from any style to compete. I've never known it to mean using groundwork.



MAfreak said:


> didn't look like shotokan,



I'm not sure what you think Shotokan sparring should look like? or for that matter what you think karate sparring should look like?


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## MAfreak

JowGaWolf said:


> Grappling on a hardwood floor? that's insane.  There would be so many injuries from something like that.  There's a reason why grapplers use a mat.


well not if its light sparring. we did so, too. but surely even "light throwing" since its just training not killing each other. no mats is just another sign of no "freestyle" rules (when freestyle means same as mma), like the full gloves in which one couldn't grab.



Tez3 said:


> Freestyle in karate competitions usually means more or less kickboxing. It allows anyone from any style to compete. I've never known it to mean using groundwork.
> I'm not sure what you think Shotokan sparring should look like? or for that matter what you think karate sparring should look like?



there's so much karate styles and federations, here in germany freestyle karate (in the wkf) means again something very different.
shotokan is point fighting, no infights, no low kicks, no hooks, bad covering, just straight punches and backfist, but all kind of snapping or straight kicks above the waist and foot sweeps. but it may vary in the federations. it has many similarities to taekwondo which originated partially from shotokan.

by the way there are karate styles using groundwork in their sparring, like goju ryu in their irikumi.


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## Tez3

MAfreak said:


> there's so much karate styles and federations, here in germany freestyle karate (in the wkf) means again something very different.
> shotokan is point fighting, no infights, no low kicks, no hooks, bad covering, just straight punches and backfist, but all kind of snapping or straight kicks above the waist and foot sweeps. but it may vary in the federations. it has many similarities to taekwondo which originated partially from shotokan.
> 
> by the way there are karate styles using groundwork in their sparring, like goju ryu in their irikumi



You are mixing up competition rules with fighting/sparring styles. Shotokan isn't as you describe it but _point fighting is_, I know many Shotokan full contact fighters plus many who do not compete at all in any competitions. Inference should not be drawn from competitive fights as to how a style actually fights/spars.

'By the way' my style Wado Ryu has groundwork too. Freestyle doesn't mean MMA, MMA means MMA and like Judo and Jujutsu ( both Brazilian and Japanese) will be done on mats either in a hall or a cage/ring but always mats. It's done for sport so there's never a reason to have extra injuries by not using mats.


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## BigJavi973

Tez3 said:


> Freestyle in karate competitions usually means more or less kickboxing. It allows anyone from any style to compete. I've never known it to mean using groundwork.
> 
> 
> 
> *I'm not sure what you think Shotokan sparring should look like? or for that matter what you think karate sparring should look like?*



Probably the traditional back & forth kumite with controlled techniques. I've seen alot of those on youtube.


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## Tez3

BigJavi973 said:


> Probably the traditional back & forth kumite with controlled techniques. I've seen alot of those on youtube.



Not at all, more similar to full contact kick boxing which isn't a coincidence.


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## BigJavi973

Tez3 said:


> You are mixing up competition rules with fighting/sparring styles. Shotokan isn't as you describe it but _point fighting is_, I know many Shotokan full contact fighters plus many who do not compete at all in any competitions. Inference should not be drawn from competitive fights as to how a style actually fights/spars.
> 
> 'By the way' my style Wado Ryu has groundwork too. Freestyle doesn't mean MMA, MMA means MMA and like Judo and Jujutsu ( both Brazilian and Japanese) will be done on mats either in a hall or a cage/ring but always mats. It's done for sport so there's never a reason to have extra injuries by not using mats.


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## BigJavi973

Tez3 said:


> Not at all, more similar to full contact kick boxing which isn't a coincidence.



Word.... well he described pretty much what I referred to haha

"shotokan is point fighting, no infights, no low kicks, no hooks, bad covering, just straight punches and backfist"


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## Tez3

BigJavi973 said:


> Word.... well he described pretty much what I referred to haha
> 
> "shotokan is point fighting, no infights, no low kicks, no hooks, bad covering, just straight punches and backfist"



Er no. Points fighting is only  one ruleset, I'm talking about *full contact* sparring, you know ...where a KO wins and you aren't penalised for drawing blood, you don't stop after a strike and pull back. There's quite a few different rule sets for kick boxing.


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## BigJavi973

Tez3 said:


> Er no. Points fighting is only  one ruleset, I'm talking about *full contact* sparring, you know ...where a KO wins and you aren't penalised for drawing blood, you don't stop after a strike and pull back. There's quite a few different rule sets for kick boxing.



oh ok I see what you mean.


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## MAfreak

tell that to the wkf. or jka. they do as i described. and are by no means the only ones. and also founder funakoshi didn't want full contact. so shotokan in general has nothing to do with full contact.
but i don't want to argue.
every "freestyle" standup could be described as kickboxing since in kickboxing tournaments or sparring, no one cares if you are karateka, taekwondoin or muay thai boxer.


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## BigJavi973

MAfreak said:


> tell that to the wkf. or jka. they do as i described. and are by no means the only ones. *and also founder funakoshi didn't want full contact. so shotokan in general has nothing to do with full contact.*
> but i don't want to argue.
> every "freestyle" standup could be described as kickboxing since in kickboxing tournaments or sparring, no one cares if you are karateka, taekwondoin or muay thai boxer.



I know that. I stated as such earlier: "Also, in karate there isn't a sport kumite. Sport kumite (point fighting) was brought well after."


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## Tez3

MAfreak said:


> every "freestyle" standup could be described as kickboxing since in kickboxing tournaments or sparring, no one cares if you are karateka, taekwondoin or muay thai boxer



Sigh, which brings me back to what I said, freestyle means any style can compete.

Karate is a generic name, there's many styles of karate so better not to generalise by saying 'karate has or doesn't have.......'


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## MAfreak

yes but it just didn't look like shotokan, thats what i said and it wasn't an offend since kickboxing is, at least in my opinion, more effective.


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## Tez3

MAfreak said:


> yes but it just didn't look like shotokan, thats what i said and it wasn't an offend since kickboxing is, at least in my opinion, more effective.



You've missed the point haven't you or perhaps you don't understand? We've just been round in a circle. _Point fighting is a rule set_,_ it_ _isn't a style of martial arts_. Shotokan people can do it as can other stylists. They can also spar full contact, they may or may not but they can.  When they are training in the class they don't point spar, they train in what *you* would call a kick boxing style. There is also a rule set called 'continuous', where the competitors don't stop after striking. There's other rule sets too, most karateka can compete in all of these if they wish, many don't want to but they are able to if they wanted to. Point sparring isn't Shotokan.


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## MAfreak

i think its not surprising that (nearly) everyone can, if he want, spar in full contact. i had no doubt of it.
but the funny thing is, there really are (shotokan) people out there, who focus their training that much on point fighting for tournaments that they even train on pads and b.o.b.s to just touch them so they don't even know how it feels or how the distance should be to hit hard. no joke. i saw it that often that i think first of that when i hear shotokan...


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## Tez3

MAfreak said:


> i think its not surprising that (nearly) everyone can, if he want, spar in full contact. i had no doubt of it.
> but the funny thing is, there really are (shotokan) people out there, who focus their training that much on point fighting for tournaments that they even train on pads and b.o.b.s to just touch them so they don't even know how it feels or how the distance should be to hit hard. no joke. i saw it that often that i think first of that when i hear shotokan...



There really are all sorts of people out there. If they want to be successful in points competitions they will train hard at that, no surprise there and good luck to them. It's still not Shotokan, it's still points sparring competitive rules.


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## BigJavi973

Wanted to update. Haven't been here in a while but here's two more vids. These a couple of months back and was my 1st time doing sparring at a small tourney to get the rust out.


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## Kickboxer101

BigJavi973 said:


> Wanted to update. Haven't been here in a while but here's two more vids. These a couple of months back and was my 1st time doing sparring at a small tourney to get the rust out.


Nice work looks good


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## BigJavi973

Kickboxer101 said:


> Nice work looks good



thank you oss!


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## JowGaWolf

BigJavi973 said:


> Wanted to update. Haven't been here in a while but here's two more vids. These a couple of months back and was my 1st time doing sparring at a small tourney to get the rust out.


Which guy are you in these videos?


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## BigJavi973

JowGaWolf said:


> Which guy are you in these videos?



in the 1st vid im the one on the left and in the second vid im in the 1st fight im on the right.


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## JowGaWolf

BigJavi973 said:


> in the 1st vid im the one on the left and in the second vid im in the 1st fight im on the right.


Just making sure before I said what I was thinking. lol.   I can tell the difference in the training of the two schools. If I had to guess I would say that your school, more specifically you, don't take point sparring approach to training.

You didn't waste energy, you had solid footing, and your fighting strategy screams self-defense because you seem to be positioning yourself to have an advantage after your opponent strikes. When I look at point sparring, the fighters always seem to hit just to be hitting which results in them being in a bad position after the hit.  There were a couple of places in that video where you got hit, but was in an excellent position to deliver a stronger punch.

The guy in the second video was all over the place with his leaping backfits.  The next time someone does that just launch a side kick into their ribs.   The second guy made you look good though, which is all that matters lol.

Great job all around. Looks like there wasn't much rust to knock off.


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## BigJavi973

JowGaWolf said:


> Just making sure before I said what I was thinking. lol.   I can tell the difference in the training of the two schools. If I had to guess I would say that your school, more specifically you, don't take point sparring approach to training.
> 
> You didn't waste energy, you had solid footing, and your fighting strategy screams self-defense because you seem to be positioning yourself to have an advantage after your opponent strikes. When I look at point sparring, the fighters always seem to hit just to be hitting which results in them being in a bad position after the hit.  There were a couple of places in that video where you got hit, but was in an excellent position to deliver a stronger punch.
> 
> The guy in the second video was all over the place with his leaping backfits.  The next time someone does that just launch a side kick into their ribs.   The second guy made you look good though, which is all that matters lol.
> 
> Great job all around. Looks like there wasn't much rust to knock off.



Oss! Yes sir! I don't really take point sparring too serious as other karatekas do (mainly those "sport" karatekas) but I do like to compete because of their random attacks. In essence I like to develop strategies during the fight to see what works etc. Oh and in my honest opinion... I care not that I lose a sparring match... because that's exactly what it is... sparring!

and thank you sir!


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## Kickboxer101

BigJavi973 said:


> Oss! Yes sir! I don't really take point sparring too serious as other karatekas do (mainly those "sport" karatekas) but I do like to compete because of their random attacks. In essence I like to develop strategies during the fight to see what works etc. Oh and in my honest opinion... I care not that I lose a sparring match... because that's exactly what it is... sparring!
> 
> and thank you sir!


Pretty much my view on things. Points matches are fun but obviously you'd never really defend yourself in the same way like some leaping in with back fists etc but it's good to develop strategies. Same here I never care if I win or lose sparring there's no such thing anyway as winning a sparring match and in the ring in competition obviously I want to win but if not its not the end of the world life goes on the world keeps turning.


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## JowGaWolf

I like that you didn't trade good technique for bad technique just for the sake of scoring a point. You may lose in point sparring but you honor the fighting system you study by being a good representation of it.


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## BigJavi973

JowGaWolf said:


> I like that you didn't trade good technique for bad technique just for the sake of scoring a point. You may lose in point sparring but you honor the fighting system you study by being a good representation of it.



Yes will never do that.


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## BigJavi973

So I fought my 1st "blitz" dude in a small tournament yesterday.... oh mang that was annoying as hell... dude was fast yea I give him that... his technique was absolutely terrible even though he did "get there 1st" etc. No power behind it or nothing. Gets even more frustrating where I placed a kick right to his face (stepping hook kick), and my kick wasn't called. I thought it was BS imo its not full contact etc. I feel that I would have to make even more contact and possile hurt others just to prove a point. IDK if its because they knew I am going for my black belt testing that they made it harder etc... but in karate, imo, there should ALWAYS be control etc.


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