Does karate need to evolve?

[Kung Fu Wang]

Kata, as I understand it, refers to a repetable drill.

I believe

- drill is like a sentence such as "This is a book."
- form (Kata) is like a paragraph which contains more than one sentence such as "This is a book. What can I do with a book?"

Please notice that since there exist no logic connection between book and What, to drill the whole paragraph can have little benefit.

 

[Oily Dragon]

You know, dancing might just be the most important human skill. It can determine mating rituals, popular culture, not to mention all other fine arts.

So why, when we talk about the Japanese styles, it suddenly becomes archaic and unnecessary? That's like saying one must not bother with Kierkegaard before reading Satre or Beckett.

Sorry I was watching Staying Alive again and it always gets me thinking. Most people don't get it, but it's one of the best kung Fu movies ever made.

0% on Rotten Tomatoes, it's that good.

 

[Wing Woo Gar]

Maybe most gun fighting is garbage. For precisely that reason.

You are probably right about this. We have objective facts and data regarding what works in gunfights. Unfortunately, just like any martial art, not everyone gets equal training, or equal access to that data.

 

[Darren]

Whatever you say, but you can sweat and be sore and still not know how to fight

You are so very correct on this!!!

 

[GojuTommy]

I do karate and MMA why would I want to try to make karate like MMA? Why go through life with one hand tied behind your back limiting what you learn?

MMA isn’t a style so how do you ‘do mma’?

 

[Darren]

Whatever you say, but you can sweat and be sore and still not know how to fight

In fact I will go a couple of steps further, in my younger years I was a couple of places I should not have been! I had 3.5 years of martial art experience at the time, long story short I grabbed ahold of this guy but I forgot one thing”you grab someone you will get hit”! Caught a very hard round house punch to my jaw never saw it coming but I should have because I forgot the number one rule, you will get hit if you grab ahold of someone it is a given!!!! Thank you for pointing that out!!!!!!

 

[Tez3]

MMA isn’t a style so how do you ‘do mma’?

Now that is pathetic, if you can't understand English no wonder you're confused.

VERB

1. perform (an action, the precise nature of which is often unspecified):
   "very little work has been done in this field" ·
   [More]
   synonyms:
   carry out · undertake · discharge · execute · perpetrate ·
   [More]
2. achieve or complete:
   "I never really got the chance to finish school or do my exams"
3. act or behave in a specified way:
   "they are free to do as they please" ·
   [More]
   synonyms:
   act · behave · conduct oneself · acquit oneself · comport oneself · deport oneself

One does many things, including laughing at pettiness but hey, you do you.

 

[drop bear]

You are probably right about this. We have objective facts and data regarding what works in gunfights. Unfortunately, just like any martial art, not everyone gets equal training, or equal access to that data.

Or equal ability to understand it.

I don't like anecdotes at the best of times. We get the same problem with what works in street fights. Which is dependent on the guy you are fighting.

This worked on the street.

 

[drop bear]

Gun fighting training has to start somewhere. New students usually need a simple drill with limited variables, regardless of the topic, in my experience.

Yeah. But they tend to be pretty fixated on dead drills and stories. And less on resistance and scientific method.

 

[_Simon_]

This worked on the street.

Word is, they're still fighting to this day...

Seriously I wonder how long that went! That was mesmerising!! I can only hope and dream I look like that when I spar!

 

[_Simon_]

Stumbled upon this quote, quite like it:

"When we connect with our ancestors and put their wisdom into action, we are evolving our collective consciousness. We are transporting the ancient truths of our collective past and birthing them into our future. What we create out of those truths extends the wisdom of all those who have gone before us, and it provides a guide for all those who will follow."

~ Sherri Mitchell

 

[Steve]

It’s not that most don’t get to fight, most choose not to.
There’s plenty of opportunities. While I tea-dojo competition isn’t ideal, it’s better than nothing, but still you can find an amateur promotion in every medium sized city/metro area (at least in the US) so for most who never fight it’s a choice, rather than an unfortunate happenstance.

6 in one. I can completely understand the desire to avoid fights. But the fact remains that you can only get so good at something you don’t do.

 

[Steve]

You are probably right about this. We have objective facts and data regarding what works in gunfights. Unfortunately, just like any martial art, not everyone gets equal training, or equal access to that data.

I’m very interested in this. Can you share some of the facts and data you’re thinking about?

 

[Gerry Seymour]

I never said you couldn’t, just said you can do one without the other.

I can run down to my basement turn on my sauna, And spend 30 minutes sweat every day for the next year and not get better at fighting
Meanwhile I can do a minute of light playful sparring every day for a year in a cold space and have some improvement to my ability to fight.

In response to me saying some things in our training aren't necessarily focused on fighting skills, you said "...if being better at fighting isn’t a side effect of martial arts training, are you really training a martial art?"

If you didn't mean to say my statement was talking about not developing martial skill, what did you mean to say with those words?

If you're arguing about efficiency of training for combat, you'll get no argument from me. What I do isn't the most efficient path, for a number of reasons. The two main ones are priorities (I don't put self defense above all other concerns) and self-preservation (I believe the most efficient path to combat effectiveness is more brutal than I'm willing to participate in).

 

[Gerry Seymour]

I wouldn’t call that a kata and personally, I don’t see that as the same. I think kata is the subset. All kata is repetitive, but not all repetition is kata.

That's just my understanding of what constitutes kata. It's a predefined set of movements with specified parameters, meant to be used in repetitive drills. So the way I teach a hip throw (not part of the Classical kata in NGA) is the same for every student - much the same way it was introduced to me in Judo.

And the same was true of the single-leg I was taught some years ago by an MMA guy (back then, I think he was BJJ and boxing, but he might have been from a collegiate wrestling background). He taught all of us with the same set-up, same entry, and same takedown. He expected things to end up pretty nearly the same way each time, with the allowance of difference for how the person fell, which is the same I've experienced in Judo (where I don't think we used the original formal kata, but a more relaxed version) and NGA (where we still do use the more formal kata).

If I understand the difference you perceive, it's about how strict we are about the variations. And I can see that - it's how I used to see it, until I got deeper into my primary art and started looking at variations within the kata. And I allow a fair amount of those variations from students, so long as they meet the expected principles. Just as I do with the less-formals stuff. The only real difference (and this is within my own usage) is the formal versions have a stricter definition of the input than the informal versions. Which is a pretty nuanced difference between them.

 

[Gerry Seymour]

The definition of the word would say no.

It really depends how we define the term "martial arts", because you can't really define it by the individual words. Ignoring the whole issue with defining what "arts" means in that context, almost nothing we learn in MA is focused on battlefield usage these days (except some arts trying to preserve those ways), so arent really "martial" in that sense.

 

[Gerry Seymour]

I believe

- drill is like a sentence such as "This is a book."
- form (Kata) is like a paragraph which contains more than one sentence such as "This is a book. What can I do with a book?"

Please notice that since there exist no logic connection between book and What, to drill the whole paragraph can have little benefit.

That's not really true of shorter kata, like the traditional ones in Daito-ryu. They are short, and no longer than a simple throwing drill.

 

[Steve]

MMA isn’t a style so how do you ‘do mma’?

I think MMA is a style and also a sport. I mean, you can go to an MMA gym and train. Right?

 

[Gerry Seymour]

Yeah. But they tend to be pretty fixated on dead drills and stories. And less on resistance and scientific method.

I'm not really sure how that relates to the first drill a beginner gets. I don't want them fighting against resistance the first time they do a new technique. I want them to get fed an easy entry and to do the motions that make the principles work. Once they can do that a little, we can talk about how to deal with resistance.

As for scientific method, that's in no way contradictory to drills that are very simplified for a beginner. We can pick and choose the best techniques for a context based on the best data, and still use simplified drills to introduce them.

 

[Gerry Seymour]

I think MMA is a style and also a sport. I mean, you can go to an MMA gym and train. Right?

Agreed. Maybe it's a group of styles - an umbrella term? Because it'd be fairly different on a BJJ/boxing base than on a catch wrestling/MT base. But the overall approach to training would be recognizable.