Shotokan for self defence.

[Flying Crane]

Pretty much.

For example, Floyd Mayweather doesn't do Karate. Rickson Gracie didn't do karate.

Karate is a fairly distinct set of martial arts. You recognize it almost immediately when you see it. At least I can, since I spent quite a few years in it.

I know that Elbow escapes, trap and rolls, and the Guard definitely isn't Karate.



Everyone performs their personal fighting style when they're in combat or defending themselves. Again, the argument here is that the creators hid away entirely different martial arts systems within the katas. Sorry, I just don't buy it.

Still waiting for answers to the earlier questions.

But this answer here is quite telling.

 

[RTKDCMB]

I understand bunkai perfectly

Now that's a wild claim.

 

[Mephisto]

Yours didnt. The rest of us have no issue with being able to apply the locks, torques, and chokes form standing kata to doing them on our backs.

Are we free-rolling as in a competitive environment? No.

Are we practicing newaza from standing chokes and locks in our forms as bunkai? Yeah, its not difficult at all. typically, you have to change very little if anything.

Thats like saying you can only do a rear naked from a standing position.

Can I still set an Armbar from a takedown by throwing the leg over like like we do as a crescent in Samdan and teach as an application of that form? Yes, is the same movement and I have full control of the arm/wrist.

Gi choke from Odan.

Bunkai vs. Kumite.

Nobody is claiming everyones live wrestling. But saying there is zero ground game or applications is false. Especially considering your reasoing is because yours didnt.

No there isnt a lack in "all media." We've shown videos of full rolling in goju schools, linked articles discussing teachings and events from long before BJJ, and books written by Grandmasters or from interviews and talks with Grandmaster from long before BJJ's time. Saying theres a "lack of presence within all media" just shows you havent actually looked at any of the sources.

Funakoshi practiced and taught full on Okinawan Wrestling (newaza) in his okinawan days. He believed we still should and as a result of that reasoning, many of us still do. This is all in his books, its far more than "reminiscing about his boyhood days."

instead of covering your ears and going "nananananannanan", look into the actual information we've given you.

I'd agree that a lock or choke can be done standing or on the ground but a upa, hip escape, guard pass, are exclusively ground moves. you might be able to find a way to apply a hip escape while standing. A bjj guy might cross train in karate or another art and find a similiar movement, but could he claim bjj taught the move all along but it is currently out of fashion?

 

[Flying Crane]

I dont think anyone would say that there's a system limits what you can do in an actual fight but if a bjj guy were to throw a high kick I'd say that he's not doing bjj. Some bjj guys do throw low leg checking kicks but it is part of the bjj syllabus? Has kicking been part of bjj all along?

if kicking is part of BJJ training at all, then the choice to throw the kick high is a personal choice, and it's still BJJ. Who has the authority to dictate that it's Not BJJ based on an arbitrary height "limit" that is subject to individual and personal preference? I'd say nobody does. If the individual chooses to develop his kick to deliver it high, the same kick he learned in his BJJ school, then it's still BJJ.

I appreciate your taking the time to respond. My point is, curriculum shouldn't limit what one can use. Curriculum makes suggestions of things that should be useful, but curriculum should also be a tool that expresses deeper principles and helps one understand and develop those principles. Once that is accomplished, then curriculum becomes infinite because you understand how to apply the principles in anything and everything you do, even if not part of the formalized curriculum, even if the movement isn't even a "proper" technique.

If you don't have a grasp on this concept, then you are simply a technique collector. That can still be effective and functional, but lacks depth of understanding and indicates a beginners mentality. Hanzou's posts paint a picture of someone who lacks depth in his understanding of the training process. His posts indicate that he is a technique collector, but fails to understand the principles underneath, and how the point of training is ultimately to understand these principles and not be limited by technique or by a "curriculum". Hanzou may be reasonably effective with his skills, but he lacks depth. He has a beginners mentality and a beginners understanding.

 

[Drose427]

I'd agree that a lock or choke can be done standing or on the ground but a upa, hip escape, guard pass, are exclusively ground moves. you might be able to find a way to apply a hip escape while standing. A bjj guy might cross train in karate or another art and find a similiar movement, but could he claim bjj taught the move all along but it is currently out of fashion?

The upa video was only one explanation. given by abernathy.

The Ando tekki shodan video was another where the movement he used to escape was the same movement in the opening of the form as taught in his association. This movement long precedes BJJ and he didnt teach the BJJ way of doing it. He taught it from the ground exactly the same way as he did standing.

When Karate/tegumi/JJJ taught that specific movement for many, many years before BJJ existed, its hard to claim that movement as BJJ. Theyre in Karate because of the Wrestling and JJJ influence in Karate, and are still common in Okinawan schools.

Are there things in BJJ that BJJ improved for groundgame? Of course

Many of us here have given other examples. In my last post I gave examples from forms we've been doing long before BJJ. Hard to say we're attempting to mimic BJJ as a modern invention. I also posted a video of a Gujo school that does full okinawan submission wrestling. Funakoshi has talked about how Okinawan Wrestling was a big part of his Okinawan Karate training and how it applies to kata and bunkai. A style that already had influence from the Predecessors of BJJ.

Nobody here is saying we invented any of this. We took it from Wrestling, JJJ, and Judo just like BJJ did. We simply stole the basics, and stole them first.

Again, nobody here is or has ever claimed it to be comparable to a grappling focused style.

The only one claiming Karates Grappling is out of fashion was Hanzou, the rest of us are actively drilling our ground locks, chokes, and escapes as our associations have for many many years.

 

[Tony Dismukes]

youtube popped up this example, if i had more time Id give more:

The first few moves are nearly identical in both videos...differences being yours enunciates a crescent kick and long arm extension. The legs coming together to trap and push, the cross block and"post party" bit from my video, are the same movements from yours just from the ground.

There is no, and I believe there probably never was, specific bunkai for any particular karate kata, Pinans excepted. The secret of the bunkai was to make the sequence of the kata work in a particular situation. Now every kata has techniques that can be taken individually. That could be called Oyo bunkai but to me it is only bunkai when you can take a sequence of techniques and provide a workable explanation. What the video shows is just that. You are on the ground, you perform the first technique to escape. If it fails, you go to the very next technique. If that fails you go to the next technique and so on.

Instead of rubbishing this video I would be commending it. The guy has done a great job in interpreting the kata in a way it can be used on the ground against a relatively untrained person.

The movement he demonstrated on his partner were exactly the same as the first moves of the form. You may have a way of doing it in BJJ, but what he demonstrated was right out of that kata, unadulterated, unchanged. I never said where he learned it, but that exact movement is from the kata, is taught in Karate as a means of getting back up exactly as he demonstrated, in schools all over.

Hanzou, bunkai is what it means to you, not what it meant to some Chinese guy two hundred years ago. A lot of my bunkai I have worked by reverse engineering. It doesn't matter how you arrive at your understanding. The important thing is that the sequence of techniques works for you. If that includes BJJ, Judo, Aikido or Capoiera techniques, fantastic, go for it. Karate can evolve just as BJJ is evolving. There are dozens of techniques in kata that people will tell you are 'blocks'. It was pointed out to me many years ago that there can't be blocks in the kata or it becomes choreography. That made me question whether indeed there were any blocks in karate, period. Any particular movement may have multiple applications. There is nothing to say they can't be used on the ground.

No disrespect intended towards those who train solo kata, but here we get into why it would not work for me. In my experience, in order to develop usable skill in a technique, I have to practice it as closely as possible to actual application. Foot placement, body alignment, sequence of muscle activation, and lots of other details make a big, big difference.

The problem I see with many of these bunkai demonstrations (including the video from Mr. Ando) is that the purported applications do not match the actual movements of the kata to any useful degree for developing usable skill. There may be a superficial resemblance such that you could argue the kata symbolically represents applications a, b, and c in steps 1, 2, and 3. Maybe that was even the intention of the kata's creator - I wasn't there when the kata was created, so I can't say. I can say that performing a standing cross step does not use the same muscle sequencing, alignment, or body dynamics as the heel drag variation of the knee-elbow escape from mount. There are many, many differences in the details of those two movements - and those differences are vital to making the technique actually work.

I give Mr. Ando credit for his ingenuity in mapping a correspondence between the kata and the ground techniques in question - but it's at best a symbolic codding between the kata and the application. I could practice the kata 10,000 times while visualizing the bunkai he suggests and I wouldn't get any better at the techniques. The movements are just too different.

I'm not a stranger to the idea that certain core movement patterns can apply to a wide variety of different applications. I both train and teach that way. I'm saying that in this case, the underlying movement pattern is fundamentally different. Maybe other people can learn useful skills from performing a kata where each movement acts as a coded representation of a bunch of different techniques that actually use different body dynamics and details of movement, but I can't.

(BTW - this is one thing I like about Abernathy. From what I've seen, his bunkai are such that you could perform the kata in a recognizable way and still be approximating the body dynamics of the proposed application.)

Our cheapest BJJ school in the area is 450 a month.

Yeesh! For that kind of money I want Kyra Gracie to be giving me a back rub after every workout. My gym charges $100/month for unlimited classes 7 days per week, including BJJ, boxing, Muay Thai, and MMA.

I dont think anyone would say that there's a system limits what you can do in an actual fight but if a bjj guy were to throw a high kick I'd say that he's not doing bjj. Some bjj guys do throw low leg checking kicks but it is part of the bjj syllabus? Has kicking been part of bjj all along?

Believe it or not - yes! Kicking has been part of the BJJ curriculum from the very beginning. These days you mostly see it in the more traditional academies. Gyms oriented towards sport BJJ don't have any use for it and gyms oriented towards MMA typically bring in Muay Thai or Karate instruction for a more comprehensive approach to kicking.

 

[Drose427]

Believe it or not - yes! Kicking has been part of the BJJ curriculum from the very beginning. These days you mostly see it in the more traditional academies. Gyms oriented towards sport BJJ don't have any use for it and gyms oriented towards MMA typically bring in Muay Thai or Karate instruction for a more comprehensive approach to kicking.

My BJJ knowledge/experience is limited, but BJJ should in theory have something similar to the array or strikes and blocks found in JJJ right? I know Japanese Jujustu has quite a bit of striking, I've judo teaches some as well but I've never seen Judo in action outside of the olympics

 

[Tony Dismukes]

My BJJ knowledge/experience is limited, but BJJ should in theory have something similar to the array or strikes and blocks found in JJJ right? I know Japanese Jujustu has quite a bit of striking, I've judo teaches some as well but I've never seen Judo in action outside of the olympics

Well ... "Japanese Ju Jutsu" covers quite a lot of ground - very different arts with different approaches to striking. Chris Parker could doubtless address some of that variety.

Classic BJJ does include a little bit of striking, but not that much. Most of it is used to set up grappling techniques. Blocks are even more rare. The preferred approach is to control range - either keep the opponent out of reach or tie him up in a clinch. These days BJJ practitioners who want to develop good striking skills are more likely to cross-train in a striking art than just rely on what's in the old Gracie curriculum

 

[Zero]

Martial Arts do not evolve by actively taking techniques from other systems and pretending that they've been within that system the entire time.

Well, actually, there may well be a few MAs that have evolved (or even come into existence) by doing just that Hanzou...

 

[Steve]

Yes, BJJ did. But the grappling in Shotokan, comes from Judo/Jujustu/and Tegumi. If you read the articles I posted, you'd see where funakoshi was talking about how Tegumi played a role in his Okinawan Karate training years before founding Shotokan. So no, it isnt a modern invention. BJJ shares a lineage with the systems that Karate takes its grappling from. Seeing similar concepts isnt surprising.



Because we dont feel the need to record every second of our training? You dont see 100 videos online of a doctor learning an appendectomy, does that mean Doctors dont learn it?

Better yet, you don't see videos of a Pathologist performing physicals. So I can assume they cant right?

First, I've really enjoyed the discussion so far. I think there have been a lot of great points on both sides of the debate.
Regarding videos of doctors videos, there are plenty. The lay person may not have easy access to them, but there are plenty of videos of properly performed appendectomy and every other facet of medicine. While the doctors may not post them to youtube, the videos exist. It's not unreasonable in this day and age that training be documented in video. Further, that the standard for training within a school or style be documented for many reasons.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[Drose427]

First, I've really enjoyed the discussion so far. I think there have been a lot of great points on both sides of the debate.
Regarding videos of doctors videos, there are plenty. The lay person may not have easy access to them, but there are plenty of videos of properly performed appendectomy and every other facet of medicine. While the doctors may not post them to youtube, the videos exist. It's not unreasonable in this day and age that training be documented in video. Further, that the standard for training within a school or style be documented for many reasons.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I do agree that recording training is more feasible now, and if one looks they can find documentation of schools making groundwork part of their program to some degree.

Most schools you can usually find at least a demo or a round or two of tournament sparring. But obviously that's a poor representation of that schools training. When regardless of style or system you're missing important parts of training like conditioning, drills, etc.

Some folks simply don't care about recording their training and putting it online. Many times when they do record, they're gonna show what they feel will bring In the target demographic. Not a typical day of training. This is why I've never heard a school tell an interested party to go watch a demo video instead of coming and watching a class.

I can't even find videos online of all of our forms. I can usually find variations of one or two, but not how our System or how I've seen other MDK schools do them.

Maybe in 10 years I will, as more and more things move online. But right now I cant. The implication that we don't do those forms because I can't find documentation of those forms is crazy.

There are exceptions obviously, some popular schools, schools with tech say instrcutors, or commercialized schools may regularly upload! But there are many, many who do not and cannot find accurate videos online of how they train.

 

[Tez3]

I can't even find videos online of all of our forms

That's where we are lucky in Wado Ryu, the founder was filmed doing ours and of course have been made into videos. It's a very important legacy.

 

[Drose427]

That's where we are lucky in Wado Ryu, the founder was filmed doing ours and of course have been made into videos. It's a very important legacy.

Lucky...We're MDK TSD. I can find stuff from goju, shoring ryu, or sometimes shotokan that's close, but the Korean influence gets in there so usually things are inevitablely different.

What's ironic is there's tribute footage ad pictures of my GM doing parts of forms, demos, Breakig, teaching on base, etc. But none as a teaching tool as far as I can find. Other than my sahbumnim doing bassai here to compare ours with others, which is really one of forms we do closest to common videos out there

 

[Steve]

I do agree that recording training is more feasible now, and if one looks they can find documentation of schools making groundwork part of their program to some degree.

Most schools you can usually find at least a demo or a round or two of tournament sparring. But obviously that's a poor representation of that schools training. When regardless of style or system you're missing important parts of training like conditioning, drills, etc.

Some folks simply don't care about recording their training and putting it online. Many times when they do record, they're gonna show what they feel will bring In the target demographic. Not a typical day of training. This is why I've never heard a school tell an interested party to go watch a demo video instead of coming and watching a class.

I can't even find videos online of all of our forms. I can usually find variations of one or two, but not how our System or how I've seen other MDK schools do them.

Maybe in 10 years I will, as more and more things move online. But right now I cant. The implication that we don't do those forms because I can't find documentation of those forms is crazy.

There are exceptions obviously, some popular schools, schools with tech say instrcutors, or commercialized schools may regularly upload! But there are many, many who do not and cannot find accurate videos online of how they train.

I appreciate the response. I want to be clear, I see both sides to this discussion. I'm not suggesting that anyone MUST record their training to be legitimate. What I do think, is that in this day and age, the odds are SOMEONE will have recorded it. A scarcity of video support is understandable and reasonable. A complete lack of video support for something is a little more unlikely, IMO.

And this is not just martial arts. I could think of any kind of esoteric pursuit and find not only video support, but very likely, an extensive body of online documentation for it. I have found detailed documentation and instructions on all manner of obscure things on the internet.

So, to sum up, I have no real opinion on ground fighting within Karate. It may be there, or not. I have no idea, as I don't train in Karate. But, a dearth of video online is a red flag. In this day and age, while technically possible, it's highly likely that some percentage (however small) of karateka who exist will have documented the style online. Whether it's to sell DVDs, calibrate their curriculum or just get some face time because they have a touch of narcissism, in the world, there are always at least a few.

 

[Drose427]

I appreciate the response. I want to be clear, I see both sides to this discussion. I'm not suggesting that anyone MUST record their training to be legitimate. What I do think, is that in this day and age, the odds are SOMEONE will have recorded it. A scarcity of video support is understandable and reasonable. A complete lack of video support for something is a little more unlikely, IMO.

And this is not just martial arts. I could think of any kind of esoteric pursuit and find not only video support, but very likely, an extensive body of online documentation for it. I have found detailed documentation and instructions on all manner of obscure things on the internet.

So, to sum up, I have no real opinion on ground fighting within Karate. It may be there, or not. I have no idea, as I don't train in Karate. But, a dearth of video online is a red flag. In this day and age, while technically possible, it's highly likely that some percentage (however small) of karateka who exist will have documented the style online. Whether it's to sell DVDs, calibrate their curriculum or just get some face time because they have a touch of narcissism, in the world, there are always at least a few.

Ah, I was misunderstanding your scarcity vs. Nonexistence.

You can find some documention, I found a couple Goju and shorin schools who show live submission wrestling in the demo/commercial videos, which many of us in this thread have said is more than we even do. But it's far from the typical videos you'll see and weren't first page results.

As for the last part, this is definitely true across martial arts. But an important thing to note is they're only going to showcase certain things. I.e. there is some striking in classic BJJ, but the typical BJJ video doesn't show any, choosing to focus their screen time on teaching grappling. It's a matter of appeal. If you wanna see instructional striking tutorials, would you buy a BJJ video or a Karate video? And vice versa.

 

[K-man]

I understand bunkai perfectly. However my understanding of it is far more cynical and negative than your understanding of it.

This statement is patently untrue. When you first came on this forum you asked me to explain the difference between kata and kata bunkai. You had no knowledge of bunkai then and you are continually demonstrating in your posts that you have chosen to ignore the explanations that have been given by the numerous members, who actually practise bunkai, since.

 

[Hanzou]

The upa video was only one explanation. given by abernathy.

The Ando tekki shodan video was another where the movement he used to escape was the same movement in the opening of the form as taught in his association. This movement long precedes BJJ and he didnt teach the BJJ way of doing it. He taught it from the ground exactly the same way as he did standing.

If Ando said or implied that, he's being dishonest.

The movements he's doing are common in Bjj, an art that he's trained in. What's more, they're the fundamental stuff that you'd learn in your first weeks at any reputable Bjj school, which is exactly what Ando claimed to do. The idea that you could derive such complex movements and transitions from the opening of a completely unrelated kata is simply silly and nonsensical.

What's more, the only example I've seen of anyone saying that those movements are based on Shotokan kata is that single video from Ando himself, and frankly I don't believe that even he is making those claims. If he is, please post those claims. From the video I saw, he made it pretty clear that all of this dawned on him while he was practicing Bjj.

When Karate/tegumi/JJJ taught that specific movement for many, many years before BJJ existed, its hard to claim that movement as BJJ. Theyre in Karate because of the Wrestling and JJJ influence in Karate, and are still common in Okinawan schools.

Bull. If that's true, where is it in Karate beyond Ando's vid? I did Shotokan for many years, and there was never a point where we got on the ground and started performing escapes from the mount on each other. Even after learning Tekki Shodan, no one ever said anything about being able to apply the kata on the ground. Again, the Ando video is the first, and only bunkai I've ever seen that states that Tekki Shodan can be applied from the ground range. The problem is that his entire movement set is pretty much exactly how a white belt would perform basic Bjj.

Karate/Tegumi/JJJ taught the Guard and Elbow escape where and when exactly? Historically, JJJ and Judo have never held ground fighting in high regard. Kano himself never made it a secret that he preferred Nagewaza over Newaza, and Bjj style-ground fighting is practically unheard of in classical JJJ, and was neglected for decades in Judo. As for Maeda, the father of Bjj, he left Japan before Funakoshi arrived in Japan to teach Shotokan, and I have never heard of any link between classical JJJ, Kano Juijitsu, and Okinawan folk wrestling/Tegumi until this thread.

Again, all of this just smacks of a bunch of Karate guys simply incorporating modern Bjj and Judo and saying their art is "complete" because their students are demanding an answer to MMA.

Nobody here is saying we invented any of this. We took it from Wrestling, JJJ, and Judo just like BJJ did. We simply stole the basics, and stole them first.

Interesting, because the wrestling root of Bjj comes from Sumo and western Catch Wrestling, not Okinawan Tegumi. Further, Maeda traveled to the west to learn Catch Wrestling. Catch didn't arrive in Japan until much later.

The only one claiming Karates Grappling is out of fashion was Hanzou, the rest of us are actively drilling our ground locks, chokes, and escapes as our associations have for many many years.

You can't have it both ways here. Either you're claiming that Karate has an active and competitive form of submission grappling, or you're saying that a bunch of Karatekas are just messing around with the basics of grappling.

 

[Hanzou]

Well, actually, there may well be a few MAs that have evolved (or even come into existence) by doing just that Hanzou...

Which ones? Just curious.

 

[Tez3]

Honestly, I don't think it would matter if there were an abundance of videos showing karateka doing any sort of groundwork at all because it would be rubbished immediately however good, however genuine or however original it was. This is because minds are made up that there is no groundwork/grappling in karate whatsoever so any attempts to prove there is are dismissed as stealing it from somewhere else, made up or laughably poor.
I've often wondered why it bothers some so much that there is grappling in karate, why someone would deny something that is patently there. It doesn't diminish BJJ, it doesn't affect anyone training in BJJ so why the constant denying? Why not a 'well good for you lot' and 'isn't ground work great'?
'There's striking in BJJ', that's cool. Notice I don't say there isn't, there can't be because when I train BJJ ( and I do) we don't do any striking therefore it doesn't exist. Why so much aggro when we talk about karate and what's in it? Don't like karate, don't like kata, don't like bunkai, fine don't do it, it's really as easy as that, there's just no need to disrespect karateka so much just because you had a poor teacher, if indeed you did, perhaps though it's the pupil that was lacking?

 

[Drose427]

If Ando said or implied that, he's being dishonest.

The movements he's doing are common in Bjj, an art that he's trained in. What's more, they're the fundamental stuff that you'd learn in your first weeks at any reputable Bjj school, which is exactly what Ando claimed to do. The idea that you could derive such complex movements and transitions from the opening of a completely unrelated kata is simply silly and nonsensical.

What's more, the only example I've seen of anyone saying that those movements are based on Shotokan kata is that single video from Ando himself, and frankly I don't believe that even he is making those claims. If he is, please post those claims. From the video I saw, he made it pretty clear that all of this dawned on him while he was practicing Bjj.



Bull. If that's true, where is it in Karate beyond Ando's vid? I did Shotokan for many years, and there was never a point where we got on the ground and started performing escapes from the mount on each other. Even after learning Tekki Shodan, no one ever said anything about being able to apply the kata on the ground. Again, the Ando video is the first, and only bunkai I've ever seen that states that Tekki Shodan can be applied from the ground range. The problem is that his entire movement set is pretty much exactly how a white belt would perform basic Bjj.

Karate/Tegumi/JJJ taught the Guard and Elbow escape where and when exactly? Historically, JJJ and Judo have never held ground fighting in high regard. Kano himself never made it a secret that he preferred Nagewaza over Newaza, and Bjj style-ground fighting is practically unheard of in classical JJJ, and was neglected for decades in Judo. As for Maeda, the father of Bjj, he left Japan before Funakoshi arrived in Japan to teach Shotokan, and I have never heard of any link between classical JJJ, Kano Juijitsu, and Okinawan folk wrestling/Tegumi until this thread.

Again, all of this just smacks of a bunch of Karate guys simply incorporating modern Bjj and Judo and saying their art is "complete" because their students are demanding an answer to MMA.



Interesting, because the wrestling root of Bjj comes from Sumo and western Catch Wrestling, not Okinawan Tegumi. Further, Maeda traveled to the west to learn Catch Wrestling. Catch didn't arrive in Japan until much later.



You can't have it both ways here. Either you're claiming that Karate has an active and competitive form of submission grappling, or you're saying that a bunch of Karatekas are just messing around with the basics of grappling.

Sumo came from tegumi....if you looked at the info on tegumi we gave you you'd have known that.

We gave you 4 other groundfighting/ground defense bunkai from other forms than Shodan.

No, I'm saying most Karate schools teach basic grappling as part of Bunkai to teach students how to escape, get back up, or submit. Yours didnt, but many many others do both on this forum and not and have since Funakoshi was training.

For someone who trained extensively in Shotokan, you've always had trouble understanding bunkai and applications.

Even know after we've explained it, you're still trying to say that we're telling you there's this full system of grappling and nobody has said that other than you.

Does BJJ have an "entire system of striking" because classic BJJ had a few strikes? No.

It's the same concept, you're simply refusing to see that so you can keep saying BJJ is better grappling (which nobody has contested) and reiterating that your one school didnt.