Which style of karate would you consider most “complete”
- Thread starter Brandon Miller
- Start date
Wing Woo Gar
Grandmaster
The dusty one in the back with the label peeled off.
isshinryuronin
Senior Master
Lyoto Machida was one of my favorite early UFC fighters, however...
The host (and to some extent, even Machida - we all have bias based on our experience) laid a false premise - defining "traditional" karate as Shotokan-like: Square, rigid, low stances, exaggerated movements. This is a narrow slice of the karate pie and seemingly shows a lack of understanding karate's development.
From what the video shows, the way Machida "adapted" karate is simply travelling further back in time, before Shotokan, to the principles of its Okinawan roots : Shorter movements, higher and shallower stances, use of circular techniques, offensive guard.
Now, for MMA, some true adapting had to occur to handle things like certain grappling techniques and submission attempts which are prevalent in that sport. But in regards to the stand-up striking Machida showed, by and large he simply rediscovered the way karate used to be (and still is in some Okinawan style schools).
"Traditional" is a term that is time and place dependent, its meaning needing to be qualified in order to be accurate in whatever context it is used.
