Absolutely not. You drill your moves, then you play with them at 40%, then 70%, then you full-on or as close to as you can. What really IS a form? What is its purpose? With the modern pace of life, when you're not training like they used to 6 days a wekk, 12 hours a day, is memorizing a set pattern a worthwhile expendature of time? You would get more benefit learning a ballet dance, tossing a balerina around, jumping around in a set pattern, making coordinated movements then you ever will from a karate form--I know becuase I've done both ballet and I've done TKD. What if you had one good fighter practice forms all day, and the other hit the bag and spar all day? If they both started pretty equal, who after 3 months of training would be better prepared for his or her match? If you were about to fight in the ring, you'd rather spend your time memorizing forms and marching around in an unrealistic manner? Of course not. Oh, but you say it's just to augment part of your skills, it has to be learned in balance. But why? What good is it? What does it prove? You can demonstrate a technique by itself. You can link them together during sparring. Is there some magic to marching around in an "H" pattern that you would never even do in reality? Why not just shadow box? Get up on your toes, ad lib, throw your combinations, defend against invisible punches. Forget the form. Boxers don't train that way. Muy thai guys don't train that way. Bruce Lee said forms are used just to take up class time to fill out an empty curiculum! He was right. I was raised that if you don't do something right, don't do it at all. Karate grapplin' ain't right... in my book, it ain't there. The muy thai roundhouse is not the same thing as the karate roundhouse. The karate roundhouse uses the foot, the MT kick the shin. The execution is also different, as the MT man dramatically pulls his arm down as he kicks to get more torque/ power. I'm sure you can find some black and white photograph of a Karate man doing some version of a clinch, but it's not really part of karate and it is an essential part of MT (not that I'm an expert in MT, but I've looked into it). Same with the knees and elbows, they are generally delivered differently. So, on a superficial level, I agree, yes, karate has similiar delivery systems as MT--but when you get the magnifying glass out, you'll see the differences are dramatic enough to be able to make comparisons. If the training sucks (yes, not in your case but in "common" karate cases), you can't really make a value judgement on the effeciveness of your techniques anyway. That's not true. Muy Thai and Karate are in the same theatre, and MT's techniques are better; they're better because the techniques are more powerful, efficient, and delivered ideally from the clinch range which is more effective then trading blows in the striking range. You get your head locked in a thai clinch, then the knees and elbows start coming while your head is getting jerked around... where's the comparison with karate? You must have great flyers for you school: "Karate: We're Adequate!"
Not familiar, but are these guys really throwing reverse punches, side-kicks, front kicks, and double knife hand blocks.... or have they incorporated a lot of MT into their game to make it work?
You don't know the history of BJJ. It was designed for street fights against larger, stronger opponents... even "thugs". If you want the best form of self defense, I would say BJJ, not to fight other BJJ guys, but to beat bigger guys. MMA is very popular now. If an MMA guy is a little drunk and is a jerk, you could very well be facing someone who's dabbled in it. The military currently uses BJJ as its foundation in Hand 2 Hand combat... you're telling me there's no chance you'll face someone who is on leave or just got out of the army, has had one too many, and doesn't like how you look? Wake up.
I don't know what you're talking about. No, you wont' be facing a seasoned BJJ blackbelt outside a pub... unless you ****ed off my last instructor while he's bouncing at said club, but you very easily will be facing someone BIGGER and STRONGER than you. You have a better chance to survive if you bring him to the ground than if you stand up exchaning strikes. Right? That's why they have weight divisions in boxing. But in open weight matches, little guys beat big guys all the time in BJJ. BJJ was designed for street fights/ SD vs larger, stronger opponents. Yeah, if your opponent is standing, BJJ is rendered useless. You should tell all those karate and kung fu guys the Gracies beat years ago your interesting theory.
This isn't a rhetoric class, but I'll take your prissy answer as yes, they're doing more MT than karate.
I know it's not strictly on topic but it's already being discussed , i'm getting kind of bored with the ALL FIGHTS GO TEH GROUND !!111ELEVEN PHEER TEH GRAPPLERS that gets thrown around in these threads so i put street fights into youtube , and this is what came up http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=street+fight&search_type=&aq=-1&oq= Now i'd go as far as giving it 50/50 and i'd always say that learning to fight on the ground is important , but training purely for the ground is about as daft as training purely for stand up.
I've a feeling a Gracie challenge fight on a Brazilian beach is nothing like the sort of thing that's going to go down outside your local taxi rank at 4am. If you'd taken a friend of mine to the floor you'd be having the crap kicked out of your head by half a dozen people. It's expected!
What amuses me is people who see a Mc dojo and say this is karate, karate is crap rather than google enoida or kanazawa and decide whether they would be effective. Watch those two sparring and then tell me karate is ineffective. regards koyo
Depends on the person studying the particular style. Any art can be crap if the person does not wish to give it there all. My opinion is its all in the individual at hand.
I'd just like to say that Karate is crap. It's useless. Why, just the other day I had my milk money stolen from me by another kid. But then he got banned, so it was fine. SUCK ON THAT!
Milk? A true Karate-ka doesn't need such mundane things as milk for strong bones. No they chew on gravel so as to sharpen their teeth into instruments of death, they strike tree's so that their arms can penetrate even the strongest of armour, run barefoot on concrete whilst carrying a fat person and stand under ice cold waterfalls for hours on end to harness their Ki. If you had been doing these things you would not have had your milk money stolen, in fact I would go so far as to suggest you are not learning true Karate and should take up ballet. That is all.
What's the average weight of those fat people? It's just that my spindly ballerina legs will only hold so much...
Miso No Karo Anyone can knock a martial arts if they want to. They real key is to find what the arts have to offer. If you say Kata is useless than that tells me you have never discovered the true essence in Kata. Not that Kata is useless. The true strength of ones Karate lies in the study of Bunkai. If one studies Bunkai one will find grappling,throwing, punching, kicking,etc...Karate Bunkai is only limited by the mind of the student. Many schools do not practice strong Bunkai, but that is far from all Karate in general. It appears you are speaking of old school dojo's that do not practice strong Bunkai with throws, armbars and takesdowns. Katate schools that are strong in all facets do exist and we do not call it augmenting, we call it Bunkai. I admit some schools Bunkai needs work but I can assure you many of us know how to apply our skills. I am not talking about eclectic training,I am talking about Karate training with strong, true Bunkai. All martial arts are good, just some do not practice as strong as others. :hat:
