Difference between Karate and Semi Contact Pointfighting?

Is there a video link/comparison between karate kumite/shobu ippon and today's terrible semi-contact point fighting? I have competed in point fighting but haven't done too well in it as I refused to drop my hands to score points. Prefer continuos fighting but i'm worse at it as I don't like getting hit in the nose or ribs :/

Karate kumite/shobu ippon may still be point fighting but it works in MMA and self defence-see GSP and Liddell (was told they competed in karate comps as well as kickboxing),Machida, Lewis,Wallace,Uriquidez,etc. Why did it devolve into rubbish pointfighting we see today-I was told Jhoon Rhee is to blame for it? Why did WKA decide to focus on semi contact as opposed to karate?

Are the old freetyle/Lau Gar fighters ACTUALLY legit tough guys? People like Bob and Tony Sykes, Nathan Lewis, Clifton Findley, Neville Wray- they have competed in full contact but not against people who kick below the waist or know groundwork? At the end of the day combat sports are to enhance your ability to use your skills in real life. I personally know Humphrey Broomes and he's a world champion in full contact but I think it's point fighting only.

I asked them (all of the above except Neville and Humphrey) in a gen. discussion on facebook why they never fought K1 fighters or Muay Thai and they said 'different sports' or 'apples to oranges' or they'd give me an example of Pele Reid in K1 even though he lost and he had boxing prowess.

Today,people I know go around going on about how Raymond Daniels and Michael Page are amazing at full contact and use them as an example but Daniels got smashed in MMA and Page fights in UCMMA and that's one of the lowest organisations for UCMMA. A lot of people go around quoting World Combat League showing how good some pointfighters are at full contact fighting but even in that they drop their hands or do lame side kicks.

Just wanted to clear up if the split between karate and kickboxing has been for the worse in pointfighting and why/how the scoring is different.

 

Benny Uriquidez, a karate legend, had fights against Muay Thai fighters:

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BHk_y_y9wsM"]Benny Urquidez the jet vs Muay Thai - YouTube[/ame]

Joe Lewis said he'd have liked to have fought Peter Aerts

http://www.fightingmaster.com/legends/lewis/interview.htm

 

Raymond Daniels got embarassed in MMA but that's because he has not focused his training on grappling. In full contact kickboxing though he really is very good.

Stephen Thompson was another guy who transitioned from point fighting to kickboxing, where he did very well. He then moved over to MMA and is in the UFC. He's 6-1 in MMA, I believe, and 1-1 in the UFC.

I'm not sure what you have against the WCL. Or side kicks. And as for dropping your hands, you see this across all combat sports and even in the upper echelons of those sports. Look at someone like Anderson Silva. He drops his hands all the time, but only when he's out of striking range. These guys are pros. They know what they're doing.

 

Alfie - utter douche though he may be - could certainly motor

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kEQS3ktW_WM"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kEQS3ktW_WM[/ame]

 

Hi, sorry late reply; I want to know how they score in karate-it's definately stricter but how do they score? Here's Daniels trying out KK yet his techniques aren't scoring (except an axe kick I thought didn't score)

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NAsGyCvAcm0&feature=related"]K-1 Fighting - Raymond Daniels vs Adam Alder - YouTube[/ame]

Here's point fighting vs karate

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pz2I0jTYeEU"]Shotokan vs Freestyle - YouTube[/ame]

The reason i'm asking is because the user Master Betty said last year of how most non-leg kick kickboxing clubs or ones that do points and light continuos are not really worth it. At the time I disputed him but due to club politics with a rival club I got kicked out of my own and (looking through post history) I did judo,wrestling and ju jitsu for a year.
I did better in point fighting than continuos but since points are lame, i'd rather do full contact points/karate.

Betty does have a point, him and others from around the world (via internet) have said K-1 is the best of the best and even though most Western kickboxers/freestylers don't do leg kicks, i'd much rather have one K-1 title or WUKO/WKF title than titles in points/light continuos. A lot of these old school Lau Gar/freestyle/MAI guys DIDN'T win in full contact except Clash of the Titans and Raymond Daniels hasn't fought a good Muay Thai/San Shou/K-1 fighter; these people are good but certainly aren't the best and shouldn't brag if they've not won in full contact (WCL is nowhere near as good as K-1/San Shou/Muay Thai due to lack of clinch and is not open to all so is not a World Title).
In fact, speaking to them on facebook, one of them (Tony Sykes I think) said when it came to bad habits from point fighting, 'fecal matter happens'. For one of the UK's leading non-MMA martial arts publications, i'm shocked when I read that. Plus someone else in the discussion (myself,Bob and Tony Sykes, Clifton Findley and Alfie Lewis-all on facebook) said Pele Reid did K-1, watching the Pele Reid fight i'm shocked a WAKO AND WBO champion lost so light continuos is obviously nowhere near as good as full contact.


So yeah, just wanted to know the difference between points from the old day and points today since guys from the old days like Bill Wallace,Joe Lewis,Joe Corley,Chuck Norris (yes he didn't do kickboxing but he still did heavy contact karate) and Benny Urquidez fought full contact continuos fights so THAT point fighting crossed over. I don't see backfists and side kicks in WAKO/WKA/ISKA full contact fights or in K-1.

I personally know people from the below club and (look at their hall of fame) from their guys who have won in full contact/MMA,they didn't do point fighting at all. Also wanted to know if Betty is completely right.

http://www.fighting-falcons.co.uk/Fighting_Falcons/Hall_of_Fame.html

 

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hkhE4IqV_Hs&list=FLNpr9AeXo4TXnsQD6v4x9kQ&index=1&feature=plpp_video"]Don "Dragon" Wilson vs Samart Prasamit - YouTube[/ame]

Don Wilson-good kickboxer but why does he always look hunched over more to one side (see his HL)? Don't like how he had to milk the Bloodfist series though.

What's the difference between freestyle pointfighting and karate? I know the latters' scoring is much stricter and better levels of contact? Don't mean to open up a can of worms but when Master Betty was on here he always said pointfighting with its side kicks and backfists is worthless and even light continuos is a bit lame. Pointfighting in the form of freestyle does seem to breed bad habits such as sticking hands down yet people who support it show me two examples:

Was Betty right all along r.e. non K-1 being worthless?

EDIT: I also want to do wrestling as I enjoy it (even though it's super hard), how do you combine wrestling and karate? I know GSP and Liddell have but afaik they're not point karateka like Machida. I did better at pointfighting when I did kickboxing so I want to do legit pointfighting like in karate.

 

Ronki, to get good you need work upto full contact, and to get good at judo/wrestling you need to relax and learn to breakfall.

Just train progressivly and itll all be fine.

 

Ronki. Karate is a specific group of styles usually of ryukyuan descent.
Point fighting and semi contact is a ruleset. Some style of karate compete under these rulesets like shotokan but other styles are Full contact

 

there's a huge difference in scoring in point karate and point semi contact. They don't seem to be off-balance or use backfists/side kicks in karate. Considering i'm going to Nottingham (Trent) for Uni, and i've not done any stand up in a year, i'm thinking of doing karate kumite because my point fighting is better than my continuos statistically. I would've done semi contact/light continuos but the fact that i've seen awful habits in comps/had an argument with a club at home that takes its fighters all over the country on national circuits, i've decided to do closed karate comps/KUGB style.

How do they score 'better' in karate?

Are semi contact/light continuos a waste of time?? NONE of these guys that do WCL or Clash of the Titans have fought K-1 and use the excuse 'apples and oranges' even though the aim of the game is to punch and kick to victory in K-1 as well. I've yet to see any WCL fighter or famous British kickboxer in K-1 and you see all of these people in MAI bragging about World Titles that aren't even full contact (you really shouldn't brag about titles in a sport with several organisations or fighting where you can't even hit hard). These people don't even have wikipedia pages for crying out loud!!! WUKO karate guys from the 1970s however, fought AND won in full contact

MOD edited.

 

A have a few questions:

What do you hope to accomplish by combining wrestling and Karate?
Do you want to do MMA, Self Defence or do you just like the idea of a Karate-wrestling hybrid.

You should work on your Wrestling and Karate and get better at those. Then probably go to a MMA place and work on the integration there.

Also, It's a big question 'how do you combine wrestling and karate?', you mention those three guys and yet they all have different striking and grappling styles. So you can try and emulate those guys, and have MMA guys show you some common striking to grappling combos, but you're also going to need to figure out which combos of your techniques, that you can pull off.

I wouldn't worry too much about the negatives of point karate. It can help you land strikes on a moving opponent, may not be optimal, but it seems to have some use.

At 1.18 of this video Machida shows this Attack and Defend game which is very point karate esque.

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kFekE8j0OEw&t=78"]Wanderlei Silva UFC 147 Video #5 - Master Lyoto - Black House MMA Feat Machida & Werdum - YouTube[/ame]

 

Firstly i'm doing karate when I move up to Nottingham (Trent Uni)for several reasons:

1. In point fighting/light continuos kickboxing, a rival club from my town goes to ALL WAKO/WKA/ISKA/BKC competitions and they are extremely unprofessional and up themselves.I have already lost to 2 of their fighters and because of the way they act, I don't want to lose to them again

2. ^due to a disagreement from the above, I got kicked out of my own club because my coach was coached by theirs in ye olde days (I actually almost K.Od a guy from them but he denied it and we argued, my coach took THEIR side and kicked me out)

3. Due to asking questions over legitimacy of point fighting and these titles, I think they give decision to others in light continuos-that's very dishearting when i've never won in light continuos without faceshield (I lost once even though I dominated this guy in a 2 round fight in round 1-even driving him off the mat 3x in 30 seconds [it's not as if you can't get a draw because i've seen draws)

4. I've yet to get an answer explaining the difference between karate and semi contact- I know the scoring in karate point fighting is better and they wear less safety gear. Statistically I won more in point kickboxing-considering I hate getting hit anyway I might as well do karate

I did wrestling at an MMA gym where they also had various classes like BJJ,Krav Maga, TKD, Karate,Muay Thai and Kickboxing and most of the people don't even know of semi contact/light continuos champions and they think point fighting is a joke. My mate from Hong Kong who does karate and did point karate there, only fights light continuos kickboxing or (if he's brave full contact) since there aren't many karate clubs down South. This was AFTER MB comments too so i'm thinking these

I enjoy wrestling because it's a pathway to MMA AND Pro Wrestling ( I want to do both)-wrestling is so natural and makes you feel so manly and less complicated than Judo. I just want to do martial arts that 'work' and fighting sports with legitimate titles.

 

Ronki, your massively complicating this.

Your need to train striking working upto full contact (at times) to get over your flinch reflex.
Just pick one thing and actually train for a decent length of time.
If you want to be good you gotta put the hours in.

 

I can only speak from my own training in shotokan, but the rules and environment under which you compete aren't, in practice, particularly similar to "point fighting". Not least because you're not trying to accumulate points. As most "old-fashioned" karate clubs compete under the shobu ippon ruleset, you don't have the chance to play for points because you can lose so quickly.

The philosophy behind shobu ippon is to strike your opponent with a potentially damaging technique in such a way that they can't defend it (but still with suitable control). If you do that, you win. You don't "get a point" that's added to your total - you get the match. An ippon (and a waza ari, for a less potentially damaging technique) isn't awarded for just making contact with your opponent, the timing, distance, target area and opponent's actions are taken into account. For example, hopping on one leg throwing repeated round kicks in ITF TKD style probably won't win you anything as it wouldn't be considered a potentially damaging technique. Throwing a long punch that lurches your head forward and makes contact at the end of its travel won't be scored as it has no potential for damage and endangers yourself. In some ways its more subjective than the WUKO style "if you touch them, you get a point" style, but the idea is that the judging takes into account the fight-ending potential of your strike. The idea is that a win at shobu ippon is a technique that would leave your opponent unable to effectively continue if you carried it through.

Having said all that, if you want to do full contact kickboxing/MMA, then why bother with karate? I think you've got to go into karate wanting to learn karate, otherwise your motivation will disappear quite quickly. It's like taking up table tennis to get better at squash.

 

I'm going by the success of WUKO guys and Machida in the 1970s. Plus as I said, statistically I did better at points than continuos and (to begin with) my fights will end quick/there'd be a 'stop' between points/early end to the match (most likely doing KUGB as it seems to be affiliated to WKF- there's a JKS (JKS not JKA) club too but KUGB/WKF seems bigger.

 

KUGB competitions don't operate under the WKF karate rules. They use shobu ippon.

 

the past 2 years i've become impatient- from late 2005 to 2009 I trained for grades; I started sparring with face shield (had braces) 2007 but in 2007 I had 2 months off (busy at college) and after failing a grading (costing £25) in 2008 I did only weight training from May to October/November. I went solo until mid 2009 again and my first competition was in November 2009; even though I was halfway to black belot I got whopped in local novice competition.
In 2009/2010 I started training at Uni ALONGSIDE my home club (commuting) and there it opened my eyes how bad I was at sparring/how people with only a few MONTHS experience could get the better of me sparring. In 2010 I changed my home club and also stayed at Uni- I never won a 1st place in either points or continuos and never won in continuos without a faceshield.

I feel so annoyed it takes me so long to improve at it and it doesn't help the cost of grading (at old club) put me off after failing. Anyway, nobody taught me (at any club) how to take a punch to the face or kick to the ribs; can't have been bad club/coaching because everyone else was improving (yes I know they were only good at points/continuos but still, at least people improved).

Then when I go to my first wrestling class/go kickboxing at Uni I find out about how nobody cares/thinks points or light continuos kickboxing is impressive; that and a certain member on this forum.

I've not done stand-up fighting in a year so I want to do something i'm statistically better at (point-stop). I enjoy wrestling so want to do it. This will be in Nottingham (if you could point out to me good clubs there i'd be greatful)

 

Pick a decent place with contact and good coaching, and youll get overyour overflinching reflex, point sparring wont do this AND may even encourage it.

If you want to get better your going to have to do things your bad at until you get better at them.
Forget about titles etc, YOU are not going to be a champion, but you can get good, if you stop messing about and focus on the simple fact that if you want to get good at punching and kicking people, your going to have to get good at being punched and kicked first.

 

What form of wrestling?
GI Wresting? Submission wrestling? Greco, freestyle?

 

Was doing freestyle at Southampton (well, freestyle but we did do par-terre so old school freestyle-coach was Vasile Stephen, Romanian Olympic team member in Sydney) but as i'm moving to Nottingham i'm trying to find one there-found one online but no reply to email. That's a freestyle one-otherwise there's a Submission Wrestling club but that's part of a club that specialises in points and continuos kickboxing and apart from the paper titles, I can't fight in these 'national' circuits they go to due to the club from my home town travelling to such things
**groan**

As for what you said, point karate has been proven to work by WUKO guys from the 1970s and by Machida and Liddell today. I'm just confused as to how point fighters go around stating Raymond Daniels or Michael Page when they're not even good at MMA and in the full contact they have done, they never fought a GOOD K-1 fighter. Karateka however, fought AND fight in K-1; Andy Hug and Peter Smit are examples. Benny Urquidez and Don Wilson beating up Muay Thai fighters are examples pre K1 (as I said Joe Lewis wanted to fight Peter Aerts).
Even all of these MAI guys/people who do Clash of the Titans have never fought in K-1 or a Muay Thai stadium. Heck, they've never even fought a WUKO fighter. That's why i'm asking whether MB/other Muay Thai and K-1 fans are right r.e. all the paper titles in kickboxing. As i've stated numerous times, people I know with full contact titles in WAKO and MMA titles in ISKA don't fight points AND they're from the same club with points/light continuos champions

I guess it's a sign for me getting kicked out of my club last year. I'm going to fight in Karate and do it-Moosey's explanation was good. Are there any more regarding the difference between point karate and point kickboxing.

For the record-i've got more than enough videos on page 1 if people want to take a look. Here's the last video i'm putting up:

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8sot-X4Voec"]Shotokan karate in MMA - YouTube[/ame]

I've done:

Freestyle/Lau Gar style kickboxing at reached blue belt (halfway to black)
Judo (second belt-red)
Tenjin Shinyo Ryu Jiu Jitsu (no it's not a 'fake' school since Sensei was taught by Vernon Bell,Kenshiro Abbe and Mifune Sensei and is 65 years old now!) Third belt (orange)
Freestyle Wrestling with a REAL Champion-not the best but still very good

I really don't intend to learn anymore styles- at most 2 styles more-Karate and/or San Shou-going by my performance i'm up for karate.
I once looked at ITF TKD and the fact it's light contact and continuos AND the Uni clubs is affiliated with TAGB, I thought no. I want to fight in either MMA,Sport JJ or San Shou one day.

 

Machida and liddell spar full contact against kickboxers though. Its just that they once competed in it.
You get a red belt in judo for basicily just joining.
And the Tenjin club isnt the famous koryu style, just someone naming their club after it and hoping nione notices. ps the list of teachers is unrelated to the name of the school too