Karateka! Do You Need A Reality Check?
Posted on 14. Jul, 2010 by Jesse in Archive, Karate
“I swear, that was the last time, man! I’m starting boxing tomorrow!”
My friend was pretty upset, and quite rightfully so. Last night he had been attacked, robbed and beaten up for the fourth or fifth time this year, and nobody of us could understand why. “He is so kind to everybody! Why would anybody want to harm him?” me and my friends kept saying to each other.
So, my bruised friend began boxing.
And of course it didn’t help him a bit.
I tried telling him several times that boxing is a sport, and if he wants to learn effective self-defense there are better ways! Like training Karate! Or being aware of your surroundings, to begin with. But he wasn’t listening. “Like your Karate-dances are going to save your ass when a bunch of hooligans jump you!?”
Boxing made him feel strong and self-confident. He could already bench press twice his bodyweight, so he probably figured that he would become the ultimate killing machine, once he had mastered boxing.
And hopefully nobody would ever try to hurt him again.
How wrong he was.
When I met him a couple of months later, his right hand looked like that of an old Egyptian mummy. It had been broken, when he finally tried fighting back for once. “I told you boxing is a sport!” I said to him, but he didn’t care. He told me how he had been out jogging, around 11 PM the other night, when he was approached by three young men.
“What’s up?” the leader had asked him.
“Sorry guys, I’d love to talk, but I’ve got to jog. See you!” he had told them, sensing that they were looking for trouble.
He turned around and ran, hoping that they wouldn’t follow. But soon enough they were running next to him. One on his left side, one on his right side, and one behind him.
“We just want to talk!” one of them shouted, with a big grin on his face.
So, my friend decided to see what his boxing had taught him.
He stopped, turned around, and with all his power punched the leader in the head so he fell back (“I never knew a head could be that hard!”), but immediately he was thrown to the ground by the two guys on his sides.
(His boxing coach always said “You’ve got to take some to give some!”.)
The two thugs pinned his arms to the ground with their knees, while the leader (who was recovering from being punched in the head) jumped on top of him. Something quickly flashed before my friends eyes.
A blade.
Luckily, these bad guys were stereotypical - in the sense that the ones who show a knife rarely use it, and the ones who use a knife rarely show it.
They only showed it.
And it was over.
My friend was left lying on the jogging track, alone in the darkness, with a broken hand and a contorted face. Keys, wallet, digital watch and mobile phone taken away.
Naturally, I felt bad for him.
And I told him that he should consider himself lucky that his face wasn’t sliced up.
The thing is, my friend really thought boxing was his knight in shining armour, his saviour. But it had done nothing for him. Except brake his hand. And piss off a knife wielding assailant.
Needless to say, he spent the next three weeks going back to the “crime scene”, searching for his assailants.
He never saw them again.
Now, leaving this story as a backdrop, let me quickly change subject.
Answer this:
“What is beautiful, elegant yet dynamic on the outside, but logical, simplistic and brutal on the inside?”
Did you answer “kata”?
I sure hope so.
Because if you say “kata”, you’re not only very correct, but you obviously know a thing or two about Karate that has gone largely unnoticed by an entire generation of Karate enthusiasts around the world.
Sadly, this knowledge (of the original defensive applications and principles which we are supposed to train and understand), were lost and obscured in the wake of the modernization of Karate.
Frankly, my boxer friend knows more about “the street” than most Karate instructors of today.
Modern Karate practise in Shuri Castle, 1938
Yet, he has never trained for “the street”.
It is my firm belief that Karate’s obvious value as a brutal discipline of percussive impact (aided by joint locks, takedowns, strangulations, throws etc), is something most people claim to practise, but fail to comprehend even at the most basic level.
And I want to see change.
I just don’t know how.
Keep in mind that most Karate people who call themselves “martial artists” are nothing of the sort. Most dojo are not martial arts dojo either (and yes, plural of “dojo” is “dojo”). They are glorified social clubs thriving in an enjoyable environment of emotional stimulation which is further heightened by a false and/or extremely limited perception of danger and reality.
Which is great.
If that’s what you asked for.
“But Jesse-san, what’s the problem? Can’t we just have fun? Why are you being so serious?”
Well, let me ask you this:
If you were to walk into a gun shop, and ask for their best revolver, you would expect to get what you ask for, right? Of course. But what if - when your life might suddenly be in danger - the time comes to actually use that revolver?
What if, at that very moment, you find out that your revolver is a water pistol?
A squirt gun.
You thought you were buying one thing, but you got something completely else.
You thought you were safe because you had the revolver, which may have changed your perception of what constitutes a threat, or perhaps even clouded your judgement.
Here’s a list of attacks.
Please have a look:
Top 10 Street Attacks:
- Push to the chest, often followed by the pushed party throwing a punch at the pushers head.
- Roundhouse or “haymaker” punch to the head.
- Lapel or shoulder grab, one handed, in conjunction with a straight punch to the head.
- Two handed clothing grab, followed by a head butt (“The Glasgow Kiss”).
- Two handed clothing grab, followed by a knee to the groin.
- Bottle, glass, or ashtray to the head.
- Frontward kick to groin/lower legs.
- Broken bottle or other sharp object jabbed to face.
- Slash with a short (3-4 inch) knife.
- Side head lock.
These attacks are the ten most common street attacks, according to British police.
Look at them carefully.
When I saw this list for the first time, I immediately asked one of our black belts in the dojo what he would do if I grabbed his lapel and kneed him in the groin. This is the fifth most common attack in the list above (“5. Two handed clothing grab, followed by a knee to the groin.”).
After ten to twenty seconds of thinking, he gave me an answer.
I didn’t listen. I just said “No. That wouldn’t work”.
So he gave me another, alternative, defense but I said “No, that wouldn’t work either”.
He continued, and gave me some more explanations, but I said “Look, you were kneed in the groin two minutes ago. Nothing you say will work, because the bastard is already jumping on your head!”
If you have to think that hard, something is lacking in your training.
(Hick’s Law, anyone?)
I’m just saying.
It seems that in Karate, theory often supersedes practise. Especially when something is not well understood and/or dangerous.
Why is this happening?
It happens because most Karate instructors of today have no idea (let me repeat that: NO IDEA) how to effectively use the defensive principles contained within kata. Some know, but most don’t. And if they do know, they most likely haven’t practised it enough to be able to spontaneously use it anyway. It doesn’t matter if the sensei is from Okinawa, America or Bombay; has a 10th dan, 5th dan or brown belt.
What’s even more naive is most of them either don’t care about this, or simply think it’s a waste of time!
(They sometimes even tell their students that it’s up to them to figure it out!)
The key is, and has always been, right in front of us.
But for some reason, trying to practically learn, or even theoretically understand, the “dispassionate outcome of self-defense” (effectively impeding motor performance) through analyzing the knowledge presented in simple physical templates (kata) which we know is the original purpose of Karate, is left to weirdos with blogs.
Cowabunga…
But I refuse to believe that I’m the only one who cares about the poor frustrated souls who, believing they get the “real deal”, are presented with learning preposterous applications against equally ridiculous attack scenarios because their style/master says, “it’s the true way”.
Style is just an interpretation of truth.
Truth does not conform to it.
What I’m saying is, though most styles/organizations/masters aren’t wrong, they just promote and preserve something which I can’t stand behind. Something that surprisingly often makes me hesitant of telling people that “Yes, I practise Karate!”.
Because I know what they’ll be thinking.
“If you want to truly understand something, try to change it”.
~ Kurt Lewin
I guess I’m just trying to understand.
How about you?
Similar Articles:
- Koujiki – The Educational Karate Game
- The 3 Methods of Approach & Where Karate Fails
- The 10 Rules of Old School Karate
- The Okinawan Karate Myth
- You Know You Are Doing Too Much Karate If… (pt. 2)
18 Responses to “Karateka! Do You Need A Reality Check?”
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17. Jul, 2010
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For a while I’ve suspected some of the standard applications taught in my style to be questionable at best (whether for me personally or as a general principle). I’ve recently read Kane & Wilder’s “Way of Kata” and I have enjoyed applying the analysis principles and rules from it to find something (hopefully) more practical, even though I don’t study Goju. Are you familiar with “Kaisai no genri”? Thoughts/opinions?
Whenever I read stuff like this I feel really good about my sensei, who often lets us explore bunkai but will have us do it in a “nasty” way, as we would if attacked. I’m far from understanding it all but it’s comforting to know it’s available.
“[..]what he would do if I grabbed his lapel and kneed him in the groin.” -I thought (after certainly more than 20 seconds): bassai dai!
No, really, I feel your pain. But then I think at people like Ian Abernethy or Patrick McCarthy (pars pro toto)..and if I would appreciate hero-worship, I’d say they were beacons of light saving the art of karate. I count my teacher and also you to that people.
Martin Riesebrodt writes about religion (as organization -translation by myself, so don’t wonder if it sounds awkward):
“Die Rückkehr der Religionen”, p.46
,,[..]a long-lasting and firm system of religious inequality and authority[..], that often tries, to monopolize religious salvation. For this cause religious knowledge, religious symbols, objects and rooms, as the education and license of religious specialists are put under central control. That allows the religious organization to spread their influence on persons and their access to power and wealth wide over their actual religious functions.”
It’s always the same, probably it is this circumstance which creates “secret” arts. The one way or the other.
Right: Iain Abernethy was definitely some kind of eye-opener for me. I guess it will be the same for anyone who only knows the block-counter attack-type bunkai.
BTW: There is a great article-series by K. Yokota titled ‘Shotokan Karate myths’. One article is about Kata and this also discusses how these bunkai came to live. My bookmarked URL is http://www.jks-americas.com/en/library/, but they seem to have forgotten to renew this domain.
Rgds
so true.
you also have the people that believe that they’re gonna turn into ghandi while they practice stuff that basically equals maiming someone with their hands and feet.
one day people are gonna understand that the physical side of martial arts practice consists of fighting techniques, and of how to effectively brutalize another person. anything else is inside your head and depends on your intentions.
The essence of a thing is in its reason for its existence. The ball pen is used for writing, otherwise it cease to be one. Fundamentally, karate is for self-defense, otherwise it cease to be one.
Love this post Jesse. I seem to infer that you have misgivings about the “sport” nature of popular karate today, even though you didn’t explicitly mention it.
Actually, no, I enjoy Sport Karate. But they are two separate things.
i agree completely with this post , as i would being that it seems to follow on well from a subject i commented on recently..
i currently find myself at a junction in my training due to us not practicing realisticly enough the self defence side of things as to make them a tool you carry with you, where this apparent need and flaw in the class ive trained in for many years will now take me who knows , but its all a journey none the less
I would definitely like to train under you some day Jesse XD!
Great post! It was really thought provoking.
Thank you, thank you, thank you!
Is this a true story? How long had your friend been boxing, that he didn’t know skulls are hard?
And what would a good Karateka (how ever you define that) have done instead in that same situation?
Boxers use gloves so I imagine some never realize how hard a skull is.
Personnally I would have done probably the last move in Seishan/Hangetsu or a elbow lock, though I’m not sure if I would’ve been fast enough.
I think the idea people have that karate isn’t a self-defense sport may be coming from the fact our kumite is based on touches. When they compare the K.O.s in boxing and the bone breaking in Muaï Thaï to the rare little nosebleed we can see in karate fights (except Kyokushin), it’s true Karate doesn’t seem impressive or even efficient… But it’s only Sport Karate and not “real” Karate.
He had been boxing for a few months. But he couldn’t clench his fist properly.
“A good Karateka” would never be out jogging 11 PM (a dark autumn night) alone, with mobile phone, keys and wallet.
“A good Karateka” would had practised at dojo, a common sense would never let anyone to jog at 11pm, especially with all the valuables he has … he should just get a dog if he has absolutely to go out, its safer than boxing and more fun
… karate will not teach people not to go out on dangerous hours, it however can consume the time on same hours, even at home 
Couldn’t help but think of your “eight reasons why not to wear gloves” page.
Maybe your friend shoud train running insteed of boxing!