Karate is wrestling- upward block: an amazing grappling technique! age-uke bunkai 

Jesse Enkamp: "Everything is karate!" Ramsey Dewey: "Everything is grappling. Including karate."

I've studied Karate my entire life, and almost no one agrees when I make these same points. Thank you for the video coach, now there's two of us! 😅

The way you interact with your students is really admirable. There's no ego or authority. Feels organic and instructive. They're lucky to have you as a coach.

Alot of Kung Fu and karate forms include grappling. It seems only recently we are rediscovering these forms which is awesome. As a kid, I hated doing forms in TKD. I couldn't figure out why we did certain movements. Then I started learning clinch work for Thai boxing and the big lightbulb went off in my mind.

It's awesome to see how an open mind, context & experience, and function-based approach can decipher techniques that are mostly done for the sake of doing them/or for performance. I'm happy to have witnessed the end of the low-mid-high block = grappling trilogy.

"Karate is wrestling." Someone forgot to tell karate practitioners.

My Taekwondo instructor Lloyd Plaguer made us spend about half of our time breaking different holds. I mostly understood as the time that if someone were to attack you they would be grabbing on you and trying to control, but as a kid it felt weird to me that we spent so much time on that when all the competitions were centered almost purely on striking. As an adult that's practices a few disciplines now, I'm actually really grateful and feel like he would have spent even more time on grappling and follow throughs if it weren't for all the parents that showed up to watch their kids learn to punch, kick, and twirl a bo.

A collaboration video with either Jesse Enkamp or Sensei Seth on this topic would be great. They both have a lot of knowledge and are open to the exploration of ideas. Pushing martial arts to places people have forgotten is always an interesting exercise.

Great video! Okinawan karate teaches a lot of these techniques. Practically every kata move has both grappling and striking applications. The master can move seamlessly through both. I learned the "upper block" as an escape from the rear bear hug, also. While stepping forward to pull opponent off balance, execute upper block to break the hold while a high hikite delivers a rear elbow. I believe katas may be taught in layers. What a move means to a white belt may be completely different than what it means to a shodan. Again, love the video!

As a karate practitioner, this is a new approach to age uke that I will absolutely wont forget :D I have also seen other bunkais of age uke ( for knife defence, throat holding etc.).In our dojo we usually practice strikes but there is no throwing or grappling exercises. Thank you for your video Ramsey-san :)

In our Karate school we teach always 3 applications for the "block" technique. Yes they can be set to block but attacking and grappling is also an application. I knew the one for gedan barai and sotou uke but, the one for the ake uke is a new one for me thanks. Learning stuff everyday 😮

Based on this video, it's more like karate is for anti-grappling, because instead of following up by establishing grips, the karate kata uses the blocks to break grips/establish position and posture to follow up with a strike. This really helps establish why one of the traditional philosophies of traditional karate is one strike one kill. Because if it's done quickly and in this manner where you are basically targeting a counter, it can actually happen.

You do know Iain Abernethy, Ramsey, don't you? I'd love to see the two of you in a conversation, because you both help to rediscover what Karate was before it became a sport.

Thank you for articulating it in a video. What you explained and experimented with today i've been playing with for about two years now. I've been in martial arts my whole life I started in karate went to kickboxing bjj and mma ect. And I'm currently a kajukenbo blackbelt. What i've noticed was most people have all these poor explanations and I myself in my early twenties and teens even said these things. But the realization that I have had lately and what ive been saying to my clients is that people were not bad at fighting back then! It was more socially acceptable in the past to get into fights. They weren't dumb. There is a reason these forms are first. But when it's taught today in so many schools the explanation doesn't make sense and implies that no one fought intelligently in the past. One of the lessons I teach basically boils down to this concept. "The founders said that if you have an in-depth understanding of the heian kata, one can feel confident in defending themselves in most situations." "Now, do these most common explanations sound like you could defend yourself? Or that the same kata is also regarded as a children's form? That doesn't track, so maybe there is much more to kata than one being a 1vs8 fight."

Hi Ramsey, I have been using all of this in BJJ and it WORKS SUPER WELL. The upblock sets up singles really well

This is totally making sense, all karate senseis should watch this, karate is 80% grappling

I'm gonna show this to my Tang Soo Do teacher. My class needs to see this!

I am an old man. A practitioner of just 54 years, now approaching 70 years old. I have lived most of my life on Taiwan. This is the best Chin-nah joint lock n throw video I have ever seen. Thank you for being real!

Great video. So much of this true application was lost after modern karate was developed post 1930s. Thankfully, people like Hanshi McCarthy and sensie Abernethy, etc have reignited peoples curiosity into what it's all really about. And it makes sense as okinawan martial arts developed out of Chinese martial arts and indigenous okinawan wrestling. Well done that man.

When I was a kid, it was interpreted as a block. As I got older my sensei explained it that since the word uke means "to receive", you are not blocking but more of intercepting the attack. My style meets the attack (punch) in the space between us and from there a few things can be done. The first and easiest it the motion that looks like a bock or deflection. The more advanced technique is to "ride" the arm of the punch to counter punch while deflecting the attack.

I actually showed your older video with these to my karate instructors last year and they made a drill with them! It was a very fun session, thanks coach! This is honestly one of my favorite videos on Karate. Ultimately, the people I've seen offer the best explanations are ones that have grappling experience (often judo) The part at 5:00 where you say "I'm inventing katas" is as authentic as it gets. If I recall the story - Patrick McCarthy (well known now as a Karate author, though at the time competed in kickboxing) was in Japan when he saw his friend who is a Japanese wrestler doing a sort of "shadow wrestling" routine. Patrick swore he thought his friend was doing a karate kata, but when he asked him, his friend was confused as he had never been to a karate class a day in his life!

Yeah, old karate as done by the masters of Okinawa fought at much closer range than we see today. Karate Culture, hads some great videos explaining these closer range techniques.

I'm so glad u did this video cause growing up this was a major thing I used to talk to my instructor about. "At what point are we not wrestling" was my thought process and they way I viewed making contact in contact based activities changed drastically. I went into karate wanting to excel at striking but when I got experience I learned it's all grappling and always has been...

I’m so glad that Ramsey did this because old Okinawan karate INVOLVES a lot of locks and grappling before the Japanese incorporated and got RID of the grappling (Japan already had jujitsu and judo, so they wanted a striking art strictly). Okinawan karate (Goju, shorin, matsubayashi, etc) have grappling , take downs and joint locks

This really is fascinating. It's makes absoloute sense. It would be amazing and so beneficial if all of the arts that possess this had a Renaissance of sorts and embraced their hybrid lineage, so that they trained in a more mma fashion, apart from the ground grappling. Iv heard of countless karateka already studying wrestling on the side, it would probably really shock them to stop and think about all of those forms they have done and how it can transpire to it.

This video was an eye opener for me! Great video!!

Beautiful applications of basic movements. Thank you!

This is by far some of the best karate application/bunkai I have seen. Definitely about to get out there and train!

Ramsey I love your takes on approaching techniques from various different contexts. It has been a direct influence on my mindset while practicing martial arts, and I think it is a major factor in the spikes in success I've been seeing lately. I think it is super super important to analyze a movement under the lens of several different contexts, because the same movement in two different contexts could be the difference between the movement being successful and the movement getting you killed. Thanks for your work and keep it up!

Great insights! As a Shotokan karate practitioner always looking for practical meaning of kata moves, I'm going to adopt some of the applications you showed. Also, great remark by your student about the importance of what people were wearing in their daily life when they designed the kata techniques. Great video!

A great channel that covers these aspects is Karate Breakdown. Very interesting to see these movements used in functional ways

Thank Ramsey for bridging classical traditional kata to close combat grappling applications that make sense. Grip strip, Takedown, Clinch Distance. It takes a great wrestler to read and apply the kata.🙏

This is brilliant dude. This stuff makes way more sense for handfighting and clinching than for "blocking".

This is awesome I never thought about it like that... And here I thought these karate blocks i learned were for blocking and counter punching 😅

This kind of content is gold!!!

One application of the hikite for a high block is to pull down on their wrist / sleeve as you press your forearm across their sternum, throat or face, in my opinion.

Good information and I really enjoyed the patient way you interacted with the students.

Just started my first wrestling classes and I can't wait to see if this works live!

You are really making kata come alive. These are great videos.

This really jells with my thinking and interpretation. Thank you.

This is probably the best video I've seen on this subject I just learned so much my mind is blown thank you for this!

I am just so freaking thrilled with the developments in martial arts happening in my lifetime. Awesome video brother.

Brilliant. Thanks for sharing 👍🏼

Loved these video topics! And ever since i started judo, I have been finidng the grappling in my taekwondo and it gave meaning to alot of things that at first didnt have concrete ideas!

Thanks so much for explaining what I believe, train and teach as well for years !

This is a nice teacher student relationship. Reminds me of my own teacher. I love how u came up with a move on the spot and amazed urself. Very chill video.

With your video, I Am now adding these karate forms to my daily routine! Simple, but EXREMELY effective in appliction!

Some very legit great applications of the rising block

I love the Age uke Bunkai, this move confused me so much when I did Karate. When I started BBJ and Muay Thai it gave me some clarity over the meaning of some kata sequences but never the Age Uke. I thought of it like some frame or when clinching but never with the crossed arms. Thanks for the video man it gave me a lot of clarity

Thank you sensei Ramsey! I will try these exercises in my next karate class! 🥋

Great vid Coach. Watching & learning from South Jersey 🇺🇸

Very interesting and thought provoking... Thanks for sharing.

I have to say thank you Ramsey, when you said in Sydney that "the more I learn about other martial arts and techniques, the more uses I find for karate" I thought you might have been talking about something like this. It's a shame it's not explicitly taught within the system, but I decided today to teach some of the older students how to use these "uke" this way. Thank you for your further contribution to the conversation!

Thank you for this awesome video!

I like using the upper block as a reverse collar tie, pulling the hand or leg back to off balance your opponent. Gives you good access to the lead leg, or isolates the arm you’re pulling with the hikite to turn into a top double wrist lock/kimura or something.

Just watch an UFC fight or other MMA fights and stop in between when they are doing stand up wrestling. Often times the positions hand postions and stances are directly out of a Karate form

To train under you advise is probably amazing. You are a great man, and a great master in fight. I'm evolved and keep evolving just by learning with your videos in general. I'm really grateful. Aways hope for the best of you and your family. Thanks. And I'm going out now To train

There is a guy on the internet that talks about how much of Kung Fu is actually mostly wrestling . Watching your video brought back to my mind about how traditional karate had suplexes and some other type of wrestling techniques however with the popularity of Tae Kwon Do a lot of schools abandoned their traditions to compete against the new thing .

I love this. My karate instructor was somewhat aware of these so we trained it a bit, but not how you show it here. A lot I figured out on m own, but never applied in any system.

Glad to see that you're exploring bunkai

Some great insights, well done. We have used traditional karate blocks for close range, grappling and holds etc, for many years. We also teach these in our "primary applications", right from white belt. Keep exploring as there is STILL so many more great practical applications. A few examples, when you hold the finished position of the upper block, your upper arm is protecting the side of your head against round techniques. The block is often just thought of as the forearm doing the block, but the upper arm, is actually much stronger as it is closer to your body and covers the whole side of your head. We use this in sitting self defence scenarios for attacks to the side of the head, think hay-maker/yobo punch, even roundhouse kick. The other aspect to explore is the "chamber position". When you are facing your opponent with head and wrist control, this is the chamber position for lower block. Hikite controlling the wrist and blocking arm (that goes across to opposite ear), controlling the head. Same goes for taking your opponent's back, hikite controlling arm around opponents back and chamber applying rear naked choke. You can even use the chamber position movement to spin your opponent into a rear naked choke. So many applications when you use the entire movement of any, so called, traditional karate block. I could go on for hours about knife hand blocks 🙂 Good luck and keep exploring.

Some years ago I read a book which casually stated that Karate was a combination of Kung Fu from China-Karate originally meant “China Hand”-and an indigenous WRESTLING martial art called Te. I don’t know how accurate that was, but as soon as one thinks of those moves in Karate and Karate kata that don’t seem to make sense (eg chambering a fist next to the ribs) as WRESTLING instead of striking or blocking, those moves begin to make a LOT more sense. Thanks for highlighting this in your videos, and in a way that gives appreciation to Karate.

Ramsey I've watched you do stuff with moves from traditional martial arts and how they are interpreted but as a practitioner of kung fu who dabbles in grappling this has blown my mind !

All I can say is thanks. That is fascinating.

Very Good Video!!!

I remember watching a self-defense video by Michael Janich and learned about karate blocking techniques with regard to the iconic martial arts motion of pulling the punching 👊 fist back to the hip. I always wondered 🤔 about that motion when I was small first taking Kenpo Karate and Tae Kwon Do. The above Ramsey Dewey video made me cognizant of the potential grappling applications inherent within the traditional arm extension/contraction articulations of the traditional karate upward, downward, inward, and outward blocking motions. The Janich video made me aware of the potential grappling applications of returning the punching and/or blocking arm and fist back to the hip area. For example, in the Janich video, Michael seized his opponent's striking hand by the thumb pad area after blocking or parrying the opponent's hand strike, and Michael subsequently pulled the opponent's hand back to his hip area effectively pinning and immobilizing his opponent's hand against his own body!!! With the opponent's hand immobilized, the subsequent counter striking motions of Mr. Janich were facilitated. I believe the striking and blocking motions of Karate, Tae Kwon Do, Kung Fu, Silat, as well as African and European martial arts Worldwide 🌎 have dual purpose grappling applications 😀 as well!!!

This makes so much sense

Thanks coach. As a life long karate ka, and I’ve been studying MMA for many years this is invaluable Osu.

Awesome! Please make more videos like these.

We all know that a lot of karate masters look at your channel. I guess this video could become a game changer in a lots of way. Maybe it will take time, but I think that you made a great gift to karate and traditional martial arts with this video.

Best thing I have seen in this genre Thank very much

This train of thought has been a bit of an obsession of mine every since i saw one of your other videos on a similar topic. I would love to see more of the traditional poomsae or kata moves and their applications like double outside blocks, low/middle double knife hand blocks, etc.

Nice job finding this. I finally see some context with the same side wrist grab too. More schools should start coupling the wrist grab with neck control.

From age-uke to shadow wrestling, so glad I searched this video!

I've been getting back into shorin ryu training lately and was literally just telling someone this at work 2 days ago. Thank you for the awesome vid

Great points and true

Purple belt in Shotokan here, back in the day! Very interesting approach! Now boxing and BJJ, keep up the good work!

I use to study Goju Ryu karate and traditionally it was considered standup clinch striking, however all the bunkai i was taught didnt seem to fit that description. I think this application of "blocks" (proper transition means to recieve) is really cool and fits the description of traditional karate.

I'm gonna use this!

Bunkai wisdom. *Praise the Dewey.*

Thank you for figuring that out. That’s interesting because that’s what it really is for.

I'm learning how to reapply my shotokan for grapple or takedown set ups now!

Wow. I'm on a tight schedule, but as soon as I'll have a minute I'll come back to comment in depth, because as a Shotokan Karate Black Belt who was trained by an AMAZING Teacher (spent 2 months a year in Japan to train and share knowledge and experience with the best, and was recruited by the Canadian Karate Olympic Team a year after I left) who taught us both the "traditional" way of doing things, but also how to adapt everything into something functional, adapted individually to our own physiology, actively encouraged us to find new, creative applications of techniques (also modified) and to openly discuss and test them in Kumite.

It makes sense. Karate was made to counter fight wrestling. I can't believe it took me this long to realize this basic concept with blocking.

I'm totally mindblown and humbled.. I used to think karate was the most primitive backward impractical martial art.. after watching this video you changed my perspective on karate to point I now see Karate as something totally awesome and respectable . You done the impossible, well done. Thankyou

I have always felt like this karate was mainly to 1 be simple and easy to teach many people basic techniques at once 2 the blocks are multi purpose, for grappling , striking as well as blocking incoming clobbers from a weapon of something , very general purpose, great video!!

Correct. High angle block vs overhand right/left allows you to set up an easy hammer lock vs attacker, and either submit opponent or dislocate their shoulder. This is the second counter-attack we taught white belts in Isshinryu Karate. The backward elbow can also be a counter-attack vs someone attacking you from behind. I studied "Karate and Japanese Jiujitsu" together for 15 hours per week, 6 years of my life, and I know between 250 and 300 unique submissions.

Wow, when you followed up the grip break with the karate punch + hikite... It looks both very effective, and very karate

Karate is awesome video gave me new respect for it

omg. i am gonna have to start using this in my grappling, wrestling and bjj ❤ thanks ramsey!

Not how I usually see these but I like your interpretation. I will probably add this to my drilling.

I remember learning Karate growing up and I always thought the bringing arm back for "blocks" was weird. We were told to snap with our hips to hammer strike away punches with the block. And the "reason" we brought our arms back was to "chamber" the punch. But in reality we never used blocks in sparring the way we did in kata of these big movements just to smack away our opponents arm. In fact our blocks looked more like boxing blocks of little movements to deflect punches. Only bringing the arm back when punching. Instead the only real use I found for crossing the arms was to make a crisp snap sound with my Gi when doing kata. 😂 What you demonstrated makes WAY more sense, and I plan to use in grip fighting. Thank you.

Excelente estudio y enfoque, creo que bastante cercano al verdadero propósito de esas técnicas. 👍

Atlast somebody spoke up about blocks being a grappling technique.

Great vid, would love to see an extended series in this covering the fundamental 'traditional' techniques. One thing I think is important; these techniques and especially those in the heian/pyung anh forms are intended for everyday people to defend themselves against thugs or petty criminals. They are not intended (originally) for soldiers or highly trained ninjas and martial artists. That's part of why they are such simple movements, yet are applicable in multiple contexts. I realised yesterday that what we call a low block is also what is called a body sweep in Muay Thai. Exactly the same technique. Then remembered that I've seen Lyoto Machida use it in exactly that way in the UFC. Personally I believe that anybody approaching the 'traditional' arts with an inquisitive and open mind, who actually follows the body mechanics, would end up at a similar place of understanding. It sadly shows how little most TMA practitioners think about what they are doing.

Sensei Vinício Antony who trained Lyoto Machida for some of his UFC fights actually has a karate style called karate-jitsu that is all about this applications

I am really glad you're exploring this more Ramsey because you do bring up some good points about karate in relation to grappling, if you'll permit me some major autism though I do have some comments about things you were asking people about with regards to the why of a lot of techniques and I'm coming at this from the perspective of a Shotokan practitioner so I obviously can't really comment on other styles. I just hope this will help you because I really like how you're an MMA guy and you go out of your way to check out styles even if you're sceptical of how they're applied. Note: I wasn't kidding about the autism, this was longer than I expected it to be but there's a lot to unpack. . You are correct about how it can be confusing to call these 'basic' techniques blocks, when used in an advanced way they are so much more than that, higher level Shotokan uses body weight in the techniques which is a completely different experience when you're on the receiving end if you're punching somebody. It feels like you're punching in the wrong direction because when Shotokan blocks are done correctly even the basic ones they are actually deflecting the kinetic energy of the punch away from you rather than 'stopping' it with your arm. You use a combination of hip movement, sinking your body weight and elbow movement ( not arm that's very important, you tense up if you just use arm ) while trying to stay completely relaxed, you then tense all at once and sink at the end of the technique when making contact with the opponents arm and that's where the power from the technique comes from . Most to be blunt 'western' karate practitioners can't explain this and it's because they don't know, so that's why they come across as completely clueless and MMA guys as a result often end up dismissing karate styles as a whole because they think there's no power in the techniques, it's not that these techniques don't work, it's exactly like you suspect that too many people don't know how to use them! Or they wildly misinterpret what the techniques are used for . The opposite movement when you punch or block, your opposite hand going back to the hip position when you punch is actually part of the hip movement and how you generate power through hip movement and body weight, it's another totally bizarre aspect to Shotokan that won't make a lot of sense to people and unfortunately as you're correctly realising not all karate practitioners actually know how to explain it all properly which is a major shame and admittedly the style has been very diluted like most Karate styles by the ever cringe McDojos . Marking hands as an example of another form of advanced karate are actually grabs, I think you covered this though in one of your videos now I think about it . Age Uke is a block specifically for a punch to the chin, I admit I did lol when you showed that hammerfist to the head but whoever told you that was dead wrong, it's a punch to the chin I promise, when it comes to the height difference though yes you'd probably use something else if you were ridiculously taller than the person . Many techniques you see in Shotokan and karate styles actually work far better when done at a 45 degree angle, one you might not have thought of is Uchi Uke, I don't particularly like this technique myself, I find the movement awkward and everyone has their preferences but do it at 45 degrees and all of a sudden it makes sense, basics are not a real life application of karate and never were meant to be, that's your strength training when it's done properly. People just don't explain that properly though and everyone is guilty of this so the whole style suffers as a result. Some techniques will only work really well at 45 degrees, others will cope fine straight on when done correctly . Deeper stances for your techniques as well, deeper deeper, the stances are a big part of the strength training in shotokan as well and you would be surprised how strong they are when done correctly even in a grappling situation, I should be clear too, I don't mean lengthen your stances, I mean bend your knees, a lot. Now caveat, you of course don't deepen your stances when your sparring because of the restricted movement, but I feel like this is another aspect of weirdness that Shotokan in particular has I thought I should explain . The whole shortened technique thing again is one of those situations where it will only work if you've done the basics and trained up your timing and strength enough, you absolutely made the right call in not using them because you have to be able to generate the amount of power in your techniques to begin with for them to work, even then though, the full motion blocks have their place in advanced karate . Just to go into hip movement because I forgot to explain that in a bit of further detail and it's important, you rotate your hips when making a block and then you sink your entire body weight when your block makes contact with the arm, which again to stress, this is a big part of where the power in shotokan karate techniques comes from, you don't use hips, you're not doing shotokan, it will also be terrible and you'll be just using muscle in your block rather than technique, this will lead to the bigger person always winning and overpowering which I think is a big reason why people assume none of it works I hope this helps answer at least some of the questions you guys had, it's totally understandable because some of the movements are definitely bizarre. Given that you're in Shanghai I was wondering if maybe you wouldn't consider a proper trip to Japan given you're so close? I actually would have some recommendations of Japanese teachers you could visit if they happen to be in Japan at the time, if nothing else you could probably get into contact with people there. Edit: Just found a fantastic video that demonstrates a lot of it! ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-zONkxoVtK2U.html

Could you please break down a whole kata in this way? Like a drill likewise in Koryu Uchinadi.

I love to teach age uke for an ankle pick - Hikite is elevating/pulling the lead leg, lead arm is framing into the neck/shoulder and run through em. Works great off a caught round kick too. Watch your Frankie Edgar tape and you'll see it worked at full pace

Holy WOW! I dont know if I should save this to my "Ramsey Dewy" folder, or my "Karate" folder!